With the release of Academy award-winning The Theory of Everything on Blu-ray and DVD from June 11th, we wanted to revisit what we loved about the critically-acclaimed film, and discover what to expect from the DVD and Blu-ray features. Here, we interview award-winning director James Marsh who provides an insight into making the film, including discussing some of the deleted scenes appearing on the DVD, the making of the May Ball scene, Eddie Redmayne’s performance and how The Theory of Everything compares to Man On Wire.
Tell us about some deleted scenes that might reappear on the DVD?
Usually on films, you shoot scenes you don’t need. In this film we shot very few that didn’t end up in the finished film, though there are two or three quite interesting scenes that you will find on the DVD extras that have a real value — notwithstanding the fact that they did not make it into the film. There is one scene in particular that I like. It is a charming scene of Eddie (Redmayne, Stephen Hawking) and Felicity (Jones, Jane Hawking) as Jane and Stephen just after Stephen has been diagnosed. Stephen is struggling to type and to write and so Jane offers to type up his thesis for him. It is a very lovely scene. It is dawn in a college room in Cambridge. It didn’t get into the film for good reason but it has a real kind of charm to it. I have always liked that scene so you will get to see that on the DVD extras, I think.
What is the significance of the May Ball scene?
What is interesting about the film is that it has a period of innocence in the first 20 minutes. It is like a fairy tale. I think that most of us are aware that there’s storm clouds gathering even around this beautiful romance and the centre piece of that is a May Ball sequence, which was probably our most difficult set piece in terms of extras, and the scale of it was quite large. And that was shot on day two, so it was quite a daunting challenge early on in production to do something of that scale but we planned it out very carefully. We worked a lot on the lighting of that set piece and the idea was that across that set piece we see these characters truly fall in love with each other. So it was very important to get the flavour of that right, the tone of it right, to make it very magical in the way that it would have been if and it is you fall in love in this beautiful Cambridge environment. That all said, there is a kind of curse hanging over these characters that we all know about. So it may be very romantic, swooningly so, but at the same time we know, i think most of us aware, even in that May Ball sequence there are discreet signs that Stephen is clumsy and cack-handed somehow. The details are alarming to behold in the small gestures that Eddie (Redmayne, Stephen Hawking) is doing across that sequence but it is a purely romantic moment in a story that has tragedy. It is framed by tragedy, essentially, and framed by a terrible wasting illness. But to enjoy that for what it is and see these two lovely young people fall in love is quite nice to put on.
Would you want to see a ‘Making Of’ documentary on the DVD?
I think it is part and parcel of filmmaking — that there’s a glimpse of how the sausage is made, if you like. And for those who enjoy the film, it adds another dimension to it — how it was made, what it was like on set. Our set was a very loose, happy place to be, dare I say it, so I hope there is no yelling and screaming and high drama behind the scenes. It’s all fairly focussed work and there was a lot of levity as well around the work we were doing. In a sense, the more dark and tragic what we are doing, the lighter your approach to it needs to be. So, who knows what is on that footage? I have no idea what I might be doing or might not be doing.
What will people notice about Eddie Redymane’s (Stephen Hawking) performance when re-watching the film on DVD?
Indeed. That’s something else as you edit a film — you see it countless times and you are looking at the dailies, and so the details of Eddie’s (Redmayne) performance are so striking. I think they really are more striking the second time you see it. There’s not a gesture that wasn’t thought about and carefully worked out by Eddie that we caught on camera. What is interesting is that in the first part of the film there are quite a few moments you might overlook when you first see it. There is a clumsiness, or just discreet alarm bells going off across that first 20 minutes, that I think are quite interesting to see if you’ve see it once before. You will pick up on those more. Likewise with Felicity Jones, and her work, if you scrutinize that over and over it bears up to all kinds of scrutiny. So in both cases, and with the ensemble cast around them, I think the performances are where you’ll find discoveries on a second or third viewing.
The Theory of Everything is a very different film from Man on Wire (2008) but do you see any synergies?
Definitely. Some of the films I have made have the same theme, which is people pushing at boundaries and refusing to accept the limitations they are given. In Philippe Petit’s case, it is ‘I can’t walk to yes, I can walk on that wire between the Twin Towers,’ and most of us could not do that or even think about doing it. And Stephen (Hawking) in one respect is the opposite. He doesn’t go anywhere after a certain point in our story, yet his mind travels to places where we cannot go and he brings back discoveries from that travel that are very important to science. So they are both pushing at boundaries and refusing to accept limitations that most of us submit to.
Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s The Theory of Everything releases on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital with UltraViolet from June 11, 2015.
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