Ron Howard has a suitably concise way of summing up exactly what it was like to direct Tom Hanks, leading a stellar cast, in the eagerly awaited thriller Inferno.
Howard and Hanks, who plays Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, have been joint keepers of the cinematic legacy of Brown’s best-selling books for many years now – they made the hugely successful The Da Vinci Code back in 2006 followed, three years later, by Angels & Demons.
They are close friends and, as filmmakers, clearly have the same vision – produce your absolute best work for the audience. So how does he sum up being at the helm of the huge production that is Inferno?
“These films are hard work,” he says. “And you feel a lot of responsibility because they’re books that people love. But you know, they really are thrilling life experiences.”
Inferno is the perfect example and in contrast with The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, which led Langdon to try and crack a mystery rooted deeply in the past, tackles a bang-up-to-the-minute theme: over population.
Ben Foster plays Bertrand Zobrist, a brilliant scientist who is convinced that mankind is heading for catastrophe because of a rapidly increasing population. He believes that the only way to save the world is to wipe out millions of people and is prepared to unleash a deadly virus to do it.
Langdon is the only man who can stop him, searching for clues in 13th century Italian poet Dante’s epic work, Divine Comedy, which begins with Inferno and his nightmarish depiction of hell.
The story hooked in Howard immediately. “I felt very excited about this opportunity creatively as a director because Inferno combines two things: an idea that an audience can connect with in a very modern contemporary way; a thriller that is driven by something that we all think about.
“It’s a controversial idea that doesn’t deal with the past – it’s all about the present. And the other thing is that it’s a great role for my friend Tom and it’s great to see him back on the clue path but it’s also fantastic to see the kind of dramatic opportunities and acting opportunities that this particular thriller gives him.”
It does indeed. The premise is intriguing – two towering intellects, Zobrist and Langdon, battling each other when the stakes couldn’t be higher and one of those intellects is severely hampered; when we first meet Langdon he is waking in a Florence hospital suffering from amnesia. His brilliant mind is, then, at least temporarily impaired.
Zobrist, too, is a fascinating, formidable opponent for Langdon, not least because he is charming, fiercely bright and clearly believes in his theory and his radical, deadly solution for the ‘greater good.’
“What Robert Langdon represents however, is the application of brilliance. So Zobrist is a genius, undeniably, and is deciding to take it all into his hands. And Langdon is reasoning for using our intellectual power to work together to try and solve these problems and not take this kind of crisis in one’s own hands. And that’s the central tension in the story.”
Langdon comes round in hospital having had no idea how he even got to Florence let alone ended up in hospital, suffering flashbacks. One of his doctors, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) tells him that he was brought to hospital unconscious after being grazed by a bullet. He’s lucky to be alive and pretty soon the assassin sent to kill him, Vayentha (Ana Ularu), has arrived at the ward to finish the job.
With the help of Brooks, he flees, hiding up in her apartment where he desperately tries to figure out what is going on and who is out to kill him and why.
There, he discovers a cylinder, with a biohazard sign, in his jacket. It’s the first of the clues linked to Dante and, with Brooks, at his side, Langdon faces a desperate race against time – with those assassins determined to stop him – to save millions before the virus is released.
“It offered a really dynamic set of possibilities that I thought we could do something very fresh and cool for audiences. You have Robert Langdon, a kind of superhero without his power – stripped of his power – and that’s interesting. It creates a kind of a vulnerability that his character hasn’t had before and it gave Tom tremendous things to play.”
“These books and movies offer very unique experiences for audiences and they’re also unique for us as storytellers, as life experiences, to go to these places, capture the flavour of a place and use it in a story.
“And also, as a director, it was very interesting to use this question of taking the world’s crisis into one’s own hands and trying to correct the problem as a single, brilliant individual going up against another brilliant individual who is trying to save mankind.
The Langdon movies have become a hugely successful franchise but Howard points out that both he and Hanks approach each film as a stand-alone. “The Dan Brown movies are very interesting because as a director each one has demanded something different of me so I never feel like I’m trying to remake anything.
“The continuity is this fascinating character, Robert Langdon, and Tom bringing that character to life in the way he does, which is exciting and fun to be around when you’re working on the film.
Although Inferno honours the novel it was drawn from, there is new material in there too, says Howard. “There are a number of inter-personal relationships that really, really factor into the plot and the mystery as well.
“And there are a lot of twists and turns, some things are not even in the book that are sort of new territory that we extrapolated from these characters, and I’m very proud of that because you get to learn more about Langdon on an emotional level than you have before.”
Howard and his team filmed in some stunningly beautiful, historic locations for Inferno, including the Palazzo Vecchio and the Boboli Gardens in Florence. They have to be respectful, he says, and quick.
“It’s a challenge,” he smiles. “And you know, we’re shooting in the summer at the high tourist season and so, as a director, it means that we have hours, not days, to shoot in these places.
“And it’s very, very strict. And, in a way, it reminded me of all the way back when we were doing Splash and Apollo 13 where certain scenes had to be made under unbelievable pressure because you know, we were either weightless or we were under water and we had to prep in advance and then go in and very, very quickly do a lot of work.”
“So one of the interesting things about the action in this movies is that it kind of exists in both realms: the horror imagery that lives in Robert Langdon’s mind, his sense of Dante’s Hell, and the clues that he must discover by searching his mind in that way. And then there’s this very modern idea of over-population, of drones, of technology, of losing your individuality.”
“What we do is always a unique high wire act,” he smiles. “And there’s a great deal of comfort going out on that high wire with somebody who you trust and I think that’s been a tremendous blessing and a virtue with the projects that we have done.
“I think there’s that creative ambition that we share but there’s also a way of working and an attitude which is very, very comfortable, it’s collegial, it’s fun. You know, making movies is hard but it doesn’t have to be miserable.
“You can be friends, you can laugh, you can solve the problems together and still be ambitious and deliver on the promise of the story.”
And that just about sums up what it was like to make Inferno.
