James Franco says the character Lester Ballard in his new film Child of God has a trace of Charlie Chaplin in him, though the tale is mostly as dark as can be.
Based on Cormac McCarthy's novella of the same name, the movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday and portrays a Tennessee backwoodsman who has never recovered from his father's suicide and sinks into ever deeper levels of anti-social and psychopathic behavior.
Franco said he sought permission from the No Country for Old Men writer to film the seemingly unfilmable story because it provided a way "for me to examine something that's pushed out of civilized society".
But he also found elements of a fumbling, awkward comedy that reminded him on Chaplin, though of a much darker nature than anything the silent film star ever put on screen.
"He's kind of, in some ways he's kind of clumsy, he's, you know, almost comedic," Franco told Reuters in an interview.
"Not laugh-out funny but he's a little ridiculous in some ways and I felt like that's something I've never seen before on the screen, a killer like this that's a little foolish or almost like Charlie Chaplinesque."
Franco said the film is not as violent as the subject matter suggests, nor does it portray violence as graphically as some recent films, though there are scenes that will make jaws drop.
"There were scenes that needed to kind of be explicit ... in order to kind of make a mark but it's not a thriller, it's not a horror movie," he said.
Reuters