Seeing how there’s only a month and change left of the 2010s, you might’ve noticed the seemingly endless source of content popping up all across the internet detailing the “Best of the Decade.” And when it comes to the “Greatest Acting Performances,” of the Twenty-Tens, surely Julianne Moore’s Academy Award-winning performance as Dr. Alice Howland in the 2014 release, _Still Alice_, will garner plenty of recognition.
“Her immersion in the role was so complete, and the performance she gave was so strong and inspiring that it affected everyone on the set,” says the Leeds-born [Wash Westmoreland](https://www.instagram.com/washwest/?hl=en), co-director of _Still Alic_e. “It affected everything we were doing while making that film.”
The role, which, dumbfoundingly enough, stands as Moore’s sole Oscar win, sees the highly-respected actor completely transform into a linguistics professor coping with a recent familial Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis. For the role, Moore went full-on Method Acting; spending time visiting Alzheimer’s support groups and undergoing the same tests neurologists do on patients with memory loss. For Wash Westmoreland, though, the film stood as something much more than a script. It was a story that echoed his personal narrative.
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“I, at the time, was working with my late husband, Richard Glatzer, and he was living with ALS,” recounts Westmoreland in an exclusive interview with _Flaunt_. “It affected his mobility very seriously. He couldn’t speak and he had to type with one finger on the iPad, but he was still directing the movie. And I think that the whole process that he was going through really affected the way the film turned out because this was what it was about. You are not your illness.”
Richard Glatzer lost his battle with ALS on March 10, 2015, passing away less than four months after the film’s release. His untimely death ended a directing partnership which included _The Last of Robinhood_, _Pedro_, _Quinceanera_, _Gay Republicans_, and _The Fluffer_. Westmoreland returned to directing in 2018 with _Colette_, based on a screenplay he wrote with Glatzer about the acclaimed French novelist. His latest work, _Earthquake Bird,_ is an adaptation of the heavily lauded 2001 novel written by Susanna Jones.
“I took a meeting at Ridley Scott’s company with a producer and he said ‘we have a book you might be interested in.’ It’s set in Japan in 1989,” recalls Westmoreland. “I was like ‘that’s weird, I used to live in Japan in 1989,’ so it immediately connected with me due to that coincidence. It’s a murder mystery, but it was also a mystery of this woman’s psyche.”
The film and the novel's title derived from a story related to the main character, Lucy Fly (portrayed by _Flaunt_\-alumnus Alicia Vikander), about a bird whose distant warbling you can hear moments after Japan’s profuse earthquakes. It’s a sound that may or may not be real.
“That’s the question of the film, is the Earthquake bird real or not?” posits Westmoreland. “Because as we go through the story, she starts to lose touch with her own self, her own rational basis for living. And the Earthquake bird is part of that.”
_Earthquake Bird’s_ emotional gravity rests in the hands of Alicia Vikander and her immersion in the role. Playing a character whose life has been overwhelmed by trauma, Vikander portrays Lucy as a fragile ex-pat based in Tokyo whose entire existence could fall apart at the slightest mishap. Her fragility enhances when she becomes romantically involved with Teiji, an enigmatic, brooding photographer (played by the striking Naoki Kobayashi) who wins her heart in the film’s opening act. Besides wearing her damaged past on her sleeve at all times, Vikander’s performance is also characterized by her seamless transition from speaking English to Japanese—a skill she didn’t possess when originally cast for the part.
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“Alicia didn’t know a word of Japanese when I first spoke to her about the film,” shares Westmoreland. “Though, everything she does she does with this high degree of excellence, and, sure enough, she dived headfirst into learning the language.” Westmoreland is glowing. “By the time we were shooting, she was so confident for this one speech, I asked her, ‘Do you think you can do it in one take?’ And she was like ‘I was hoping you were going to say that.’ Sure enough, she did a three-minute speech in Japanese flawlessly and the entire crew dropped their jaws on the floor.”
With Chung-Hoon Chung at the cinematography helm, whose work includes films such as _Oldboy_ and _The Handmaiden_ (“He’s part of the redefining of Korean Cinema, to be something extremely cutting-edge,”), and shot entirely on location in Japan, the film mirrors Tokyo in the late-eighties/early nineties, complete with clueless Westerners fantasizing Tokyo as an exotic destination—not someplace known for its rich history and culture—something which Westmoreland experienced firsthand.
“When I went to Japan in the ’80s, there were quite a lot of ex-pats there and some of them were very into the idea of Japan as a different, foreign place. They would talk about how crazy the Japanese people were, and my whole instinct was to move away from that and not hang out with people like that at all because they were completely racist,” says Westmoreland. “I wanted to have Japanese friends and form real friendships while I was there, and that is really Lucy Fly’s attitude.”
_Earthquake Bird_ will enjoy a limited theatrical run before arriving exclusively as a Netflix release, a feat unheard of at the beginning of this decade. When we first entered 2010, a direct-to-digital release would signify a subpar effort, not a film directed by a respected auteur. Now, as the decade draws to an end, the Netflix platform debuts films from perennial Oscar season favorites such as Martin Scorcese, Alfonso Cuaron, and Noah Baumbach, a fact which has sparked spirited debates amongst those in the film industry. Westmoreland stands with the streaming service.
“I think if you look at the films Netflix has produced, it seems like there is a definite home for artists, and they are very supportive of filmmakers, so it’s appealing to make films there,” Westmoreland argues. “We still want people going to the cinema and, of course, cinema culture has to continue, and Netflix has made moves in that direction.”
Going into the 2020s, Wash Westmoreland has some stern advice for film lovers enjoying movies on Netflix from the comfort of their home: change the settings on your television. “Switch off the motion control that is baked into a lot of TVs. That is my worst nightmare. To turn it off, you have to go into the Advanced Settings menu...It can make Citizen Kane look like it's shot on an iPhone.”
Save that pro-tip under “Greatest Advice of the Decade.”
[_Earthquake Bird_](https://www.netflix.com/title/80244457) is available for streaming now on [Netflix.](https://www.netflix.com/)
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Photographed by [Nolwen Cifuentes](https://www.instagram.com/nolwencif/?hl=en).
Styled and Produced by [BJ Panda Bear](https://www.instagram.com/bjpandabear/?hl=en) and [Corrine Ciani](https://www.instagram.com/corrineciani/?hl=en).
Grooming: [Sarah Higgins](https://instagram.com/mr.sarah__) using [Baxter](http://baxterofcalifornia.com) at [The Rex Agency](https://therexagency.com/categories.php?name=GROOMING)
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