Plated In Gold: The Strongest Man at Sundance

Riches’ team comprises his “besties,” who are “conveniently placed in each category that I need,” he says. Chamberlain is a longtime friend along with Editor TJ Nelson and Composer Andrew Shaw of Color Animal, Magic Mint and Albino Father—all current Salt Lake citizens. “It makes it fun,” says Riches. It would seem that they’ve found it fun, too. Nelson, who also edited Must Come Down, says, “The Strongest Man just had so many awesome moments that you just kinda get to pick your favorite one and go with it.” Riches’ girlfriend, Cara Despain, served double duty as Art Director and Assistant Producer. She provided some basic art direction for Must Come Down, but due the amount of aesthetically demanding scenarios in The Strongest Man, increased the breadth of her involvement for this film. This transcended the couple’s natural tendency to help each other: “When I read The Strongest Man script, I felt like, right away, it was the best thing that he’s written and it was the most exciting thing he’s written,” she says. “I think that he found his old voice, but tapped into something that was real for him but also relatable for people where we live now.” Nelson concurs from his perspective of the project: “I think the ease of editing spoke to the writing, honestly,” he says. The Strongest Man demonstrates Riches’ growth as a screenwriter. Its dynamics, compared to Must Come Down, flex fluidly and emotively, treating the viewer to the magic of cinema. “The biggest thing that I learned about making Must Come Down was writing … mostly in the editing,” says Riches, who agrees that he learns more from doing rather than studying. “With this film, it’s much tighter and the pacing is a little different.”

Shaw also returns to film from Must Come Down, as The Strongest Man’s score writer. Riches confesses to having been “obsessed” with Magic Mint’s 2014 release, Grand America, whose flavor will saturate the score of The Strongest Man. “The score on Must Come Down is more of a character than the score needs to be on this film,” Shaw says, whereas the feel for scoring The Strongest Man is “more about trying to find the right textures and try to not be too pushy with anything. … I think there’s so much good stuff already happening in the scene, and so whatever I can do to just kind of help move the scene along a little bit is what I’m after.”

I find it curious that both he and Riches would consider a score a “character,” Shaw’s penchant for assigning sounds to emotions and characters notwithstanding. Riches explains this designation, though; he says, “Every scene in this film has some sort of symbolism that is relevant. I think that a lot of the things I try to explain in my films are done through symbols or metaphors.” It’s thus no surprise that Beef’s anxiety takes the form of a red-eyed “being” or monster, whose costume Despain helped make from palm fronds that naturally blacken when they die. The anxiety monster’s presence alerts the viewer that Beef feels anxious. Even a recent surge of high-rise construction in the Miami cityscape plays into Riches’ use of symbolism: Mrs. Rosen lives in one and pays Beef to move around her zany art collection. Riches says, “She is physically in a building that’s above them [Beef, Conan and their homes]. I like the visual play and what that brought—both thematically and visually.”

Banes’ rendering of Mrs. Rosen elicits some laughs with her upper-middle-class white-privileged persona. It’s a character whom Riches wrote with the late David Fetzer in the back of his mind, who was one of the lead roles of Must Come Down and a dear friend who passed away in December of 2012, with whom Riches also made a handful of short films. “Certainly, it’s been a really crazy thing after getting into Sundance,” says Riches, “because the first thing you think about is, ‘Fuck, David is supposed to be here.’” Riches, Nelson and Shaw express—either verbally or silently—that it’s painful. Nevertheless, Nelson says, “In the process of making this film without him, physically, he was still, in my mind, holding some kind of bar or some kind of standard [where we] would … want to make something that he would like.” Riches furthers the sentiment: “It’s like I’m writing to impress David. I still do that,” he says.

In regard to maintaining much of the same team of “besties” from Must Come Down to The Strongest Man, Riches says, “I think that’s a big reason why I make films, is to pull everyone back together.” Though The Strongest Man takes place in Miami, the collection of characters and symbols synergize and reflect the bonds of the people behind the film who worked together across the nation and created a gripping work of art that’s nonetheless relatable and down to earth. In the context of Sundance, Riches and company stand as hometown heroes who’ve captured the original spirit of the festival—ardent creators forming a chain spinning a cog, their shared artistic spirit plated in gold of the noblest caliber.

Screenings:
Premiere – Sunday, Jan. 25, 5:30 p.m.
Prospector Square Theatre, Park City

Tuesday, Jan. 27, 8:30 a.m.
Library Center Theatre, Park City

Wednesday, Jan. 28, 6:45 p.m.
Broadway Centre Cinema 3, SLC

Friday, Jan. 30, 9:30 p.m.
Redstone Cinema 1, Park City