“Twisters” director Lee Isaac Chung took the whole “show, don’t tell” adage quite literally when it came to depicting climate change onscreen.
Chung, who directed the franchise installment film centered on tornado chasers played by Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones, told CNN that he opted to not explicitly include the term climate change in the film.
“I just wanted to make sure that with the movie, we don’t ever feel like [it] is putting forward any message,” Lee said. “I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented. […] I think what we are doing is showing the reality of what’s happening on the ground. We don’t shy away from saying that things are changing.”
While Lee, who grew up on the border of Arkansas and Oklahoma, added that his own “brushes with extreme weather as a child” left a “very big imprint” on how he views nature, he didn’t want the film itself to be “preaching” any sort of political statement.
“I wanted to make sure that we are never creating a feeling that we’re preaching a message, because that’s certainly not what I think cinema should be about,” Lee said. “I think it should be a reflection of the world.”
He continued, “That sense of awe and wonder was something that I really wanted to preserve in this film, that it’s not just a summer blockbuster about running from tornadoes and hiding away. I wanted to make sure that we’re also revering and honoring the beauty of that power.”
Lee previously told The Hollywood Reporter as part of its Sustainability Issue that he wants more films to include natural elements.
“I would love to see more stories in which our identity is defined in relation to the Earth, and I felt like this film was a chance to do that,” Lee said. “Anytime Hollywood is doing anything with climate change, I think we have to stay positive and let people have fun. As a production, we want to inspire people to embrace the natural world. That can go quite a long ways toward influencing people to make good choices in their relationship with nature, to study what’s happening on this Earth and to figure out how can we become better caretakers of the planet.”
Also on his promotional tour for “Twisters,” Lee told IndieWire that “filmmakers have a responsibility to prove why this art form is good and meant to be protected. I’m going to be working really hard to do that.”
