Director Niki Caro has an affinity for capturing the feeling and spirit of people, their cultures and environs as reflected in such films as Whale Rider, which introduced audiences to folks on the east coast of New Zealand, and North Country, which took viewers to northern Minnesota’s Iron Range.
North Country told the story of women who fought sexual harassment in the iron ore mines in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Whale Rider was set in the New Zealand coastal town of Whangara where a Maori girl challenges tradition and embraces the past in order to find the strength to become the first female heir to lead her people forward as their chief.
Now with the Disney release McFarland, USA, Caro takes us to the central California farming town of McFarland for a true story about a white coach (Jim White, portrayed by Kevin Costner) who connects with local Hispanic high school boys and shapes them into a great cross-country running team. McFarland has a predominantly Mexican-American population. It is an economically challenged town yet there’s a wealth there that becomes tangible as we see the heart and soul of the community’s giving, hard-working people.
Caro cast three McFarland locals in prominent roles, which helped to shed light on a town and its inhabitants that audiences would likely never come to know otherwise.
Born in Wellington, NZ, Caro received a B.F.A. at the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland and a postgrad film degree from Swinburne in Melbourne. She began her career doing TV commercials for such companies as the New Zealand Land Transport Safety Authority, Nike and Tower Insurance. Her 1996 short film, Footage, was an official selection at the Venice Film Festival.
Caro’s first feature, Memory & Desire (1997), earned inclusion in the Cannes Film Festival lineup and won a Special Jury Prize at the New Zealand Film Awards. She went on to write and direct the one-hour TV drama Plain Tastes and a half-hour episode of the drama series True Life Stories.
But it was her second feature, Whale Rider (2002), which garnered worldwide acclaim. Caro adapted the screenplay from Maoir author Witi Ihimaera’s novel of the same name. Caro also directed the film which went on to win and/or be nominated for more than 50 international honors, including audience awards at international festivals such as Toronto, Sundance, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Seattle, Maui and Lake Placid.
North Country (2005) starring Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Jeremy Renner, Sissy Spacek, Sean Bean, Michelle Monaghan and Richard Jenkins, marked the first film Caro shot in the U.S. and the first feature she had not written herself.
Caro in her career has directed three actresses to Oscar nominations–Keisha Castle Hughes and Theron earned Best Actress nods for their performances in Whale Rider and North Country, respectively. And McDormand became a Best Supporting Actress nominee for North Country.
SHOOT: You have a collaborative track record with editor David Coulson who cut your films Whale Rider, North Country, A Heavenly Vintage and now McFarland, USA. On the flip side, McFarland, USA marks the first time that you have worked with cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (whose credentials include a pair of Best Cinematography Emmy Awards–for “Episode 1” of Top of the Lake in 2013, and for the “Who Goes There” episode of True Detective in 2014). What drew you to Coulson and Arkapaw for McFarland, USA and what did they bring to the film?
Caro: David has been one of my most important collaborators. He cuts as I shoot. We have a similar taste and point of view. There’s an absolute trust there. He has a strong background in commercial editing. I made a few commercials with him, liked him and we then moved onto features. He’s also a musician so he has that whole rhythmic thing down. He’s strong on the sound end and invaluable with music as well. He is a fearless artist.
As for Adam, I saw the work he did on [director] Jane Campion’s [with director Garth Davis] Top of the Lake. Sense of place is tremendously important to me. I was looking for a DP who could honor that. I recognized that sensibility in Top of the Lake [set in the town of Laketop, NZ]. Adam totally drilled down into the sense of that landscape, avoiding every cliche. He captured that area, its inherent beauty. I called him up real fast for McFarland, USA. I didn’t consider anyone else.
It was joyous working with Adam, a DP who saw McFarland the way I saw it. We didn’t have to endlessly discuss it. He’s a quiet guy. We had kind of a mind meld on this project. I loved what he did. We both like those wide frames. The combination of the epic and the intimate is something I’m always working with in the movies I do. Adam really got that. What his photography did was honor the town and its soul and people. It’s a faithful representation of their place and I hope even more so an honorable depiction of the spirit of the people there.
SHOOT: What were the greatest creative challenges that McFarland, USA posed to you as a director?
Caro: At first, I thought there was nothing here so challenging that it’s going to kill me. Then we started shooting. I completely failed to take into account that most scenes in the movie had eight people in them–Coach White and seven boys. That entailed much more than I initially thought. I was determined that this not be a movie about a big white guy saving a bunch of brown people. He needed them just as much as they needed him. Every one of those boys had to have a deeply developed character and backstory. Each required his own shots, which could be a coverage nightmare. We had to move quite fast through the schedule to get the coverage we needed.
The other thing that kicked my ass was that we were shooting from October through early December. I didn’t live in California before I came to this project. I learned the hard way that the sun goes down quite early that time of year. It’s moving towards the horizon at 4 in the afternoon. Shooting the final race, the aftermath of the race, the big moment at the end of the film, we had four cameras going to get what we needed with available light. We had 400 extras plus a cast of a hundred. Adam and David deserve a lot of credit. We got it shot and David managed to cut something so beautiful out of relatively little, using everything we had. This was a wonderful project. Everybody on this movie was so committed to this story.
SHOOT: You cast three local McFarland youngsters who made their movie debuts. What did they bring to the project?
Caro: Yes, we cast three from McFarland, including Ramiro Rodriguez who plays Danny Diaz. We cast him two days before we shot and had to talk him into it. He didn’t want to because he was afraid he’s lose his shift at Pizza Hut. That’s how precious jobs are there. But we explained how valuable this role could be, that the movie might change the course of his career and his life.
The people of McFarland drew me into the story. I saw the potential for humanity in the story. This could be a feel good movie and a movie we could feel good making. I also thought it was timely to tell a story about the phenomenal contributions these people make to this country. And from purely selfish, personal terms I found McFarland to be a great place to hang out, to experience the generosity, humor and good times in that community. Compared to communities with more advantages, there’s less bitching there about what they don’t have. There are many communities like that which don’t gain exposure.
David [editor Coulson] never goes to the place I shoot until the movie is finished. He want to McFarland recently. Up until then, he had only experienced the place through the movie. When he went there, he was delighted. He told me, “You didn’t change a thing.”
