It's enough. And welcome to another edition of The Movie Crypt. I'm Adam Green. I'm Joe Lynch. This episode was recorded on Thursday, November 7th. 2024. Yes, it was actually recorded a few days before the episode you heard last week. Get used to that. That's going to kind of be happening a lot over these next few weeks. Just in case.
You haven't been listening for the past few months. The reason why we are recording so many episodes throughout the fall is to make sure that you guys always have a new one every single Monday while I am away on a new adventure shooting. the sequel to the ice pirates, uh, tentatively called Mac and hashtag me too. How did it go from Ice Pirates to Mac and Me Too? You should have called it More Ice Pirates or the Ice Pirates.
Rarely in the last 10 years have we ever written what the movie actually is on the slate, no matter what it is we're doing. I really want to go with Mac and hashtag me too, which is for those of you in the Movie Crypt Live tier, you would get that joke. So we do a thing called Guilty Sequel when we do Movie Crypt Live once a month.
And in the game, we pick somebody from the chat and they suggest... Actually, no, we don't pick somebody for that one. Everyone just starts shouting out movies that they would like to see a sequel to. And it's basically... an improv sketch, but then Joe and I have five minutes to pitch what that sequel would be. And then the audience votes green light or pass. If green light ends up winning, then Arwen gets a treat. Those are the rules.
But one month, I guess probably just like three months ago. Yeah, it was pretty recent. Yeah, we got... Mac and me. And we ended up coming up with a pitch for Mac and hashtag me too. That was actually really good. Sometimes we come up with fucking gems. There's been a few where it's like, fuck, somebody should do that. Yeah. And then we never, we sit on it and then someone else ends up doing it.
and henceforth you have Gladiator 2. Exactly. Damn it. Yeah, we thought of it first. Anyway, this is our conversation with Pascal Plante and his movie Red Rooms is... God, by the time this airs, it's definitely available, right? And it is fucking fantastic. I had heard about this movie back when they premiered it at Fantasia. I believe it was last year. And it's such a great movie.
It is a variant on the serial killer subgenre, but it delves into different themes and even kind of focuses on the kind of characters that you either see in the periphery or never get kind of given attention to at all, which is, you know. the people who are somewhat obsessed with those serial killers, like the true crime podcasts, or even, you know, the, uh, I guess you can call them groupies in a way, you know, but the cat, like these people who go to the, uh, the court cases, they go to.
the trials and and then this one Pascal really shines a light on two particular characters that that bring up a lot of really amazing and very disturbing elements that you normally do. And I got to admit, man, I absolutely love this movie. I think the day after I came in.
whenever like we do these and we have like screeners i'm like you have to watch this one and i think i remember you watching it right after and going thank you for telling me yeah this one was good this was this was definitely one that got me and i would not be surprised on my top 10 of the year for 2024. All right. So let's shut up and get to our conversation with Pascal Lanty.
Okay, so our next guest is single-handedly the reason why Adam and I have been bouncing off the walls at the office for the past couple hours talking about Red Rooms, which is... Arguably in a year that we've seen some really great variants, at least in 2024, this movie premiered at Fantasia in 2023, but it's been released this year and in a year that's already seen some. great variance on the serial killer form.
This movie comes out and knocks us the fuck off our feet. You know, like when I was watching it last night, I kept thinking about Manhunter. I kept thinking about in a weird sort of way to live and die in L.A. I kept thinking about the Netflix documentary series. Don't fuck with cats. Yeah.
Yeah, even Manhunters, you know, the Fincher movie, there's a little hint of that. I also want to talk to our next guest about my theory that this is almost the anti-French extremism film. Remember all those movies?
like inside and martyrs this is almost like a comment away from that paradigm and where those movies were throwing Extreme images at your face This movie quietly sneaks up and goes I didn't fucking get you But let's talk to the filmmaker himself Please welcome to the movie crypt Pascal Plinte hey yeah yeah no hi uh great great to talk to you guys thank you for the i'm still a bit shaken by your nice intro so that's oh fuck off dude anytime anytime that we watch a movie like this and it
gets us kind of discussing um it's always a good thing because it's it's the kind of movie that you want to almost say god i wish There's a theater in LA called the new Beverly. It's the, it's like Tarantino's theater. And one of the things that's such a pleasure about that theater is that you get to walk out after and people are talking about it. No one does that. Yeah.
In most cases, when you go to a multiplex, like here we have the Burbank 16, or I'm sure there are multiplexes up there. But you don't get the... the commiseration period afterwards. And this is that type of movie that I'm going, I... I want to talk about this to someone besides my wife and my dog, you know, it's like, you want to be able to have that, that moment, you know, that, that moment where you can go, did that happen? What did you think? And red rooms clearly.
Taps into that while giving you stuff like I love the fact that it's a serial killer piece. I love the fact that it's. kind of an observation on true crime obsession. I love that it's a chamber piece with all of the long takes. So we can get into. the minutia behind the movie which is available now i highly recommend it as at the time of this recording you should be able to get it on uh most vod platforms and stuff and trust me this is
a VOD well spent. But before we get into red rooms, let's go back. Let's go all the way back. And what, what got you into wanting to. use the cinematic form as an artistic expression? Or did you just, what kind of movies did you like when you were? Yeah. Yeah. Like origin story. Well, actually I'll bounce off what you've just said about like the cinema lobby discussions. I think, I think my love of film, I have a few anecdotes that I romanticize when I tell them. And one of them was for.
Michael Haneke's film Caché, Hidden, from 2005. So I'm born in 88. So I watched it probably, yeah, I was like 16-ish. So really around the time where I got into movies more in the sense that... When I was young, I used to be into graphic novels. I was drawing a lot. So for the longest time, this is what I wanted to do with my life, like drawing comic strips.
But then my teenage years, I discovered cinema, but I discovered other forms of cinema, just not because I was just a regular film guy in the sense that, you know, when you're young, you kind of believe that the images, they're kind of.
It just happened by magic in front of your eyes. Like nobody's really there pulling the strings. But then you see a few filmmakers. Of course, I mean, again, I'm born in 88. So like what was the starter pack for filmmakers around that time? Like I guess like when I.
watched kill bill in theater in 2003 you're like because like like if you're in 88 then your your formative like absorption years are yeah early 2000s like the early 2000s yeah exactly you bring up i i just wanted for context when you saw cash Was that at home or in the theater?
No, that's it. That was in the theater. And then that's a film where even down to the very last shot, you have to be observational. You have to theorize about what's going on. And I remember I didn't want to go home after the film. It's like the film finishes and then...
It's almost like you walk purposely slowly hoping to like eavesdrop a conversation. Maybe you tag along. What does it mean with the axe? Why are we on that? I have a theory that and I and I feel the same way with Red Rooms is that. It's the type of movie and Haneke is the type of filmmaker along with yourself. And there's some other filmmakers that I can kind of like, you know, mix you in with, but Haneke, I remember the first time I saw funny games on VHS and I went, I will never see.
of his movies again not um every single one after that that i could be able to see like a new one like white ribbon obviously the remake shea um even there was a there was a re-release of benny's video And I know that people have said like, oh, no, it hits hardest when you're watching it at home like it was like a stolen tape. There is something about the power of. what Haneke does with the frame, like the piano teacher where you are now.
all sitting and looking at like cachet for example the shot inside the barn looking at the axe how many times to go back to that and how many times does he rewrite the narrative every time we see that
Of course, of course. And so many layers. When I rewatched it... fairly recently i realized that it's all about you know french like colonial history and what they've hidden as well like in the pages of history like the history that they teach is is not like the full story in itself so there's even like a
and they're using the macrocosm to kind of like enhance the microcosm in the film. Anyway, it's very, very brilliant. But point being was that, you know, those are film lover wet dreams. You know what I mean? When you're in the lobby and you exchange with... total stranger theories. That gets your blood pumping. There's power there. There's power at play. Of course, Lynch, I discovered...
From 2005-ish, from this point on, for me, it was all the Hanukkah films. I watched them in theater from this point on. But then I went back to watching maybe earlier stuff. And this is around the time where I also discovered, you know...
again, the starter pack, you know, Lynch, but Mulholland Drive, I remember I finished it. I rewatched it instantly. Like I didn't know it was before everybody was online and you can just type on YouTube, like ending explained. And then when it was like, when you found everything, when you found those listservs where it's like oh my god there's a discussion about wild at heart and i can get in on it i want to ask what was was your was your introduction to lynch mulholland drive
It was Lost Highway, but it got over my head, I think. I was too young to grasp it. But that's also the power of his cinema. I remember how I felt watching it. It's a very experiential film. if you don't get the vibe like i remember going to see that movie when it came out in theaters and i had convinced this is i'm showing my age here i convinced the kids the other my fellow students in my film school to go to see
lost highway as instead of seeing the re-release of star wars because that was back when star wars like the first time that it came out and they were so fucking mad at me and these are film students too like they're the ones who were supposed to be like oh let's watch you know like
Let's watch DeSica and Orson Welles and, you know, Antonioni. No, they were like, dude, I can hear them talking about Jabba the Hutt next door. And we're just sitting here watching that guy from fucking, like, Bullet or whatever. No, it's Robert Blake. Looking creepy. We fucked up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the power of the cinema is that it is on the one hand intellectual and you can interpret it, but it doesn't.
hinder the the emotional experience like in model and drive if you remember like the the silencio scene the first time you watch it you have no clue what the fuck's going on but then but you still have it i i remember like i had a genuine emotion there's something the music the performances of the actresses, the framing, the rhythm, it's very engrossing. Sticks with you. But that's actually what I'm trying to humbly try to channel with Red Rooms was that...
I over understanding everything is kind of like overrated like that. That's but but living going through an emotion. That's that's potent. That's powerful. And so if because then the film will stick with you if you if you lived.
an extreme like you had a visceral reaction to something and you don't fully maybe grasp all the nuance as to why you felt this way because sometimes you feel an emotion and you will completely understand why like you see the tricks you see the manipulation you see you hear the music again
And you're like, yeah, of course, like they got me, but the tricks are pretty obvious. But the films that get you like from below and it's like lurking from below and then you feel an emotion, but you don't know quite why. Those are powerful.
experiences those are very I dare even say transformative experiences in the theater and so yeah those are the films that I this and and plenty others like i'm a big film buff so i was kind of stealing from everyone to be honest to do this i see you know i hate that term i hate when people say that no offense but i because i think we're all conditioned to think that because you know like there was that
adage like oh you know only the best steal and i think tarantino kind of co-opted that idea that like oh he just watched a lot of ringo lamb movies to steal is like to steal but we're all just absorbing we're just curating just because you do like
a long wonder and other films have had that doesn't mean you're like it's it's still at the end of the day theater tv all of it it's it's an elevated form of theater right and so i gotta ask i know Like, I know I'm kind of jumping ahead here, but how long minute wise is that one really long take?
towards the beginning of the film because it felt like maybe 14 minutes i thought it was yeah something like that maybe 12 uh but but i'm not that's funny like i'm not even sure because the point was i i think it's pretty telling like that the was not to be showy. No, it's, you're in the courtroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not only that, but I think like when I, because the courtroom is a set, so we built it. And so we had a on-scale like 3D environment.
Because it was built in an architect. And the camera must have been telescoping from above, right? Yeah, not from above. We could remove walls and it was a techno crane. And so we were like floating with a crane, which it was purposeful. Like it's not.
just i didn't just want to use big toys for the sake of it no if that's yeah that's what i was going to say because the the timing of it like how many times did you rehearse that shot because that was you're always on Exactly where the audience Wants to be seeing When a specific thing is being said Or revealing it When you're like I wonder who the
you know, defendant is, you know? Sure, sure. Well, we only just finished two takes, to be honest, because to me, it's like, you know, when you're doing a long take, it's like baseball logic, like three strikes and it's out. And like, so if I look at the monitor and then there's a little imperfect. Maybe I let it go. But then the third time, I might as well cut and start from scratch. Also, 12 minutes, that's a nice chunk of your day.
yeah yeah of course of course like that's that's yeah that's what 10 pages right there something like that i think and i didn't meant for it to be that long it's because when we were acting when the the lawyers were acting these scenes like they went really slowly like they put the you know the gravitas of like their performance they were really grounded they took their time because
Because me, like, again, when I was doing kind of the planning for these shots in the 3D software, I recorded myself like some of the like the text. And I think it was only six minutes. But when they did it, it was like twice as long.
they were really like taking their time and because I kept telling them like you're you're talking to a jury and like some of them don't even have like high school diplomas so you know not to be uh condescending here but like that's what the lawyers they have to deal with when they talk it's like politicians we're not going to do allegory about politics not right now but uh you know talking slowly to to so that everyone understands is is most definitely it and so uh so so yeah that lengthened
a shot in a way so we timed it differently but we only finished two takes and we took we chose the one that had the little cinema magic in it which is like she has a tear like she she has like a single tear i don't know if you notice it oh yeah no but i sat there going like you son of a like that fucking tears at one point i'm like When you're in the thick of it,
and because we all have that worry it's like when you're even when you're contemplating a one-er you always think like you know what's going to happen last fucking beat of that one-er and someone's going to sneeze but someone does cough and it works well yeah something That wasn't the plan.
that wasn't planned the cuff of the judge but anyone he was starting to be off screen at this point because the camera pans and he's off screen and I decided even to keep that because to me the film is super carefully planned but I was dreading that the film had kind of I wanted live images that felt alive even if the film is very controlled and those little imperfections I think they do the trick people remember them it's almost like we're not used to having uh reality kind of contaminate
fiction yeah so when it happens it really takes everyone by surprise like people remember the cough people remember the tear for some reason and those are stuff that i couldn't plan yeah those are the human moments yeah it's why i tend to Unless someone is overdoing it or doing it on purpose I like when actors stutter Or add an um or an ah Like the way real people speak In real life you never go through a whole day
where a where people keep addressing you by your first name yes that doesn't happen i know adam that's crazy oh there's that there's that but even even more than that i think when i write dialogue i i i what For me, let's say character A says something, then character B says something, then character A. I'm not going to have character A reply to character B. I'm going to have character A.
continue what he was saying and giving the pause between. And I write much better dialogue with that. Like, it's almost like people don't. really listen to each other. You know what I mean? It's like we do, but we do to the least degree, like the minimum amount so that I guess your train of thought keeps flowing in parallel. That's way more like this.
talk and a lot of bad dialogue in movies before we get any more into the because again we're very excited to talk to you we're jumping ahead here but just so the audience understands you can probably pitch it better than we could but of all uh red rooms um i'm assuming that is a real thing right yeah but then the film draws on the folklore of the dark web like the myth behind it like
The film actually takes the gamble. If this were to happen, let's say, and tried in the Montreal courthouse, this is roughly how it would unfold. The first act of the film aims to be pretty realistic, even though... It is kind of expressionistic in the sense that, yeah, the camera is floating like a ghost. We see the world through the character's point of view. But yeah, even me, I'm jumping ahead. So the Red Rooms are, well, interactive snuff videos.
basically. So like webcam and people can, I don't know. tip in bitcoin and say oh uh tear her arm out and uh and then he does it you know what i mean so there's not there's not like one super experience that happened like a real thing but i mean are there live murders on the internet that's a resounding yes that's not even you know there's so many i don't know like i isis beheading or cartels
threats and like killing people. Like this is some people's job in cybersecurity or cyber crime are literally to watch a daily influx of just like screen violence and live snuff and whatnot. not so we're if it if it doesn't exist well i guess let me put it this way like why why wouldn't it exist you know it's so it's that's what's fucked that's what For our more sheltered or innocent listeners, a lot of people think the darkest part of the web is...
what used to be twitter you know like there's there's a whole nother side to it oh god most people know that by now there's that showtime series dark web where they it's i don't remember how many seasons was part of that i'm not i don't remember but it's There's horrible, horrible things that happen online from human trafficking to killing animals, whatever it might be that these sick fucks are into. So you kind of start with that premise that there are.
Three young girls who were killed on camera. Two of the bodies were recovered and they have the guy they think did it. And that's how the movie starts is like the opening day of that trial. And very much all the mechanics of like a courtroom drama. Right. But it isn't only a courtroom drama because you go other places with these characters and stuff. But it's so refreshingly smartly done.
or intelligently done i'm a writer intelligently smartly smartly it's bigly smartly um and it uh it just even like some of the most horrific moments You had, I had to stop and go, Oh my God. Yeah. He didn't even show it. No. Like, but I thought I saw it because my wife had to leave. Becca had to leave the room and I'm like, they didn't show anything. And that was the moment when she's like, it's.
fucking martyrs in my brain right now and that's where i was like that's how fucking smart because we've seen we've seen these images we've seen yes we've seen let the theater we've seen over are we we've seen like there's our popular snuff images like you know just from A couple of years ago, there was the Syrian migrant child on the beach, for instance. That's literally a photograph that everyone saw of a dead person. We've all seen real dead persons.
And on top of that, there's the layer of fiction. Like we've all, I guess, you know, we've seen Hostel, we've seen our share of torture porn films. Maybe, yeah, maybe you have seen Martyr, which is a fucked up film. But yeah, I mean, these images, they're there. They're within our psyche. They're part of the entertainment we seek. And so, yeah, I...
I didn't need to show them. I think it's much more of an efficient curse if I leave you the job to cast it in your mind's eye. But also I'm showing something instead. I'm showing them looking at it. And that's the film. The film is them looking. at it this is you know one is oddly stoic and that's what's fucked and the other one's world
crumbles and she reacts like a human being in the face of horror. To me, that's the film. The film is not the violence itself. Yeah. One of my greatest badges of honor was when that guy from... Creative screenwriting magazine of all places Went after Frozen being like They showed a guy get torn apart by wolves We didn't show a fucking thing But I purposely hung on his boyfriend and his girlfriend and the boyfriend sorry his best friend and girlfriend and the best friend's got to cover her ears
And he's just screaming, don't let her look from the bottom. But like you think you saw it because the human reaction of your characters having to experience witnessing this thing is so much more traumatic. Sometimes it depends on what the movie is. more efficient it's much more efficient if the if the psychological consequences of violence are depicted in a realistic manner
These films are unbearable. Like funny games, you almost don't see anything. The only graphic violence is the one he's toying with, even down to the narrative, like, you know, with the remote control and whatnot. And this is the one... bit of violence that we're conditioned to cheer like we I remember people were
cheering when i went to see the remake in theater they were like claps and then like he rewinds and he's like why did you clap guys that that's i we really were you with me when we saw funny games i don't think i was with you i went when they played it here and and then la at a multiplex and a fucking fight broke out like it was not clapping and cheering it was
Somebody who thought that they were going to see a Naomi, Naomi Watson, Tim Roth, like thriller, not experiencing, not expecting to see some postmodern shit. And the second that happened. Some guys like next to us at the Arclight at the Sherman Oaks. They're like, one guy goes, the fuck is this? You shut up, man. Yo, fuck you. No, fuck you. And they started fighting.
it was like and you know i was sitting there going if haneke was here now he'd be like he'd be delighted that that's the point of doing a shot that's the point of doing a shot by shot remake in 2007 for us consumption you know with fucking And Darius Kanji Vault people, too, on Long Island. I want to go into the writing of this because, you know...
All three of us are have been in that point where you're either looking at a blank page for the outline or a blank page in final draft. But what's interesting about this movie is that it feels like it was. An organic evolution of taking something that like three different things that we've seen. We've seen the, you know, the, the courtroom thriller, you know, we've seen enough Sydney Lumet movies. We've seen silence of the lambs and we've seen enough of the, like the serial killer.
of sub-genre and we've also seen you know um people who are obsessed or true crime stuff. And there's three different avenues that you could have gone down and they could have all been equally as effective, but you just, you decided to kind of give us all three. Was that intended for.
the jump or was one of those tropes you're jumping off point and then you found a way in like organically through other means yeah sure i mean the the the i i think you know i'm just at the end of the day wanting to make the film that i wish i'd see i know it's cliche lots of filmmakers and creators say this but like to me it's it's it's the my biggest power
watching so many films that you know you see the cliches and at one point you start to see what all of these films are doing and what maybe is not done and then you this is actually fuel this adds fuel to your uh to your
fire to wanting to make the film. And so, yeah, as you mentioned, I think, and I also think I was writing it for people who are extremely literate about the codes of genre cinema. I'm not going to serve some... thing that is that we've seen before this is just not this is but that's but uh you need to know about those types of movies it's like what kelly and kellyanne says i'm good with numbers you know it's like obviously you're good with knowing the genres knowing what the
genre tropes are, what the mathematics behind those genres are, and then you mix the numbers up. That's what I appeal to. And to me, this writing, I was always trying to be in the head of the audience. So like what stimuli am I generating? How are they going to be interpreted? If they're interpreted this way, do I comfort the audience into giving? them what they expect or am I purposely being a bit more taking a detour and making a labyrinthian film?
I ended up making the most labyrinthian film I could make because I frankly think people are so literate about the codes of the genre that you have to make it original and disorienting and unpredictable. Or people are going to know exactly what the equation is. Yeah, exactly. And if you guess three times right, like you're going to get bored. Like the film is not going to have any aura of danger. It's not going to take you someplace unexpected. I think with our film, what people tell me is that.
oh, I hope I'm not going to see the images, but then I also wanted to maybe see the images and blah, blah, blah. But the sheer fact that you think that the film could... go there like could become dangerous and overly violent i'm not gonna go there but if you think i can go there you're gonna be you're gonna
I guess you're going to be on the edge of your seat, or at the very least, this is the only way for me to make an anxiety-inducing film. If it's too comforting, if it's too much of a good student in terms of screenwriting, if all the beats are exactly at the right page.
if I see the construction a bit too much in the narrative structure, well, then the film is not going to have this aura of danger that's going to make it anxiety-inducing. And so, yeah, again, it had to be a bit labyrinthine. It had to take... towards like clementine in the character like the other character she she comes in and then she leaves this is all part of just Yeah, just mixing things up a little bit. But those are all films that I'm pretty knowledgeable about.
Courtroom dramas. There's been a few I rewatched tons of like 50s great courtroom dramas. And I mean, I watched tons of true crime. I'm not big into true crime. I'm extremely critical of true crime. Some of them are very good. The Paradise Lost trilogy are super good films. Some of these shows like The Staircase, obviously, you know, there are masterpieces within the genre. Oh, but there's so much crap where like the people they interview are like fan of True Crime.
Of course. And it's very exploitative. Shut the fuck up. And it's very exploitative. And at the end of it, because. There's something very in it in the human nature of being interested at the very least in it, obsessed maybe, but interested at the very least in it. In faits verres, we call them in French, like just, I don't know, like murderers and serial killers and whatnot.
So you binge it, you eat it like a bag of chips, but then if I eat the old bag of chips, I feel like shit. And that's literally how I felt watching a five-hour true crime Netflix doc about...
the serial killer of the week of the 70s or, like, the Magneta. Like, for instance, like, let's talk about Magneta for one second. Like, the Don't Fuck With Cats show. Like, the guy is over, like, that's obvious that his pathology is like... narcissistic to the core and you give him a show like how is that how am i not what's crazy about something you know how am i not complicit with something very dark going on he wins in a way he does win yeah he wins i was just shocked with that one because i
Like many people, I avoided it because of the title. And knowing the subject matter, I'm like, I can't watch that. I think they handled it really well and not showing bad stuff. It's not the worst. But I was shocked when it was over because how did everyone not know that story? I'm like, I've never heard of this. And this is the craziest twist ending to go back to true crime documentaries, though, and how they'll just put.
anybody in them i haven't seen something that annoying since you and i were all over his name was jason yeah like why are we in this documentary this much uh anyway um so two things one
We're going to save till the end because we don't want to spoil the movie. If people are listening and haven't seen it, it's a little hint for you to go out and you, you know, after you've done your christmas shopping spend a little money and get this movie on vod but we'll get to anything spoilery at the end but um the there's also this great
commentary in this film about people that do become obsessed, not just with true crime, but with serial killers. I've always wanted to see. I don't believe it exists out there, but like a. Joe Berlinger style documentary about the women who fall in love with like.
Charles Manson or Dom and start those relationships or like end up marrying them while they're behind bars and stuff. Cause there's so many stories like that. And I would, I would love to at least attempt to try to understand what the psychology is behind that. Like, oh, this person killed and ate all these people I'm in love with him I don't know if it's the whole, like, I can fix him thing Or what, but
There is an element of that to this, but something that you did so brilliantly is your main character. You it not until the end. And this isn't I don't think this is spoiling anything You don't spell anything out for people Like an hour into it I still wasn't 100% sure what her motive was for being so interested in this. Which would have been the biggest fucking note.
From the jump if it was made here. Oh my God, is this a studio movie? We need to know exactly why she's interested in this. I'm watching going, you son of a bitch. Yeah. Bypass the fucking studio notes. Or like you said, having Clementine... basically leave the story in the second act like and it's like, well, where did she?
oh wow she really is gonna go because i assumed as a screenwriter that when she said i think i'm gonna get on a bus and go home i'm like she's not really gonna go home like there's no like we just spent so much time getting to know this guy, she's not just going to leave. No, she fucks off. Yeah, it's fucking.
Brilliant. It's brilliant. And that was the beacon of warmth in the film. That was the buoy. That was even though she's a confused character, like from the get go, I wanted that character to be kind of annoying. This is not somebody you would, I guess, meddle with. like merge with in real life, but then the film almost forces you.
She wins people over, I think, by the sheer fact that at the very least in such a cold and suffocating film and dark film, she's, I guess, she's a human, right? At the very least, she's confused.
stranded she's a stray cat or something but she's she's human and uh and and and yeah and that becomes a buoy but then yeah no she she had to leave so that the film can again become enter i guess the third aesthetic phase which is yeah a bit more paranoid a bit more yeah just a bit blansky-esque i just saw you were so you were so fair in the writing in your treatment of of a character like that and yeah um we have
we think we haven't recorded it just yet, but we think there's an episode coming up in a few weeks with a author who just did a, it's either 13 or 14 part, uh, like almost like audio documentaries. Oh yeah.
called faking michael it's about um it's a controversy that a lot of people don't know about everyone knows the millie vanilli story about like oh they they weren't really singing and that whole thing But after Michael Jackson died, the first posthumous album that came out that was called Michael, there were three songs on there where immediately fans were like, that's not him.
That's an impersonator. And they knew who the guy was. Everyone was like, that's Jason Malek. That's not him. And for almost 20 years, it's not only everyone was like, yeah. They're like, no, it's him. It's him. We can prove it's him. It's him. They finally admitted it wasn't and took it up. But this guy spent 14 years making this thing. It's sound designed. It's scored. It's such a production. So not.
We don't want to have them on specifically talking about that thing, but the making of something like that. So, yeah, but you were so fair in your treatment of characters like that. Well, actually, this is a good point. Speaking of that, like. There's all kinds of things from big controversies that everyone knows about, whether it's the OJ thing, whether it's the Michael Jackson stuff, right?
the accusations on him and sometimes you see these fans that they're they're not helping just by just by being a huge like fan of that person there's no way they did it because they were such a good football player or they're such a big like and uh as a
Defender of Michael Jackson. I'm always like you're not helping when you're acting like that like facts facts like have actual something to say and Clementine character which again in I don't want to spoil anything, but I just felt like you handled that type of person very fair and kept her likable.
I think that's my job as a writer and eventually it becomes the actor's job to defend the character. I don't even know how Jeremy Strong played in The Apprentice because that's the job of an actor to defend. the characters. Yes. Because otherwise it's not going to be artistic. It's not going to be valuable. And I have a very low tolerance. I can't handle like violent films. I can handle gory films. I can handle extreme cinema. But I have a very low tolerance per set.
this thick visions like characters that are just put into you write the whole world by writing a screenplay just to have like your characters Just be sadistic with them. Like I have very low tolerance for, I don't know, like modern day, for instance, or like there's a few filmmakers that I can name that are like, I'm not, I don't want to see the world through your eyes. Like I'm not that nihilistic. And I, and I just made yes.
Yes, a film that is very, very dark, but there's some light at the end of the tunnel. And at the very least, I tried to somewhat defend these characters, to not be judgmental about them. And that came from my research. The angle of the groupies, quote unquote, came first. That's the entry point of everything. The dark web stuff came way later. And the way the story was shaped up came way later. Just the vague idea of making a film from...
And the vantage point of a fan is what triggered it all. But then I had to read about them because if my take is that they're all crazy people, then the film will be extremely poor. We will not. have any sociological value at all. And the behaviors, these behaviors are created, are shaped by the environment. Like I had to... think about, I guess, the media. I had to think about how we mythify the killers. I had to think about many, many, many things in order for my conclusion.
to not be that they're just crazy people. That would be terrible. Yeah, and I think the performance behind Clementine too came from such an honest and vulnerable place. But speaking to what you were just saying about you don't want characters that are just there to be the bad guy, mustache twirling, you know, sadistic person. The great Sid Haig are.
dear dearly departed friend the first time he did this podcast like whenever that was 11 years ago He had said for the longest time he kept getting cast as like thug number two or And he's like, even when you're playing those roles, you have to believe that you're the good guy you're right and what you're doing you can't be like oh i'm i'm the bad guy here to rough people up you have to think that what you're doing is right and and i between the writing and the performance of these characters
You definitely nailed that because you did get invested in them. You weren't just like, what kind of crazy person wants to go sleep outside every day to make sure they get into a trial for someone who did this horrible stuff. So allegedly. So, yeah. Well, speaking of the actors themselves, I think...
This movie is made and broken by the relationship between Kellyanne and Clementine. And Juliet and Laurie are so fantastic. And it's funny, the scene that made me truly fall in love with their dynamic was the... scene yep yeah okay well yeah and and and correct me if i'm wrong but it's pretty it's pretty much an unbreak it's one angle you don't really flip the world you're not doing anything dynamic with the scene you're just kind of low angle
kind of handheld just following them around and watching them bond uh it's funny the first thing i went was like How the hell did Clementine or no Kellyanne have an outfit for Clementine to do? Well, she's, you know, obviously Kellyanne is a model and can have some expendable money and pay that for her. So like just filling in the gaps and just.
of speed plotting us to that moment I just very funny but like I had in earlier drafts of the screenplay I had a scene where they bought the outfit like there was a scene just between oh really yeah and like yeah and she's dressed like mini me you know like just a tiny version of the other one which but yeah it's pretty early on like this scene got cut but the idea was this like that she's shaping her as yeah she's grooming her in a way yeah she's grooming
Hurricane. And this is the one scene where it's all improved, the dialogue. So the camera, yes, it's on one angle. We're kind of low angle in the middle of the court. It's a glass cage. There are glass cages everywhere in that film. And so it's a long, long, long lens. And we're just like, we're using the characters moving to like stick to her, stick to her. And we did kind of lengthy.
lengthy takes uh and then in editing like we put maybe like the beginning of take one the i don't know like the mid part of take three and blah blah blah yeah yeah did uh was the camera guy ever worried he's gonna get hit with a racquetball that's why we have about racquetball of course you're in that little kit like when you're in that cage or whatever the glass cage
Those things, when they hit you in the face of the balls, man, they are relentless. There's another scene. There's a couple shots of racquetball. There's one from her back that is a zoom in that is later. She plays alone. There is a part. Yeah, there's that scene with. Clementine and that scene and then the handheld scene later in the film there's like she plays handheld like and very intensely Kellyanne but she actually did air racquetball on
that scene because we pretended and we added the sound design of the ball. There was no ball. So that's how it worked. But that scene, I think we had kind of like a little bunker around the camera.
well that's that's also really important to know like and for casting is so key for this for all you filmmakers that are listening out there you know we've talked before about sometimes and i've been in this situation before where you don't get chemistry reads you know like gone are the days of rehearsals yeah i did that but yeah yeah like so i'm guessing i know the answer with this but because
Juliet and Lori do have such a palpable chemistry together, whether it's the first time that they meet or the avocado scene, which I was sitting there going, come on, don't buy a fucking poke bowl. If you're going to have to like take the avocado.
out like jesus christ and then she smashes it there's all these little details that make you forget for just a brief few moments the kind of dark movie that we're watching and that's the key to a movie like this is that the chemistry works so well so how did you find each of the actors was there another film that they were in did they come into you know through your casting director and were you able to put them in a room together before you cast them to see what the chemistry was like.
yeah sure i mean so far and because red room is my third feature film and uh all my features so far they had like a big um kind of it's chemistry led like my first feature is called fake tattoos it's kind of like a punk summer romance between two actors. And I mean, it was made or broken by their love chemistry. Like, do we believe that? So I did that for that film. And my second film, it's two swimmers, competitive Olympic swimmers.
and the film is about the retirement of one of the swimmers, but the friendship is at the core. And so I also did callback auditions with the actress and had readings to have the bond as solid as possible. And I also did that with Red Room. Juliette is an actress we
It's her first lead role in a narrative feature film. Wow. She's a pro actress. She also has a background of modeling. She doesn't model now. She's been told that she was too fat, which is like... What? Oh, my God. No, no, no, no. I know. I know this is atrocious. This is terrible. But yeah, anyway. Not all agents are like that, I think, but she had a very bad experience. Anyway, but now it's good that her acting career is on the right track. And so we did audition her.
quickly were settled on her. To be honest, Kellyanne, even if she... has the film on her shoulder. And it was a big preparation, right? Like she had to learn to play squash. She had to understand all the hacking, crypto, like at the very least, she needed to understand a few fundamentals in that, the poker.
So that's preparation right there. I had her watch films. I sent her a playlist. I had books and articles to read anyway. And she also did more than that because she did her acting homework very seriously. But yeah, it's her first lead role in Quebec in cinema. Laurie, she's also a pro actress, but it's also kind of her more substantial role in a film. She did lots of TV. I saw her in short films. Yeah, she was a kid actor, right?
Yeah, she started fairly young. She did some TV, like, yeah, like tween TV. And she can play forever young. She's a bit older than you would think. Like she just has this eternal youth, I think. But both of them are very intelligent. Like both of them really took the role full on. added a lot. And I did do readings in terms of yes, to test their chemistry.
And it was much harder, just as I know, to find Clemonton for some strange reason. Some of them were playing and some really good young actresses, but they were just playing this way too much as a conspiracy. uh conspirational theorists uh yeah sorry i have the french version in my you you know what i what conspiracy theorists yeah yeah yeah that's exactly it i'm sure i'm shocked that that came out of my mouth correctly so yeah yeah yeah yeah or just a bit
too dumb. Yeah, so Laurier added some warmth and dignity to the role, even if she had that big fragility, but she also had dignity, I felt, in the way she was saying her lines. And yeah. But then I don't rehearse, though. So that's the one thing. I test stuff, but then everything happens on the day. I don't rehearse because...
I don't want them to settle on what I've envisioned. And I don't even give them any acting notes before first take. So we do a lot of tech rehearsal so that at the... release like we know what we're technically doing like yeah where the camera is going to be at certain points because yeah yeah that's going to come up to my next question but that's so important where you don't want the actors to go you know
I can go sit down over there and you're like, nope, that's not going to work for us. It's not the angle that works or, or, or, or. Or you just underdo everything. And so they give you like a very athletic, amazing, heartfelt performance. But then the boom was in the shot or the camera work is what's completely off. That would be unfair to them. That would be very unfair to them. So I do a lot of tech rehearsal, but I always ask them to not act basically to just like Bresson.
the acting like you just say it like blah blah blah blah blah yes and then um and then we so and once we're everybody's choreographed everything's choreographed pretty well uh then we do take one and i don't give them notes like i want i want to shape the world from
their perspective i don't want them to act as you know i don't want them to act out my fantasy if it makes sense like i they were a big on the same way and I was so excited the first time I watched one of the documentaries about Jaws because everyone talks about the... the obvious shark scenes, but it's the USS Indianapolis story that Robert Shaw tells when it's the three of them just drinking around the table.
And I believe it was one of the documentaries or maybe it was a commentary where Spielberg was like, there was no shot list that day. Like I let them do what they're going to do and then captured what they were doing. When you have the option of doing that, it's so much better. But.
unfortunately and it's understandable when you have to present a shot list not just sometimes to producers but even to the bond company yeah if the film is bonded and then get all of those shots that you said that you wanted because if you don't then you technically didn't make your day even if you decide but i didn't need that shot but being able to let
performers perform organically without you telling them and then on this line you step here then you have to turn this way like look sometimes you have to but when whenever you can just watch the scene unfold and then capture it so much better. Well, but they are so professional. So there were lots of time where it was, OK, at this line, you walk there. Here's your. So because.
My previous feature was with non-professional actors. They were pro swimmers, competitive swimmers. So I had to be... very flexible but now uh this time around because acting's a job like uh with a non-professional actors like i'm not going to give them a note on like the continuity of their hair or like you know what i mean they're going to become self-conscious it's not going to
work i have to be flexible i have to lift all of that the heavy i have to do the heavy lifting for them and they just need to be Very comfortable. And that's going to be it. With pro actors, they still do need to be extremely comfortable. I feel like more than half of my job is just creating an environment where they can be fearless, not self-conscious, feel safe.
and feel that, you know, we're all working in the same direction. If they do something that make them feel bad or if it wasn't very good. I'm going to tell them and we're going to work it out together and we're going to go someplace together. You know what I mean? So if I just create this very basic environment, I feel like I'm already doing pretty good. I'm doing my job pretty well. And so, yeah.
And I don't even even in prep, like we don't talk backstory. The character has no backstory. If they as actors need to shape that, well, they can write their diary. They can do whatever they need in order for them to be prepared. I'm not going to indulge in that. I think time is very valuable, especially on shooting day. There's like an avalanche going and I have to be surfing on that avalanche and making quick decisions. And to me, talking about backstory.
and it just takes time for no reason, right? Of course. So I'm very sensitive to their performance, but I'm also extremely practical in the way I try to direct. Yeah, and I leave them do the emotional heavy lifting. And as long as you feel like you're all on the same page, so to speak, there are always going to be things that they're going to bring to the table that you might never have been able to or thought of along those same lines. Because I do want to talk about this.
before we get into more of the style of the movie, is was there ever a moment that is in the film currently that... they surprised you with in terms of like what they brought to the table or one of them brought to the table that you went like, well, I didn't see that coming. And it's just like magic moments.
Of course, of course. And that's one thing, you know, I don't think I'm a worse director if I come doing, let's say, a blocking of a... Because we're not inspired equally by each scene. Like some scene I had extremely in my mind, like...
scene i had a 3d previews of how we're gonna shoot it and i was being very confident that we're not gonna change the plan and this is it there's this whole montage sequence with the music there are screams i'm not gonna spoil it but like this whole part i edited it myself
Like the night we had the shots to show the editor that like, yeah, this is how the shots are lined up. And this is how the music is aligning all of this. And it's exactly the way it is in the picture doc. So point being is that some scenes I have a next.
extraordinarily clear vision. Some other scenes, I have no clue. Like I wrote it because it's structurally important in the film, but I mean, I'm not as inspired. And so I would tell people that. I would tell people whenever I'm doing the blocking of such... themes that like yeah maybe this one we're gonna seek we're gonna look for it a bit more we're gonna explore a bit more
And it's funny, but like it's a scene that it was needed on paper, but it was very hard for me to somehow make it visually interesting. It's just the scene after they're asked to leave the courtroom. And then they're just there listening at the door. Is this before the EMTs come in because the one person fainted? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, the whole sequence and even the medics coming in and just because it's like two people eavesdropping at a door.
uh in the corridor i mean how visually interesting can you there's not that many shot counter shot in the film but this is one of the few scenes because it's just but it's it's not about the mise-en-scene in this scene that where i was surprised it's literally the writing because i knew it it gave the right um info like because I'm not going to say too much, but, you know, she realizes that Kellyanne knows more than we think that she thinks she knew. Right. In this scene.
And the way it was written, it was like, it could be so bad, like so cheap TV, like the way this dialogue can come out, like it could just. be very bad and i i might have to rewrite it all but i'll trust lori like lori and juliette will just find a way to lend them these lines and making them believable so i'm glad i didn't give them any notes because i was clueless and When Lurie did her first take, I believed her. I believed everything. She put the silences in the right beats.
You know, she just was way ahead of me. She just she just understood the scene way better. Even though I wrote it, she understand the scene way better. And after the first take, I'm like, oh, wait, the scene works. I was sure we were heading towards the train wreck and the scene worked because I didn't direct them in the wrong direction. I had no clue. They knew. Yeah.
I want to pivot over to the style of the movie because we talked a little bit about it before. Some of the power of the film is how confident the long takes are in the beginning of the film. You know, there's there's certain shots, especially, you know, almost the point of view shot of the of the screen when it's on when it's on her face. I mean, obviously it became one of the variants on the poster. But.
I'm always so curious about this. When you have a story like this, that almost predicates itself on the, like the, the visual unfolding of the movie. Some of these opening, like some of the courtroom shots, they are so deliberate. you know, in how the camera just creeps around to the point where when the prosecutor even says like, you know, it could be you or me like you, you know, like the guy in the jury who's also bald and having his head just peeking out into the foreground of the shot.
um first off uh did did you have that in mind when you were writing certain visual moments like that like the pov of the uh the you know, the, the screen or even a lot of the chamber piece parts, because, you know, again, I love that you aren't showy with them. You're not going like, Hey everybody, look at my, you know, 12 minute long shot.
But when I like because there are so many times that I've watched movies going, you know, like I'll lean over to my wife and go like shot hasn't cut yet. Shot hasn't cut yet. And she's like, I know the movie keeps telling me that, too. But in this case, we were like. Holy fuck. Like it's.
It's something that Spielberg, I think, is a genius of. I mean, he knows kind of how to make a movie. But one of my favorite winners of his is the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones comes into his house and he's just getting ready to... leave on his grand adventure. And it goes from...
A wide to a close to a medium to a close to a wide to a medium to a medium to down to his hand, you know, like dropping his stuff into the luggage and then you're out. And then you realize, holy fuck, I just watched a one-er.
Yeah, but it feels like he was cutting... the whole time yeah and that's that's one of the things that i think is very powerful with this movie even like the opening shot one of the opening shots when she's walking down the street and you're in a long lens and then by the time she gets to the building you're at a wide and then it changes lens
again basically was all this stuff baked in or did you find those moments like i i don't want to say like on the day because that's that's unfair to all the prep that you had to do with your camera team but like is it allowing the the location for example outside the building to go i know exactly where this needs to go from point a to point b to point c no the wonders for i had to i had to i i because because to me because to me it's not That's my brain personally works better in.
in like without cutting like i don't know like time and space and 3d environment and understanding the lenses long lens wide lens whatever like just i i my brain works like this and so cutting for me is always kind of i always try to To hear the rest of this episode, go to patreon.com slash themoviecrypt. For only $1 a month, you'll get every new episode every Monday downloaded right to your podcast app of choice.