The DVD of The Sweet Hereafter is one of the very best DVDs on the market today. In addition to the finest version of the movie available, it includes a complete re-showing of the film with Atom Egoyan's comments (along with some additions by Russell Banks), the American and Canadian trailers (which are different), Atom's interview on The Charlie Rose Show, along with a complete filmography and biography of each star accompanied by a short interview. Bruce answers two questions, which are transcribed below. All pictures on this page are from that interview, which was conducted on the set.

1. What is it like to work with Atom Egoyan?

Well, this is really great ... it does feel a little bit like a company and I'm .... just privileged to be part of it. And I was thrilled when I got the opportunity to come up here and do this because it's just nice to do something of quality with somebody as talented as Atom and get a chance to do ..... more, you know?

2. Explain why playing the Billy Ansell character appealed to you.

I think maybe you just have to accept it when things like this happen. Your life is going to change profoundly and to wish that it hadn't happened and to wish that, even if the children couldn't come back, that you could be who you were -- you have to let that stuff go and be what it is this experience has made you. And Billy's willingness to do that, contrary to the way many other people appear to react to it, is what appeals to me ... something I think is noble about him.

Selected Commentary from The
WHAT ATOM EGOYAN AND RUSSELL BANKS
HAVE TO SAY ABOUT BILLY AND BRUCE

The following comments were made during the director's cut of the film -- statements, opinions and observations from Atom Egoyan and Russell Banks as they watch the movie with us:

(1) Billy follows the bus / Dolores talks about Billy and Lydia:

AE: This is the first time that we see Billy and this is Billy's early-morning ritual following the bus to school. This is Bruce Greenwood who was the lead character, Francis, in Exotica and whom nobody recognizes.

RB: I know!

AE: It's incredible -- such a testament to Bruce, I think, that he's been able to transfrom himself. ... [Cut to Dolores' living room] And here this mention of Lydia. Suddenly we have this whole sense of who Lydia was. This woman that we never see. She used to sing in the church choir, she was a great mom. It's a really important little window into this absent character who, of course, has had a tremendous impact on Billy's life and here she [Dolores] is saying that Billy is always thinking about Lydia. And then suddenly we see Billy in the car and we assume that is what he's thinking of but, of course, what he's actually thinking about is calling Risa and making plans for that evening. Again, we have this incredible scene where it's all done by phone, where these connections are made by people who are miles apart. Technology is something that I have worked with in a lot of my movies in terms that it has of enhancing and bringing ourselves together and, on the other hand, separating us. But in this film, I pulled back a little bit in that I used it as a connecting device. Bruce Greenwood actually *is* missing that tooth, by the way. He got into a bar brawl after Exotica and actually had that one tooth knocked out.

[Correction from Bruce: "That rumor Atom is spreading around that I lost it in a barroom brawl isn't really true," he confided in a whisper, "but the real story is so much less dramatic." (From the Toronto Sun, May 25, 1997, Final Edition, p. S2)]

(2) Nicole comes to babysit Mason and Jessica / Billy and Risa's lovemaking scene:

AE: Now we are going to another time. This could be even further back. This is maybe the earliest time period we have referred to in the film. It's a night that Nicole comes over to babysit. We go back to that electric guitar that we saw at the beginning of the film, that the feedback was coming from and we recognize that this is the garage that Mitchell was wandering through. We connect that now and these pieces begin to fit and it's a very satisfying little montage. ... So, we've just entered into this affair. To me, it was so liberating to shoot this stuff. It was just a really simple affair that Billy's having with Risa. ... [After love-making is over, as Billy gets ready to leave:] This is the end of this ritual of an affair that these people conduct. There is a great moment here where you can see how Risa just snaps out of it. Billy is going to the door. He's about to turn around and then there's this moment of surprise as he sees that Risa is already putting on her underwear; just like that, the evening is over [RB: that fake smile!]. It's just an affair; there's nothing else to it.

[Back in Billy's house] She [Nicole] has a pile of clothing which we gather belonged to Lydia, Billy's wife. Billy is giving this as a gift but it's also a transference. It's a very loaded scene. I'm still not entirely sure what it has to do with this movie. It's very much a scene from one of my other films with all this shrouded mystery and people not being able to express themselves. It's a scene that is not in the novel and it's a situation I created. It's almost exactly like a scene from Exotica. This is where he looks most like Francis in Exotica. I don't know how true it is to who Billy is but it applealed to me and it's there.

RB: It felt right to me. I mean, in the book there is the problem of how to dispose of her clothes.

AE: Right.

RB: It's mentioned several times whether to put them through a church sale or whatever, so someone's clothing, his wife's clothing, is a problem and I think it's totally consistent with this character.

AE: The one thing that's really important about that scene though is that he gives her this tape and, again, it's a way of reinforcing the community. He's sharing his music with her and we know that she is someone who likes music, so that is an important little gesture.

RB: He's also contrasted with Sam as the good father versus the bad father.

AE: That's right.

RB: You need that polarization in order to understand Sam and the world that Sam's in to understand your particular moral perspective on Sam. He's the good father.

(3) The accident/parting scene with Risa:

AE: We cut to Billy, seeing it in a sweeping shot, following the bus along this valley, and we hear this durge in the music at this point. It's almost this funerial durge and we can anticipate the horror that is about to happen.

RB: In the novel, this is where it breaks away from Dolores' telling and picks up Billy's telling of the actual accident.

AE: Right. Which is exactly what we are about to see. We see his two children waving to him in the back of the bus and then the whole accident is first glimpsed through his reaction at this moment as disbelief, where the bus crashes through and then this whole sustained hazard where we are hearing the bus crash and we're hearing the kids screaming but it's all contained from Billy. And then we cut to this extraordinary image -- which I will confess at this point is a computer-generated effect, there is no way we could have done this -- where we had a specific moment where we think everything is OK and then we hear this terrible crack where the bus goes through the ice, which is an image of such horror and devastation. ... [After the telling of the spider story:] The moment where Billy looks down and identifies the bodies of his kids. This is an *incredible* moment for Bruce. Here's the nod where he says, "lower the blanket" and there's the nod where he says, "yes, that's them." It's a heartbreaking moment. Up until the last moment it was funny, I remember, Russell, we were showing you this cut on the editing system and we had the kids, we actually had the figures of these two kids and we decided at the last minute it was better to just take this out. It was too horrifying.

RB: It's all in his eyes.

AE: And then, of course, we have the moment here where he does recall. We have the sound of the train and again, the sound design has built this haunting transition where we remember this image from Billy's past of the two kids playing with snowballs and then running past him. It's a moment he'll never forget. So we go from this image of the two kids that Billy will never be able to erase to him in this hotel room; this room that he's come for countless nights of easy intimacy with Risa and fun, just something to escape the pain of his life. And suddenly to see Risa again in this setting, in this room that they have shared so many times. But now to see the pain, to see the body language so completely different. Before they were so free and easy...

RB: And now they are wrapped in ... [can't hear what he's saying exactly] and they are all by themselves.

AE: And to hear Risa talk about Mitchell and Mitchell's belief that something was wrong with the bus, and Billy saying that he serviced the bus and there was nothing wrong with it, and to hear Risa say she *needs* to believe that there was something wrong. It really is a statement here of Billy's sense of fatalism.

RB: That's right. The difference in their characters suddenly comes forward where she's groping after fact and groping after cause, and he's willing to accept it as a cosmic accident.

AE: That's right. And you realize these people whose intimacy was entirely sexual have nothing in common with each other whatsoever. And there is this moment, again, it's a very similar shot to how we left the room before, and Risa says, "is it true that you let her wear one of Lydia's dresses?" Her complete need to find some explanation and she's even able to go into the supernatural here that somehow that bad luck. This is one of my favorite lines when Billy says, "it seems to me you are looking for a witch doctor, not a lawyer, or maybe they are the same thing." It anticipates Billy's inability to want to find any other reason but the fact that it happened. There is something heroic about his ability to just go on.

RB: There is a little saying that when you cannot believe in one thing, you believe in nothing or you believe in anything. He's the man who believes in nothing and she's the woman who's willing to believe in anything.

(4) Billy's and Mitchell's meeting at the bus:

AE: This is, to me, this extraordinary moment that Billy pays reverence. This is the only moment really of someone trying to pray in the film, where he's looking at the back of the bus, and he wants this moment to himself to mourn his kids. And to have it interrupted at this moment by Mitchell is just such a transgression. There is a palpable violence in Billy as he is about to assault Mitchell. Mitchell, again, is probably so excited by this. The adrenaline is just streaming through him as he feels the threat of physical violence. This man knows no bounds and what a challenge to try to enjoin Billy. At this moment, when he hands him the card, his heart is just racing.

RB: This is the strongest character he has to confront, other than Nicole, the one who is most grounded in reality.

AE: Now, what's interesting in the book is that he actually doesn't *want* Billy to join his case. I mean, there is that whole weird thing that happens in the book where he's so manipulative that he tries to set up a situation where Billy cannot join his case, because he doesn't want to have Billy serve. He wants to have Billy serve as a witness. His purposes are so complex and really quite in some way incomprehensible in terms of what he really wants from this scene. In a classic sense where you are trying to figure out what it is that a character wants when he says, "let *me* use your rage." And then to have this interrupted by this phone call and there is this great moment that Ian Holm has where, when he gets the phone call from his daughter, at first it's a complete disruption. He immediately thinks of a way where he can use it as a device, as a prop. Here, the phone rings, and he says, "that's my daughter" and then suddenly you can see him think, "oh, wait a second, I can use this!" And he suddenly makes it into a theatrical device that he can use to tell his story. It's so completely forced somehow, it doesn't work with Billy at all. It's the one moment in the film where I think Mitchell allows himself a complete indulgence. It's a theatrical moment, but the theatricality doesn't really work. Billy leaves the scene, and he continues talking to himself. It's the moment where you really realize what a weak character he actually is, or how disembodied his pain has become.

(5) Billy's visit to the Burnell house:

AE: This is the scene of great reckoning. This is Billy driving to the Burnells' home. It's an extraordinary moment. We see Nicole's point of view as she watches Billy entering the house and what's about to happen is really, I think, one of the key moments that informs her decision. Billy is someone that she projects a tremendous amount into. I think a lot of people have misinterpreted this as being a sexual fantasy she has about Billy, which was never really my intention. I don't know if it was yours, Billy ...

RB: No, no, never...

AE: Er, I mean Russell -- Billy -- a bit of transference there! Here [as they are standing in the kitchen], there is a tremendous sort of tension in the choreography, this triangle, this recalcitrance, this [Sam's] crossing of the arms -- they don't really want him inside that house.

RB: What Nicole is doing in these several different scenes -- the ones preceding with Mitchell Stephens and this one too -- is that she's groping her way toward a moral center. She wants to have a moral position that she can live by and she's obviously abandoned the one that's set for her by her parents. She's moved on first to Mitchell Stephens -- you see the narrowing of her eyes on him. And now she's moving on to Billy Ansel who is perhaps even more rock-steady, a moral center for her. She's looking to become a free person.

AE: I think what happens in this scene too is in seeing her father try to defend his decision and to see Billy's position. There is something quite extraordinary as Billy tries to remind them of the community they had but then later makes this incredible offer, which I'll talk about in a second. When Billy at this moment says, "I was behind the bus, I saw it happen," we know exactly what he saw because of the way that scene has been presented. We are his experience about knowing. And Bruce Greenwood here is just ... it's an *extraordinary* scene for him as we see the parents foolishly trying to defend their actions and explain their reasons behind going with Mitchell and we can see Billy's complete incomprehension of this. And now Nicole listens in and what she hears is so extraordinary because she hears her father say that they need money. And Billy says, "well, there was the money that you got, that we all got from the case." And then Billy says, "I'll give you the money I got for my kids." And when Sam says, "that's not enough," I think it's very clear to Nicole at that point that the father's reasons are far darker than anything she had imagined. That his need to win this case has nothing to do with a material need for money to help her, but rather to give closure to this whole history that they have. And it's at that moment that she understands that this case is not about money, but rather it's about people denying and trying to camouflage and trying to reward themselves for something that they have no right to claim. And that Nicole will only be used once again. Her body is being used as a prop, as a device. Before, it was used as a means of the father being able to satisfy his vanity and now it's being used for something else. [As Billy leaves, he sees Nicole sitting in the hallway:] This is an incredible exchange between Nicole and Billy, a bonding. Look at Sam here, resolving that he's gonna go out and confront Billy, and the way he comes out of this shed of a home and says to Billy, "it's about time you got on with your life." And Billy here could literally make a decision to go running back and beat the shit out of this guy, but decides ...

RB: ... it's not worth it.

(6) The suspended bus:

This simple gesture of seeing the suspended bus, knowing what a repository of information and mythology that bus is, and seeing Billy's face and seeing him leave that frame, and then using this image of this bus twisting in the air resolving into the image of this ferris wheel....