Morgan Freeman, Diane Keaton, and Director Richard Loncraine Talk ‘5 Flights up’by Melissa Unger
May 5, 2015
Coming out this week is Richard Loncraine’s “5 Flights Up,” starring Academy Award winners Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton.
Based on Jill Ciment‘s novel Heroic Measures, and adapted for the screen by Charlie Peters, cast also includes Cynthia Nixon, Michael Cristofer, Claire Vanderboom, Korey Jackson, Carrie Preston, Sterling Jerins, Josh Pais, and Miriam Shor.
Keaton and Freeman as a couple whose attempts at relocation send them on an urban odyssey — and help them redefine the meaning of home. When Ruth (Diane Keaton) and Alex (Morgan Freeman) first moved to Brooklyn, it was the 1970s — years before gentrification, and years before they would realize that they won’t always be physically able to climb several flights of stairs just to get home. Still highly active, yet feeling the undeniable effects of age, the couple opts to put their apartment on the market. But the decision coincides with a flurry of problematic events. A trailer jackknifes on the Williamsburg Bridge and the driver inexplicably flees the scene, putting all of New York on an overblown terrorist alert. The couple’s dog becomes ill and an overwhelming sequence of encounters with realtors, agents, and snotty bargain hunters only adds to their troubles.
Most recently, Freeman, Keaton and Director Richard Loncraine were in NY to promote the film and spoke about working together on the film.
What made you want to do this film?
Morgan Freeman: It was a nice little script. I thought it was a wonderful story about an interesting couple. It was originally just a jewish couple. It would have been very dull, but if you throw in the mix, that it is someone who got married 40 years ago, when it wasn’t quiet so okay then it gets a little more interesting. Don’t you think?
Diane Keaton: I do. See. I think every time I look at Morgan’s face. I just think it is the most beautiful face. It is a little distracting. I don’t know what he is saying, but I am looking at that face. I really think that you have a beautiful face and it is really never boring. That is what I have to add, which has nothing to do with what you were saying because I was just looking at your face.
Morgan Freeman: Along with that I had the opportunity to have…grab “ms. It” to play the role of Ruth and that was…I could die now. This is like one of the major feathers in my own cap. Yeah, so that’s why this movie. Do you agree?
Diane Keaton: No, he is completely wrong. No, I agree of course— I agree. The last time I saw it was just a week ago and my whole concept of the movie changed. It is really so different because I just think as usual. It is just really a wonderful marriage and it is a long marriage. This is great because at a certain point we were both narrating the movie remember? A little bit. So, smart not too. So, smart for him to narrate the movie because it is really from his point of view and also I think [in] the ending he is the person. You’re the person who says, “That’s it, we’re not doing this.” You know we’re not going to do this and I thought that is the greatest lesson.
So the movie had a lot of different feelings for me and I also thought the flashbacks were great. They really worked and I felt that it was wonderful when she is like posing for him naked and he’s saying to her and she is saying to him “why would you want me?” I am not beautiful and he says, “You know what you are? You’re real,” and I thought oh my God that is so important because that is what that marriage is. It is a real marriage and real marriage between two people. Man I think there are things in this smallish story as if it is small, it’s not small, it’s big and it’s also talking about something that gets short stiffed and that is what is marriage and what are our values and don’t chase a dream, so much, and I am so guilty except for the fact that I have never been married. I’ll never know.
Morgan Freeman: That’s all right you’ve been in love and that’s good enough.
Diane Keaton: But the other thing about this whole relationship is that these two people are obviously friends.
Morgan Freeman: Yeah.
Diane Keaton: They have just held on to that friendship thing from the moment she looked at him and said good answer.
Bigotry is a theme of the film, that seems very timely, can you discuss that theme?
Morgan Freeman: Bigotry is a fact of life. Your prime minister of old– Winston Churchill once said “If you have a problem, and there is no solution than you no longer have a problem.” I think bigotry is a problem with no solution because we are hardwired to be bigoted. So, in someway or another it will always be with us, I mean when no longer the color of my skin or your skin no longer bothers anybody we’ll go to eyes or length of hair. There is always going to be something. I am going to have someway to keep you out of my theater.
How did you mold the script for these two actors and a biracial couple?
Director Richard Loncraine: Well, I didn’t mold it the writer (Charlie Peters) did most of the molding. He adapted it and made it work for Morgan and Diane. I think it’s not an apology because French movies are often about nothing and about everything at the same time and we are so used to Hollywood which forces the plot to be the whole theme. What’s the third act? European movies don’t always need that plot. They can be about texture and I think we might have achieved some of those qualities in this film, even though there isn’t a vastly complicated plot. But I think the film has soul I think you come out of the movie feeling that these people were real and they did exist in your life. When I started to work on the film I wasn’t sure what it was about and I had this idea because I was 69 and it made me realize that you can at a certain point, in the last quarter, act in your life as a couple. As a person, you can start again and that is what happens in our movie and in a non-dramatic way, so I think it is a very optimistic film about getting old.
