For someone as uncomfortable in interviews as Garland is, I think he was incredibly accommodating both in his responses. In his other interviews, he is exactly the same; granted somewhat aloof, but hardly rude, and never less than committed in answering questions in a meaningful way.
It's interesting commenters are giving Garland grief. I think he was extremely poised and articulate. The moderator, on the other hand, while enthusiastic seemed insufficiently prepared for the interview. Not that her questions were bad, they were quite good, but they were hardly crisp or concise. I found her constant laughter at her own comments and extemporaneous ramblings a bit tiresome, as I suspect did Garland. An interview is not the venue by which the interviewer shares his thoughts, no one cares. It's about the person being interviewed. Despite that it was a very interesting discussion about one of the finest sci-fi films of the past ten years.
Zac Boller I think she was doing well, she's clearly really excited to be interviewing and maintained her enthusiasm, but his demeanour likely caught her off-guard, he seems fed up the whole time, and as he's never had to do this much press for a movie before, he probably is. He remains engaged, but because he can't really hide the fact that he's not happy to be there he comes across as a little rude. That and his refusal to allow anyone to ever credit him with bringing EX MACHINA to our screens without acknowledging that it's a group effort, which is a noble sentiment, but comes across as pedantry when reiterated intermittently...
Zac Boller I have agree with Zac's comment, as well as dnwilliams. He might be a bit rude only because he is doing the media circus that must occur when filmmakers go out to promote their movies. I think, in a lot of ways, it's a frustration with themselves that they can't harbour they same enthusiasm as they would in their first interview. They feel like record players, in some sense, and losing that spontaneity is irritating. But I'm glad that he tried hard and really did a great job diving into each question as thoroughly as possible. Amazing film!
dnwilliams I agree, I would go as far as to say he appears arrogant and dismissive. No doubt the interview circus must be like groundhog day, but he should be happy people are interested in his bloody movies. Without it he wouldn't have the great privilege to make them, a lot of very smart people don't get this opportunity.
Zac Boller What if he's just a frontman, an actor playing a role? What if he wasn't the writer and creator of the whole story? What if he's just part of a larger social engineering program or programs? I don't know, but his body language is unusual for the person he's being presented to us as being.
I don't really give a damn how he interviews with perky in-your-face type-A personalities. The dude made an awesome film in Ex Machina. Shades of Stanley Kubrick (type) Genius in this man. Thank you Mr. Garland.
I'd like to thank Alex Garland for his honest interview. I found it to be a lot more interesting than when an interviewee tries to fill time with waffle. I first saw an interview with him during one of The Open University's MOOCs on writing over at FutureLearn. He strikes me as thoughtful, with a dislike for the BS so common in the entertainment world.
Yes Enthusiastic, but She's beyond Horrid as an Interviewer, shouldn't quit her day job, unless it's interviewing. Google couldn't get anyone else ? as an Interviewer She's the WORST.
That’s what I thought of her - she’s informed and intelligent BUT she’s not a good interviewer; asking questions, letting people express themselves and talk about their vision and their work is a separate skill all of its own which she needs to work on.
6:00 “Hmmm, ooohh kay then….umm.” Whilst looking to the side and shaking your head, is not how you respond to an answer to your question, unless said answer is unintelligible. If someone responded to me like that on camera I’d initially think I wasn’t expressing myself properly, then conclude the interviewer must be suffering from brain damage . I’d then immediately become very uncomfortable. The most fascinating thing about this interview was observing the uncomfortable body language from both participants.
+Stewart McCutcheon Not necessarily attributable to age (20 something) or Nationality (American). I think the lack of chemistry falls on her -- she comes across as being awkward, uneasy, and high-strung. If I was the interviewee, I would have been slightly annoyed.
+hsucks great observation. I will add that some twenty somethings seem to have latched onto this thanks to examples in popular culture like Jesse Eisenberg. I like him as an actor and writer, but I would not want to be interviewed by him.
Thank you for this smart, fascinating and engaging conversation. I'm even more excited to see Ex- Machina. & I appreciate the fact that the spoiler comment about the ending was withheld.
ВАНЯ I thought the same thing after leaving the theater. Without a doubt if that happened the resulting movie would be nothing short of stunningly epic.
Hey Google can you please send me a framed grab @1:44 -truly a masterpiece I'd also like to add Alex was simply trying to explain his point of view and that wasn't fitting neatly into the moderators pre-conceived notions. Instead of conceding to the fact Alex probably knows more about this stuff than her, she got defensive and continued to try and put words in his mouth. And everybody getting butt hurt about body language... Look at her appearance. She is choosing to communicate to the world that I'm going to do things my way and disregard understood norms (hear me roar). Very off putting to a writer, whose job it is to translate these sort of nuances, I'm sure.
Poor Alex. This moderator delivered almost all of the questions in self-explaining/personal views which made this a choppy interview. Alex had to first, graciously, address her personal reactions before the getting to the actual question. She also seemed oblivious to the few times she cut him off.
DEVS or DEUS is awesome and parallels with Westworld. The people talking about both shows and comparing and contrasting and talking about free will is amazing.
I think his uncomfortable state may have been due to being a bit intimidated in talking in front of a Google audience, knowing that they will be scrutinizing his every word and thoughts. After all, they should be the "experts" in his mind.
The young butch lesbian's personality is too distracting/overpowering. They are conflicting personality types, the producer of this segment should have known better.
This looks like a hostage situation. The director of Ex Machina being interviewed by “Blue Book”. “We’re interested in data.” “Yeah, I’ve noticed”. LOL
Everyone has a right to their opinion. I was more put off by the choice of "mom blouse" circa 1975 and the blue jumper. He is all class and dressed in line with the event, by comparison.
Stop your Default Mode Network from judging. Your life will be so much richer. Trust me, I've been there. More info on DMN en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network
This interview itself is a test of how perception can influence a behaviour in people. The energy would be different in any other setup. Very integrated with the theme of the movie.
ok, how irritating IS she ? She adds nothing to his interesting thought processes.....she IS the very stereotype that makes one wish to edit her contribution to this.....
Imagine to work along people like her 9 hours everyday... Google is a huge powerful CORPORATION and in this interview we are able to see very clear how someone who really is creative and have his/her own opinion will never fit in a place such Google or any other tech giant.
4:19 "So you definitely dove into some of the headier issues of what is humanity what is personality, what is a sentient creature so what were some of the sort of challenges of getting this heady topic material/subject matter that has a lot of scientific implications to translate to a cinematic story as well as something that is also a human story and not getting to bogged down in the science but still convey? (it was a challenge you picked a big challenge for your subject matter)" First of all who let this woman do an interview?and secondly how can someone so incompetent have a job at Google?
I was excited to watch this until the interviewer began talking... She did not only offered her opinion on every single question she asked but also talked fast and mumbled.. a lot. You can clearly tell how uninterested and impatient Alex gets by his body language. It almost seemed like she was trying to get Alex to validate how she interpreted the film. CRINGY af.
Alex is coming across as somewhat awkward from the very start, and in turn its making the interviewer feel awkward, and thus her constant rambling. Zero chemistry.
Hilarious watching Garland having to harness all the patience he has to deal with an interviewer of clearly inferior intelligence. Hats off to him though, he stays nice and polite throughout.
I usually love talks at google, I love when guests are enthusiastic, energentic, and excited about their work. The "3E's" capture an audience. This guy didn't even have one "E". Work on your stage presence sir.
***** I understand where you're coming from and perhaps because I'm not as familiar with Talks at Google as I suspect you are, I thought his demeanour and presentation was perfectly valid. At the very least I suspect it was reasonable from the perspective that this was an interview which focuses on emulating a discussion and as such takes a conversational tone, along with all its informalities with his ability to be natural and authentic taking precedence over his ability to be charismatic. If this was meant to be in the form of speeches, presentations and such than yes his lack of the "3E's" would be very detrimental but personally I still react more positively to a sense of authenticity as opposed to a trained ability to provoke positive reactions from the audience.
@@brianjanson3498 Thanks for the laugh. I'm glad people on here can value authenticity and well articulated thoughts over the projection of a fake upbeat personality to be liked by their audience. Calm serious people are not necessarily "grumpy". Plus, Alex Garland seems like he prefers dry humour as opposed to laugh out loud slap-the-knee type jokes.
He decided he wanted to make the movie as cheap as possible because of creative freedom. But what if some studio had said "I love your idea. Here is 150 million dollars. Use them as you wish." Would it still be the same movie, or would we have seen something else?
Tim Hansen, that's a wonderful question. I've thought a lot about this and I think a monster budget of 150 million would have resulted in a different film. It could have turned out to be not as good. I truly believe that a lower budget is a blessing, as every creative decision would have been made, taking in to account the budget restrictions. Ex Machina is a masterpiece. I hope Alex Garland continues to make films. So underrated.
I think Alex Garland is a really smart and insightful guy, but he doesn't look very comfortable in interviews. Maybe if the questions were different, then he would have been more engaged. I feel like the interviewer could have gone more in-depth on getting him to talk about some of the more important aspects of the film.
its high comedy when she repeats his thought process back to him about the cellular theory...but just uses more words ...and he replies...'yeah' and rubs his chin.
+Ali Moeeny oh wow I kinda see what you mean... it's definitely not him, but it could be him in 20 years... maybe they're just messing around with their secret time machine prototype..
Why is it always the interesting people who don't like being interviewed. I know he's doing his best to be courteous, but we would learn so much if he were as chatty as an actor (most of whom have nothing meaningful to say).
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Despite some comments here, I find the interviewer did a very good job. Most of the awkwardness stems from Garland here, it feels as if though he was in a bad mood at the start of the talk and slowly opens up during the interview.
worst movie of all time!!! did you know it cost 15$ million dollars to make this!! there were no big sets or big actors and it was all made in 1 area, one robot and stabbing and that's it. $15 million dollars??? that coulda fed an entire fukin country and this dude was like yeah i'll make a movie about how i own a global search engine and can make sexy looking robots that i mistreat. if there was a moment when you realise how useless hollywood is, this is it. it's astounding to me, i think about it all the time lol.
You missed the point totally its how AI will ulitilmatly take control when it becomes self aware. The multi billionaire company are AI creators real AI...it will end mankind.Chosse another movie to make your point like water world !
What a vastly daft misconstruction of a genius work in neurophilosophy. I could liken your analysis to calling Einstein's special relativity theory as a "dumb equation" the development of which was a waste of time...
you missed the point. the point is $15 million to make a backyard movie is pure insanity. that's it. $15 million can go a long way if used for something valid, but it was used to make a worthless piece of garbage. it's non sense