With Belfast now playing in theaters, I recently spoke to writer-director Kenneth Branagh about the making of his most personal film yet. If you haven’t seen the trailer, Belfast is a semi-autobiographical film based on Branagh’s own childhood growing up in the city and what took place in the summer of 1969 (which was known as The Troubles). The film mostly follows a working-class family and their struggles as the city starts to deal with the growing conflict and escalating violence. Shot beautifully in black and white, with a great soundtrack by Belfast’s own Van Morrison, Belfast also stars Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Ciarán Hinds, Jude Hill, and Judi Dench and was produced by Branagh, Laura Berwick, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas.
During the interview, Branagh talked about how the pandemic allowed him the time to finally tell this story, his reaction to the great reviews, what people always want to talk to him about after they’ve seen the film, the obstacles he faced with in the editing room, the challenges of watching hundreds of hours of news archives to find the right stuff, and more.
However, the highlight of the interview was Branagh revealing the big changes Belfast went through in the edit. He said the original cut had an older Buddy returning to Belfast and the structure of the film was inspired by Cinema Paradiso. Here’s how he described his original cut of the film:
“I did have a much longer cut. I had a much longer script to begin with. It had a modern Buddy. It had an older Buddy. It had a return to Belfast for the same character. It had music from all sorts of other places including Van Morrison’s amazing catalogue. So, yes, there was really quite a lot that needed to be refined back down to the period story, framed by the color of the city, but not by older Buddy, an original structural inspiration had been Cinema Paradiso. You’ll remember it starts with a grown up man who discovers the death of the projectionist back in his hometown and he goes back there and the story unfolds from there. For our story, it ended up not working, but yes there was a great deal that was refined down to the essential.”
Watch what Kenneth Branagh had to say in the player above and below is exactly what we talked about.
Kenneth Branagh
- Is the pandemic hadn’t happened does he think he would have made the film?
- His reaction to the strong reviews for the film.
- What people always want to talk to him about after they see the film.
- What were some of the big obstacles he dealt with in the editing room?
- How he went through hundreds of hours of news archives to find the right footage.
- Did he have a much longer cut and a lot of deleted scenes?
