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Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is one of his best books and is simply pure greatness. Now, his masterwork is making its way to the big screen thanks to director John Hillcoat. Hillcoat’s previous film, The Proposition, was obviously inspired by McCarthy’s work so it made plenty of sense when he signed on. He’s now delivered a very faithful adaptation that any fan will most likely enjoy. The Road is now in theaters.

One theme that I really enjoy in your films is the idea of what extreme environments do to people. What is it about that idea that appeals to you?

John Hillcoat: Just that it puts people under pressure and I’ve always believed that the essence of drama is conflict — when people are under pressure that creates conflict. I also think that a lot of these worlds are extreme and I think a lot of genres that appeal to me are like that with gangster films and also westerns. There are other times and other places and I think those other worlds and places have always appealed to the imagination since they’re full of adventure. Basically, for me, its revealing and a way to reveal what’s under the surface.

One thing about the book is that its very episodic and has a loose narrative which worked great in that medium. Can you talk about the challenges of adapting a book that doesn’t have the most cinematic narrative?

John Hillcoat: Well, that was a challenge and the real challenge. That worried me about the book, but again when you scale it down there’s still key turning points and beneath it is a very strong and simple story. In terms of a father and son where the father is the teacher and then the son becomes the teacher, there is a clear shift and change. The father is actually trying to save the son and the son actually ends up saving the father. So it becomes a complete… There’s a clear journey, there’s clear changes and they come against clear dramatic obstacles. So in that sense even though it’s episodic there’s a narrative structure there because there’s a continual… But I know what you’re saying. It was a real lesson as well that I always knew but not to this degree which is basically that: in a book repetition can be an amazing rhythm in your head bouncing around from endless pages while on film its just magnified a hundred times. It’s a different headspace, if that makes sense. So we actually filmed being slightly conscious of this but in the editing it started as…

Four and a half hours?

John Hillcoat: (laughs) It was boiling it down and even in the book it had that feeling of things coming down to an essence. It’s kind of stripped bare even though it has this grueling, sprawling and repetitious thing. All those beats and changes are within it. It was really with all the boiling down and as soon as things felt repetitious they had to go. To put it in a different way, that’s all it was and it was precisely the episodic repetition that was the bit we had to keep. That was a key, how to get to that final point.

Can you say what was in that extra two and a half hours? Will we ever be able to see that footage?

John Hillcoat: It was the first assembly so that’s such a crude stage for a lot of films. It varies, but the average is three to four hours for every film. That’s also the very first time… and I’m not even involved in the edit. The editor puts together whatever we’re shooting and that’s what that is. So, I would never let that go out since it’s such a crude work in progress. You’re always aware that certain scenes may not be as good as others. On the DVD extras we will include whole scenes and whole chunks that will be on the extras. Some of those [scenes] are deliberately not put on, because I think they’d be misinterpreted. There’s a certain quite graphic scene in the book that I fought like hell to put in…

Was it the fetus scene?

John Hillcoat: (laughs) I fought like hell and I said going into this film, “we can’t shy away from anything,” but I ended up fighting like hell to have it removed, because it was one of those things that came in the part of the story that was totally redundant in terms of boiling it down. At that point it was all about meeting the old man and the boy starting to turn things around. All that did was go back to the beginning of the film so that was…

Back tracking.

John Hillcoat: Yeah, a back track. When you visualize that it was too much while in your head it has sort of a taboo power to it, but in reality it’s more like, “give me a break.” Some of those things took the spotlight off what we’re always trying to show — the journey and the relationship.

I think Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are fantastic composers and did a great job here, could you talk about your collaboration with them?

John Hillcoat: We go back a long way. With Nick, I’ve known him since I was a teenager. He’s scored every single film I’ve worked on and now he’s writing films. I’ve worked on a lot of his music projects, it’s an incredible collaboration. Warren Ellis is one of his great collaborators and likewise I’ve formed one with both Warren and Nick on my past couple of films. We start talking about the score sometimes even before the script is written. In this case, I told them about how the new McCarthy book landed in my lap and we started talking about that. With The Proposition, that’s how he came into writing it. He talked so much about the score of this outback western that we both got fed up with the time it was taking because we went to other writers. So I asked him to try it. It’s a great collaboration, there’s a very organic thing since it starts so early. There’s always all this preparation and discussion, but the thing that’s great about Warren and Nick is that they watch the film fresh. I don’t show them any rushes. They watch it and once it started to form shape that’s what they react off of. It’s kind of an unusual process, its nothing like how most films are traditionally scored.

What were the four lines that McCarthy wanted put back into the film?

John Hillcoat: Its when the boy says, “what would you do if I died?”, and the father says, “I’d want to die too so you can be with me and I can be with you.” Which is just a beautiful thing to say, but it also prefigures what’s to come. Then Cormac made some really helpful notes with the voiceover and he’s just so precise. He just talked about four lines and single words; he didn’t miss the baby or any of that stuff.

It didn’t feel needed.

John Hillcoat: Oh no, in fact he knew it worked much better as this stripped down form. He’s seen it a couple of times and he’s coming to New York to see it again. I keep him up to date and it’s quite a personal and important book to him.

Can you talk about what else is going to be on the Blu-ray? Will you do a commentary?

John Hillcoat: That hasn’t come up yet so I don’t know what’s going to be involved in all that.

Will To Have and Hold and Ghosts of the Civil Dead be released on DVD anytime soon?

John Hillcoat: Ghosts of the Civil Dead will be released in America within two years. It’s been held up for lots of different reasons. It’s kind of strangely more relevant now than it ever was.

I know you’re circling a few projects right now; can you give a few updates?

John Hillcoat: Well, one touchwood that’s most likely to…

The Wettest County?

John Hillcoat: Yeah its West Virginia, moonshine, backwoods and Prohibition. Nick Cave has written the script and we’ve got a phenomenal cast. Hopefully, but — it’s really tough out there.

Who’s attached to that?

John Hillcoat: Um… Ryan Gosling and Shia LaBeouf. But yeah, I shouldn’t really talk about it cause it’s in the middle of all sorts of stuff.

And what about The Death of Bunny Munro?

John Hillcoat: We’re going to turn that into television. We’re going to try and wake up the BBC and — or actually Channel 4. We’re trying to say to British television, “look at HBO, I mean what the hell are you doing?”

And are you involved with the remake of La Bonne Année?

John Hillcoat: No… That’s very misleading, all that stuff.