Claes Bang and Nick Hamm on “William Tell,” a bloody European epic: TIFF

British director Nick Hamm (Driven, White lines) went epic for his latest film, William Tella retelling of the story of the 14th-century Swiss crossbowman who, according to legend, united the cannons of Switzerland to drive out the tyrannical Austrian army and liberate his country.

Today, Tell is remembered primarily for a single scene: when the Austrian tyrants force him to test his marksmanship by shooting an apple off his own son’s head. This scene is the focus of Friedrich Schiller’s famous 18th-century play William Tellwhich Hamm adapted for his feature film and added a good portion of action on the level of Braveheart and Game of Thrones (minus the dragons).

The Danish star Claes Bang (The space, Evil Sisters) plays Tell in an ensemble that also includes Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson), Connor Swindells (Sex education), Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid) Rafe Spall (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), Emily Beecham (Little Joe), Oscar nominee Jonathan Pryce (TThe two popes) and Oscar winner Ben Kingsley (Gandhi).

William Tell will have its world premiere next week at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival. Beta Cinema, which is handling international distribution, has already pre-sold the film across Europe, including to Altitude for the UK and Ireland and Square One for German-speaking countries, after the film was shown to press and industry audiences for the first time at TIFF on Thursday. WME Independent is selling the domestic rights.

Claes Bang and Nick Hamm spoke with THR about how they made European action epics outside the Hollywood system.

Why William Tell – why did you want to tell this story?

Nick Hamm For several reasons. First, it is a great European legend that has never been properly told in any form, apart from a play by Schiller written in the early 19th century. We don’t have many legends in Europe that haven’t been seen through the eyes of Hollywood. Robin Hood has been retold thousands of times. The dilemma of Robin Hood and William Tell is not very different. Tell also gathers a group of people around him and eventually unites his country to defend freedom against fascism.

This is a legend that goes way back in European culture and represents the idea of ​​freedom against autocracy and authoritarianism. The Schiller text in particular speaks about the ideas of freedom and personal independence in a world where these values ​​are under threat. It is a story that has been passed down for hundreds of years and used by different political movements at different political times to promote their own goals. But it has never been celebrated or, I suspect, exploited cinematically.

The film’s central scene, in which the father is asked to shoot an apple off his child’s head, is often portrayed as something idyllic or romantic, as this guy with a feather in his hat leaning against a tree, nonchalantly shooting an arrow. But it’s actually about a father being asked to publicly execute his own child. This scene, written by Schiller in the early 19th century, is probably one of the greatest scenes in European drama. It’s tailor-made for cinematic exploitation.

Our story vacillates between these huge scenes and the moral dilemma of a man who hates violence and war and knows where that violence will lead. At the heart of it is a complicated moral dilemma, and around it is a fantastic piece of entertainment.

Claes, what did you know about William Tell before you started this project?

Claes Bang I knew the legend of this guy who shot an apple off his son’s head, of course. But to be honest, I had no idea what the story was about. At one point I thought he was some kind of traveling showman who shot apples off heads for money. It’s a terrible thing to admit. Please don’t tell anyone. It wasn’t until I started digging into it and talking to Nick about it that I began to understand that this is a really existential story about the worst dilemma you can face as a parent. The idea that as a parent you can either accept this power taking over your country and your life. Or you can shoot an apple off your son’s head and risk killing him.

You have played many villains in your career, from the sleazy art curator in The space to the violent husband in Evil Sisters and the epic villains in Robert Eggers’ The Northman. How does it feel to play a heroic character for once?

Bang That was exactly what I needed. I’ve played a lot of really nasty, evil characters before, so it was nice to take on something very heroic and very cool. But what’s cool is that our William Tell is also very torn. He’s a reluctant warrior. He’s been through the Crusades and he’s traumatized by war. He doesn’t want to go back to violence. It’s only when he’s pushed too far, when this bigger power, Austria, the biggest power in Europe at the time, tries to take over this country, that he decides he has to fight to save his family, his village, his country. That was the basis for the merging of these cantons into Switzerland.

There is obviously a parallel to Brave heartwhere the English try to take Scotland and William Wallace fights back. But the focus of our story is the scene with the apple, where Tell is forced by this higher power to risk the life of his own son. He had to make this crazy decision: if he refuses, his family will be killed. If he accepts, he will probably execute his own child. It shows all the bloody madness of war.

Nick, this is not your father’s William Tell. The depictions of violence in particular are extremely graphic and bloody. Why did you decide to tell the story this way?

Hamm Series like game of Thrones really laid a foundation for how to portray these stories. Our film doesn’t have any fantasy elements, but there is a similarity to the political intrigue, the warring factions and so on. There have been some great films and great TV shows in this genre, so if you want to compete in this genre you better be damn good and make better use of the visuals to stand out from the norm. With the violence we were very unique and very incisive. There is not a lot of violence, we are not making a slasher film, but when we do show it we are very graphic, very brutal, to show the consequences.

But at the core, we knew we had to be entertaining. We’re fighting for the existence of cinema right now, for the idea that people can go into a room together and have a shared experience. That experience has to be entertaining. So I took the Schiller play, which was written in 1804 and is literally like an opera, had it translated from German and dissected it, using some of the characters and inventing new ones, but often keeping the Schiller dialogue because that was often the best way to have the characters express these complex ideas. And guess who loves that kind of language? Young people, the 20-somethings, they can identify with that language.

This is a real action film, Claes, your first since Northman. How much training was required for the role?

Bang It’s funny because when I read the script I was drawn to the existential questions of this character. He knows that war only brings death and misery. He doesn’t want to fight. There’s a scene where he says to three friends sitting at a table with him: If we go to war, it will only bring misery. All three of them are dead by the end of the film. So it begs the question, what is the breaking point for a man like him, what is the point where you are pushed too far when you get into this kind of war madness?

Then I had my wife read the script and she said, “This is a huge action movie!” I honestly didn’t even notice! But she was right. There was a lot going on, a lot of running up and down the Alps, a lot of crossbow training and a lot of riding on damn horses. There was a lot with the crossbow because the technique of this weapon is very special. With a bow you draw it and let it go because you can’t hold it for very long. With a crossbow you can draw it and move, you can be a bit more like a sniper and move almost in stealth mode.

Hamm It was the first weapon in human history that could be cocked and maintained.

How did you manage to tell this story on such an epic scale with a European budget?

Hamm That’s a great question, mate. We put our money into the actors and the sets, into the details on the screen. If you look at the costumes, they’re extraordinary. They’re all handmade. Every detail of this film is unique, bespoke. We shot this film in Italy with real film artists and craftsmen, people believe in the power of cinema. There was professionalism and a certain level of belief that Europeans could make these films for ourselves, for our own audiences. They can be complicated. They can be entertaining. We can borrow from Hollywood and we’re not fighting Hollywood in any way, but the idea was: we can make these epic stories in our own way, on our own terms, if you give us those resources.

Countries like Italy, which have strong tax incentives and a tradition of this craft, combine this with these acting talents from all over Europe – Claes is Danish, Golshifteh is Iranian, Connor is English, they come from everywhere – but they have a common cinematic language and a common belief that we can make these great films in Europe and not just be limited to making films about two people sitting around the dinner table thinking about the meaning of life.