Tuesday 8th October at the BFI Southbank NFT1 will see film critic Mark Kermode sit down with the director of The Last Jedi Rian Johnson to discuss his career, including his entry into the Star Wars galaxy.
Genre-hopping director Rian Johnson joins us to talk about his acclaimed career and the making of his fifth feature Knives Out: a wickedly witty and stylish murder mystery, which the Maryland-born filmmaker has described as “an attempt to capture the twisty fun of an Agatha Christie whodunit.” A graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Johnson debuted with 2005’s Brick, which ingeniously transposed the stylized tropes of Dashiell Hammett’s hardboiled detective fiction to a Californian high school setting. Made for just $500,000 and boasting a memorable lead performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this fresh take on neo-noir won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at Sundance Film Festival.
Three years later, Johnson showed his comedic verve with globe-trotting conman caper The Brothers Bloom, before reuniting with Gordon-Levitt (starring alongside Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt) for 2012’s time travelling sci-fi thriller Looper. A critical and commercial hit which further displayed his dazzling command of genre, its success led this most inventive of Hollywood auteurs to both write and direct Star Wars: The Last Jedi. A fearlessly bold continuation of the beloved space opera saga, the latter became the highest grossing film of 2017 and one of the most successful movies of all time.
