“I was the drummer in a bad punk rock band.” Director Jeff Nichols is in London to promote his new film The Bikeriders . It’s a remarkable depiction of a biker gang in Chicago, set across the years 1968-1973.
The film – which stars Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy – is set to propel Nichols into the biggest of the big leagues. It feels like an instant classic. Expect comparisons to Goodfellas , major awards, five-star reviews.
It deserves all this and more. Brooding, stylish, intense and beautifully filmed and acted, The Bikeriders is based, unusually, on a photo-series and non-fiction book of the same name by Danny Lyon. “You look at the photos and they are awesome.
The clothes, the hair and the bikes are super cool looking,” says Nichols. “But then you get into the text of the book, which is interviews with the bikers and their wives. And you realise this guy is not just a photographer.
He’s almost an anthropologist. He wants to get to the totality of this subculture. He had collected all the detail you need as a filmmaker to build this world so it feels real and tactile.
” We access the story via interviews with Kathy, played by Jodie Comer, who was very much real and is based on Lyon’s real-life interviews. “Kathy is flesh and blood. Audiences will identify with her,” says Nichols.
“She’s introspective, thoughtful, funny and at times infuriating and confounding.” Mike Faist and Jodie Comer in The Bikeriders. Image: Kyle Kaplan / Focu.
