Most people do commercials so they can do movies—but for me, it was never a steppingstone," says Tarsem, the mono-monikered director with bicoastal/international @radical.media. "I always said, ‘I don’t really want to do a movie.’ "
Whether he wanted to or not, the acclaimed spotmaker brought his striking visual sensibility to the big screen last summer with the controversial hit The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez. "It’s the only film, I think, that was on the maximum number of ‘Ten Worst’ and ‘Ten Best Films of the Year’ lists," he says of the artfully shot serial killer movie. "I didn’t want it to get a lukewarm response; it sure didn’t."
With its A-list cast and hefty production budget, The Cell was the type of project most first-time film directors dream of. But although he enjoyed the experience, Tarsem states that shooting the movie made him long for spotwork. "I missed ads," he laughs. "What can I say? I’m like a prostitute that’s fallen in love with the job."
When he was helming The Cell, to make the transition easier, Tarsem recruited several crew members who had worked with him on commercials—including editor Robert Duffy of Spot Welders, Venice, Calif.—who had collaborated with Tarsem on spots for Levi’s, Coca-Cola, Miller Beer and Nike, as well as on the 1991 REM video "Losing My Religion." The feature’s DP, Paul Laufer, who has shot the majority of Tarsem’s spots, was also his professor at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Calif. "He’s been working with me since college," notes Tarsem. "He is my mentor."
Like much of Tarsem’s commercial work, The Cell is stunning to look at. For many of the scenes, which take place within the twisted mind of the killer, the director brainstormed with Laufer and others to come up with disturbing, baroque images. "All the stuff that goes on inside the head had not been written in the script," Tarsem recalls. "It just said, ‘We go inside the head,’ and it was basically an open canvas. So, I had a blast making up that stuff. It was the same kind of stuff I used to do earlier on, when I just did visual commercials that didn’t depend so much on an idea. Back then, I used to have a think tank of friends who would sit down with me. Someone would say, ‘This is a wild image. How do we stick it in?’ And we’d figure things out together. For me, coming up with those scenes [for The Cell] was like going back to those days."
It was The Cell’s striking visuals that generated so much controversy after it was released. Tarsem notes that he wanted the movie to look "operatic," and it does. "Most of the people who were offended by it say, ‘Why did you shoot something like that so beautifully?’ " he relates. "They were offended that I was giving a classic look to something that should be kept underground."
Convincing executives at New Line Cinema, the company distributing the film, to go for his unorthodox ideas was a bit difficult at first: "They said, ‘Last time somebody tried opera, it really bombed with the American audience.’ " Nonetheless, they acquiesced. "Looking back on it, they were pretty fantastic," he observes. "I was complaining when I was filming. But when I came out of it, I found out what the norm is, and I thought, ‘My God, I got away with murder.’ "
Back To Work
As soon as he finished shooting The Cell, Tarsem launched into a prolific period of adwork, lensing spots for Nike, Miller beer and Go.com, among others. "It was amazing," relates the director. "The thing was, I really missed directing spots. Most people, when they go from advertising into films, they have such a hard time going back. I don’t know if a lot of people enjoy making ads. But I fucking love it."
One of his most memorable spots was Nike’s "Gladiator" via Wieden+ Kennedy, Portland, Ore. In the ad—which debuted during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney—a young skateboarder successfully evades a Roman gladiator let loose in the city. At the end of the ad, the titles read, "Why Sport? Because you might run into a gladiator." In Tarsem’s original version, however, the skateboarder was not as successful, and "running into a gladiator" took on a whole new meaning. "The idea was that the gladiator kills the kid at the end; he cuts him in two," says the director. "That was what was brilliant about it. But it went all the way up the ladder, and it didn’t really make it."
The final scene—in which the skateboarder disappears around a corner, a slicing sound is heard and the skateboard rolls back into view without its owner—was excised from the spot, making the fate of the boy appear a lot rosier. According to Tarsem, Nike execs didn’t want to replicate their experience with the notorious "Why sport?" ad, "Horror," a slasher movie spoof that was pulled from NBC during the Olympic games because of its allegedly violent content. (Phil Joanou of Villains, bicoastal and Chicago, helmed that commercial.)
Regardless, Tarsem views his "Gladiator" experience as a highlight. "Usually, when you’re working with big corporations, [creative directors] are never on the shoot," he explains. "You can’t really change anything. With [W+K], the people who can make the decisions jump in the deep end with you."
Initially, Tarsem recalls, "Gladiator" was supposed to take place in a single location. "But the first day we went out there, we realized that you can’t really do kung fu on a skateboard and stay in one place. You have to travel. [The creatives] said, ‘You’re right.’ And then suddenly we were moving from one place to another. Then, they said, ‘Hey. We’d like the gladiator to be on a horse.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ That’s the way the whole thing went."
Similarly, Tarsem says the creatives at J. Walter Thompson (JWT), Chicago, were "surprisingly accommodating" when it came time to shoot the stylish Miller Genuine Draft (MGD) spots "On the Lam" and "Love Thy Neighbor." "They just came in and they gave me the basic ideas and let me run with them," says the director, who adds that he has not been shown a storyboard "since the beginning of my career."
In "On the Lam," a guy in a motel room enjoys a couple of Millers with a beautiful woman who, as he learns from the TV news, is actually a fugitive known as "the Bombshell Bandit." "Love Thy Neighbor" depicts a man and woman who discover a positive aspect of a neighbor’s loud party. When the man places an MGD bottle cap on top of the bed, the thudding bass makes the lid bounce up and down—illustrating exciting new possibilities for the rest of the evening. "I’d done some comedy-type stuff for Miller before, that had won a whole bunch of things at Cannes," he reports. "I was surprised that they wanted to change the tone this time, to make beer ads that were sexy again. I was very welcome to it."
