Barry Jenkins is eager to return to “physical” cinema after Mufasa

“On what planet am I, 'Mr. Moonlight,' preparing a prequel to The Lion King?”

You were surprised that the director of Moonlight and of If Beale Street Could Talk is tackling a blockbuster from Disney Studios? Barry Jenkins is well aware of having surprised everyone by agreeing to stage Mufasathe prequel to Lion King (2019) by John Favreau, digital animation remake of the cult cartoon by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, released in 1994 in cinemas. Interviewed by Vulture on this new project, he reveals the reasons which pushed him to accept this offer. He also says that now that this new Lion King is finished, he only wants one thing: to return to the independent cinema that made him known. Here are some excerpts from his interview.

Barry Jenkins responds to criticism after Mufasa trailer release

“I know what everyone is thinking,begins the filmmaker. On what planet, me, 'Mr Moonlight'I am preparing a prequel to Lion King ? I can't tweet about the Super Bowl without someone reminding me that I'm making the damn movie. I can't… You know, when I took this job, the idea was to ask ourselves: 'What does Barry Jenkins know about visual effects?' 'Why the hell would he make this movie?' This is part of what I found stimulating at first. People do these things now only by computer. So anyone should be able to do it, right? There's nothing physical that says I can't do this.”

A few lines later, Jenkins recognizes, however, that his 147 days of filming Mufasa without physical sets, with only digital staging, was an experience… which he didn't like that much.

“It's not my thing, he admits. No, it's not for me.. I would like to work the other way again, that is, I want everything to be physically on site. I always believe that what is there is enough, and I wonder what is the right recipe to create this alchemy. How can these people, this light, this environment come together to ensure that an image is moving, beautiful? How can we create a text that is deep enough, dense enough, rich enough to speak to the audience?”

Its producer Adele Romanski suggests that once Mufasa released, Jenkins will follow up with an independent film for which he has the secret, undoubtedly a biopic of Alvin Ailey, a talented American choreographer.

“It's not going to be a $250 million movie, okay? confirms the director. So we're going to have to go back to a much more limited set of tools.”

Vulture finally shares an enlightening anecdote about Mufasadetailing how “Jenkins opted for many long, uninterrupted takes for this film, shots that float gracefully around the characters, evoking not the typical visual grammar of Disney cartoons, but techniques perfected by masters of so-called cinema 'slow' like Béla Tarr, Jia Zhangke and Gus Van Sant.”

The source goes on to explain that “Jenkins received a note from the parent company expressing concern that one of the long takes was a bit 'slow'but there is no indication that he was forced to change the sequence in question.” Barry also doesn't detail his collaboration with the studio, only concluding that he “tried to shoot these scenes in as few shots as possible, even though we didn't have to think that way.”

Mufasa will be released in theaters on December 18. Here is its trailer: