Lance Hammer Debuts at HFA

Particular landscapes can have a strong emotional impact on artists, and for first-time writer and director Lance Hammer, who screened his debut feature “Ballast” at the Harvard Film Archive on Monday, that locale proved to be the Mississippi Delta. The film, which has won numerous accolades, reflects not only Hammer’s sensitivity to place, but also the authenticity of the characters who inhabit that place.

“I was unprepared for the experience, a deep connection to something I cannot articulate,” Hammer said, describing his experience living in the Delta for 10 years. “The [film’s] story came out of a desire to capture the Delta in winter...It has to do with a sense of sorrow on a profound level, as well as an appreciation for an intense beauty, and the two were married for me.”

The film’s striking use of the Delta as both a backdrop and an important tonal and thematic element has already led some critics to call “Ballast” one of the best debut features in years. Hammer was given the award for Best Director at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The film, which will begin a theatrical run at the Kendall Square Cinema on October 17, revolves around the impact that a man’s suicide has on his twin brother, ex-lover, and young son. Utilizing three nonprofessional, local actors to portray the principal characters lends the film a sense of weight and realism. But the actors do far more in the film than act; according to Hammer, they were even responsible for writing the actual dialogue.

“People are an extension of a place for me, so the language had to come from them,” Hammer said. Though he knew the local idiom, Hammer chose to write only structural dialogue and nailed down the actual script in a three-month-long rehearsal period with the actors.

“We talked about each scene,” Hammer said. “I would ask them, ‘Do you believe this?’” Hammer believes that because the actors were not given a concrete set of lines to memorize, the intimidation of being in front of the camera was largely eliminated. “They welcomed the idea that I truly wanted their voices,” he said. “There is nothing more powerful than authorship, a sense of ownership.”

In a move consciously contrary to typical Hollywood filmmaking styles that stress linearity, Hammer constructed his film’s narrative around what he called a series of “elliptical moments.” The emotional complexities of these moments are only hinted at, rather than explained outright through clunky dialogue. This decision, however, did not complicate the acting process.

“I explained everything that happened to the characters before page one of the script,” Hammer said. Still, he sometimes gave the actors slightly different versions of their background stories because, according to Hammer, “that’s the way the truth is.” He would then put the actors together and have them rehearse a scene, each person believing something slightly different about the way the fictional events had transpired in their characters’ pasts.

The ending of “Ballast” also defies conventions, as it may seem abrupt to members of the audience seeking a neatly wrapped resolution to the emotional chaos. Describing the particularities of the ending, Hammer said that it only involved “a small transformation of the psyche of the characters.” But rather than viewing it as an anti-climax, Hammer sees the ending as the truest destination of the film’s narrative. “That was the whole point of the story,” he said. “A slight psychological shift.”

—Staff writer Bram A. Strochlic can be reached at bstrochl@fas.harvard.edu.