Nothing (2003)

Interesting facts

Nothing is a 2003 Canadian surrealist comedy-drama film directed by Vincenzo Natali. It stars David Hewlett and Andrew Miller.

Production

A lot of people said 'you can never make a movie set solely in one room' and they may have been right, but I did Cube. I made a movie called Nothing with only two characters set in a void, but that's what makes it exciting. The [possibility] of catastrophe is what makes making those movies so thrilling.

In an interview with Troy Riser of The Trades, director Vincenzo Natali described Nothing as "an experimental film" and called it "the comic flipside" of his earlier Cube. According to Natali, Cube and Nothing are the first two installments of "an informal trilogy of minimalist films," the third of which will be Echo Beach.

Natali, who considers Nothing "a story about friendship" at its core, originally envisioned Stan the turtle as the film's narrator. Due to budget constraints, however, the idea of a talking turtle could not be realized. Natali also associated Stan with a metaphorical significance: "He's a turtle because that's what David and Andrew are -- creatures who carry their home on their back and hide from the world."

In an email interview with Patrick Douglas of The Culture Shock, Natali attributed his desire to make Nothing to a fascination with the "notion of editing reality." He explained the decision to keep the leading actors' real names in the script as "creative bankruptcy."

David Hewlett, Andrew Miller and Natali grew up and went to high school together. In an interview with Ian Caddell of The Georgia Straight, Natali recalled how Hewlett and Miller had to enact many of the scenes in Nothing hanging from the ceiling on wires. But, he said, they enjoyed the abuse because they knew it could be the last opportunity the three would have to work together.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.