Tim Sutton’s Dark Night is not a comfortable watch, but provides a unique movie experience.On Saturday, June 26th, I was privileged enough to watch Tim Sutton’s Dark Night. Dark Night is based upon the infamous Aurora Massacre, but the film lacks the element of violence expected from a movie whose premise germinated from a mass murder. With the movie being filmed in Florida, using mostly non-actors, the audience quickly realizes that while this film is based on the Aurora Massacre, it’s also much bigger than that. Dark Night instead sets out to make a larger point about these tragedies and it does so by focusing on the ordinary people who are, or will be, affected.
The entire work takes place before any mass shooting and for most of the film, the audience has no idea who is the culprit. Instead, we mostly see ordinary people who are ordinarily flawed. As a result, the movie contains no actual violence, only few moments of near violence and an ending just before a presumed mass shooting happens at a movie theater.
What makes this film such a unique watch is the fact there is almost no element of a plot. This creates an uneasy feel, as well as a heightened sense that everything on the screen is extra significant, despite the fact that the film is mostly depicting ordinary lives. Tim Sutton also masterfully creates a sense of isolation by almost never having any of the characters interact which is increased by very cold surroundings in which there is almost no nature. Tim Sutton also masterfully weaves in documentary-like interviews, increasing the human element of the film, but still only providing minimal levels of background for few of the characters.
Devoid of plot, and almost completely lacking in dialogue, Tim Sutton manages to create a film about life, and about tragedy, without violence. It’s not an ordinary movie experience, but if given the chance by the audience, it will be an impactful one.
We screened the film at BAMCINEMAFEST 2016.
Prior to the film, I was also privileged enough to be able to interview the director Tim Sutton.
Can you tell me how this project came about in the first place?
Tim Sutton: Sure. Well when I along with lots of people in America saw the Aurora massacre, the Cinemark massacre, it felt horrible for all those people and as an American I felt horrible for this crisis in our country, this gun control crisis, but as a movie-goer and a filmmaker, I felt the theater experience was now forever corrupted because it’s not a safe space anymore. So what I decided to do years later was make a movie based on that, but not about death, not about violence but about life and how people live their lives.
How long after the tragedy did you start on this?
Sutton: Well that was in 2012 and we’re in 2016 now, I wrote the script in 2015. So it took me a few years to get to it.
Did the process go smoothly?
Well financing a movie like this is very challenging and I had key financers walk away when I wouldn’t change the script in one way or the other. But the actual production was a sublime. It was a fantastic experience. Small group of people all working together towards one common goal.
Do you think it was the subject matter that drove some financers away?
I think it was the subject matter and the treatment of the subject matter. I could’ve made a big shoot em up movie where Joaquin Phoenix plays the bad guy and I would have gotten financed in a minute but the way I wanted to do it, quiet, subtle way with non factors, and not telling the audience what to think made certain financers feel like it was a little more risky.
Does it mean more knowing that you stuck to your guns on this?
Yea man, I stand by every frame of the movie. The movie is really great.