Max Winkler: Fall River is the 'heartbeat' of 'Jungleland' movie

FALL RIVER — Though the city is never actually mentioned by name, Fall River has a starring role in the film “Jungleland.”

In a recent phone interview, director and co-writer Max Winkler said right from the first draft, the location of the brothers’ hometown was intended to be Fall River, well before shooting parts of the film here was a done deal.

The Fall River setting is because one of the movie’s screenwriters, David Branson Smith, was familiar with Fall River from spending time in Little Compton, R.I. “It’s really rare when you choose a location that you actually get to shoot in that location for what it’s supposed to be,” said Winkler. “It was originally scripted as Fall River, and that’s a really important character, and we were really lucky we got to shoot there.”

Winkler also developed a love of the Northeast, and mill towns in particular, during a time when he lived in Providence. Mills towns, the history of the Northeast and how the Northeast is portrayed in one of his all-time favorite movies, “The Last Detail,” and the male relationships in John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” were all influences that went into the “Jungleland” screenplay.

“Jungleland” tells the story of down-and-out brothers Stanley and Lion Kaminisky, portrayed respectively by Charlie Hunnam and Jack O’Connell. In debt to a crime boss, they agree to head across country where all their hopes are pinned on boxer Lion winning the bare-knuckles Jungleland fight to pay off the debt. But there’s a hitch: they also agree to deliver a young woman, Sky (played by Jessica Barden) to an even more menacing crime boss in Reno.

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Describing it as a story about two men who are unable to communicate their feelings about each other, Winkler said, “Something about that felt really compelling to me, and doing a male melodrama felt like something that could be really fun to do.”

Though boxing is an element of the movie, in particular, the looming Jungleland bare-knuckles fight, Winkler said he never viewed it as a boxing movie along the lines of a “Rocky” or other films of that genre. Rather, he said, “it’s a nod to the history of people who fight professionally and the toll that takes on their soul and their psyche; the pure American idea of literally fighting to get out of the caste you find yourself in. We never saw it as a boxing movie, just as I don’t see ‘On the Waterfront’ as a boxing movie. It’s just there’s an element of fighting in that movie and it’s very influential on who that character is.”

Filming for “Jungleland” in Greater Fall River back in 2018 took place in several different locations including the Police Athletic League Hall, Knight’s Quality Auto, the YMCA, a tenement on Tecumseh Street, street scenes that show the now-demolished twin towers at Brayton Point and inside Merrow Manufacturing, where the real employees there are seen in the background in the film.

“The movie wouldn’t be what it is without all the incredible people in Fall River and New Bedford — the way they worked on the movie and populated the background scenes and greeted us each day,” said Winkler, son of actor Henry Winkler.

One place that was instrumental behind-the-scenes, he said, was the café at Portugalia Marketplace where he went every day for lunch.

“It’s become one of my favorite markets in the world. So much of the movie was conceived between the cinematographer and I sitting in that market and discussing what we were going to do the next day,” he said.

Though he stayed in New Bedford, where some of the bar and cobblestone street scenes were filmed, Winkler said Fall River — and in particular its old mills — is just “the heartbeat of the movie.”

The former dog track in Raynham was another locale in the movie, as was the Venus de Milo in Swansea and Joe's Diner in Taunton. They also built the Venus de Milo room — a hotel in the movie, in the Wamsutta Club in New Bedford's Arnold Mansion.

“We were all over and everywhere we went we were greeted with such warmth and tenderness — especially for Charlie (Hunnam). We loved it,” he said.

All three lead actors are from working-class cities and towns in Northern England, and they felt at home in this area of the country where many of the city and town names are the same as those back home, said Winkler.

“With the exception of the way people talk and what they call the game of soccer, there’s not a lot of differences,” he said. “I think they all felt a real deep sense of history in the locations where we were filming, and it wasn’t hard for them to wrap their heads around it. They just had to get the accents right.”

He credits former Trinity Repertory Company actor/director Wendy Overly, who has since passed away, with helping the actors achieve those Massachusetts accents as the movie’s dialect coach.

“She was such an instrumental part in having the authenticity of the movie work by coaching these actors relentlessly to get their accents to work,” he said. “The movie is what it is with a big thanks to her.”

Eager to have all the people here who worked on the movie or had a part in the production see the final results, Winkler said he regrets not being able to come to Fall River for a movie premiere due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“Fall River is such an underdog town with so much attention always going to Boston. When people asked why we were shooting in Fall River, I’d say because we want to because that’s where the story takes place. That’s the heartbeat of the movie. I see so much of Fall River in the Kaminsky brothers in the way they act and the way they view the world and their 'f— you' attitude to anyone who stands in their way,” said Winkler.

“Jungleland,” released by Paramount Pictures, will be available on premium on-demand and for digital purchase Nov. 10 on various platforms including Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play and FandangoNOW.

Email Linda Murphy at lmurphy@heraldnews.com.