Like many people in this food-obsessed age, Ramin Bahrani recently found himself curious about the provenance of what ended up on his dinner plate. Unlike most, however, he responded by moving to the heartland and making a film about a family farmer striving to build a modest agribusiness empire.
The film, “At Any Price,†had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday (it opens in limited release on Wednesday). It represents an almost total departure for Mr. Bahrani, the director of acclaimed films like “Chop Shop†and “Man Push Cart,†claustrophobic, small-scale works that star mostly unprofessional actors and track immigrants at the margins of cities.
Joel Ryan/Associated Press Ramin Bahrani“At Any Price,†conversely, features toothy stars like Dennis Quaid, Zac Efron and Heather Graham, and luxuriates in the Midwest’s wide-open spaces. A car-racing subplot includes blockbuster-worthy driving scenes that might surprise fans of Mr. Bahrani’s quieter work.
“My agent was like, ‘I’m going to put you up for ‘Fast and Furious, Part 9,’†he said, laughing.
Mr. Bahrani wanted to make a different sort of farm film, one mostly devoid of the usual Steinbeckian struggles and pieties about hard-working families and the land. The filmmaker lived with farmers in Iowa and Illinois for six months to prepare for the film, and the script reflects what he saw there: sophisticated multimillion-dollar operations maintained by air-conditioned, GPS-enabled tractors that literally drove themselves.
“There was no chickens or cows, or vegetables growing in the garden,†he said. “And no bank was coming to foreclose on the home as nostalgic music played.â€
Mr. Quaid is Henry Whipple, a morally flexible farmer and seed salesman with dynastic ambitions. Mr. Efron is the son with dreams of his own. A gifted amateur race-car driver, he aims to go pro and leave the family farm in his rearview mirror. Charged intergenerational angst ensues as various mortal threats to the family’s enterprises arise. As the title suggests, the story take some unexpected â€" and unexpectedly dark â€" turns.
Mr. Bahrani discussed “At Any Price†in a recent phone interview. In edited excerpts, he discusses talking stars out of their makeup and striking out at product placement.
Your previous films have been based in cities. How did you end up in the heartland?
I was curious about where my food came from. That led to reading Michael Pollan’s work, and a good friend of mine who works at The New York Times, Dan Barry, had written an interesting piece about dairy farms. I had no idea farming was such a big business, and that it was run by businessmen, not farmers, really. Dan’s and Michael’s work led me to Iowa.
You spent six months there. What were your general impressions?
These were very good, warmhearted people who were under a massive amount of pressure. Every single farmer I met, without fail, told me what runs his life are the mottos, “expand or die†or “get big or get out.†That’s how the film started to come together.
The whole “expand or die†theme would seem to have broader implications.
It’s everywhere. It’s Wall Street. It’s the banking crisis. It’s Walmart smashing up Main Street. It’s your own industry, journalism. It’s one person writing a review of my film in Miami that is going to get published in 200 newspapers across the country.
So you hung out with farmers and then this story emerged?
The last piece that started to make it come together in my mind was I met a genetically modified seed salesman who was also a farmer in Woodward, Iowa. I never knew there was such an occupation. At that point, I also was immediately thinking about “Death of a Salesman†and Willy Loman, and these themes of “expand or die†matched it. That became a shadow to the screenplay as it was being written.
Even the name Henry Whipple, like Willy Loman, has this evocative impotence to it.
I agree. I met a farmer in Illinois and his name was Whipple, and I quickly wrote it down.
There are plenty of big themes here â€" the “go big or go home†ethos, the corporatization of farming. What specifically did you want to explore?
All of those things. I don’t really want to limit the meaning of the film. If you know my other work, I never provide a conclusion. I don’t wrap up my films with a tidy bow that would explain everything. But it’s not an agenda movie. If it was, I would lead the stampede out of the cinema. Nobody likes an agenda film. It’s really a father-son story. It’s a family story. At the heart of it is Quaid and Efron, really.
This is your first film with “movie stars.†How was that different?
I started with Dennis and it’s just amazing how much he adds to the role. The physicality of his part was completely something he invented and created. The way he holds his shoulders and his neck, his fist being clenched. He did something that I just would not have been able to do alone, and I would not have been able to do it with a nonprofessional.
What was the budget?
Well under $5 million. Dennis’s and Zac’s trailers were either their cars or the sofa at the farm where we shot the film. Literally.
This seems like one of those situations where product placement would actually enhance the reality of the film. In other words, did John Deere underwrite the whole movie?
[Laughs.] No, are you kidding me? We tried our hardest to get product placement and it was very challenging to get any money out of those things. I don’t know how they do it, really. John Deere had no interest in that. I wish. If you’re good at that, please come onto my next film. You can help me finance it.
What did your stars know about your work beforehand?
I spent time with Dennis in Austin. He said, “I want to be like that kid in ‘Chop Shop,’ when he closes the garage door and locks it with a screwdriver, just that mechanical action.†He said, “Can you make me like that?†I couldn’t believe it â€" I never expected a movie star to say things like this. So the next day I had enough courage to say, “Dennis, would you do no hair and makeup?†And he said of course. I mentioned it to Zac, and he said, “I don’t care about that kind of stuff.â€
Arguably Zac doesn’t need to care about that kind of stuff.
[Laughs.] It’s true â€" he’s really photogenic and handsome. But I think his performance is phenomenally good. He’s a gifted actor and I really think he should be playing complex roles like this.
Did you have any preconceived notions about him going into it?
Zac and I spoke about how I want to do something new. I told him people will probably judge me unfairly, based on my previous films, on what I can and can’t do, and what they think I should be doing. I don’t want to do what people think I should be doing; I want to do what I want to do. And he said, “Me too.â€
The race scenes are certainly something different for you. What did you know about racing before going into it?
I’m really embarrassed to say this, because I’m from North Carolina and we created Nascar, but I didn’t know anything about it. So we went to all these figure 8 races and met the drivers. I drove a little bit. Based on my previous films, I think people are really shocked that the racing sequences are kind of good.
They’re quite gripping, and I couldn’t imagine you’d done much of that before.
No I haven’t. The closest I came was a guy pushing a cart in the street in “Man Push Cart.†[Laughs.] Don’t worry though, I’ll turn down “Fast and Furious†like all the other Hollywood projects I get sent to me. No thanks.
