At the beginning of “Club Zero,” the disquieting new film from director and co-writer Jessica Hausner, a trigger warning appears on screen: “This film contains scenes of behaviour control and related eating disorders which may be distressing for some viewers.” You can’t say you weren’t warned. Over the next two hours, Hausner immerses us in the disturbing world of a nondescript international boarding school, where an eerily serene new teacher, Miss Novak (Mia Wasikowska), is enlightening her students about the virtues of “conscious eating,” preaching the gospel that Western consumerism isn’t just harming our planet but our bodies as well. Eating less won’t just save the environment, she explains—it’s better for us as individuals, ensuring that we’ll live longer and feel healthier. In principle, what Miss Novak is advocating seems reasonable—until she takes it too far, with her impressionable class following her every deadly instruction.
Greeted by mostly hostile reviews at Cannes, “Club Zero” is the latest chilly, absurdist provocation from the Austrian auteur, whose last film, 2019’s “Little Joe,” received an equally bumpy reception at the prestigious French film festival. Hausner, 51, has gotten used to dividing a room with her movies. Her 2009 drama “Lourdes,” with Sylvie Testud and a pre-“Blue Is the Warmest Color” Léa Seydoux, concerned a young woman with multiple sclerosis who travels to the titular Catholic pilgrimage site—not because she’s religious but because she likes the excuse to get out of the house. To her shock, though, she’s suddenly cured—is there, in fact, a God? And if so, why is He helping a nonbeliever instead of all the faithful who are also on the trip with her? “Lourdes,” Hausner’s third film and first widely seen in the U.S., is a wry, thought-provoking masterpiece, but I know colleagues who loathe it.
Nothing has changed for Hausner since: Each time out, she asks indelicate questions about touchy issues—religion, suicide, motherhood, medicinally-induced happiness—and she’s unafraid to agitate viewers in the process. “Club Zero” is a full meal of disturbing themes—eating disorders, cult leaders, checked-out parents, dangerous groupthink, economic disparity, loneliness, global warming—as we watch Miss Novak encourage her students to eat less and less as a form of protest to our overfed society and the grossly cruel food industry. But even if their intentions are good, the results are terrifying, and Hausner follows them to their surprising, shocking and, ultimately, logical endpoint.
Speaking over Zoom from Vienna, Hausner explains why her film starts with that trigger warning. “It was an idea that came from one of the distributors,” she says. “We had some test screenings, and some audiences said they think that the film could trigger eating-disorder experiences. That’s why we put that trigger warning in.” Still, Hausner seems to have mixed feelings about the decision. “This is something I obviously cannot judge well. Is it okay or is it not okay to have one or to have not one? I don’t know.” But she remembers the reaction it prompted at Cannes. “We [didn’t] think that it would be so striking—I was really astonished that a lot of journalists referred to it.”
No doubt some will view that trigger warning as a flippant dare to the audience: Can you handle what’s coming? (Some critics have used it as more proof in their minds that Hausner’s films are merely superficially button-pushing.) How does Hausner feel about her reputation for being a provocateur? And what does she think of her new movie’s most disturbing scene? (I won’t spoil it, but if you’re interested to learn more, click here.) In conversation, Hausner is far from a bomb-thrower—anyone expecting a Lars von Trier-like instigator will be disappointed. But what came through clearly was that she means to challenge her audience—and that she doesn’t care if she gets some bad reviews because of it. Just so long as she gets some good ones as well.
If I’m doing the math right, your son is close to the age of the students in “Club Zero.” I wondered if what partly inspired your interest in making this film was concerns about what his generation is going through.
It’s a little bit a view into the future—he’s younger, he’s 14—but the questions that a parent asks herself are similar questions. It’s always about trying to find the best protection for your child and trying to avoid any dangerous situation. If the child is [younger], you don’t want him to fall from the playground [equipment]. And if the child is older, there are other threats and other dangers.
I was very interested in investigating that danger for young adults—which has a lot to do with them becoming their own personality and trying to develop their own perspective on life and their own opinions. Young adults try out things, and they’re very open to certain ideas. And that’s normal, but it’s a very delicate moment.
Young people tend to be idealistic, with their worldview becoming more pessimistic and cynical as they get older. “Club Zero” focuses on that scary period when such idealism can be exploited or perverted by others—namely, Miss Novak.
Every young person has that longing to find a meaning in life. A lot of adults, also—when you become older, you’re so busy getting your day organized that you forget to ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” I’ve had young adults in previous films of mine because I find it interesting that moment in life when you’re still open, when you’re still trying to find your position. So, for me as a filmmaker, it’s a great opportunity to question certain positions.
My film does not judge and say, “This is right and this is wrong, and they are the good ones and they are the bad ones.” That’s the weird thing about “Club Zero”: You have to choose as an audience what you think of it. And at some point, the way those young people start to believe in Miss Novak and her ideas has a lot to do with their urge to change [things], to really make a difference—but that’s also threatening us older adults, because we have become used to our life. But the younger people still question it, and of course it’s exaggerated [in the movie]—you have to eat to live—but what if those young people have decided that it is more important to change the world than to just live? Maybe they’re willing to give their lives. It’s not a film about saying they don’t understand that you have to eat—that’s not the point. The point is maybe they do understand that it’s threatening their lives, and they still do it.
Your films are often called “provocative.” Would you describe yourself as a provocative person when you were young? Were you a troublemaker at school?
I was always questioning things, but I wasn’t causing a lot of trouble. I was a very good student—I had very good grades, and I did everything on time—but I questioned the teachers, and this was, for some of them, quite annoying. [Laughs] I remember that they asked my parents to come to school, but they couldn’t complain about my grades, because I had good grades—they complained about me asking endless questions and questioning what they say all the time.
That is something that I still have that’s still annoying people, but I’m questioning those things that we all think [are] certain. It never convinced me [that I should] accept that this should be the truth—I always try to find the other side of it.
You are often put in the same cinematic camp as button-pushing artists like Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl and Lars von Trier. Is that where you put yourself?
I’m sure that makes me part of a group. But on the other hand, I do think that the female perspective that I have is something that I couldn’t find in many male directors that otherwise I would appreciate. So I do feel a little bit more related to filmmakers like Maya Deren—she inspired me a lot, especially when I was a young student in film school and we only were taught male directors’ films. They pretended that there were no women! [Laughs] Later, I found out that there were women, and then I was really shocked. I thought, “I’m going to sue the film academy because they lied to us! This was not part of the curriculum!”
Then I saw the documentary by Mark Cousins, “Women Make Film”—I was in tears when I saw that film, it’s incredible. There’s a whole world that nobody was talking about in film school. Back then I felt lost—I thought, “There are no women, why should I be able to be a filmmaker?”—so I was really confused. That’s why I was happy to find some female filmmakers to back me up—to give me some confidence.
Both “Little Joe” and “Club Zero” premiered at Cannes, and the reviews tended to be pretty negative. The consensus seemed to be, “Oh, that Jessica Hausner is just trying to be provocative again, trying to get a rise out of her audience.” How do you engage with that criticism of your work?
I’m used to a certain criticism. I have the feeling my films have always had an effect on the audience—there is a certain space for interpretation [in my work], and I leave that room for interpretation on purpose. But some people don’t like that—they think, “Oh, something is missing. Why doesn’t the film tell me what to think?” But I don’t have only negative reviews—it is always partly negative, partly positive. [My work] provokes some people to say, “We don’t like it”—maybe this will never change. As long as the other half says, “I love it,” I’m okay.
There’s a scene in “Club Zero” that’s very upsetting. I won’t spoil it for readers, but it’s incredibly uncomfortable to watch. When you come up with a scene like that, do you worry, because of your reputation, that people will just dismiss it as inflammatory? Or, conversely, do you think, “I’m glad this is going to upset some viewers”?
When I write a script, a script has a life of its own. I have a lot of discussions with the producers, with my co-writer, with the cinematographer and people I trust. We talk about the film, ideas develop, and there are moments where somebody says, “Oh, I hope this is not going to be too offensive or misunderstood.” Then I think about it: “Oh, maybe it could be misunderstood. Maybe it’s too offensive.” But then writing the script, all those ideas take their own road—there is a moment where I have to say, “This scene has to be there because it’s about the character and it’s about what the film is about.”
The film is about radicalism, and [that scene] is another moment of radicalism—there was not an option for me to not have it in the film. In a way, [what happens in that scene] is a weird form of catharsis, also. Without the scene, maybe the film would be toothless. You cannot know what the critique will be, so I do what the film wants from me.
“Club Zero” is sometimes described as a satire or a dark comedy. Obviously, the movie is about very distressing, serious subject matter. How funny do you think your film is?
I think a lot about the tone of a film. I maybe wouldn’t call it a comedy, but I do laugh when I write certain dialogue or certain scenes. When my co-writer and I work together, it’s a lot about “Is there a humor to the scene? Is there a thrill? Is there something that is challenging, interesting, unusual?” We often laugh [while] writing the script. But in the beginning of a film, I’m searching for that tone.
I once made a film about a double suicide—it was called “Amour Fou.” I had planned that film 10 years earlier, but the script that I wrote was really sad. [Laughs] It was about two people who don’t want to live anymore and they jump from a cliff. That was horrible, and I wrote it and then I put it in the drawer and said, “Okay, I’m not going to make that film because it’s too sad for me.” So I only start a project if I find that specific tone—it’s serious, but it’s also saying, “We all are absurd because we take ourselves seriously, but we are not so important. Life ends and everything that we think is super-important is suddenly completely ridiculous.” [Laughs]
When “Little Joe” came out, you talked about it being a reflection of your own feelings about the pressures of being the “perfect” mom. In “Club Zero,” Mia Wasikowska’s Miss Novak is an unmarried, childless professional woman. Our society doesn’t seem to know what to do with that kind of woman, either. In some ways, the two characters feel like mirror images commenting on what is “acceptable” for women to be.
In all my films, the female characters are questioning clichés—they aren’t what they “should” be. It’s actually a series of female characters who are “wrong” or who cannot adapt to what they should do and look like and be like.
I’m also interested in trying to find characters that are typically male characters. For example, my first feature film, “Lovely Rita,” there is a young girl who shoots her parents. Back then at least, you had all those men killing, rebelling against their fathers. But what about the young woman? Where is her rebellion? And in “Club Zero,” there are female cult leaders, but it’s not so common to think about a woman as a seducer, as a manipulator, as a psychopath.
Were there real-world individuals you had in mind while conceiving Miss Novak, this Pied Piper-like teacher who leads these impressionable students astray? Certainly there’s no shortage of such examples in the news.
I do think there are people who offer simple truths, and there are enough people who follow those people. I even would say this is a typical thing in our times—we are all trying to find meaning, and religion has become very weak, and other ideologies are offered now.
We don’t really know where and when “Club Zero” takes place, but it’s in Europe or in the Western world. The refusal of nutrition is only typical for a world where there is enough food, so it is a story about wealthy people—about us. It is a film about trying to find a way to influence things in life—it’s a very desperate move that [Miss Novak’s class] is doing, but it’s a move.
Anorexia and bulimia are central to the film, and you have talked about going to a Catholic boarding school and witnessing these eating disorders. Are such problems worse now than they were back then?
In the research for this film, I did talk to teachers and house masters in boarding schools, and I tried to find out if eating disorders are still happening a lot, like when I was young. I was told, yes, it’s still a big problem. Another thing that young people are doing is self-harm—they cut their skin. Self-destructive actions are present—they have been when I was young, and they’re present now
But the young generation now—through the interviews that I was doing—I found out they have a very strong and real fear about climate change. I do think that more kids nowadays really suffer from that fear. It’s always a question of how the measurement works, but there seems to be an increase [in] depressive feelings. Climate change is a real threat, and what my film is showing is that those young people are serious about it.
“Club Zero” takes this behavior to extremes, but political advocates will sometimes go on hunger strikes to raise awareness for a cause. How effective do you think such protests are?
I understand that, in some situations, people are desperate to make themselves be heard, and hunger strike is one means of political protest. Sometimes it has no effect, sometimes it has [an] effect—this, I cannot judge. But in “Club Zero,” the young girl Elsa (Ksenia Devriendt) definitely links her denial to eat with her [politics] when she criticizes the food industry. I’ve talked to many people, and they all say that’s an interesting moment because what she says is really true: The food industry seduces us to eat crap just for some people to make money. We can’t deny it, and at the same time, we feel sorry for the girl who is sacrificing herself to make that point so clear.
What about advocacy in general? Your film examines the limitations while also acknowledging the legitimate ills of the world that need to be combated. Did making “Club Zero” change your opinion on what advocacy can actually accomplish?
It’s a very complicated question. I don’t have an answer, but I am dealing with it—in my next film, I’m describing a problem that is hard to solve. [It] is very complicated, in general, to find solutions that improve situations for everyone. Not everyone is the same, so if you implement changes, maybe it’s good for one person, bad for the other person. And the other thing is you cannot foresee all the consequences of your deeds.
But I wanted to say something in “Club Zero”: An idea can be very wrong and very destructive, but part of it can be true and right. This is very daring to do, I learned, because people don’t want to know that. They want you to say, “Those are the wrongs, and those are the rights.” And in my films you always have grays. That’s probably the provocative thing, more than [that upsetting scene in “Club Zero”]: It’s really about the terrible confusion of “right” and “wrong.”
Does it frustrate you that some audiences won’t follow you into the gray?
My only advocacy is to let the doubts and the questions grow. It’s really important to doubt ourselves, to doubt people who say, “This is right and this is wrong,” to doubt movies that pretend to have a simple truth for you. It’s complex, and maybe if we understand the complexity, that’s already a change to the better.
Your first two films, “Lovely Rita” and “Hotel,” are finally getting distributed in the U.S. When you look back at them now, do you see an evolution in your work since then?
The core parts in my films were already there—[even] in the first films, it was very much about questioning right and wrong. It has always been my interest to find situations where you’re torn between two or more options of true and false. I saw the films again—we did a [restoration] for the digital prints—and I thought [it was] interesting, already back then, that I made films about showing the mystery in things that we thought we knew what they were.
Did negative reactions to those early movies teach you anything? Did you become aware, “Oh, I guess some people are going to like my work and some people are really going to recoil”?
I learned it after “Hotel.” Back then, I was, I don’t know, only 30 years old? It was my second feature film—I took it very seriously and very personally—and the [criticism] from the press, but also from some audiences, was quite aggressive. I was astonished because in the film there is nothing offensive, but what made the people angry was that they don’t get an answer. It’s a mystery film, and the mystery isn’t solved in the end.
I thought they would enjoy it, but I learned something about what an audience is used to [seeing]. I wouldn’t say that people aren’t able to appreciate doubt or mystery—it’s just a question of how you deliver it. After “Hotel,” I decided, “Okay, now I understand that this is what I’m doing—I make films where the mystery isn’t solved, where the audience has to make up their own mind.” So I took one or two years to think about, “How can I deliver that idea in a way that at least some of the audience likes it?”
I came up with different options, and with [my next feature] “Lourdes,” I did change a little bit of my filmmaking—I tried to give more clues. There is more dialogue in the [later] films. There is maybe more aesthetic or more colors. The style has developed. Also, the music score has become very important—there are more moments for an audience to understand and grasp the idea.
“Club Zero” isn’t just about the students and Miss Novak, of course—it’s also about the teenagers’ parents, who are often portrayed as privileged, self-absorbed and out-of-touch. They’re eventually worried about their kids, but they can’t really reach them. You’re a parent—are those characters speaking to your own fears and experience?
I always have to like my characters—it’s a sympathy that comes with writing them—and with the parents, that’s me and my friends. Of course, the film has a certain tone of making fun of them, but I have sympathy for them, although they do wrong and they’re ridiculous.
That must be the scariest thing as a parent—not being able to help your child.
The scariest thing are the moments that you don’t see where you do something wrong. A father [in the film] has the T-shirt [that says] “Blind”—that’s the scary moment, because he doesn’t see that he [has] a blind spot.
As a parent, sometimes you don’t notice. As long as you notice, you’re okay—you can do something wrong, and afterwards you apologize, and if you’re serious about it, it will improve the situation. But the dangerous moments are when you don’t even see how you’re doing wrong—when you don’t understand.
]]>It’s Time to Give a FECK: Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness, launching on May 7, 2024, is a book by Chaz Ebert, publisher of RogerEbert.com. In it, she combines personal stories, academic research, news events, and practical steps, and warm encouragement on how to make the world more humane and connected. She also explains the surprising impact practicing these qualities has on our own sense of purpose and happiness.
It was a great pleasure to interview my friend and colleague about this heartwarming and inspirational book.
For a serious, even spiritual subject, your book has a very lighthearted title. Why did you chose that
FECK is an acronym for Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness, all pretty weighty concepts. Most people don't think of fun when taking steps to help elevate humanity. But if applied in the right spirit these things can absolutely bring us joy! And besides, the title is a bit catchy and makes people laugh when they think it can be good to Give A FECK!
Your book has a very engaging combination of your personal experiences and references to news stories, academic research, and even a Broadway musical. Why was it important to include your own stories?
I was told by other published writers that when you include your own stories it personalizes your message and makes it less preachy. I had to put some skin in the game, so to speak. And believe me, it wasn’t easy, I would rather write and talk about other people. However, I know that when I read another writer’s work I appreciate them letting us in and allowing us to get to know them better. It makes for a more authentic experience. I have to admit it was emotional to relive some of the personal experiences.
What discovery surprised you most in your research?
I was the most surprised and touched by the stories of “Forgiveness.” It makes me weep when I think about people whose family members were killed, and yet they found that very profound capacity to forgive the perpetrators. Whether it was the congregation at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, or the Nickel Mines Amish Schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, discovering that you forgive for yourself as much as for the other person was a revelation. It frees you and keeps you from being imprisoned by the pain and resentment. Forgiveness is really difficult and really important. That fact was brought home when we hosted Israelis and Palestinians at Ebertfest after the showing of the film "Disturbing The Peace" about their paths to forgiveness.
You make an important point in your discussion of Archbishop Desmond Tutu that forgiveness is not only a spiritual obligation but in the most practical sense “political expediency.” Many people might think that because an act helps to achieve a political goal it is somehow less “pure.” What do you think?
Yes, that’s a good observation. Because Archbishop Tutu was a man of the cloth you would think that his basis for forgiveness would be only the bible. And yes, he does talk about the biblical basis, but he also expounds on the political expediency. He and President Nelson Mandela led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to unify South Africa after the abolishment of apartheid. He said he lost many friends over it because some people wanted revenge more than reconciliation. However, they knew that after a publicly remorseful confession of wrongs by the offenders under the old apartheid system, there had to be a road to redemption in order to avoid bloodshed. That is no less pure than any other type of forgiveness.
Roger famously called movies “empathy machines.” Do you have three or four favorites you found especially powerful?
I loved Roger's emphasis on empathy. One of my favorite movies when I need a good cry is “Terms of Endearment.” Shirley MacLaine’s character is tough and not very warm, so at first you shy away from her. But you empathize with her pain when she is at the hospital bed of her daughter played by Debra Winger. One of the movies that I mention in the book is Ava DuVernay’s “Selma.” She found different ways to help us empathize with characters, even those like Dr Martin Luther King,Jr, (who was portrayed by David Oyelowo) who is usually presented as more of an icon than a real-life man. She humanized him. But you don’t have to have a serious movie to exhibit empathy. One of the best empathetic movies is the animated feature “Inside Out.” There, they literally label each emotion of the little girl Riley, and let you experience those emotions along with her.
Your book has many wonderful examples of acts of forgiveness, empathy, compassion and kindness, and often the smallest gestures are the most meaningful. My favorite is the one about the health care professionals putting photos of their faces on their PPE garb. Another was just about saying, “Hello.” Why do those actions make a difference?
We think that unless we have the majesty of a Nelson Mandela or an Archbishop Desmond Tutu, our actions don’t count, but they do. Even the smallest gesture of compassion or kindness can change someone’s life for the better. I spoke with neuroscientists while researching this book who told me that more and more research is proving that acts as simple as saying hello to our neighbors have an affect on our state of well-being. And there is no doubt that the healthcare workers who cared enough to tape photos of themselves on their PPE gear so that their little patients felt a connection to a real human being provided a measurable uplift. It made those patients feel less isolated and afraid. And that is what is the most exciting about the stories in the book. You will find that you don't have to be "born" with it, you can develop the muscles of empathy, and compassion and kindness and even forgiveness by practicing them in ways big or small on a consistent basis.
How do we get better at deep listening?
Nell, it is partly intentional. Our lives are all so busy that it is not always easy to stop and take the time to put ourselves in the shoes of another. But when we do we often find the benefits of truly listening to another is a two-way street. The listener is rewarded as much as the person we are listening to. When I was growing up my mother told me that if you took the time to really pay attention to people you will find something amazing about even the most ordinary-seeming person. And so I guess another answer to that question is to develop a curiosity about what amazing thing you may find out. That helped me to become a better listener. Now, the truth is you don’t always discover that “amazing” thing right away. Ha! But you do find that by giving someone the respect of your attention, there is an exchange of “feel good” hormones. You make the person feel honored by being seen and heard, and you feel good by discovering that light in another human being. It also goes far in our efforts to Give a FECK!
I love your description of your mother. To be so sunny and loving is quite a challenge with nine children! You say everyone has a mission. How would you describe your mission?
I am only now putting all the pieces together about the image I have of my mother, and how that helped shape me. Sometimes I wonder if I am painting too saintly a picture of my mother, but when I talk to the people in my family or even my friends who knew her, they say it is an accurate picture. She really did bring the sunshine with her when she walked into the room. Now she was also very human, but she just seemed to have been gifted with an inordinate capacity to love. When she looked at you she made you feel as if you were better than you thought you were. It was so healing. We see so many who may have a "child within" who is yearning for that kind of healing. Or just in our everyday interactions whether at work or in politics, we see a need for a renewed decency and unity. And so I see that as part of my mission on this earth. I want to Give a FECK and make the stories and exercises available to help others do this too. My mission is to help spread some of that compassion and joy and kindness that she exuded. In the end, it is really all about love.
To pre-order It's Time To Give A FECK: Elevating Humanity Through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness, click here.
]]>When director Maureen Bharoocha sent Rita Moreno the script for the horror-comedy film “The Prank” the EGOT winner had a few requests before signing above the dotted line.
“She read it over a weekend and was like, ‘I have two questions before I sign on to say yes,’” Bharoocha recalled to RogerEbert.com ahead of the film’s March 15 release. “‘Can I smoke a cigarette? And can I wear leather pants?’ And I was like, ‘A hundred percent you can do that.’ It’s not often that you get your first pick.”
And if Rita Moreno as a cruel, cigarette-smoking and leather-pants wearing physics teacher isn’t enough of a reason to watch “The Prank,” then the plot, which is about Moreno’s students falsely accusing her of murder, will be.
As a viewer, perhaps the biggest joy of the schoolyard-hijinks-gone-wrong film is that the 92-year-old actress seemed to be having so much fun being bad.
“And she’s never played anything like this,” Bharoocha continued. “I was thinking, maybe if we can get her the script, she'd be like, ‘Oh, I want do something that I’ve never done before,’ and it could be enticing in that way.”
And the rest, they say, is history. The film premiered at SXSW in 2022, and Moreno’s turn in the campy, genre-bending story was met with applause.
For this year’s Women Writers Week, RogerEbert.com spoke with Bharoocha via Zoom about casting and directing the legendary actress in the “part comedy, part thrills” drama, the gamble of mixing genres, and the “zigzaggy” career path that has led her to SXSW and beyond.
Hannah Loesch: I think a good place to start would be the origin story for “The Prank.” How did you become attached to the story, and how did you get EGOT winner Rita Moreno to star?
It kind of happened in two different ways. I got this script written by Rebecca Flinn-White and Zak White and it just kind of leapt off the page for me. It was just so much fun and I hadn’t read anything like it. And so often as a director, when you read other people’s scripts, it’s like, do I connect with this? No. But something about their script was just so exciting. I immediately could visualize it and I kind of made it my own in my head. And so I was like, Oh, I really wanna direct this movie. And then I had always wanted to work with Rita Moreno. She's a legend and an EGOT and just somebody who I’ve admired for so long… So I kind of kind of put my spin on it and we sent it to Rita.
Cailin Loesch: Tell us about Rita Moreno as a villain in this story. When I first read about “The Prank,” I just kept picturing her as this Cruella De Vil–type character who targets children instead of dogs. [All laugh] That could not be accurate. I assume she made the role her own.
One thing that I think we can all relate to is having tough-as-nails-type teachers who are really hard on you. I had Mrs. Jordan, my seventh-grade nemesis, who I thought was always a little harder on me than everybody else and picked on me. And when you’re young, you don’t realize that sometimes it’s because they see more in you, so they’re tougher on you. The character of Mrs. Wheeler, that’s how I approached her with Rita: She’s a tough teacher who loves teaching and kind of loves the idea of punishing her students to make them better. She takes a little satisfaction from that. That devilish glee from really being tough on your students was where we drew from.
HL: At least she means well!
CL: I love how you mentioned seventh grade, because that’s when I had one of my worst mean teacher experiences. I asked my teacher for help on a math problem and she literally said to me “Go ask your sister.”
HL: And Cailin was like “My sister’s not a math teacher.” [All laugh]
CL: I don’t know if that was constructive. I think I’d probably rather have had Mrs. Wheeler.
HL: People have tough bosses, too! You get it your whole life.
Right! I think we all can relate. But Mrs. Wheeler is kind of preparing students for life’s lessons.
CL: I like the idea that it’s the teacher trying to make you better as opposed to just being out to get you. If you only saw the character in this movie from the student’s perspective, you might not know her intentions. But how do you convey them to the audience?
That’s part of the fun of the movie. You don’t really know what her intention is. What’s great is it’s part comedy and part thrills. Like, how does this prank unravel? How does it make her upset? What are the things that they discover? Who is telling the truth? And in this age of social media, it’s like, when do things go too far and what will people do to get revenge on one another?
HL: So, we know she had her leather and her cigarette, but is there a side to Rita Moreno as an actor that you saw in this role that you hadn’t seen before? She’s obviously had such a long and storied career. What in the movie do you think is going to make audiences go “I didn’t think that I would ever see Rita Moreno in a role like this.”
I think sometimes people forget how long and layered her career has been. Some people are probably more familiar with her from “One Day at a Time” and “West Side Story” than “Oz.” She has such a deep well to draw from that she was able to kind of pivot and layer Mrs. Wheeler in a way that’s not one note. She does have this exterior life that Rita is bringing to the role. What was really exciting is that normally we see our teachers in one way in the classroom, but we do get to see the many sides of Mrs. Wheeler throughout this movie.
CL: Do you feel like the Rita you met on day one, when you didn’t know her yet, is the same as the Rita you know now? Do you see her differently after getting to work so closely with her for that extended period of time?
I do, but I think actually what it was is that my love and affection and my admiration for her just grew. She just loves movies. Every single thing that we were doing on set, whether it was doing a silly little gag with a flag or sitting on an apple box doing lines off-camera, she was willing to do. And for somebody who’s 92 and who has been in this industry for as long as she has, the fact that she still has such a love and appetite for making movies was really inspiring. It elevated everybody’s performance across the board. We had Connor and Ramona who were just so incredible. Everybody was on their A game. And then getting to bring Keith David in—how excited he was when he was doing scenes with Rita and two of them throwing the ball back and forth—made me excited. It was an energy that we were feeding off of. When Rita steps on set, it kind of changes the dynamic. There is such a reverence.
HL: How do you think people are going to feel as the credits are rolling, as they’re leaving the theater? What do you think people will from it as it relates to the digital age, the age of social media that we live in?
One, I hope they stay for the credits, ’cause we have a bunch of fun bloopers from the movies. You get to see how excited we were and how much fun we had on set, truly. I hope they just have a good time. They get to sit in a movie theater, which is so rare now. The movie kind of examines what we do on social media, because it is so much a part of our lives. We can get kind of out of control. You can’t really believe anything you see now. And we made this movie before everyone was talking about artificial intelligence, so it’s even more of a complicated problem now.
CL: The premise of the movie, students playing a prank, is an age-old tale. But at the same time, this concept would’ve been completely different 50 years ago because it wouldn’t involve social media.
HL: If John Hughes directed it, it would’ve been a different movie. Still good, but very different. [All laugh]
A dark John Hughes movie. I love it.
CL: You said that when you were attached to direct the movie, you kind of put your own spin on it. What vision did you bring to the script once it was finished and after you became director?
One of the big shifts that I had is that originally the script starred two boys, two best friends. And I think one of the things that we don’t get to see enough in movies is platonic [boy and girl] best friends in high school. So often they’re paired as a love interest. Connor [Kalopsis] was already attached to the script when I came on. So we had an open call for men and women to play his counterpart. And once Ramona Young’s tape came in, it was clear that she was the only choice. I also really love mixing genres, taking a comedy and a thriller and kind of walking that tightrope. It was definitely me infusing my sensibilities in comedy and my sensibilities in the horror and thriller spaces and making that cohesive. And I loved that we made Mrs. Wheeler a physics teacher, a woman in STEM. The peanut gallery is another kind of thing that I think is always fun. We have a lot of people on the sidelines discussing what’s happening during this prank.
CL: Do you feel that as a director your style is different depending on the project and the actor? Do you feel like you're the same director on each project that you work on?
Hopefully I’m the same person on every set in that I’m collaborative. I think, especially when you’re playing in the comedy space, anybody can pitch and a good idea can come from anywhere. I want to be able to have the vision of what I want but be open to hearing a new idea, a new pitch, or a new take on something that I can make my own or I can fold in. The way I see movies is that the script is our baseline. We need to be grounded with one foot in reality. I want to make sure that things feel authentic so that we can go heightened in comedy and thriller. You can go high if you have your foot planted on the ground. You can let somebody explore a scene, let them kind of go in a different direction, as long as we can come back to the script. That’s what I really love to do when I direct, whether that’s comedy or drama or thrillers or horror. Then everybody owns a piece of the movie and there’s so many fingerprints all over it, contributing fun things, little Easter eggs. That’s such a big part of making a movie.
CL: Your sets sound like a dream!
HL: And I think it's really cool that you started as a segment director on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” We have a lot of friends who graduated in film, TV, and communications and are working as production assistants and producers and want to move into directing their own films. How did you become the director you are today?
Everybody wants to have that story where you had your movie go to Sundance or SXSW and suddenly you’re an ingenue. And that was not my path. I have a zig-zaggy path. I did a little bit of everything, a jack-of-all-trades. But that experience gave me my reps! I did the hours, I put in the time, I can pivot, I can work fast, I can work on a dime. “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” allowed me to work in a high-pressure, fast-paced environment where you have to trust your gut while also working in someone else’s comedic voice. Ultimately, I knew that I really loved working with actors and telling stories. So that’s why I left to do features and episodic. I did over 30 shorts before I got Kimmel. I did two thrillers for Lifetime. I did stuff for UCB and College Humor. I did a little bit of everything! Now, I’m trying to hone all of those skills in my own movies and bring a little bit of everything I’ve learned along the way. So I’m really grateful that I have a zig-zaggy path that I can pull all of my experience from.
]]>For multi-hyphenate storyteller Brit Marling, writing is like harnessing a beating heart.
Marling, who only days earlier had been nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for “A Murder at the End of the World,” describes to RogerEbert.com a writing process that seems almost visceral.
The eventual words on a page, Marling explains, come from a sort of heartbeat that’s waiting to be born. As a writer, Marling sees herself as a midwife whose job is to birth a story that has been there all along.
Listening to Marling on Zoom one Monday night, it’s clear why she, a Georgetown University alum who was once recruited by Goldman Sachs for investment banking, wound up in Los Angeles, not Wall Street. She almost transcends the computer screen as she speaks about her work in a way that is somehow equal parts brilliant and approachable. She transitions with ease from an anecdote that seems to pour from her soul to an enthusiastic nod and point toward the lens as we add our two cents. Nearly two decades into her career, she is anything but jaded as she takes us through her own story.
Perhaps it was Marling’s guiding heart that led her down the path to becoming an actor, writer, and filmmaker. In the case of her latest project, the Hulu miniseries “A Murder at the End of the World,” Marling served as all three at once.
For this year’s Women Writers Week, RogerEbert.com spoke with Marling about making the leap from Washington, D.C. to Hollywood, immersing herself in Gen Z culture for “A Murder at the End of the World,” and what makes a truly good tale.
Cailin Loesch: You met two of your longtime collaborators, one with whom [Zal Batmanglij] you co-created and co-wrote “A Murder at the End of the World” while you were studying at Georgetown University. And I just think that’s the coolest thing ’cause I like to imagine you guys switching back and forth between partying and making these award-winning movies together. [All laugh] Take us back to the beginning of those relationships.
Brit Marling: Sometimes that is how it went: sometimes we were at a party and then we would go shoot something, or sometimes we would decide we needed to shoot a scene set at a party and then throw a party and make everybody be the background in the scenes. At the time, Georgetown as a school was maybe more known for economics and international relations and people going to Capitol Hill or working at a bank after they graduated.
Hannah Loesch: That’s sure how I thought of it.
Marling: Exactly. So I think it was sort of odd for this community of rebels who were interested in filmmaking to form. Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij and I started making little movies together. There was another group that was doing improv at the time, and Nick Kroll and John Mulaney and Jacqueline Novak came out of that world. It ended up being a series of years in which we were all very inspired and excited by each other’s writing and creative talent and desire to just make stuff from our imaginations. The first ever Georgetown Film Festival happened during that time, which kind of spurred people along. Then we moved out to L.A., and at the beginning Mike and Zal and I were very much waiting for the industry to notice us, trying to audition or get jobs in all the traditional ways. And then after a long time of hitting our heads against the wall, we were finally like, “Wait, why don't we just go back to making films the way we used to when we were at Georgetown?” And so the first couple of films that we made that went to Sundance came very much out of the spirit of begging, borrowing, stealing, pleading, whatever we had to do.
CL: It is funny ’cause they do say don’t work with friends and don’t work with family, but it’s worked out very well for you. [Laughs] Do you feel like you’re in a different zone in your relationship hanging out as friends versus when you’re working? Or is it just all intertwined?
HL: It’s inspiring to be surrounded by like-minded people who have the same interests. That was my favorite part about going to college too.
Marling: And you guys know very intimately what it’s like to work with family! My parents work together, Z’s parents work together, and so I think we both grew up with that model of how much fun it is to collaborate with people that you love, you know? The experience of being alive and the things that you see and do together folds into the work you make. And vice versa. For us, it’s always felt like a natural fit, like I’m sure it has for you.
CL and HL: Of course!
Marling: And also the way you both finish each other’s thoughts and sentences and you can feel each other out. Zal and I have that with each other at this point. We’ve been working together on various things for over two decades. One of us can say something and the other just picks up and knows exactly what that person’s thinking about, what the past references are. There starts to be sort of a shared language that allows you to get to the nexus of the idea more quickly than if you were starting from scratch with somebody you just met yesterday.
CL: Your career really began with “Boxers and Ballerinas,” which was a documentary that you directed. And since then, you've also co-created, produced, and written shows and movies, and also acted in them. At what point did you decide you wanted to make films, and then at what point did you decide you wanted to act?
HL: And what came first? [All laugh]
Marling: That’s such a good question. I think maybe I always had a storyteller within me, but I didn’t know how to access it or what that meant. And I think the first and most obvious thing that I found was acting. You tell this story with your body and with your emotions and your feelings. It was very hard, though, to find my way to the kinds of parts I wanted to play. So then I started writing in order to write those parts for myself. And then we started making those films. But we were making them outside the system. You had to become a producer to make the thing that you had written for yourself to act in. So by the time you get to the end of that line, you've learned a lot of skill sets. [Laughs] And once I had learned them all, I didn’t wanna give them up. Directing “A Murder at the End of the World” is sort of coming full circle, as you said, back to where I started. It feels like now I finally have all the pieces of the puzzle and I'm putting it together. It's a good feeling.
HL: I love that. Let's talk more about “A Murder at the End of the World.” The story follows a Gen Z hacker and an amateur sleuth. Cailin and I are kind of on the border between either being the youngest millennials or the oldest Gen Z-ers. [Laughs] And sometimes when I go on TikTok, I see these middle schoolers and teenagers and it’s like they’re living in a completely different world than we did even ten years ago. Did you have a process for immersing yourself in that Gen Z culture?
Marling: It’s true that now even a couple of years makes a big difference! My sister’s two years younger than me and her relationship with technology and the ease with which she can operate inside certain software programs is so much better than mine. And then when you go back 10, or 20, or 30 years farther, it’s a completely different level. We were really trying to do our homework to get that feeling of a Gen Z amateur sleuth and their relationship with technology. For Darby, the computer is like an extension of her mind. At one point someone takes her smartphone phone away and she’s like, “Okay, you're literally taking half of my brain.” And I think that's true for Gen Z, but also true for all of us now. I think we all kind of operate in this way where if I lost my phone, it would be like losing my journal, my calendar, all my friends, all my photos, and my camera. I think even though I am a millennial, it was easy to identify with that feeling of how much we’ve come to rely on technology and how intimate that relationship is at this point.
CL: When I go to the gym I always lose service, and sometimes for that hour or so, I’m genuinely freaked out.
HL: You’ve lost your right arm.
CL: I'm like, “What if something happens?” I don’t know what’s going on! [All laugh] It’s good in some ways when you see these younger people who have a certain kind of smarts, a certain skill set that others just don't have. But at the same time, to be so connected has its pitfalls, too.
HL: It’s almost like with social media and everything like that, everybody is an amateur sleuth.
Marling: Oh my gosh. It’s so true. That’s part of where this idea came from, like, wait a second, anyone with a smartphone and access to the internet is a detective now. I mean, Darby’s using the flashlight on her phone as a way to navigate through a darkened house, and using a GPS to find the house, and using satellite imagery to locate stuff, and using the internet and Reddit and the sort of hive mind community she’s built on there. And it’s all coming through this one device, and there was a time when we didn’t have it. I don’t think any of us remember it anymore or how we operated, but [that time] did exist, you know? So hopefully that makes the audience really identify with Darby and her desire to solve things and to puzzle through things to the end. And the ease with which she can do that given the tools in front of her.
HL: I think about this sometimes. I’m like, “We were alive during the MapQuest era.” Like, people literally printed out instructions when they were going somewhere. And now that’s hard to imagine.
CL: I actually don’t think I could have done it. But you just have to adapt to what you have at the time. Darby is a great example of that.
HL: So, we’re longtime fans of Clive Owen’s, so I have to ask you to kind of take us behind the scenes of creating this reclusive billionaire character of his. How did that all come to be? And did you have Clive Owen in mind from the beginning?
Marling: He’s a longtime favorite of mine, too. I mean, come on. “Children of Men.” Not only has that film become more and more true, it was so ahead of its time. That performance is so powerful. Or his work in “Gosford Par” and “Closer” I mean, he’s just so incredible. Getting to work with him on this was such a dream because you realize that the reason he always stands out in everything that he does is because his preparation is so ferocious and his commitment is so complete. And that’s why he’s very careful about what he signs onto. Because once he signs on, he really gives himself over to the part. We used to do these Zoom sessions on Sundays or we’d meet in person and we would talk for hours about the scenes coming that week. We’d go through them and really take them apart. And because he has done all his homework as an actor, he’s bringing so much to the table in terms of what does or doesn’t feel truthful in his character’s behavior or what he would or wouldn’t say. He just makes every scene that he’s in better than it was. Sometimes that’s about looking at the scene with the writer and director, and some of it’s about what he just does on the day [of shooting] where you're like, “Oh my God, I never would’ve thought of that.” I mean, I cannot say enough about him. I would just like to write things for him forever.
CL: It’s so good to hear when you’re a fan of somebody’s work that they are good to work with, too.
HL: And it shows on screen.
CL: It’s probably just because I’m not an actor, but when I imagine what it would be like to write for yourself as an actor it feels almost scarier. I guess because I would know how I am different from that character, or I would be like, “In this scene I’m exposing my own vulnerabilities in a way I wouldn’t be if I was acting somebody else's work.” How do you look at it?
Marling: It’s interesting because I think in the beginning I saw writing as a means to an end, and I just wanted to act. And still, when the right part comes my way, I feel so excited to pour myself into it for the reasons you’re saying, which is someone else has imagined something and it has parameters and I have to step into that. And I can’t change the parameters, really. I’ve gotta go deep rather than expand horizontally, if that makes sense.
CL: It does.
Marling: You gotta go deep under the words, deep into the character, to make them feel real true. I felt that so much when Nick Jarecki came to me with “Arbitrage.” I was like, “Wow. This girl.” I haven’t seen this woman in cinema yet, but I know who she is. I know who this person is and I can do it. It’s not like me, but I know how to step into sides of myself and add other pieces and find it. But then there’s also something really beautiful about writing for myself sometimes. Like when there’s a facet of myself that is under-explored and I want to give myself permission to do it, but can’t in the real world. Like Maggie from “Sound of My Voice” was very intense and biting and cruel—sometimes just brutally cruel to people. And I’m not like that day to day, you know. [Laughs] But I definitely have those capacities inside me. And it sometimes feels delicious to get to explore that, those other instincts, within the safety of a fictitious story and set.
HL: With your recent Writers Guild of America nomination, I feel like it’s a good time for reflection on your career as a whole so far. And you have a very interesting story in that you were actually recruited by Goldman Sachs for investment banking early on. [Laughs] And then obviously you took this major detour into storytelling. You’ve told stories in different mediums in many different ways. What have you found to be the most important component of a good story?
Marling: Oh, wow. [Laughs] You know what’s so interesting? I’m going back to writing right now, and every time I go back to writing, I always get this, like, fluttery feeling in my heart where I’m like, “Oh my God, I don’t know how to write.” And I used to be so embarrassed by that. And then I read an interview once with Nicole Kidman, who I think is one of the world’s truly great actors, and she said, sometimes I come on set and even though I’ve done this thousands of times I'm like, “I don't know how to do this. Like, how do I act?” I think there’s something about that that's really incredible. If you can hold onto it—if you do not become jaded, if you always feel every time you’re entering a story or coming on set like it’s the first time—there’s a wilderness to it. You don’t know if you’re any good at it and you've gotta work hard to try to find it. And I feel that about writing. I’ve been tooling on a couple of different stories recently, and the same feeling comes when a narrative falls into place. It’s hard to explain. For a while you’re just feeling around in the dark, and there are different moods and feelings and characters and some snatches of dialogue come. Or there’s a little bit of a setting in a world or a place or some situation you want to explore. And they’re all just kind of fragments, you know? Then suddenly something will come and it will be whole. You asked what makes a great story. I think it’s this thing. It’s you finding something in the dark that has a beating heart that’s waiting to be born, and you’re still in the dark, but you can hear the heartbeat and your job is to just birth it, you know? Every time I’ve gone to start a new one, I’m like, “I don’t know what a story is.” Who knows? And then every time you find a beating heart in the dark you're just like, okay, my job is just to be a humble servant to that story and to let it come through me. That’s such an abstract answer. [Laughs]
CL: It reminds me of when you described working with Clive Owen, how when you did the Zoom meetings and talked about the characters, he always knew how to get to what feels truthful and what doesn’t. Because at the end of the day, storytelling is truth telling, right? That’s like the beating heart you described. If you have that, everything else can be built around it.
Marling: Oh my gosh, yes. And that’s why when you get to work with truly extraordinary actors or directors of photography or production designers or costume designers, the truly extraordinary ones are all people who put their egos aside and can help find the beating heart to deliver that thing to the audience. And Clive is so wonderful at it, and Emma [Corrin,] and Harris [Dickinson], everybody in this cast. We got so lucky. And you know, as a writer-director, you’re not always right. But when you get really great collaborators, they’ll be like, “Oh, it’s over here,” or, “It’s a little bit this,” or, “It’s a little bit that.” And they help ensure that the pulse is robust all the time, and that you never drop the story’s rhythm, that you’re always being true to what that initial rhythm was. You’re all in tune listening for the same thing that you heard the very first time you heard the story. Oh, it’s such a lucky thing when you get to work with good people. There’s nothing like it.
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Set in rural New Mexico in the late-1980s, "Love Lies Bleeding," from acclaimed writer-director Rose Glass, explores themes of obsession and addiction through the love story of a reclusive gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart), with a bloody past, who falls hard for a bodybuilding drifter named Jackie (Katy O'Brian). The film pulsates with the grit of the pulpiest pulp fiction and flights of magical realism as it propels itself towards an unpredictable ending.
Five years ago, Glass made a splash with her psychological horror film "Saint Maud," which premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Despite the film's prolonged release due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Glass's debut feature film was hailed as an instant classic, with veteran filmmaker Danny Boyle calling it "genuinely unsettling." Among other accolades, she was named the Best Debut Director at the 2020 British Independent Film Awards.
Born in London, Glass grew up in Essex where she always knew she wanted to make films, cutting her cinematic teeth using her parents' video camera. While attending the London College of Communication she worked as a runner on various film sets, and made her proper debut short film "Storm House." She graduated from the National Film and Television School in 2014, where she directed the 1950s set short film "Room 55," which played at several film festivals including SXSW in 2015.
Her films are portraits of women pushed to psychosexual extremes. Her short "Room 55" finds an uptight woman’s rigid self-discipline upended after meeting a mysterious woman while spending an unplanned night at a roadside hotel. In "Saint Maud," the titular nurse finds herself lost in a web of religious fanaticism and repressed sexual desires while caring for a new patient. And of course, her new film "Love Lies Bleeding" sees how the collision of Stewart and O'Brian's characters plots them on a course simultaneously towards earth-shattering violence and euphoric, larger-than-life romance.
For this month’s Female Filmmakers in Focus column RogerEbert.com spoke to Glass over Zoom about Elton John, the alien landscape of New Mexico, crafting visceral soundscapes, and the liberation of transgression.
When I first saw the title of your film, immediately my mind went to Elton John.
No one has asked about that song yet!
At what point did you realize that was a title you wanted to use for this film, and was the song the starting point?
I knew I wanted the title to be something melodramatic, that felt like it could be like the title of some hokey paperback novel. My mom is really into gardening, and I was talking to her about plants. And I saw this particular plant and asked her what it was called. She said, “It's called love lies bleeding.” And it's this kind of Amaranthus which has these amazing, big, kind of beautiful, kind of ugly red seed head things. I immediately enjoyed the fabulous melodrama of it, and the fact that you use its name as a phrase or words.
So then I was obviously googling it, and found out there's more than one other film that's been made with the title, and obviously the Elton John song. So I think for a long time when me and Weronika Tofilska, my co-writer, when we were writing it, we wondered if it meant that it had to be the end credit song, but it didn't quite fit. I love the song, but it didn't quite fit totally with that moment. It may be changing a bit now, but otherwise, anytime you Google “love lies bleeding,” you either get pictures of that plant or the Elton John song.
I think now it's also Kristen Stewart, so we all win. You mentioned pulp novels. When I was watching the film I got really big Jim Thompson vibes, with how violent and sexual and gritty it is. I wondered if he was an inspiration at all?
No, I don't know who that is.
Oh, you would love Jim Thompson based on this film. He wrote “The Killer Inside Me” and a few other really pulp novels. There were some great adaptations in the '80s and '90s. I think you would absolutely love those books. I'll leave that as a recommendation.
I’m googling it.
Were there any other pulp novels, whether it's lesbian pulp or any other kind of mid-century pulp novels that you drew from?
I don't know if it necessarily falls into that category or not, but one of the books that briefly appears as a prop in the film is Macho Sluts by Pat Califia, which has some really, really cool BDSM erotic short stories. In fact, briefly at one point, I even toyed with that as a working title, just because I think it's so great. I saw that book in a shop years ago, and that title and the cover of it was just completely like wow, and some of that some of the stuff in there is pretty intriguing.
I am a big John Waters fan. His films were an influence. Also, I read it a while ago, but The Thief's Journal by Jean Genet. I think there's a connection between both Waters and Genet and their attitudes towards transgression and crime being beautiful. At one point, I really wanted Kristen’s character Lou in the film to have a poster of “Female Trouble,” the John Waters film, on her apartment wall, but we couldn't clear it or something. In a way the film has that Dawn Davenport being proud about and finding liberation through transgression sort of feeling.
You’ve mentioned a lot of different kinds of inspirations. When you're in the middle of developing the film, do you sort of collect these things in a notebook, do you have lookbooks, or are you someone who does collages?
I'm always kind of like a magpie collecting different line images and stuff. But to be honest with this one, I think because of the setting in that time and place in America, and the Americana-ness of it was just so gargantuan and the amount of big famous films that are from this era, I tried to bury my head in the sand a little bit more. With “Saint Maud,” for instance, I had like, a list of these films that I was referencing to everyone when we were making. “Rosemary's Baby,” “Persona,” all those kinds of things.
With this one we didn't quite so much. When we were writing it, obviously we’re both film nerds, so it was almost like we're thinking about filmmaking as we were writing it, but more like the archetypes of filmmaking and storytelling, of thrillers and stuff like that. A lot of that cinematic language, I think, audiences in general know instinctively, without us necessarily even having to reference this specific film noir or anything. The influences were many, but more on that level of what we've probably just absorbed through a lifetime of watching films and reading books, rather than anything specific.
I read in a bio of you on the BAFTA website that you used to make mockumentaries about aliens, and given that this film is set in New Mexico–
Does it say that on the BAFTA website? [Laughs]
It does. So, you have the crater gym, etc., and so I was wondering that magical, otherworldly UFO of it all was in the back of your mind once you set the film in New Mexico?
I didn't even initially make the connection of it being alien land in New Mexico. We ended up in New Mexico because it's got great tax breaks for film. The mockumentary was just literally stupid films I’d make when I was like a kid. On a family holiday I did a fake Steve Irwin style nature documentary where 13-year-old me would be like “oh look over here” and then, instead of a nature documentary, aliens had landed, who were played by my dad. I was a really cool kid [laughs]. I guess I’ve always been interested in the strange, probably just because I felt really bored and lonely a lot while growing up.
So being out in that bit of the country, we filmed the gypsum mine (the crack itself was special effects) but that landscape just felt very lunar and as if it was on the moon. The name of the gun club is Louisville, because Kristen Stewart’s name is Lou and Ed Harris, her character’s dad, is also named Lou. Liouville is apparently the name of a crater on the Moon somewhere. So then that's why I called the gym “Crater.” We also added loads more stars into the sky in post and some of the music that we ended up using had this sci-fi feel, which was another fun layer. In my head, I see this as a cosmic love story and that these two little sort of aliens can find each other.
The stars in that opening shot really took me out. Just so gorgeous. I also love the way you layered in sound. Sometimes it’s really haunting and beautiful, and sometimes it's just utterly disgusting. I'd love to hear your thoughts on crafting that soundscape.
This was super important. I wanted it to feel very immersive and visceral. I mean, I've worked again with Paul Davies, who was the sound designer on “Saint Maud.” He has a great team as well. With every department, I was like “don't hold back. The word of the day is visceral.” Some of the gore sound effects are just ridiculous. He has this amazing sound effects editor called Tim, who I think was also a drummer, who did a lot of this stuff in the gym, which was very rhythmic and bombastic. I want to mention music as well because all of that is super important. I wanted the sound and the music to be feeding into one another. We've obviously got an amazing score by Clint Mansell. I was so excited to work with him. It gave the whole film this throbbing, pulsing engine to it.
But also like before working with him or Paul, when I first came on board, my partner also worked on the film as well as a music consultant. There's a lot of commercial music in the film basically, which is sort of weaving in and out of the score and sound. And he chose all of that music. Because the 80s is a decade that's been so done to death on film. I knew there needed to be a lot of music in it, but I wanted to avoid the temptation to fill it with really familiar 80s needle drops. So I got him to come up with this whole sound palette. Even in prep and when we were shooting, he was doing playlists for everyone. There's a lot more weird, slightly more forgotten gems from slightly more alternative, left field kind of artists. So the alien-y, twinkling scenes are tracked by this Japanese musician called Shiho Yabuki, who was this amazing ambient musician from the 80s. Patrick Cowley, Throbbing Gristle, just all these really great artists. Actually, then when Clint and Pau came on board, they said they remembered listening to that music like when it first came out.
Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian obviously have great chemistry together. How do you help craft that chemistry with them? What do you do with your actors, once you have them together?
They had it immediately. Casting the right people is such an important thing. They’re both such amazing actors, and we didn't really have much prep time, to be honest, so the first time they met was at the chemistry read. And that was pretty much the only pre-shoot rehearsal time we had. You try to engineer everything so that it works, but ultimately, even if you do everything right, and they give amazing performances, sometimes that last sort of spark thing that is a bit unquantifiable and magical, you just have to pray that it happens. And thank God it did.
Are there any women who have made films that have inspired you or that you just think are really cool that people maybe haven't heard of that they should seek out?
It’s probably no surprise that I'm a big fan and appreciative of Julia Ducournau, who is obviously making very exciting, very fun films. And who else would I put on that list? Liliana Cavani, who did “The Night Porter.” I’ve mentioned that film a few times. That was on the list of films I suggested some of the actors watch because of that dark eroticism in that film. Incredible. And Lynne Ramsay. I mean, she's an inspiration. I was lucky enough to meet her. She interviewed me for something when I was promoting “Saint Maud.” She’s very inspiring.
Do you feel like you're in a class of women in England right now that are supported and really free to be super creative at the moment?
Yeah, there are a lot of women doing great stuff in England. Molly Manning Walker has been having the most amazing year with her film “How to Have Sex”; Prano Bailey-Bond’s film “Censor” came out around when “Saint Maud” did, and she's an awesome person. There does seem to be a few of us knocking about and I feel very fortunate to be amongst good company.
]]>The number one movie at the box office in 1980 was the second “Star Wars” movie, “The Empire Strikes Back.” The number two movie was a comedy about three female office workers. It became a cultural touchstone, along with its hit song, and inspired an unsuccessful television series and a successful Broadway musical. It was “9 to 5,” starring Jane Fonda (who also produced), Lily Tomlin, and, in her first screen appearance, Dolly Parton.
A new documentary, “Still Working 9 to 5” explores the film’s backstory, the casting, writing, and costumes, as well as studio concerns that a movie with three female leads and an office setting would not appeal to ticket-buyers. It also covers the activist organization pursuing workplace equity that gave the film its title, and the continuing conversation and (limited) progress on the issues it raises. In an interview, directors Camille Hardman and Gary Lane, whose twin brother also worked on the film, talked about the film’s continuing popularity and influence and the frustration in getting the documentary to audiences.
When did you first see the movie “9 to 5,” what were the circumstances, and what did you think of it?
Gary Lane: We were around 10 when we first saw the film. It was funny to us, kidnapping the boss, but years later it took on a whole new meaning. The film was truly about working women and the hard issues they were dealing with at the time. That’s the only way middle America could see the message behind the laughs. Hiding the medicine in the candy.
Camille Hardman: In Australia we had a movie of the week that would screen on a Sunday night. I was only eight at the time, and I was supposed to be in bed, but sometimes I would sit on the steps and sneakily watch the film behind my parents. One Sunday this film was “9 to 5.” I remember all the fantasy scenes. I didn’t quite understand the context, but I was so taken with Dolly, who was so different from anyone I had ever seen or met in Australia.
Do you have a favorite scene?
GL: For us it would be “rooster to a hen.” Being southern boys from North Carolina, we always loved Dolly.
CH: Oooo, I have so many. For me it’s the scene where Dabney is using the football analogy with Lily and Jane trying not to laugh at his buffoonery. The acting and comic timing was amazing.
Why was it important to make the film a comedy, unlike other “issue” films Jane Fonda made: “Coming Home” and “The China Syndrome”?
CH: Essentially Bruce and Jane knew that if they wanted to really initiate change, they had to attract a wide audience to a film. They also did not want to preach to the converted and wanted men to be a part of the conversation and hopefully see themselves on screen. They knew men would not attend a “women’s issues” film, but if they packaged the film as a broad comedy, they would equally have both men and women attend which would really be able to generate a conversation in the workplace.
GL: They felt strongly about shining a light on the issues activist Karen Nussbaum had shared with her about office politics at the time. Equal pay, equal job advancement, childcare, and sexual harassment. But comedy was the only way to get more eyes to see the issues. Camille and I used the same method with our documentary. We bring the audience in with the “9 to 5” original cast reunion and the new exclusive, haunting “9 to 5” duet performed live by Dolly and Kelly Clarkson in our end credits. We have Oscar winners Rita Moreno on the “9 to 5” TV series and Allison Janney on the “9 to 5” musical. But when we get them in the seats, we show them what’s really not changed for working women over 44 years later. It’s insanity.
I was so glad that you included the superb costume designs in the film. How did Ann Roth’s wardrobe help to define the characters, both in their “real” and “fantasy” personas?
GL: Absolutely! Two-time Oscar winner Ann Roth knew the women needed to appear smart, not glamorous, in this film. She did this in so many subtle ways in the film. I mean “We’re gonna need a separate locker for the hat.” Brilliant!
CH: There was a lot of consideration taken by Ann to explore the greater context of each character and how each character represented archetypes of woman in society—the working woman, the recent divorcee who has never worked, and the perceived office vixen. We also juxtaposed that with their inner character, which was displayed in each fantasy sequence. Ann also used a lot of red, white, and blue in her costumes to show these were working women who were valued in America.
Do you believe that the film changed the perception or the conversation around workplace issues? Around feminism?
GL: In some ways yes. In our film, Karen Nussbaum shared that things did change as far as women stepping into leadership roles, and other smaller steps of improvement by the end of the eighties. But as we all know, not enough has changed.
CH: I think many women and organizations used the film as an example of what happens when there is solidarity of women in the workplace. When women come together, greater change can happen. The film also allowed the 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women organization of working women to flourish. They were able to use the film in their grassroots campaign and tours to create new chapters all around the US, discussing the issues in the film such as: equal pay, job advancement, sexual harassment, and maternity leave.
We talk today a lot about “representation” mattering. We had serious and comic portrayals of office life in other movies, but was this focus on female office workers a first?
GL: Dolly, Lily, and Jane were first on so many levels. Until this film, studios did not believe women could carry a picture to success at the box office without a male star. Women office workers (well over 20 million) in 1980 when the film was released, went in droves to the theaters. They knew finally their struggles were being heard and shared in a major way.
CH: There were sporadic films about women at work in the 1930s, such as “His Girl Friday,” but during the ’50s and ’60s, most films resorted to women playing housewives or women waiting to get married. This was the first time a film had three female leads. All were strong women representing three very different working women archetypes coming to terms with inequalities in the office, demanding respect for the work that they were doing, and dignity in the workplace.
The producer talks about having men in the audience identify with the women characters. How does the film accomplish that?
CH: I think all human nature can recognize human indignities and the inequality in class and caste structures. The film was very good at showcasing the interoffice class system which most men in a subordinate position has also experienced, such as bosses taking recognition for other people’s work. This was very relatable to people of all genders which in turn made men become empathetic with the female characters when more gender based actions occurred, such as sexual harassment.
GL: Because I truly believe by showing Mr. Hart, aka Dabney Coleman, bosses everywhere said, “Is that me? Do I behave like that to my office workers?” It shined a light on bad boss behavior. The film also, as Rita Moreno shared, had a message of “Stand up for yourself and speak out against it.”
It is quite a surprise to see Harvey Weinstein as a proud producer of the Broadway musical! What does including him in the documentary mean to the audience?
GL: Well Harvey is our mic drop moment for sure. Just imagine knowing Harvey Weinstein, the biggest sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical, bigot was behind bringing the show to Broadway, knowing full well what he was doing behind closed doors at that time. Needless to say, in 2019 when the “9 to 5” musical opened in London’s West End, it was received in a much more supportive and relatable environment. Audiences could relate to the content. It has since toured Australia and China of all places. Maybe it starts conversations and opens minds. Dolly calls it the original #Metoo musical.
Why was it important to include the founders of the 9 to 5 activist group and Lilly Ledbetter?
CH: The film would not have been conceived if the 9to5 Organization of Working Women was not established. Due to the friendship between co-founder Karen Nussbaum and Jane Fonda, the basic idea came for the film was born from a conversations between Jane and Karen, who told Jane about the true life experiences and indignities secretaries were facing on a daily basis in the workplace from their bosses and male colleagues. The fantasy scenes were based on what many women wanted to do to their bosses due to want they had to endure.
GL: I have to say we had two of the best editors in the business: Elisa Bonora and Oreet Rees. We needed to follow the “9 to 5” timeline over 40 years with the working women’s movement timeline. It’s not easy to span a documentary over that many decades. Bruce Gilbert gave us props for doing it in a powerful way. For example, in 1982 when the TV series was being filmed in Hollywood, we had activist Zoe Nicholson fasting on the Congress steps in Springfield, Illinois, holding a 40-day fast to raise awareness leading up to the state vote on the ERA ratification. And in 2009, when the 9 to 5 musical was opening on Broadway, we have Lilly Ledbetter standing in the White House with President Obama signing the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act. I have to say, meeting Zoe and Lilly and all of the other activists in the film have completely changed our outlook on life and turned my brother and myself into long-term advocates for women’s rights.
What would a “9 to 5” update today include?
GL: As Jane says in the film, gig work, contract workers, not ever seeing the boss in person. So many issues could have light shone on them like in the first film. However, the reality we are learning is Hollywood is a boys’ club. Streamers have acquisition teams, mostly male, who are targeting younger and younger demographics. So, a film like ours that swept the film festival circuit, winning 10 Best Documentary awards and a Critics Choice Doc Award nomination for Best Historical Documentary is still having trouble securing a wide release. Would that be true for the “9 to 5” sequel? We’re not sure, but we’re learning pretty quick, even hearing from women film critics who deal with similar issues as well. Women’s empowerment content doesn’t always get a fair shake in today’s Hollywood and the power the streamers currently hold.
CH: We have been told by numerous male buyers at streamers that these issues are not affecting young women anymore. They say workplace inequality does not exist anymore. We would show examples of how the evolving workplace has just as many instances of workplace inequality, sexual harassment, lack of job advancement, and certainly no sign of maternity leave for the majority of women workers. Some of these issues may have different guises, but they are still bubbling under the surface.
What do you think has been the film’s most significant impact?
GL: Just the fandom of “9 to 5” has held people’s attention for over four decades. That helps us get them to watch our film. They still get all the fun, making of, and set stories from the original stars! We have over 1000 pieces of archival clips and photos! It’s a “9 to 5” fan’s 90-minute dream. But you also learn the four key issues the 1980 film tried to fix for working women are still not resolved. Sexual harassment still happens and women are hundreds of years away from equal pay. Universal childcare is not available on a national level. So many women were forced to quit work during the pandemic. As Zoe Nicholson says, the ERA still has not passed; women are not protected in the US Constitution. If they were, Roe could never have been overturned. Again as Zoe says in the doc, “it’s maddening.”
CH: I think exploring the concept of solidarity between women and the need for multigenerational discussions. We have seen many mothers bring their daughters to screenings and they have a newfound understanding of each other. Daughters understand what mothers went through, and it becomes a platform for daughters to discuss their experiences and ask advice on how to deal with certain scenarios that arise. Also, we have found that the film gives women courage to discuss issues with their other female colleagues. Because if something is happening to them, there is a good chance the same thing is happening to your female colleague.
What do you hope people will learn from this documentary?
GL: Change is still needed for working men and women in this country. A movie that made a mark 44 years ago is still important and relevant today. Women like Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Rita Moreno, who still have careers well in their 70s, 80s, and 90s are still relevant and defy ageism in Hollywood every day. Women like Zoe Nicholson, Lilly Ledbetter, Karen Nussbaum, and Ellen Cassedy, who have been fighting 50 and 60 years for women against sexism and women’s equality in pay and every other avenue deserve to see it happen in their lifetimes. I believe strongly our film has the power to get this message out to the masses, and I will never give up on getting a wide release. If that means calling out Hollywood and streamers for pushing back against strong women’s content, bring it on.
CH: Stay vigilant and have open discussion. Know that you can make a difference and vote for the ratification of the ERA.
]]>For some viewers, Cillian Murphy’s presence in “Oppenheimer” might have been confusing: I know I’ve seen that guy in something, but what? It’s a credit to the 47-year-old actor that, as in-demand as he is, he remains malleable enough not to be defined by any one role.
A veteran of theater, film and television, Murphy spent nearly a decade playing the menacing mob boss Tommy Shelby on “Peaky Blinders,” while moviegoers might recognize him as the Scarecrow in “Batman Begins,” which was directed by Christopher Nolan, who has continued to work with the actor in subsequent films like “Dunkirk” and “Oppenheimer.” He was a scary survivor in “A Quiet Place Part II,” the first time he and Emily Blunt shared the screen. And Murphy has also been acclaimed on stage, earning raves for his performances in Misterman and Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. But after portraying J. Robert Oppenheimer—and emerging as a strong contender to win Best Actor at next Sunday’s Oscars—it’s likely no one will ever wonder again where they’ve seen Murphy before.
Two of his earliest films were directed by Danny Boyle. In 2002’s “28 Days Later,” Murphy played Jim, an everyman who wakes up in the hospital, discovering that society has been eviscerated by a rage virus. In the wake of 9/11, this post-apocalyptic horror movie tapped into the zeitgeist, and it remains the scariest film of this young century. Then, five years later, Murphy reunited with Boyle for “Sunshine,” a meditative, moving sci-fi drama in which his moody physicist must work with his fellow space travelers (including Michelle Yeoh, Chris Evans and Rose Byrne) to try to save humanity by reigniting Earth’s dying sun.
These two excellent genre films were bolstered by Murphy’s calm, intelligent demeanor, and both he and Boyle have gone on to even greater heights since. (Boyle, of course, won Best Director for “Slumdog Millionaire,” which took home a grand total of eight Oscars, including Best Picture.) On the eve of the Academy Awards—and with the possibility that they may work together again on a “28 Days Later” sequel—I spoke to Boyle about casting the then-relatively unknown actor.
Our phone line wasn’t always clear, but the director’s enthusiasm for his collaborator and friend was. Below, Boyle discusses why Murphy is so good in “Oppenheimer,” the crucial difference between theater actors and film actors and the project he’s working on that he thinks will be perfect for Murphy—although he hasn’t told Murphy about it yet.
Cillian Murphy has said he had to audition six times to get the role in “28 Days Later.” Is that how you remember it?
I couldn’t swear it was six. I have read that—it just sounds a lot, doesn’t it? [Laughs] Especially when you think where he’s ended up now.
We read scenes together, and you could tell he was a really good actor. It’s partly finding out about the part as well, which you do through the audition process. It isn’t like you’ve got a definitive oil painting in your mind of how it should be—you’re arriving at it together. In fact, the casting of him is partly the reason that it ended up as it ended up, because what they bring to the part isn’t just specific suggestions—they bring something else to it. The manifestation of them as people is part of the writing of the film—it becomes the writing of particular characters.
The thing about Cillian, it’s his changeability. For “28 Days Later,” you thought, “He’s so perfect as an affable, carefree bike messenger, but how is he going to turn into an avenging angel?”—which is what he ends up as, capable of the kind of violence that the infected are capable of. “How is he going to do that?” We had the same [transformation] in “Sunshine”: “How can a thoughtful, careful physicist turn into a kind of action hero?” It’s the same with “Peaky Blinders”: You think, “Can this shy, kind gentleman turn into that fierce [crime boss]?”
The core, I think, is his physicality. That comes from the stage—if you’ve ever seen him on stage, he is unrecognizable. I saw him in [Grief Is the Thing With Feathers] most recently, and his physicality is absolutely extraordinary, and quite belying how sofa-bound he is [in the play] for most of the time. Even when you see him in those Oscar interviews, he can barely get up from the sofa—but you see him on stage, and that transformation is incredible.
That’s what Nolan’s done with him in “Oppenheimer.” He’s taken that changeability of him—that beauty and that ability to transform into something that’s as powerful as the atom splitting the world asunder—and he’s condensed it into a close-up, which binds the whole film together. It’s extraordinary what [Nolan] attempts to do—the range of characters, the range of the casting, it’s incredible. It’s the challenge for Cillian: “Can he hold all of it together?” And the way Nolan’s done it is through a close-up—that IMAX close-up that he adores—and it’s the most challenging close-up there is because, on IMAX, you’ve just nowhere to go, other than the belief that these powers lie within this individual.
We benefited from it on “28 Days Later” because it was a huge kind of crescendo that he created—a physical, violent crescendo—that was completely linked to love. [The film] was romantic as well [at times]. But his blood is like liquid mercury—you know when you see mercury and it shifts its shape, and yet it remains mercury? I’m just in awe of him. I’m sorry I put him through six auditions—clearly, it was unnecessary.
I imagine part of the reason you cast him in “28 Days Later” was because he wasn’t famous—he could believably play an everyman. Did you sense immediately that he had a star quality? Or is that something that becomes apparent during the shoot?
It’s a journey of trust that you go on. You don’t quite ever know where you’re going to end up. Everything was telling us that he couldn’t transform into that avenging angel by the end, and yet, I’d seen him on stage and I knew. To be a good stage actor, you need power—to be a great film actor, you need stillness, which is often the opposite. He has both, and yet it remains a mystery how he gets there.
That’s what is so convincing about [his “Oppenheimer” performance]: The world could blow up, and you’ve got to believe that he can see that happening. Nolan put in that close-up because he knows [Murphy] has that range within him to manifest the atomic bomb [on screen]. But [Murphy is] also the most relaxed, the calmest, the kindest, the most thoughtful person you could imagine—those two forces, [Nolan] puts them in a close-up.
Obviously, [Murphy] does a good physical job impersonating [Oppenheimer], and he looks wonderful—he can wear a hat like nobody else can wear a hat. Should have had him wearing some hats in “28 Days Later.” [Laughs] But he’s not turning into an unrecognizable monster—you still see the beautiful creature that he is. [Murphy] has a great physical beauty—he’s blessed with that—but he uses it beautifully in film.
With “Sunshine,” it was nervy to cast him as the film’s lead. Were you trying to subvert the idea of the typical sci-fi action hero by having someone not so obviously buff?
Especially back then, action heroes came pretty well-defined. But we knew we had a guy who could deliver that ending, but also someone that you wanted to accompany [on the journey]. He’s not an impossible hero, either—he has great beauty, but he remains one of us, and you can be inside the space suit with him and see him suffering.
[Murphy] doesn’t mind suffering. I’ve never seen him look in a mirror. You could say, “Well, he doesn’t need to when he’s that handsome,” but he has no personal vanity. That is a quality that you can’t underestimate—it brings him closer to people. You can sense vanity, however it manifests itself, and he doesn’t have any.
During pre-production on that film, you put the actors through a boot camp, making them live together for a while to get used to their characters’ situation. Since Murphy plays the protagonist, did he take a leadership role during that boot camp?
He would never assume leadership—he would just be part of [the group]. He leads movies, but he’s not someone who takes on the kind of front role.
I obviously didn’t live with them—they lived together, and I think one or two of them were a bit surprised that they were going to literally be living together for a couple of weeks. But music was a big help. The other thing about him is his music—he hosts shows on the BBC, on Radio 6. His musical taste is wonderful.
What kind of music is he into?
Eclectic high quality. I think that’s one of the things he liked about us working together, because I’m really music-driven as well. He’s got an inexhaustible appetite for music. His show that he did during lockdown [“Songs From Under the Stairs”], he locks himself away, and that’s his quiet place.
When you two reunited for “Sunshine,” did you notice that his acting approach changed from film to film?
There was no research on the first film because it was [about] an apocalypse, but the second one, he was very diligent. He struck up a really good friendship with this scientist, Brian Cox. Weirdly, he sort of looks like Cillian. [Laughs] And he went to CERN, which is where they fire the atoms around a huge circular particle accelerator. He spent a lot of time [researching], and then he trusts his intuition.
I can imagine he did that on “Oppenheimer”—he trusts the scene and the interaction with the other actors. I don't remember ever struggling with [him], like you can with some actors and some parts. When trying to get to grips with [a role], he preps and then he gives the absolute impression of having done no prep at all—he’s ready to go.
We got on really well, and we’re hoping to get it together again on the sequel that we’re doing to “28 Days Later,” this “28 Years Later.” It’s not a deal done yet, but hopefully we’ll be able to get back together on that—if he’ll ever speak to me again. [Laughs]
You can’t find “28 Days Later” on streaming right now. Do you know what’s going on with that? It’s a shame newcomers to Murphy can’t see how great he is in that movie.
I think they’ve done that deliberately to create an appetite for the new film. You want his fame and his exposure on “Oppenheimer” to lead people to his other work, which is substantial, and we’re part of that, so I’d love people [to see] him in “28 Days Later.”
He sent me a very nice message—he’d watched it with one of his sons. It’s quite a hardcore film, so you have to be careful at which age the kids watch it. But he said he thought it stood up really well, which was lovely. I don’t know what his son thought. [Laughs]
Throughout your career, you’ve worked with actors right before they broke through: Ewan McGregor, Cillian Murphy, Dev Patel. Is that something you enjoy: “People don’t know this person yet, but after my movie they will”?
Yeah, except you benefit from it so much that you don’t think about it as a quality you’ve provided. You think about it as a gift that they’ve given you—that you’ve been lucky enough to get them early on in their career, when they’re inexpensive. [Laughs] And yet, they can generate an audience.
It’s been 17 years since “Sunshine.” Other than this potential “28 Days Later” sequel, have you and Murphy talked about working together again?
Well, I have a project that Cillian doesn’t know about yet. Actually, it’s a stage project. He doesn’t know anything about it yet, so he may hate the idea. [Laughs] I shouldn’t really be talking to you about it, but I know in my bones it will happen. I’m still working on it—it’s been in my mind for a long time, actually—and I know it will happen. He’s about old enough now [for the role].
I won’t ask you to tell me what the project is, but is the role in the same vein as what you’ve done together before?
No, no, I can’t answer any of those questions! [Laughs] Sorry.
When you watch “Oppenheimer,” do you recognize the actor you cast in “28 Days Later” all those years ago?
I really thought “Oppenheimer” was in a different league, just in terms of his maturity as an actor. I loved watching him in it. I’ve been to see it twice, and a lot of that was to do with watching somebody that you know and admire but seeing him shift it into a different place. He’s done some wonderful work, obviously, over the years, but the attention that he’s receiving [for this film] is well-merited. It’s not a fiction of marketing, which can happen, it’s a remarkable performance in the pantheon.
“28 Days Later” was how Christopher Nolan first became aware of Murphy, starting a long collaboration between them. Did you and Nolan ever compare notes on an actor you both love?
No, but when I heard that they’d auditioned him for Batman, I thought, “Brilliant. Good on you, mate,” about a fellow director giving Cillian a go at that and letting him audition for it. [Nolan] was able to see real potential in him that others [couldn’t] see, and you’ve got to admire that, because he can have anybody [for his films]. I love that they’ve developed such a strong relationship, such a fruitful relationship. It’s really great.
]]>Paul Dano has done so much in a career that's spanned two decades, and he's just getting started. The star of "Little Miss Sunshine," "There Will Be Blood," "The Batman," "The Fabelmans," and so many more already appeared in Prime Video's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" this year and drops this week in Johan Renck's "Spaceman." In this daring sci-fi film, Dano voices a massive alien spider named Hanus by a cosmonaut played by Adam Sandler. Serving as a sort of guide into the far reaches of space and emotion, Dano nails the vocal challenge of a unique sort of two-hander, and it's just another interesting choice in his fascinating career. Calling into RogerEbert.com, we started by talking about my love for his directorial debut, 2018's "Wildlife."
Will you write and direct again?
Yeah. I think writing is the hardest part. It takes me a while. And with acting—that’s what I’ve been doing—so it involves taking a break from that, which is what I’m doing now because my wife [Zoe Kazan] is in a play six days a week, and I’m at home with the two kids and writing. My dream is to try to make something in ’25. We’ll see if that comes to fruition. I’ve got a couple things that I’ve been writing, and I think they’re getting close to be able to do something with them. But, yes, I think I will. I hope I will.
How did you find the tone for Hanus? It’s almost a meditative vocal tone. How did you settle on it?
There was something about ... the spider has a mouth and teeth and all that, but he’s also kind of going through Jakub’s memories or feelings. He felt like a doula to me. Or a spirit guide. With his telepathic powers, it felt intuitive to think that if you can see so much that you only need to speak a certain amount or a certain way. I think another part was just playing with the language on the page, and the script. Feeling that out. What are the words telling me? What do they seem like to me? What do they sound like to me? I think if you’re going through this alone, emotional, existential crisis—it felt like I should be guiding him in the most intimate way possible.
When I talk to performers about themes in films, they commonly say that they have to play character first, but your role here is kind of an emotional extension of Adam’s. So do you focus more on the thematic purpose for your character more than the literal one?
Well, yeah, I do, but I think there’s value in both. I think it’s important to look at what the film is about, and what the piece is. What does your character mean to it? But I do agree that, at the end of the day, what is emotional or actionable usually comes from character, and that’s your sort of ultimate purpose. So I took Hanus at face value, meaning that he was this actual being who traveled all this time and space and galaxies and years. And his civilization was lost. And he saw a lone traveler headed back to the place he was going. I always sort of thought, ‘What does this guy need from Jakub?’ I think it ends up being some sort of human connection that is love because I don’t think anyone wants to go back to the beginning alone. They sort of have each other and a jar of Nutella. Whether the beginning is death or rebirth or whatever it is.
At what phase did you know what Hanus looked like?
It grew. Certainly, I didn’t have any fully rendered images. But the artists were wonderful, and super collaborative. I can’t remember if she was the lead designer, but we had a very long in-depth conversation about everything to do with Hanus—emotional, physical, philosophical. They were really impressive to me in their want to understand the character and try to build that into the way it looks and moves. Or the belief that if they arm themselves with that as they design that it goes in there somewhere. You hope you just kind of fill up with everything. You metabolize in some way. So I found they were doing the same thing.
So I knew enough of what Hanus looked like and then there were different stages of post. I think I did a voice pass that was from the edit room. And then we did one with a helmet thing on for facial movements. And as they got into more of a locked-in cut, we would do final voice work. At that point, the creature was maybe there, and you could see exactly what he was doing. I would say that it was a very, very free way to work. If you’re just in a dark room alone, talking into a microphone, it’s a lot different than a room with 100 people and a camera rolling. There was something that was really fun about it.
Doesn’t that also require a lot of trust and confidence in your collaborators? When you sign onto something like “The Batman” or “The Fabelmans,” they’re kind of a known quantity. You have a good idea of what the final product will look like. But here you’re trusting your collaborators to go anywhere. There’s freedom but there’s also a little fear in that freedom isn’t there?
There is, but I do think that there’s one part of acting that’s kind of stranger to reckon with than as a writer/director. Your face is in it. So to actually be a spider, it’s just different. It just feels different. But this was also a film, I should say, on which everyone was taking that risk. It’s an ambitious film in how it’s telling its story, and what it’s trying to do. I really think that everybody was in that same boat, but I liked Johan’s work. And Adam—I grew up on his comedy albums. In middle school, that was the shit that friends and I would repeat to each other. He’s got a voice in my head. It’s something formative. So I was happy to take that risk with him.
How much did you actually get to work with him?
This began during the pandemic. So we started with Zoom rehearsals. It was actually a nice way into it because Adam, Johan, and I would just get together and read through the script. And start feeling it out. That was useful for me, and I know it was for Adam as well. Adam was working with a tennis ball and Johan had a friend who did some of the spider work [on-set] for him and Adam for his eyeline. He was really isolated on that ship. And then there were a bunch of stages of post work. I would love to work with Adam more. Everybody’s always said this and now I can too—he’s the best. He’s a wonderful person to be around.
There’s a line in the movie that hit me: “If I could do it again, I’d do it better.” What does that bring to mind in your life?
There’s a part of me that’s like, ‘So many things.’ But then there’s a part of me that thinks all my choices have brought me here, and I’m very lucky. I really like my family. I love my wife and my two kids. And I’m lucky I get to do what I do. I think I’m a little more superstitious about that—if you change one thing, it changes everything. I’m also sure that, on our deathbeds, we will be saying some versions of that line. You and I are still at an age where we can take the learning that regret has to offer and not let regret crush us. I remember reading a report from hospice nurses that the most common thing said is that no one wishes they had worked more. They usually wish they had spent more time with the people they love. That’s certainly applicable to “Spaceman.”
About life choices, do you watch your old work? If it’s on cable, what are you watching?
(Laughs.) NO. No. I think there’s probably things that are long enough ago now that I could get over myself and say, 'OK. You weren’t so bad.' I can probably feel OK about it. No. That is the funny thing about acting. And it’s not something I feel with writing or directing. Something about acting is different. It’s just a strange profession in that regard. No. Usually, I’m so tired that I just want to have a laugh, if anything. Then maybe read for a few moments after the laugh, and then just go to bed. (Laughs.)
What attracts you to a project nowadays? What’s the main draw to hook you?
Hopefully, the work meets you somewhere where you are in your life. For example, “The Fabelmans” was really important—to play a parent. 'OK, this is a different me now, going to work.' And even emotionally and thematically, entering different territory in my life. My guess is that it has to do with character and what part of myself I can get to work. I do feel like there’s a well-represented chapter [on film] of me in my twenties and thirties, and now it will feel different. And I think creating more of our own work, as well, is something that I’m interested in. Writing, directing, or helping to cultivate things. I’ve always been a film dork. I hope that I still get to work with some filmmakers who inspire me and make the stuff that I want to see.
One of the most memorable interviews of my life was with your wife two days after Election Day in 2016. It was an emotional interview and she spoke eloquently about the importance of art. The interview is titled “Art Cuts through Tyranny.” I would like to talk about the role of art in the state of the world eight years later. How important and valuable do you think art still is in this world?
For me, I suppose, I think I’ve always operated on the belief that if I make contact in something that's true in myself then it’s going to make contact with somebody else out there. I think that that can have an impact in many ways. It could just let you know you’re not alone. It could just be something that’s healing. It could just give you a laugh. Or it could help to reflect other parts of our world back to us, whether that’s political climate or hate or a certain kind of righteousness. I think that there needs to be mirrors held up that we can see ourselves and help, whether that’s promotion or a more objective point of view.
The ways that we receive that seem to be changing with technology. I’d like to think [that] since art has been an important part of human culture for as long as we know—whether that’s a record of writing on the wall or actors and shaman in a village—I’d like to think that there will always be a place for it to do something. On a separate note, I think that there is value in entertainment, but I think the best entertainers are still giving a piece of themselves like Adam did on those comedy albums. It makes people happy.
"Spaceman" is in limited release now and on Netflix today, March 1st.
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Jean-Pierre Jeunet excuses himself in the midst of our interview. “Give me one second,” the 70-year-old French filmmaker says over Zoom from Provence. “My dogs are knocking at the door.” It’s nighttime in France, and his pets mean the world to him, which is why he wants to make sure to let them in where it’s safe. “We have wolves,” he explains, “so it’s reassuring to have the little dogs inside.”
No one would be surprised to learn that Jeunet has a soft heart — just look at his most enduring film, “Amélie,” which was re-released in theaters in honor of Valentine’s Day. The story of a whimsical young Parisian (Audrey Tautou) who performs good deeds for others, eventually finding her own happy ending with the dashing, soulful Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), the fantastical 2001 romantic comedy opened in the U.S. not long after 9/11, its vision of an ultimately loving, magical world — Jeunet crafted a Paris of dreams — proving to be a solace for American viewers desperate to escape the terror, anger and sadness they were feeling. Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay for Guillaume Laurant and Jeunet, “Amélie” wasn’t just an arthouse hit but a sensation.
But as you’ll see from our conversation, Jeunet doesn’t share a lot in common with his optimistic heroine. And that’s the point: The filmmaker, who had previously made “Delicatessen” and “The City of Lost Children” (both with co-director Marc Caro), wanted to do something hopeful, even though he’s a glass-half-empty guy himself. “It’s much easier to make something dark, something negative, something pessimistic,” he tells me. “To make something positive — with a positive ending — it’s more difficult.”
His dogs now no longer in danger, he discusses going to the Oscars, his 9/11 memories, and how he tries to be like Amélie — even though he thinks humans are just the worst.
You’d had successful films before “Amélie,” but it resonated with audiences on a different level. Do you remember when you first realized the impact this movie was having?
It was little by little — it wasn’t one day. In fact, it started very badly, because I remember the Cannes Film Festival refused the film. I remember the moment Gilles Jacob, the boss of Cannes, was in a theater watching the movie — I could see [his] bald head, shiny under the projector, and I felt, “He doesn’t like the film.” [It’s] very funny because, a few years ago, he had to move his office, and the new street is Amélie in Paris. Kind of a punishment for him.
The film touches on luck, chance and fate. Were those themes that interested you at the time?
I couldn’t say that. But one day, I saw in the street in Paris a guy in a box, he had no legs, and I thought, “Maybe his only preoccupation is to help other people — I have a good idea for a film! Maybe not with a guy in a box, but with a girl.”
Emily Watson was originally meant to play Amélie, but when Watson was unavailable, the role ended up going to a relative newcomer: Audrey Tautou. It’s now hard to imagine anyone other than Tautou in the part.
I can imagine Emily Watson as Amélie — it would have been an older Amélie, a little bit more like Bridget Jones. But when I discovered the younger Amélie with Audrey, in 10 seconds I knew she is Amélie. She’s very funny, she’s able to be dramatic, she is able to do everything — she was the perfect actress for me, so it was very easy.
In the U.S., the film came out in November 2001 — after 9/11 — which definitely affected the experience. We had gone through something terrible, and this movie was a balm of sorts. Did you get a sense that Americans were responding to it in a specific way because of the terrorist attacks?
I had a clue because my wife is American, and she was watching a film from Cédric Klapisch — she could see some roofs of Paris [in the movie], and she told me, “American people will like it.” I was surprised: “Why? Because [of] roofs?” She said, “No, Paris roofs.” I thought, “Maybe if I show a beautiful Paris — a fake Paris without dog shit on the street, no traffic jams, beautiful posters on the walls — maybe it could be a success everywhere.”
On September 10th, we had an amazing screening at the Toronto Film Festival. Standing ovation. The day after, we had the press conference and someone told me, “There is a problem in New York.” They pushed me to [do the press conference] despite the [attacks]. Of course, the people were watching the TV screen, not me.
The day after [the press conference], I remember a kind of tension because we felt, “Maybe it’s not finished — maybe they will attack Paris.” Months later, when I [did] promotion [for the movie], I remember the smell in New York City — the smell of burned plastic. It was the Towers, of course.
You know, a director is very selfish — I thought, “Okay, this is the end for [my movie] because there is something so much [more] important [going on].” It was exactly the opposite: People needed something light. But you cannot imagine that when you make a film, of course.
Because so many people love “Amélie,” for lots of reasons, I was curious: What was your original vision for the film? What did you hope to make?
I wanted to make something positive. I wanted to make a feel-good movie. It’s not easy to make something not too sugary — for some people, it is too sugary. But you can’t please everybody.
Like you said, some critics didn’t respond to “Amélie” — they think it’s too sentimental or too whimsical. Do you consider yourself a sentimental person?
I am very pessimistic. A pessimistic person is an optimistic person well-informed. I see the empty part of the glass of water.
Have you always been pessimistic, or did it happen as you got older?
Probably [as I] get older. There’s a reason I love my dogs — the more I know people, the more I love my dogs.
Because you cast Tautou, Amélie ended up being younger than you’d originally conceived her. She’s really the ideal age to be so romantic about the world. Did you envy the character being young and still having her optimism?
I think it’s not a question of young or old. We agree human beings are the worst pieces of shit on this planet, but on the other hand, every human being has something good in the bottom of their heart. When we have an earthquake, you have everybody trying to save people. On the other hand, you have wars, the terrible things. It’s very complex, but somewhere we have something good in us.
I want to go back to the idea that the film is about fate, luck and chance. How much do you think your life has been impacted by those things?
Of course, we need some luck, but we need more to be stubborn. You have to know exactly what you want. As Ridley Scott says, “You have to be like a dog.” [Mimics a dog chomping down on a bone.] Never give up. With Marc Caro, when we started to make movies, it was just impossible to imagine something else — we had to make a movie and that’s it. It was essential, like to eat or to drink. And because so many people would like to do that, you have to be more stern than the other people.
The movie was nominated for five Oscars. It won a couple BAFTA awards, including Best Original Screenplay for you and Guillaume Laurant. What was the experience like after the awards-season rush was over? Is it deflating? Or were you ready to move on to the next thing?
We were so happy to be [at the Oscars], we didn’t care at the time [what happened]. But now, I regret [not winning] because the statue is beautiful. [Laughs] I miss it on my shelf.
But you know the story — it was [the] year Miramax was boycotted by the Academy, so bad luck for us. Weinstein had 19 nominations [that year], he [only] got one. But on the other hand, if I think he deserved to be boycotted, it’s because he [did] something wrong, and if we would have won, it would have been not fair. But I received a letter from Steven Spielberg: “Good luck for the Oscars — you will win!” [Laughs]
How much higher was your profile in Hollywood after “Amélie”? Was every studio in town clamoring for you to make something with them?
Before “Amélie,” I made “Alien: Resurrection” for Fox. Tom Rothman, the boss, told me, “We will be interested to produce your next movie,” so I flew from Paris to L.A. — at this time, no Skype — and had a meeting with Fox. When I entered the room, Tom Rothman [seemed] embarrassed. He told me, “You know, the marketing [people] read your script [for ‘Amélie’] and said it’s not ‘Titanic.’” When Tom Rothman saw [my] film, he was totally upset — I suppose the next day he fired everyone. [Laughs]
“Alien: Resurrection” was your only American studio film. I think a lot of your fans assumed the experience was so bad you never wanted to work in Hollywood again.
When I made “Alien: Resurrection,” they gave me the freedom — it couldn’t happen today. For “Amélie,” total freedom. Today, I have to fight to explain what I want to do — some young producers [will say], “Oh, you have to modify that.”
I almost made “Life of Pi.” I worked three years on “Life of Pi” — 20th Century Fox loved our adaptation. But it was too expensive. I proposed to produce myself — the difference between the euro and the dollar was so big at the time, it was the same price. I said, “Wait three years and we will be able to make the tiger in CGI.” Then they hired Ang Lee, and it was double the price.
Was it difficult after “Amélie,” to think, “Maybe I’m never going to make anything that captures an audience the way that movie did”?
The film gave me the opportunity to make “A Very Long Engagement.” Because Warners had the rights, I couldn’t imagine they would give [them to] me. But because of the success of “Amélie” — thank you, Richard Fox — they gave me total freedom. When I met the boss in Los Angeles, I said, “I want to shoot in French.” “Okay.” “I want final cut.” “Okay.” It was amazing, and we made a beautiful movie.
Of course, you would like to have the same success all the time, but you know it’s once in a lifetime — you have to know that. It’s a kind of miracle. I am so happy because this is the dream for every director to make something very personal — a little movie with a lot of personal ideas, and it becomes a phenomenon. It’s more than a success.
Amélie would now be about the age that you were when you made “Amélie.” Do you ever wonder where she would be today?
People offered us to make a sequel. We imagined she would have two babies with Mathieu Kassovitz — [he] lays down on a couch, drinking beer, watching football. Something sad and bad like this. [Laughs] I could imagine [for a sequel] another [character], she would like to be a kind of Amélie, and she tries to do the same thing, but she [messes up] everything. It could be funny to do that.
Did making an optimistic movie help change your pessimistic worldview?
I try to be like Amélie, taking some [enjoyment from] the small pleasures of life. For example, when she puts the hand in the grain — every day, I try to have the same kind of little pleasure. It seems like nothing, but it’s very important.
In the film, we hear about different characters’ likes and dislikes. Years earlier, you had made a short, “Foutaises (Things I Like, Things I Hate),” about your own likes and dislikes. Has the list changed much over time?
No, but every day you find some other ideas, of course.
Do fans still send you photos of gnomes in different parts of the world?
No, but today I received a photograph from a butcher in India or China watching “Amélie” [at work]. Two or three years ago, they [held] a screening in Cannes on the beach for free. They warned me, “It’s a rainy day, we will have 50 people” — no, it was packed. It continues — it never stopped. At the cafe in “Amélie,” every four minutes [someone takes] a picture.
Amélie talks about how much she loves turning around in the theater to see all the faces looking up at the screen. Are you the same way?
I did that. With my short film, I was in a film festival, and I turned my head — everyone was smiling. It was a great moment.
Was that the first time you did that?
I don’t remember. I am very good [at keeping] the good memories — I have a very bad memory, except for the good things.
That seems like a great power to have.
Except “Amélie,” which was very easy, usually [making movies] is a nightmare. The last one, “T.S. Spivet,” was a nightmare — 10 years after, you remember just the good memories. You forget the bad things.
It’s luck — maybe it’s me, I don’t know. I love to rewatch my own movies. Every director [says], “I never watch my own movies” — oh, I do.
Yeah, so many artists only see the mistakes or the things they wish they could redo. How do you explain your ability to just sit back and enjoy your own work?
When I see [my] film, it’s like when you watch a film from vacation: “Oh, I remember it was good to do that.” I love so much to make — this is the most important thing for me. Even when I don’t make a film, I have here in Provence a workshop, and I make something with my hands. I don’t know to draw, I don’t know to make sculptures, but I make some animals and I make an animation short film with that.
This is my best advice I can give to young people: Just take the pleasure to make. Don’t think about the future. Don’t think about [being] famous. Sometimes they ask me, “What do I have to do to be a director?” I say, “Do you want to be, or do you want to make?”
Did you get the sense that “Amélie” helped increase tourism in Paris? We all wanted to see that amazing city you created.
I know there is an “Amélie” tour in Montmartre. The last time I checked the sex shop [in the film], I opened the door and asked the cashier, “I am just curious, because I’m the director of ‘Amélie,’ do you [get tourists]?” And he said, “I was here during the shooting, I don’t know you — get lost.” [Laughs]
You don’t look that different from when you made the film!
He wasn’t there — he lied!
]]>In an election year full of anxiety, documentary filmmaker Dan Partland has given us another reason to lose sleep at night. The director of “Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump” returns with “God & Country,” a sobering examination of the rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States, collecting an array of experts, authors and pastors to dissect how a far-right fringe perverted the tenets of Christianity to build a frightening, militant national movement. And in case you think such concerns are overblown, the film draws compelling connections between the January 6th insurrection and Christian Nationalism’s desire to destroy democracy in order to achieve its political objectives. Well-armed, well-funded and convinced of their holy cause, Christian Nationalists may represent a minority in this country, but it’s a dangerously motivated minority determined to rule the rest of us, the Constitution be damned.
“God & Country,” which is produced by Rob Reiner, opens today. Earlier this week, I spoke to Partland via Zoom, curious to probe the troubling implications of his film. Below, Partland discusses his own religious background, why he thinks those on the left need to find common ground with moderate religious conservatives, and what’s up with Christian Nationalists’ insistence that Jesus was buff and tough.
Before we talk about “God & Country,” I wanted to ask about your own religious background.
I come from a secular, interfaith family. I was raised largely secularly because, at the time, my parents were from different faiths, and it caused a little bit of strife for the two families to figure out how to get together — so I think my parents felt like there was too much divisiveness. They wanted to raise the kids to find their own spiritual path and not consider it a deep part of their identity.
So did you dabble in different religions or philosophies?
I did, and I studied a lot. I grew up in a very conservative, largely Christian community — northeast United States, mostly mainline Protestants and some very traditional Catholics — and, honestly, I always felt a little left out. I wanted to understand what it was all about, and so I studied religion and Eastern philosophies and other things like that in college.
The interesting thing is that, in my adult life, I really have quite a lot of close friends and important filmmaking collaborators who are deeply devout people and who represent the best qualities of religious devotion — they do good works and are about kindness and spreading compassion. So when I was asked if I wanted to take on this project, I talked to them first — I definitely was looking to them for guidance, because I recognized that I had an outsider perspective.
One of my closest collaborators, when I said I was considering this project about Christian Nationalism, his total demeanor changed. He was stricken and I was worried — I didn’t know if I had said the wrong thing or maybe he felt like that this was a mistake. But when he gathered his composure, he said, “Thank you for taking this on. It’s tearing apart the country, it’s tearing apart the Church, and nobody’s talking about it.” That was a tremendous entry point for me to recognize that I was coming at it from the perspective of my concern for what it’s doing to American democracy — but I realized that the deeply devout are also really concerned about what it’s doing to their faith.
Did your friends and collaborators want to distance themselves from the extremism of Christian Nationalism: “Please don’t think we’re anything like those people just because we’re religious”?
Your question indirectly touches on the central difficulty, which is one of the things that helps Christian Nationalism to proliferate — it represents itself as being a faith and a faith-based movement. Americans deeply believe in religious liberty — if it’s a faith, Americans’ instinct is to not criticize it. Everybody is entitled to their own belief. The problem is it’s not really a faith — it’s a political movement masquerading as faith.
Every family is touched by it right now in America. I come from a very religiously diverse family — intermarriage happened on all levels of the previous generation — and so the families that comprise my first cousins are Presbyterian, Catholic, atheist, Jewish and Greek Orthodox. None of the cousins shares the [same] faith — everyone has grandparents who are of different faith than they. So this is an American story — this is, for people who appreciate what’s great about the American experiment, [what they] love about it. But, of course, as we become increasingly diverse, the grip on political and cultural power of a certain portion of society is on the decline, and that’s really what has caused this rise in white Christian Nationalism.
People who don’t have a lot of connections to the Christian-conservative portion of the population aren’t understanding the size and scope of what’s out there. I had an idea of what the ‘80s-era Christian right was about — the Moral Majority, et cetera, which was clearly a politicized movement right out of the gate. That was small enough that you could shrug it off. But as a documentarian, you’re trying to give people a measure of what experience you yourself had in delving into [a topic] — just give people a sense of the scale that we’re really talking about. This movement has grown by leaps and bounds, and as we sit here in 2024, it is still an ascendant movement. It’s still gaining in cultural and political power.
“God & Country” touches on the belief some Christians have that they’ve been persecuted by society. Is there something inherent in a kind of Christianity that finds self-martyrdom — or seeing oneself as the victim — deeply alluring?
In the current political cycle, grievance is a really powerful motivator. The way that has rhymed with this Christian Nationalist movement is that Bible stories talk about the ways in which early Christians were persecuted — there’s a resonance that seems to validate people’s commitment when they feel like they’re being criticized for something related to their faith.
This is a leadership-driven movement. The leaders are becoming very politically powerful and, in many cases, very wealthy. The rank and file — the majority of the followers — are really just trying to be good citizens, good Americans and good Christians. But when you’re in an information silo, and you’re hearing these messages repeated again and again that there is only one way to be a good Christian in America, there’s a tremendous coercive pressure.
The little glimmer of hope in all this is that a tremendous number of American Christians are growing very discontent with the ways in which [Christian Nationalism] flies in the face of centuries of Christian teaching about what the underlying value system was supposed to be.
With a film like this, an obvious question is “Who is the intended audience?” I imagine if you tried to show the documentary in a conservative church, it would be dismissed as left-wing Hollywood propaganda.
Of course, the film is going to be attacked and discredited along those lines — it has been from the day that we put the trailer out. What cannot be discredited are the Christian-conservative bona fides of the voices in the film. All these people have written multiple books and a million columns and essays [about Christian Nationalism]. There’ve been tons of important works of journalism, but they’re just not making a dent. People, unless you’re particularly motivated, are not going to go out and read all of those books — but what a film can do is put you in that story emotionally, and hopefully that’s where the impact is.
[People will ask,] “Who is [the film] for? Is there an audience for it?” It’s not that you don’t think about that as a creator — it’s just that it wasn’t workshopped and backward-engineered in order to lure a certain audience. It was an effort to include the best voices and the best insights and tell the story in a way that was going to feel comprehensive and fair.
A lot of very literate people [will] say, “Well, this is just preaching to the converted.” Well, if something is preaching to the converted, from a market standpoint, that is a very good idea — that works. Michael Moore’s films are very popular, and nobody thinks that he’s winning people from the other side. Fox News, the entire business model is that there is a good market in reinforcing people’s existing beliefs. So when you go out and try to make something that is a little more complex than that, you still know that, ultimately, the film is speaking to a coalition of the willing.
Lauren Boebert isn’t going to go see the film — if she does see the film, I don’t know what she’s going to get out of it. But I think that there is a broad secular audience, that is politically engaged, that is interested in this and wants a thoughtful dive that is fair to people of faith. And I think there’s a large swath of devout Christian conservatives, who have grown uncomfortable with the shape of the culture surrounding their faith, that are also very interested in hearing other perspectives.
When you’re interviewed by religious media for the film, do you ever have the urge to ask them, “Hey, can’t you all do more to fight this problem?”
I never feel like you need to do more. This is a democracy, and we all have to do what we can do, but I completely understand how difficult it is for devout people — Christians on the conservative end of the spectrum — to speak out against this movement. It’s an outgrowth of our hyper-partisanship — it’s an outgrowth of, some people would say, the tribal nature of humanity.
There's 18 voices in the film — the overwhelming majority are fairly devout people. Within that, there’s a big spectrum [in] their belief, their political views and their backgrounds. The ones who the Christian Nationalists reserve their most vitriolic and nasty assaults for are the ones who are themselves Christian conservatives, because people who are viewed as apostate to the faith are always condemned in the harshest terms — as opposed to people who are viewed as, say, progressive Christians. There’s a very popular podcast — a great show — called “The Holy Post,” which is hosted by Phil Vischer and Skye Jethani [who both appear in “God & Country”]. They’re very aligned on a lot of things, but Phil is viewed as Christian conservative and Skye is viewed as a progressive Christian. [When] the trailer came out, Phil got viciously attacked online, and Skye got nothing.
The religious people interviewed in the film are not a monolith. Still, I assume you don’t agree with everything they believe. How do you respond to viewers on the left who will think, “Yeah, I know these people are not Christian Nationals, but they’re still Christians, and I have issues with them for their opposition to abortion or gay marriage”?
The voices in the film are very diverse — I don’t agree with any one of them on [everything], and they don’t agree with each other on everything. One thing that unifies them is their concern about Christian Nationalism — the other thing is these are honest, informed, good-faith participants in our civic culture. I have so much admiration for all of them — it’s courageous to participate in something like this. They’re doing it because they [believe] that speaking out about this is necessary to preserve our democracy — and their faith, in some cases.
But I did hear that perspective from a lot of people: “Why would you put someone like that [in the film]? You know what he believes? You know what he’s tweeted about?” I think that’s just part of the bad route the culture has gone, which requires every examination of a topic to be in a sort of ideological orthodoxy — the people who vary on any point shouldn’t be included in there because they’re not part of “us.” I just think it’s a bunch of B.S. — you should collect the best ideas from wherever they are on the topics that you’re talking about.
The one thing I will say, though, is we don’t interview Christian Nationalists for the movie. We thought about it — I think a lot of them would’ve participated. But the problem is, if you look at American media going back the past couple of decades, you can see that we went through this period where a certain laziness happened in the way we covered political stories — [we] believed that everything is a point-counterpoint. If you have somebody representing one side, you get somebody representing the other, and then inherently we had “fairness.” The problem is that created this false equivalency, which meant that any perspective is equally valid. I bet Ralph Reed would’ve given us an interview — the question is what would we have learned that we don’t already know from his existing public statements. [Then] what you’ve done is you’ve platformed a bad-faith engagement — people don’t need to hear more of that.
Joe Biden is a churchgoer. Donald Trump is not. Why don’t Democrats speak out about the fact that Republicans don’t have a monopoly on faith?
The American left, going back for decades now, [has] not figured out how to communicate effectively with the faith community.
Is it abortion? Do they just know that’s a losing argument with so many Christians?
That’s a very important reason — I don’t know if it’s the only reason.
There is a phalanx of political deliverables that have lined up on the religious right — that list has, in a sense, become the definition of white Christian Nationalism. [Because] the culture is really uncomfortable with people making alliances where there isn’t a perfect ideological alignment, it becomes politically difficult: “Wow, you’re aligning with this person, but this person is against gay marriage.” Both the left and the right in America have required absolute lockstep agreement on their important political points — [they] have been very wary to build coalitions out of people who agree on some things and disagree on other things. That’s been very bad for the political landscape — it’s contributed to this hyper-partisanship.
Of course, when you actually look at the political deliverables that we call Christian Nationalism, that doesn’t make a lot of sense that the faith community is aligned with these. This is a movement that purports to be in the name of Christ and Christian principles, [but] it’s come down on the side of preemptive war, has condoned torture, believes in the death penalty, is against restrictions on guns, is against environmental protections. You look at this list and you’re trying to find, “What does that have to do with ‘doing unto others’? What does that have to do with ‘turning the other cheek’? What does that have to do with ‘loving your enemies’? What does that have to do with ‘lifting up the least of these, putting the last first’? [But] the [electoral] value of the Christian right has made it essential to Republican politics, so it’s been forced to carry the water for a whole list of right-wing Republican ideas that don’t really fit that well within the Christian umbrella that they’re trying to put it under.
You argue in “God & Country” that our democracy is at stake. If that’s the case, do people on the left essentially have to get over themselves and find common cause with more moderate religious conservatives? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but that is the sense I’m getting from our conversation.
It’s what’s messy about democracy, but we’ve got to unite as Americans and collaborate on things where we share common ground. I don’t need to agree with everything that the speakers in the film believe, but let’s partner on the things that we share. Let’s partner on those things and move those things forward.
The film mentions how few Americans actually vote. If fear is a good motivator, is part of your agenda to scare nonvoters to go to the polls?
Democracy requires an educated public, and it requires participation. We’re not having a democracy if we’re not having people exercise their vote. The Christian Nationalists have proven — and this has been the case in different periods in history as well — that a particularly motivated minority can take control of an entire society. There’s no question, with the deep levels of investment and infrastructure that has been created by Christian Nationalist causes, they have maximized their ability to create engagement and participation in the democratic process — while, at the same time, taking a lot of anti-democratic means, both through the process of gerrymandering and suppressing the vote in areas where they’re not strong. [They have] a determination to take control and then force their agenda on the rest of us, even if they represent what might be less than 20 or 30 percent of the population.
One last thing: Obviously, “God & Country” is incredibly despairing and rage-inducing, but there’s one darkly comic section in which you examine Christian Nationalists’ desire to worship a super-buff, kick-ass Jesus. Over the years, Jesus has gotten more swole in their artwork. They seem hilariously obsessed with portraying him as hyper-masculine.
Well, I will say that section does get laughs in the theater. One of the primary interviews in the film is the preeminent scholar in this space, Kristin Kobes Du Mez. Her fabulous book, Jesus and John Wayne, is essentially all about this topic — she paints it very well.
On every level, the film is actually about identity — the movies that we watch and the way we think of ourselves as Americans as rugged individualists, it has a layer of toxic masculinity built into it. The scene you’re talking about is typified by one particular retired U.S. military, who’s now a pastor, who says, “You think Jesus is this peaceful, effeminate guy? No, he was a tough guy! That’s the Jesus I want to be like. He was a masculine guy!”
I think that the historical Jesus — and the Biblical figure — is kind of a woke guy. I mean, that’s the terrible irony of it: What He was telling the world really flies in the face of that [Christian Nationalism] characterization. It flies in the face of a lot of things that we like to believe as Americans. It wasn’t about peace through strength — it was peace through spiritual strength. That sometimes means turning away from a conflict, turning the other cheek, being strong enough spiritually to not deepen the conflict. Other times, it requires the bravery to put those in need first — to put your compassion for people ahead of your own personal need. I just don’t see that this movement is really at all in step with the central messages of what Jesus was trying to teach.
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