Twister still looks great because the director really let his cast die for it
When it came to marketing Jan de Bont’s 1996 film Whirlwind, There was absolutely no doubt about it: the star of the film was not Helen Hunt or Bill Paxton, who play a pair of storm chasers chasing one last tornado system before finalizing their divorce. The star of the film was the damn tornado.
Sold as a special effects extravaganza that was so popular it formed the basis for an attraction in an amusement park, Vortex skillfully combines CG tornadoes and practical effects from disaster movies so effectively that the images still feel relevant today. (Viewers can appreciate this thanks to a new 4K Blu-ray release of the blockbuster.) In honor of the film’s re-release, director Jan de Bont spoke to Polygon about the film’s still-remarkable mix of digital and practical effects, and the ways he wanted his actors to stop acting and just feel how scary the storms were.
Polygon: When Vortex came out, the CG tornadoes were a big part of the promotion. But now that I see it, it strikes me how practical the effects are. You throw so many physical objects at Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt!
Jan de Bont: What I remember most is when the actors had to brave this artificial storm β this huge amount of wind machines and jet engines and all this debris coming right at them. Suddenly it’s not acting anymore. Now they have to actually react to real things coming at them. That was so funny, of course β actors, the very first thing they complain about is, My hair is wrong, look at my hair! Or, My shirt is torn! It was so hard to convince them.
Well, that’s exactly what it should be! That’s what it would look like in real life. It was really hard to convince the actors not to worry about their hair and their costume, because if it looked bad, I would take it out. I would just do another take. But it was a strange thing for them. Because (without) hair and makeup, they kind of lose their identity. That was the goal, of course.
Are there things you think directors might want to use to make digital effects look more realistic?
At this point, the technology has improved so much β I’m sure you can make them look better and more realistic now. But it’s not so much about that. The point is that effects themselves are soulless. It’s hard to connect (with them), it’s Real difficult for actors to connect with. How can they react to something so big if they have no idea of ββthe scale?
I really wanted to make sure that all the actors really felt what it was like, and that they had to be all in these giant wind machines and muddy fields, completely chased by that stuff non-stop. So that they get a sense of what it’s really like to be a storm chaser, and also feel the danger that tornadoes represent. And I don’t think you can do that with visual effects alone. I think the practice brings the actors back to reality.
Do you think people have forgotten that this movie has a whole story? His girl Friday-style premise, about a couple who realize they don’t want to get divorced?
The way the whole project started, (Jurassic Park (author) Michael Crichton saw a PBS documentary about storm chasers, and he and (Crichton’s wife and co-writer) Anne Marie Martin thought it was exciting – and he said, “But what?” Then he thought: If I the plot of His girl Fridaywhere basically a couple is headed for a divorce, but they have one more thing to do together – which would fit perfectly into their. And I’m glad he did, because it was a perfect way to keep (Paxton and Hunt’s characters) together, then separate them, then put them back together, then separate them again (again). I thought it was a really clever idea.