Veteran's still a maestro at the wheel of a thriller

By Lindsay Amos

Thirty years ago John Frankenheimer was regarded as one of the world's leading action-movie directors. Today, the 68-year-old shows with Ronin that he's still got what it takes.

"When you imagine what a film director is like, John is it," enthuses Ronin star Natascha McElhone. "He's got the voice, he's got the presence. The level of concentration is just extraordinary."

Surprisingly, the voice - at least over the phone from his office in Los Angeles - is soft, measured and thoughtful, as Frankenheimer explains the logistics of making a large-scale American movie on location in France.

"I know Paris probably better than I know any city in the world because I have lived there for a long time. Not only that, I love it."

The film's dedicated bunch of former Cold War intelligence experts are likened to the Japanese masterless samurai warriors called ronin. Their mission: to steal a vital aluminium case, the contents of which are never revealed.

Brought together by a mysterious Irishwoman, the group's de facto leader is Robert De Niro. He has a nice line in self-deprecatory dialogue which sounds as though it might have been written by David Mamet. Actually, it was.

"We were lucky enough to get De Niro and once we got him everything just fell into place," says Frankenheimer. "David Mamet [under the pseudonym Richard Weisz] came in and rewrote the script."

I try to be clever and quote some great lines from the film:
"If there is any doubt, then there is no doubt."

Frankenheimer jumps in and finishes the exchange:
"That's the first thing they teach you."

"Who taught you that?"

"I don't remember."

"That's the second thing they teach you.'"

Unlike many similar films, Ronin begins slowly, quietly.

"I designed it like that," says Frankenheimer of the slow/quick/slow/quick tempo. "I wanted you to get to know the characters, I wanted you to really become involved with them and little by little have the whole thing unfold."

What unfolds includes some of the most elaborate car chases filmed. Even so, the street-level shots, drivers' points of view and the integration of the actors into the action seem vaguely familiar.

"What I did was use the same technique in those car chases as I did on Grand Prix, just exactly the same camera positions," the director admits.

And the sound? The angry buzz of the engines?

"It was the same, we did it exactly the same way we recorded all that sound on race tracks.

"There's no second unit at all -- I did it all. It's a certain style I know how to do. I don't think you can hire a second-unit director to do that, you've got to do it yourself."

But it's not documentary reality. It's creating an environment in which this particularly downbeat story unravels.

Frankenheimer calls it heightened reality or hyper-realism.

"That's a good definition. To me, stylisation is deliberately exaggerating action and costumes and performance - taking it away from realism - and hyper-realism is bringing it as close to reality as you can but not forgetting the fact that there's dramatic content to it."

The wintry Paris locations with their desaturated colours, and even the sunny Riviera scenes, recall some of the classic French movies - movies which were in turn influenced by American cinema.

Is there any overt connection?

"[French director] Jean-Pierre Melville and I were very good friends," confides Frankenheimer. We got to know each other in 1963-64 when I was there during [the shooting of] The Train. I liked his work a lot and I suppose his Le Samourai did influence this movie. Not consciously I don't think, but I was aware of it.

"But I was also influenced by The Third Man, Carol Reed. And I didn't mean to be, but I was obviously influenced by myself in The Manchurian Candidate, with that whole business at the end and the ice-skating arena when you compare it to the [political] convention. It wasn't conscious, but I realised after I did it."

The ice-skating sequence is given a sinister overtone with the predominance of the harsh sound of the skates on the ice underscoring the music.

"You've gotta do that," says Frankenheimer. "That's the difference between putting yourself there and watching it on television.

"Sound to me is so important. It's an overlooked element in so many films. They think volume is equivalent to quality."

Ronin is punctuated with ominous silences which have a calculated dramatic effect. Frankenheimer seems pleased that it's been noticed.

"Hitchcock said it's not the scene that happens which makes it so exciting, it's what happened just before which contributes to it.

"If you want to shock an audience you should have something very calm and tranquil before the shock, I think. Same thing in pacing and rhythm of a film."

The principal actors are any director's dream cast and Frankenheimer is generous with his praise.

"Natascha was wonderful, I think. There's so much going on with De Niro. Jean Reno did his own driving in that Nice car chase. The actors were all in the cars, they all went through the same thing. They were really great, those actors."

Unlike the debacle of his last film, The Island of Dr Moreau, Frankenheimer is unmistakably upbeat about the stressful, but successful 78-day shoot of Ronin.

"[It] was really one of the most pleasant experiences I've ever had," he claims.

"We had a studio that fully supported us, a wonderful group of actors, a very good producer, a great crew. It really was a nice experience."

Who: John Frankenheimer

What: Ronin

Where: Cinemas nationwide

When: Now

Pictured: John Frankenheimer.