Hey and welcome back today 24 podcast. You've been waiting for the perfect moment to get our roster and Robert Eggers together for a conversation. We finally found that moment last month the morning after Rob saw the Final Cut of Midsomer for anyone already listening these two need no further introduction. Keep your eye out for an Extended Cut of this episode dropping next week for serious. Bergman fans only. Here's Aryan Rob. Okay, we're doing it.
Okay, this is Robert Eggers. This is re Esther. And yeah, we're doing the H-24 podcast which is cool. We're doing it together. Yeah, which feels appropriate given that we're both friends totally and to like each other's work and the same stuff. Yeah. Yeah speaking of which we have a goal which is we're trying to orient this discussion around the work of Ingmar Bergman we probably won't succeed but we're going to give it a shot.
Yeah, I thought you I thought you were joking when you first suggested it, but I'm excited to dive in. I know that we're both devotees. You can probably see it in our work feels appropriate. Yeah, so we met we met a couple years ago. I was doing it wasn't really a friends-and-family screening of hereditary. It was but it was like the because I well I think they're our friends and family of a 24, but I didn't know anybody there.
Yeah it Before asked me to go to a screening of something that I didn't know anything about it. So everything was a horror movie I think was the first of those that we had done and the room, you know, like did not seem to love it and I remember going up in front of the going up in front of everyone who just seen the film like very like Stern faces that were like ready to cut me down to size and you and your wife Ali were sitting like
near the front and you gave me like two thumbs up and yet At a very warm smile on your face and it's like I I like held on to that as my lifeline as people in the room proceeded to explain to me that you know, I was a bastard and I and I you know, I made a worthless movie. Yeah. Well you did not I was totally blown away I especially cuz I had no expectations and and it was fantastic and it was really I mean, it was so smart and truly inspiring.
Me and I was really like the some of the craft of the camera work. I didn't even perceive because I was so impressed with the breadcrumbs that you are laying with the with the screenplay. And anyway, it was a real joy and I had the great pleasure of seeing the or a finished version of mid Samar last night and it was great. I also saw like an earlier version and I you know, I don't know what You cut but I felt like the film was was tighter.
I had way more shit in it. Yeah, you know that when you like finish something When the Music's there and the color it does just feel ya much more substantial for sure for sure.
It's really excellent. And so now to try to shoehorn wait, wait, hold on. Oh that I just need to like I cannot like receive a compliment without like reciprocating when when I have one to give because I so I have not seen the finished version of the lighthouse, but I did see Cut that was nearly finished and I have the feeling that you would never show a cut to anybody that isn't nearly finished. I I love the lighthouse and I'm so excited to see what it is.
Now that it's done. But what I saw I felt finished well, thank you. It is like it's so beautiful. So beautifully done and really funny.
I know I've said this before and you've had kind of a inscrutable Expressions. I don't know if this like if this feels right to you, but it really made me think of Harold Pinter who I love and I mean, I can't really think of any other work that feels like Harold Pinter besides, you know, I mean, like what else plays like the servant or you know, no man's land or like, you know the homecoming and and this felt to me a total like spiritual sibling and and even though it
reminds me of Harold Pinter it also reminds I have nothing else including Harold Pinter just feels it just feels like totally unique and yeah, it's okay. Okay. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. That's really old printer by way of no. No, that's way too kind way Bella tar. I would say but pretty incredible. Well, thank you. Thank you that that's like those. That's far too kind. All right. I'm on this Bergman Mission. Damn it.
Okay. So everyone has close-ups like Bergman doesn't own close-ups, but there's something NG Less in some of the center framed things in the latter portion of mid some are but the earliest stuff with Danny gave a sort of berg many vibe to me and I know that just because the movie takes place in Sweden. I feel like people talk about Bergman in relation to Mid sommar in a way that maybe is like inappropriate, you know tarkovsky sacrifice people would
always say that it's Bergman task which would really piss him off because he This has nothing to do with Bergman films except for spending this well. Yeah, it's like it's like if you have bergman's entire crew. Yeah designing and shit and film Yosef since he's in the film. Yeah. It's going to feel a little Bergman e right. I mean, we've talked a lot about Bergman before he's you know a hero of mine. I love his films. I was thinking a lot more about his work when I was making
hereditary particularly. Cries and Whispers And I showed the crew Autumn Sonata because of the mother-daughter parallels. Yeah. I mean nobody shoots close-ups like him. I definitely when we were making hereditary again. I made my cinematographer pavel's poker. Gel ski was also one of my best friends.
I made him watch Persona just cuz I think those are like the most beautiful close-ups I've ever seen and I'm numb and I feel like there is this Not sure if it's like a recent Trend but I'm seeing filmmakers like really clearly chasing the Berkman close up. Even if you look at like PT Anderson who loved to talk early in his career about how he was like kind of chasing the Jonathan Demi close up, you know in the way those look especially starting with the master that
he's moving kind of like away from Demi and Scorsese and woman towards especially Bergman in in the way. He frames close-ups and you know, obviously cool Rook to but I yeah there is this like the Box quality right where you give
just enough. Yeah, you know Headroom and you typically like bring the camera like two or three inches below the nose and it's and well and you and you shooting in like 2 to 1 is that is a nice compromise for getting scoped and still getting really healthy close-ups where you're not like chopping people's like head pieces pieces.
There is a lot of their heads off so you it was it's nice to see I I love to to one II know that we Prevail and I chose two to one for hereditary because it was like Douglas sirk's yeah favorite aspect ratio or like, you know, his chosen aspect ratio. And you know, we were making, you know this domestic movie set in the house and yeah, it feels
it feels right. It's like how do you get the height like, you know the width but also like some of the height but when you're indoors like that can box you in and then I was kind of surprised that we I landed on that for Midsomer because we you know, we said like let's try something else and then we just I mean on paper two to one for Midsummer seems like a perfect like I could see something box like one six six,
even for hereditary. You went with Academy right for we went with 1-6 6-4 the which we didn't want to go so boxy as Academy, but we wanted we did want a more height for for Is and we did want something box here for the interiors. And of course so that film we shot on Alexa and because for anamorphic because the sensors for three and we were using
these like old lenses. We were actually you got more of the like lens characteristic that was really cool and something that then for the lighthouse shooting on 35 millimeter in an even stupider aspect ratio. We were able to take advantage of so, okay. So I think like the a24 gods are not smiling at us for being maybe like to obscure what feel like we could get more obscure.
Oh we could but like, you know, so what about everyone's least favorite topic certainly mine genre our films and genre. I mean, I like I think hereditary is a horror movie like I've oh, yeah for people who've not like it's not like I get why yeah, actually Don't get why I like I I I mean it is like absolutely unabashedly a horror film like that was the goal and I feel like I was like Miss quoted like crazy.
I mean, I'd rather like just never speak ever and just like release the movie sure you have to do the press and yeah, it's just a Minefield because you just say something kind of flippantly and then it becomes like your statement on the film, but no like Wizard of Oz for perverts. Yeah, which I was like drunk and you know, I mean I'm fine with it. But yeah, but But I wouldn't want it to be you know, like my on the cover of the Blu-ray.
I hereby designate its Amar right Wizard of Oz for permits the dead that was not my intention but like it was the first thing I said and like now it's the last word but I think I said something about like, you know, it's a it's a family tragedy that like becomes like a nightmare in the fact that I like wasn't actually using the word horror. It is somehow the Omission became like a statement. But yeah, it's a horror movie of course like that.
That's Want to get their people like crawling on the walls, you know, yeah for sure for sure and then you know mid some are is maybe something else. I don't know.
I mean, it's horror adjacent. I feel like yeah, I feel like an asshole even saying the word adjacent but I see it as a fairy tale more than anything especially because of just like her trajectory like her Arc. If anything I think like the trick of the movie or like what I was what I kind of got excited about doing was like for everybody else like for every other Her in that film including her boyfriend like it's a folk horror movie without any shame or without any leg pretensions
to something else. It's a folk horror movie, but for her, it's like this perverse wish-fulfillment fantasy that like is just ultimately a fairytale wear like this community could be seen as a, you know date. I want them to be read at least on first viewing before you kind of get a sense of what this thing really is like that.
They're like this real place with like a real history. re and like Rich Traditions, but you know, I can't watch the film anymore without seeing them like as strictly manifestations of Danny's like will and it's cool the this version the finished version, you know, or maybe it's also just watching it again because as we all know watching films multiple times is important to really understanding them felt so much more from Danny's perspective partially and some of the like
visual effects treatment to things but even just in the editing choices, at least that's how I experience it the second time and and everything you're saying like where everything you just said really resonated with my experience of watching it the second time last night. Nice. That's great. So it was it was pretty sick. By the way. Did you ever watch any of those like 70s English TV folk horror like mr.james things that I sent you my God, I didn't it's okay fuck.
I know I was really excited about it. But you sent it to me exactly at the time where like where you were done was neglecting everything that Anybody sent me and I understand and I like, you know just burned like every bridge in my life. That's fine except for with the people who know what it's like to make a movie and like, you know, just kind of yeah, you're going to be m is here and it's
fine. But we move on I want to know like, you know, what what genre you'd like place the which in but I'm really interested to know like how you might categorize the lighthouse. Yeah, I would again I completely understand why people don't see the witch as a horror movie that it was certainly my attempt to make a horror movie. So I saw it as that even though certainly like the family drama is more important. I mean like you see it a witch
flying on a broomstick. I mean, maybe that's scary but like that certainly it's awesome. It's really were trouble. Whatever should be even if it wasn't successfully so but for my money that was horror and the lighthouse if I've had to like designate a genre it would be the literary genre of a of a weird tale like Mr. James, Blackwood. Lovecraft but it is something else you can than that but that would sort of be even have the octopus right? Exactly left grab exactly.
Yeah, but it certainly was just something idea that I had that got out of control and my brother and I wrote it and had it had fun. But I think it's also funny how the different ways in which odours of a certain caliber like
will or won't talk about genre. Oh or say their film is genre or like laughs off the idea of genre being important and even more interestingly is people who are sort of sophisticated filmmakers feel that like horror genre, whatever that means to them is like not something that one could consider art that can really talk about what it means to be a human being but is rather just some sort of cheap commercial thing. But obviously these horror stories things like her, right?
Jerry that actually do probe the darker side of humanity in like a serious way like that's incredibly important. Yeah and and should be respected man. Yeah. No, I agree. I mean there was at least like a five-year period in my adolescence where like horror movies were like, the only thing I had to say this three-ring binder that I just kept I kept adding badly photocopied like black and white because that's all I had was we had a black and white printer.
His from the internet from horror movies. So there's just like I like drew a lot. And so I guess like that's that was the point was a weird. I guess. I have like a collector's thing where I just never actually went through this thing, but I just kept adding to it. So is this compulsive? Do you still have it? I'll be I'm sure it's somewhere. I mean it would take a mean it's going to be in some box like somewhere in my in my family's home.
I'd be curious to see how much of your Primal narrative began. You know act like everyone makes the same movie or write the same book or paint the same thing over and over and over again. I think what it was too is that there were films that really really affected me and scared me. I was really impressed Nimble as a kid and there were a few films. I just like I saw them too young
didn't know how to process them. Like I was clearly like, I mean, I'm sure I made associations like subconsciously that then, you know enhanced everything like Carrie really destroyed me. I was able to watch it again until like my 20s and and then I realized like it's like a really sad comedy but right but it's no but as he for a kid, I mean, it's it really like I could not get the image of Piper Laurie like chasing Sissy Spacek around this like candlelit house out of my head.
She's got this like horrible smile holding a knife and like that that just like has like come back to me. And so many ways just like Still Still I'll have like a nightmare about that and that and that is sort of like weird tone of that film. That's like Unrealistic almost kind of unprofessional and exist and sentimental with the Pinot DiMaggio school. Yeah, like 400 for it for a kid.
I can see that being like very disturbing especially because it's like it's so dissonant with like the sort of Disney Spielberg like thing that is supposed to be yeah movie viewing, you know, absolutely and it is it is that artifice and that like there's like a romance to it. That's really upsetting and then I talked about it this so much on the Press tour for hereditary that I like, you know.
And of I don't want to talk about again, but if we're talking about things that affected us like Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover sure so that too young that like really bothered me and like a deep deep way and I remember there was a like a kid's cartoon 30 minutes long called the Snowman but like I don't know like that is I think it's like a kick like a girl or a little boy get on a snowman's like back in like fly
through the world. It's I can't remember even with the story was but I just remembered that it like a bug. Add me so I I know that there's something about like the Maudlin when combined with is something I don't know like the model and the grotesque when they kind of meat as a kid. I like couldn't process that. Yeah, and there's also just like a mean-spiritedness to certain films that like really bugged me as a kid and then I kind of became obsessed with that
tradition. Like I saw blue velvet and Like Clockwork Orange when I was just very young and I hated them but then I like being obsessed. I couldn't stop talking about it and then they obviously It became like, you know, some of
my favorite films blue velvet. There's nothing original about like loving blue velvet, but it is it is just it's just a lot of the greatest thing ever like ever I don't know if you had this experience, but certainly like the things I hated when I first encountered them because they felt kind of evil. Those are the things that kind of I kept returning to and they became obsessions and Fascinations.
And then I mean, I don't know what I do in my own work because I'm like too close to it. I my nose is like certainly like right up against this. Movie I have no objectivity, but I imagine that there's you know that I'm I can see myself like kind of still wrestling with what it is that fascinates me about narratives like that. What about you? I mean, ah, I mean like just you know, like what what got to you as a kid like what and yet what what were your early influences?
Like? What were the films that you like first like I assert I certainly read a lot of scripts like as a teenager that like were extremely derivative of
like one or two things. Sure site, right wanted like wished that I had made like I wonder if it's other people's experience of like when you first start making things like me. I think we're all we're all derivative in the beginning and I remember seeing some Picasso exhibit in my twenties being really happy to see that after his sort of academic what we would call photo-realistic period that then he was just painting like any other
Impressionists before he became I mean, but better but but It was just like what everyone else is doing and then and then he became himself. I actually even the which to me
feels like derivative. Like it's you know, like I feel like it wears its influences on its sleeve much more than the lighthouse like I think you can identify influences in the lighthouse for sure, but I feel like a collectively it sort of I think I'm starting to become myself a little more which hopefully I'll continue to do but yeah, I mean whatever for Mary Poppins to like Conan the Barbarian Like in Ridley Scott's Legend. I don't know and Star Wars and
Indiana Jones and all that crap. I think the the first movie that wasn't a movie that would be easy to access. That was very influential which I've also talked about plenty's Nosferatu. Yeah. I saw an image of Max Schreck and a book about vampires and Elementary School library and at that time especially in like real New Hampshire, like it wasn't you couldn't just you
know, whatever so we had to like go to the video store. 45 minutes away and order it and then wait for it to come in the mail and whatever and I wore that VHS out but it's funny because as a kid I could watch shit that I think is boring today just being intrigued by what are adults up to like like like I do have a fondness for Marks and Ivory films, but I definitely do. Yeah, but like the bad like the boring ones like even as a kid, like if my parents would be
watching it should be like that the bostonians like I wouldn't worry. On but you just but it was just like interesting to watch grown up people doing weird things. What about what about I want to ask you? What is it? That kind of like first Drew you to like esoterica because clearly like you have this real fascination with bygone eras and like I mean, you you love your clearly like a person who loves creating worlds, but you also really love like recreating world's.
Yeah, for some reason. I was really always into costumes and I used to wear a costume. Eames to school I used to ask for costumes for Christmas presents. I don't know like where that comes from. But I just I've that was something that was always really interesting to me. And so then books about fashion history. Like I know I know that my grandmother who died did some costume design for Community Theater and like University
ballet. So she had some like books when I was like super little like for and stuff that were like, lushly Illustrated that I still have like Of them that I like Drew all over it. Like it'd be like someone's like, you know, it's just like a bust of somebody and I would like Drew with markers their legs like really shitty like, you know, what is like six for whatever and then my grandfather collected Antiques and he knew a lot about them and so that
became a germ of something and then when we would go on like family trips to like like Colonial Williamsburg and Plymouth Plantation things that a lot of people thought they were boring. I fucking loved it. You know, I was like, yeah like I want to Be a blacksmith. This is great. And I love talking to the living history nerds. Like I thought it was the coolest thing and then there was another this is like a sort of
gross story. But my dad taught at the University of New Hampshire and there is a art show by this Lafayette and immigrant Hyman Bloom and he was like a New England painter who had this retrospective. That was like, Really amazing and he had all these like hellish imagery of like demons and astral planes and stuff like
these audio huge scale. My dad met him my parents got along with he and his wife and he would come over a lot and I was just enamored of this artist is because at the time I wanted to be a visual artist and and he was like a very wizardly person in my eye, but he was very gentle and I would talk to them about comic books and Star Wars and stuff and he was like down.
To hear it, but he gave me two books of one that was like only director and one that was like Martin Show and our other northern Renaissance people and he was like if you if you can draw this you can draw anything and I kind of threw my comic books away and I kind of abandoned being interested in pop culture things. Mostly at that point.
Then I say, I would still kind of like occasionally no go I'll Like obligatory see the Christopher Nolan Batman movies like into my early 20s and eventually in there are great for what they're you know and Nolan's it's just great. Yeah, but you know, you know had the taste of a fucking dilettante since it's a little kid. I don't know what to say. It's kind of it's like saying all that makes me want to vomit but is the case. Yeah. I've been to your apartment.
I don't think it's where you're living now, but I saw your little like punishment room where you just feel like filled with looks like I definitely noticed a lot of like first editions in there and it definitely felt like the room that belonged to somebody who like, you know has spent his life going into like used book stores looking for out-of-print books, which I recognize because that you know, I know I'm not that far away from being that person myself.
Well, that's why we get along buddy. It's so Birdman like to work with the same crew and he liked to work with the same. Troupe of actors and I think I think many most filmmakers wish that they had that that they had that Core Group working on your second film. How much were you able to bring on crew from hereditary? How much did you want to talk about that?
So they'll mind IDP and I have been working together since grad school since we since AFI and he's just one of my best friends and we have a you know this great.
And and we just like share the same taste and see things in a very like in the same way and we argue very, you know, very little I would say like when there is a misunderstanding like we take it like very badly like unset if if it turns out that we thought we understood each other but like we had different ideas like we get like upset and like need a minute he and I have this total shorthand and you know, he's I love the guy and I'm very grateful for that relationship in my life.
Not just professionally but he's also just like, you know a beautiful person and then you know, I had a really incredible time on hereditary with my production designer and costume designer and it was Grace Yuan and Olga milk. I've worked with Olga male, by the way, I'm like short films when I was like in the dregs of the New York in the garbage pail. Yeah.
She's fantastic. I loved it and you know, The only reason that I didn't work with them on Midsomer for instance is because Midsummer was a project that I got
started. I guess almost five years ago and we had a Swedish production designer named Henrik Stenson who was on from the beginning he did an incredible job and he and I kind of had this dialogue going for you know for years and he was building this like really, I mean giant look book, you know, and he'd send it to me and it was filled with references and I would then like remove certain references that
it won't work. For me and then I'd add my own and then that would provoke him to add more and then he'd turn it to me and then I'd add more and take out some. I mean this thing like is like 300 pages and that was really great. Because once we dove into pre-production, we had no time like we had to build this entire Village and just over two months. It was it was really big and we could have only done it in Hungary. So he did an amazing job.
I think he almost lost his mind just from you know the pressure of it. And so did I buy? By the way, I mean like the water was always like just up to my nose hon on this film there were times on set that I had to just like walk to a corner and like cry which I probably like shouldn't admit but I like the recruit people who are probably either like caught it and saw that like the director was crying in the corner or that maybe looked like I was like
laughing maniacally either way. It's probably like a troubling site. So that was a really great collaboration. I'm really proud of his work and then we It with a Hungarian costume designer again because we needed somebody local named Andrea flesh who is really are
under a flesh. I'm used to calling her Andrea, but really really brilliant woman like so good at what she does and and and so she was incredible and you know, we did as much as we could with the time and the budget like we definitely had ideas for the costumes that like, you know, Kind of just like net we're they were never actually where they all for wishing. Like was it all Scandinavian or is there some Slavic influence in the clothing of the
villagers? Yeah. I mean there was definitely Slavic influence and I also thought I like saw like an like an embroidered Elizabethan coif. Yeah. No, it's a stew like we I think it's a I think it's a very successful like melange like it comes together is something that looks uniform and and its own thing, but I was just Yeah, we thought I saw these.
Oh, no, you definitely did. There are things that we pulled from, you know, Russia from certainly from Scandinavia and Andrea would be able to like explain expounded much further.
But you know, it was very important to us that like every costume had different rooms Incorporated because like these costumes like belong to these people right and like they have adopted runes that like represent them and then beyond that there was a Swedish consultant on the film are Martin Carlton fists who I you know, it's just like the best guy ever and he sort of invented this language called the effect language. That's the aspiration stuff.
Well, yeah, it's like the emotional sheet music right which is which is a combination of like the runic alphabet and then like all of these emotional hieroglyphs that you know are kind of made up but also drawn from several sources. I mean even every pair of shoes, you know has like its own thing going on and yeah, we went as far as we could.
Bird in the time we had like to prepare and it's very successful particularly the clothing for for me like, you know, put the clothing particularly like really belonged. Oh, well, thank you. I'm really proud of her work and she is just like such a sweet person and her crew is like so great. So yeah, I guess that's my kind of long winded Meandering answer as to like, you know, who like who I've worked with on these last two films in those
departments. I mean in post-production I've worked with Luke Johnson for both films. He was the assistant nice guy the nicest guy so smart. He was the assistant editor on hereditary and I was working with Jen lame who's also just one of my favorite people and you know at this point one of my best friends and she's actually now working on Christopher Nolan's new film. So she's like she's moving fast, but but Luke was such a big part
of editing. I'm hereditary that we like we just gave him And editor credit and then you know, I would have done Midsummer with both hint him and Jen again, but Jen was busy. Yeah, and so I just pulled on Luke and he's somebody that I will keep working with as well. Like he's definitely on the team at this point.
Awesome. How about you I had the great Fortune to be able to work with virtually all my I mean are all my keys all from from the which on the lighthouse the thing is I Developed to larger Studio movies that like didn't happen.
And so when the lighthouse became an option and we were shooting in Canada again, it was very easy to get the gang back and we had and also had an accelerated prep period and we never could have built that world without working with Craig. Turpin and Linda Muir again because we have the right language and the right working relationship already and it's spectacular work Jaron blaschke the DP we work together on all of my short films that aren't
embarrassing and I worked with him as a production designer on other directors things and yeah that shorthand and yada yada, but he's I mean, he's incredible.
He's an artist. I don't use that word to describe very many people and also I mean and it's a real collaboration in the my films are if and when they are praised for like the Cinematic language, it's it would not be that way without Jerry and I'm not I think you are like this, but I'm not like Scorsese sort of dictating like this is every shot. Please carry it out like it.
We are working on trying to find the most like essential simplest language for a Scene and Louise for my house editor.
She I've been I've known her for basically as long as Jaron and we have the same tight-knit relationship and I must say that the edit and the color correct were the only parts of making the lighthouse that weren't fucking miserable and yeah credibly difficult and like same for me same here, like everything was so hard, you know the lighthouse but the edit was a joy not the loo and I didn't ever work cut out for us, but it was like quite quite Pleasant. Yeah, I I'm with you on that and
I and and before we move on from that. I also want to mention Lars Knudsen my producer who I met on hereditary that was definitely you know, like I could not have made it through this film without him and he and I just started a production company and I really love the guy. He's like, he's just a total enabler. Yeah Lars Lars incredible. I work and you worked with him the which I'm going to working with him in the future.
I mean also, I mean if we're like In this direction, which we should be RT features and new Regency and 824 gave me like incredible Freedom. Yeah, I can't believe I made that movie. It's kind of nuts. So thanks guys. Yeah. No, I mean it feels a little sycophantic talking about a 24 on the 824 podcast. Yeah, but they are incredible and I knocked at their always perfect. No, I mean, do you know yeah, it's going to tell the the satanic temple story. Oh, okay.
Yeah do it. I I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, so we didn't have any stars for the which a 24-foot will be they need something special for marketing and they wanted to have the satanic temple endorse the film. I don't have anything against the satanic temple like or their political agenda or anything like that at all, but I didn't want the movie indoors by satanic temple.
Like I wouldn't want it being endorsed by something that called itself like, you know Christ Temple either and and I
have I mean, I'm very odd. Tons of personal philosophical like semi spiritual release it reasons for not wanting this and also I said, you know people are going to think I'm a fucking Satanist but but they did it anyway, and I hope it helped but when I went to scout a film that was not made in Poland the woman who was like running the film office said we don't want Robert Eggers coming to Poland because he's a Satanist and did you not know this part II didn't know that.
Yeah. And so we had to spend like a week like convincing them that I was in the Satanist before I could go Scout in Poland. Wow. Yeah, I think it's only fair that you should be able to speak speak out about it now here on there but yes, exactly. And so we'll see if they keep this in the podcast that'll yes. We'll see that's a but other but but really but they're very, you know, they're great. They're collaborative know they're they're great and look like when I left AFI in 2010
There was nothing like this. Like I didn't know how I was going to make the film's I wanted to make because like I didn't see the platform before it. I want to make films that were not like achievable for like, you know, like 1 million dollars or like, you know, people sitting in rooms talking like budget and the fact that I was able to make hereditary as my first feature like still I find staggering and I'm so grateful for it.
I recognize like how fortunate I was to be able to do it in that way. And the reason I you know, it took me 10 years. Has to make a film and the reason or I guess eight years after a five and you know, the reason for I've heard that is because I was very stubborn I did not want to do it is very important.
Yeah, it's very important and I'm glad I did you know, I'm glad I did wait, but yeah man, it's III will say that that you know, a 24 going like wide with a film like the which are going wide with with a film like Midsomer tickles me that it's
happening. There are people who are going to walk into Midsummer that like maybe would certainly Nick never watch it. And I'm sure they'll regret watching it but there are going to be there, you know, but on the other hand, there's going to be some some high school students who that's going to be the first not like weird movie. They've seen and that's going to be amazing for them.
You know, you cut that like I had to cut off email contact because of like creepy a cult people unfortunately, but in the beginning Inning I made myself available and it was amazing to get emails like like from like high school students who saw the Witch and didn't know you could do something like that with movies and that was super like super gratifying. That's the other side of like the you know, like the D cinemascore. Yeah, exactly.
That's the other side when people walk out and they're like that wasn't scary that was you know, like those boring and bullshit, you know? Yeah butbut, you're gonna and God bless him. Yeah cut bless him, you know, may-maybe it alike stick with them for like, you know, Another day or two and at least like kind of like bother them. Yeah bothered and so finally just because I'm I don't know sorry listeners. This is clearly my drum that I'm
beating. Like what if we can if we can make it succinct like what about Bergman is so darn great. I mean, I don't know like a better like writer certainly of like monologues and dialogue for sure somebody who is able to just create the most like Vivid interpersonal like Dynamics and in film I can't think of anybody whose work is more devastating just as far as like character studies are concerned and you know, there's like an economy to his like visual language.
I mean, you know, you could put a lot of that on his his collaboration with spend Nick this but even like when he was making films with ganar Fisher like it's there for sure now like and so I I mean if anything it's It's there in the seventh seal. Yeah, no absolutely is. Yep. It's sawdust and tinsel. I mean, it's there from the beginning.
Yes, absolutely. And and I would say, you know for me that's a useful tether to like hold on to as a filmmaker is like, you know, these films are so Artful so beautiful like so impressive on a technical level and they've so rarely like go beyond what's necessary. He's able to be like perfectly indulgent and also to like you just eschew the extraneous like and and something that I find sorry, it took a job, but it's something that I find so inspiring though.
I'm certainly not capable of it yet is that the indulgent shots like aren't experienced as indulgent often. Yeah. The opening of The Silence. Yeah is one of the train it is so incredible how it shifts perspectives and and it's quite complicated, but you don't Unaware of it and I feel like when I watch John Ford or or Hitchcock John Ford, I'm like, yeah, that's how you that's where you should put a camera good good. That's where you should put a camera.
Yeah and like Hitchcock. It's like that's who you should put a camera but that's a little surprised but Bergman it's always like why are you haven't wow, he put the camera there but that is the perfect place. I would never think that that's exactly where you're supposed to put it but that's the place and again, it's unassuming. It's not you're not like a assaulted by The Panache of the filmmaker. It feels instinctive. It's so addictive.
Yeah, it feels totally instinctive and I think there's something to be said also about yeah, I mean people love to like DFI these filmmakers and you know say like they came up with this and like nobody had done anything like this before but I think there's something to be said about filmmakers being in dialogue with other filmmakers just as you mentioned that you know Birdman and and Nick this do, you know watched tarkovsky's, you know early films and like we're just blown
away and it changed their way of making films and and Andrei rublev gets all the credit for kitchen. Like medieval worlds, but like obviously the Seven Samurai did that, you know way earlier absolutely and even with the silence you can see like oh, when did the silence come out? Oh, it came out a year after last year at marienbad, you know for sure. It's a film set in this hotel that looks nothing like anything Behrman had done before and looks everything like what he did afterwards.
Yeah, you know, and I know that for fair me my film school was just watching films. I love Loved and then like kind of digging in and to see what are the films that those filmmakers were watching saying? Yeah, but what are the films that impacted those filmmakers and it's a rabbit hole that just like never ends. How much do you re watch movies
a lot. I re-watched movies a lot to you know, kind of like to the detriment of you know to the exclusion of like, you know watching films for the first time, right? And yeah. No, I mean like I have you I like I've ruined some films that I've studied and take it so many notes that I can't like I've like there. Yeah, just the joy is gone.
Josh is right. But then but but you know, you kind of I think there's like there was certainly a period where I was just like copying and and then you get to a point where you've done like enough trial and error that like there's something in your system and you kind of have like a foundation and then you can well go off from there. Yeah. You keep you right here like earlier watching so much stuff in your like well, okay, like
everything's an idea. Yeah, you know what, you know what I mean, you're like you're like well that was an idea that was an idea but like, you know, that's not my script that's their scripts and so I'm just weird. We're just going to try to do it like all the it. Like I think Beck remember back. Yeah that had a quote. That was something to the effect of like no matter how much I try to like shape one of my albums like all the time with as far as
like influences. I'm only left with what's inside of myself. Yeah, you know, and and I think as you become as you continue to become yourself more as someone who creates work like that sense of self Emerges more and so and so even if you're studying something for staging or lighting or whatever like it becomes less of I need to do that and less of more like oh, yeah, like that's how I'm thinking about like my own ideas. Yeah, I couldn't have said it better.
I'm doing I think I think I could've I'm being told that it's time to wrap it up. Great. I could keep this going for a long time saying here. I it feels like We're just getting warmed up. Well, you should come over soon. Hang out with the baby. I'd love to I want to see Houston again. Okay, this was great. There's nobody I would have
rather done this with same here. And I'm so excited for people to see the lighthouse which I think is a great film with a capital G. Thanks man, who and and seen it some are see it see you in a second and a third and a fourth time and take notes destroy it. Yeah, take it down. All right, great. For you know, I mean destroy it for the better if you know for your film students for to better your own filmmaking not right not saying like take down an artist movie. It's looking great.
But you know, hey, like, you know, it's a free country. Thanks for listening. The a24 podcast is produced by us a 24 special. Thanks to our editor Tom Wyatt and robot repair who composed our theme