The Big Picture - David Lowery’s Strange and Beautiful ‘A Ghost Story’ | The Big Picture (Ep. 17)

Episode Date: July 6, 2017

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey and Vanity Fair film critic Richard Lawson discuss filmmaker David Lowery’s latest, ‘A Ghost Story,’ an unconventional film with an unconventional debut at Sundance (1:00). Later, Sean chats with Lowery about the making of the movie and why he no longer watches his movies or reads his reviews (9:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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They even have a line of silver underwear and t-shirts that are naturally antimicrobial, We'll see you next time. Big Picture. That's Big Picture. B-I-G-P-I-C-T-U-R-E. Hello and welcome to The Big Picture, a Channel 33 Movies podcast. We have a great show today, including a conversation with the filmmaker David Lowery, who has a new, very strange, very beautiful new film coming out called A Ghost Story this Friday, July 7th. But before we talk to David, I'm going to chat with Richard Lawson. He's the film critic for Vanity Fair and also the co-host of the Little Gold Men podcast. Richard, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. So Richard, as I said, we're talking to David Lowery today, and you were there earlier this year at Sundance when A Ghost Story made its somewhat surprise premiere.

Can you tell people what this movie is about, and also a little bit about what the circumstances were like when the movie first arrived? Well, yeah, it really wasn't on anyone's radar when the initial Sundance lineup was announced. It was kind of this off-the-radar project that David Lowery had had some attention on him, when the initial Sundance lineup was announced, um, it was kind of this like off the radar project that, um,

you know, David Lowery had had some attention on him and obviously Rooney Mara and Katie Casey Affleck being in the cast, um, gave it some profile, but it sort of slipped in there at the last minute. And then once it screened became kind of one of the, the sort of must see that the festival, even though it was in kind of this tiny,

you know, sort of, it wasn't in the main cat competition category or anything like that. Um, did you know what this was going to be? No, I had no idea. I had just heard ghost story with Casey Affleck, uh, which could have gone, you know, any number of ways, both good and bad. Um, so I went in very curious, uh, and then was even more surprised, uh, than I could have imagined when I actually saw the movie. Some tweets, I didn't go to the first screening and some tweets from fellow critics had suggested that it was a unique film and then sort of not traditionally narrative and so forth.

So I had some indication that that was going to be the case, but yeah, I was still surprised. Imagine that I am a studio executive and you are David Lowery. What is your elevator pitch on a ghost story? That's a good question. Maybe I'm going to explain humanity's fears about mortality and infinity using a bed sheet with holes cut out of it. I think that's probably close to what David did as well. So what is it about the movie that you liked aside from probably coping with your own questions of mortality? Yeah, I was doubly coping with them because, you know, Sundance this year came at a very odd time for America

where, you know, the inauguration was the second day of the festival, I believe. And so everyone was just in this, well, not everyone, I'm sure some people were happy, but most people, let's say, were in this kind of existential crisis mode. And a lot of the films were dark and about the end of the world and, you know, between the eventual winner, I don't feel at home in this world anymore, which is this very despairing thing, or Beatrice at dinner, which is really depressing, but great. You know, so everyone was in kind of this bad place. And then this movie comes along, which deals with a lot of scary things like death, like, you know, we're just a blip, you know, in the grand span of time, you know, billions of years.

What do we really mean? Like all these kind of huge foundational existential worries. And yet at the end, I think it offers some sort of comfort or hope to it, even if that comfort is just coming in the form of David Lowery saying, hey, I worry about this stuff too. It's normal to question your place in the universe. So as you said, this movie is essentially Casey Affleck's character who dies very early on in the movie. I don't think I'm really spoiling anything. This is a fairly spoiler-proof movie, but who dies early on and then essentially exists as a ghost

inside of the home that he and Rooney Mara share. And he sort of haunts her, haunts the home over time. I think because of the lack of pure structure in the movie, it's been very divisive. What was the conversation like at Sundance? Were there people who vehemently hated it? Was it mostly positively received? I think it was mostly well received. Yeah. I mean, I think most people I talked to,

even if they didn't react to the film as viscerally or emotionally as I did and others did, they appreciated the kind of technique in the form of it. I think what put some people off about it was that, I guess from one angle, it could have this kind of mechanical sort of look what I can do, sort of show off the kind of vibe to it because it uses a lot of interesting cinematic technique and language. So it's maybe viewed by some as more of a sort of experiment that was informed than it is actually a narrative film or even a sort of thematic film. When you saw it, did you there are some funny moments in it. And I'm curious, when you saw it, did you feel the comic elements coming out? Was it safe to laugh at some of the things that he was doing? Oh, absolutely. And I think that that's something, you know, pretty brilliant that he does early on when Affleck first becomes this ghost is he, you know, it's this

image, this child's idea of a ghost, you know, a bed sheet with eye holes cut out. It's the simplest and most crude idea of, you know, of some sort of haunting specter that, you know, anyone can have. And so while he's dealing with these incredibly vast

topics, at the center of it all for the whole time is this kind of like whimsical figure. So I think that he has the movie has a really nice balance to it that way. And I think people did laugh. And if I remember correctly, I certainly did. Tell me a little bit about Lowry as a filmmaker. I know you were a big fan of Pete's Drag in his last movie, which is considerably different from this one. It is considerably different from this one. It is considerably different. And something I touched on when I wrote a review of the movie at Sundance, Ghost Story, it was that, you know, the two seem to have nothing in common, you know, on the surface.

You know, one is a Disney children's remake of a, you know, 70s movie. And this is this other film experiment for firmly for grownups. But I think that what they share in common and what I find really compelling and exciting about Lowry, I can't wait to see what he does next, is he seems to have this real humanity and this kind of, I don't know, I think I called him an old softie in my review. He has a real warmth and I think faith in humanity, which I don't think is all that common always with young independent filmmakers. I think that there tends to be a trend towards cynicism. I know you had Trey Edward Schultz on your show recently. And while I appreciated It Comes at Night's kind of formal graces, I found that movie

to be so bleak. And I think that a lot of young filmmakers kind of tend to go that direction. And Lowry doesn't, which I think is really refreshing. And again, especially in really troubled times that were sort of not beginning, but being confirmed at the time of Sundance. It was just a really refreshing kind of jolt of humanity and warmth to get from the movie. Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool the way he was able to combine, you know, the Disney ethos and the sort of folkloric quality that he has in his movies with, you know, something big budget and then also scaling back to a ghost story. Is there is there a mode that you want to see him move in next? Do you want to see him do something really big, something really small?

I mean, I think that because, you know, his first movie, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, is another kind of different genre. So he's really been jumping around. But, you know, I think he's maintained the sort of core of his sort of, you know, worldview. So I think I would like to see him try a number of different genres. I mean, what would a David Lowery romantic comedy look like? What would a David Lowery thriller look like? As long as he maintains his sort of uniqueness of vision

and his commitment to his own values, which I think that especially Pete's Dragon and A Ghost Story are really well represented, then I think he can do a lot of different things and do them well. Yeah, I think we'll hear a little bit about what he's doing next in this conversation with David. But Richard, thank you very much for chatting with me and for setting the scene here. I appreciate that. Yeah, thanks for having me. And I would urge everyone to go see A Ghost Story, even though it's a strange experience. Strange, but good. Thanks, man.

Very happy to be joined by David Lauer today. David, thank you for joining me. Oh, thanks so much for having me. David, I want to start with your new film, obviously. And I want to start with the first time you realized you wanted to make a movie featuring a figure in a bed sheet. When did this strike you, this image? This image has been hanging around the periphery of my imagination for probably almost 10 years at this point. I've loved the idea of making a horror film or a haunted house movie or any type of movie really with a guy

wearing a bed sheet as the protagonist. That's an image that has been waiting for me to use it for a while. And I've seen it used in other films and other media. And it's something that I have always been struck by, just that presence in an image. And so I've been waiting for the right film and this one was it. Did you think it was going to be more conventional 10 years ago, or it would be a more classical horror movie? Or did you always know you wanted to do something a little different with it? I knew I wanted to do something a little different, because I didn't think it would be funny. I liked the idea of taking that image, which has an implicit humor in it at this point, because of its connotations to a

child's Halloween costume or what have you. And I wanted to remove it from that context and do something, for lack of a better word, more serious with it, even though it's still innately a kind of funny image. But I always knew it would be different. I did entertain the idea of doing a straight up horror film like Poltergeist or The Conjuring and using this figure as the vengeful spirit because I like the idea of contrasting that image with a tried and true genre film. But ultimately, I guess I did do a little bit of that in this movie, but this is the form that it ultimately took. Was it clear that it was going to be a movie for you, like a full length film when you first thought of this? Yeah, definitely. The script was only 30 pages long, but I knew that it would yield a feature length film.

I didn't know if it would yield a good one, but I knew that it would be feature length. And that was partially because I've made, you know, my first feature, St. Nick, had 20-page script and it was written in a similar fashion. And I kind of just had this intuitive idea of how the pace of it would function and how, regardless of how much content there was on the page, I knew that the pace and rhythm of the movie would lend itself to a feature length running time. Can you tell me a little bit about that writing experience where you're writing short scripts and you're assuming that there is a lot of understood action that will happen beyond the page? Like, are you plotting out the whole film in that way? Or did you leave a lot of room to improvise inside of the script? There was almost no room to improvise. And if you were to look at the screenplay now, you would recognize it as a pretty close cousin of the film that is now coming out in theaters. It is easy for me to write films in that fashion because you just don't put any dialogue in.

Dialogue is what, when I'm writing a script, that's what I spend the most time on and what I slave over the longest and what usually ends up being the hardest part for me. And in this case, because I knew going into it that there wasn't going to be much, the script was written very quickly and the scenes were, they were very functional. Each scene had a purpose and it had, you know, there's some intention behind it and one scene led to the next in a very pragmatic fashion. And so the resulting process was that we just kind of had to shoot the script and then edit the script. It wasn't as easy as that, but it still was a pretty traditional process in terms of making the film and translating the screenplay to the big

screen. But it definitely, if you were to read it, I would never begrudge anyone for reading and thinking there's no way this will ever be feature length. But it's just one of those things where I understood what it was that I was making enough to know that these scenes where, you know, one line could yield a five minute long take, one line of action could yield a five minute long take. I knew that that was what was going on with this project. Do you have to explain that to people when you're showing them the script? You know, if you show Rooney Marr, Casey, the script, do you have to say, well, this will, this will work because it will be elongated in this way, or is it understood on the page? It is something you do have to explain. I mean, I remember, I remember talking to Rooney about it for the first time and she had read it and loved it and thought it was a beautiful script, but didn't see how it could be a feature. And I kind of just had to ask her to trust me.

I could explain it, but I also had to trust, you know, ask her to trust me that not only could I execute it, but that might actually be good and be a worthwhile feature length experience. And she did. And it turned out to be exactly that. But for this film, I did something follow, but just putting in, you know, a description of a shot and then saying within the action line of the screenplay, we hold on this shot for five minutes. That kind of gives people an idea of what it is you're making. And so it's helpful for the crew when you get to the set and they're wondering why you haven't cut yet. If they've all read the script, they understand that that's just the type of movie it is. Like you're going to film something

for longer than you normally would. And so that helped pave the way. It helped the expectations be set amongst the people who made this film with me. But definitely there were still folks who weren't quite sure if it would add up. And I count myself among them. There were plenty of days while we were shooting this

that I wasn't sure if my gut instinct was leading me astray or not. Yeah. It's very subtly radical what you've done with it. In the writing process, are you sequestered? Was this while you were working on another film? How does something like this come together? Do you have to be supremely focused on just this story? No. I mean, I have the worst attention span imaginable. It's just a total train wreck in my brain. And so I was working on Pete's dragon. We were in the last few months of post-production on that. And one night I just sat down and started writing this and, you know, I'd had like a couple of ideas, you know, obviously the, as I mentioned, the ghost and the sheet idea was something that I've been thinking about for a while.

And the concept of moving out of a house was something I'd been wanting to explore a little bit. But it really was just sort of a spontaneous eruption of writing that yielded the script. And it was, you know, the first draft was 10 pages. And then the next day I kept working on it and it turned into 30 pages and And it was, you know, the first draft was 10 pages. And then the next day I kept working on it and it turned into 30 pages and then it was done. So it was a very fast process, which isn't the norm for me. It usually takes me years to write a single screenplay, but in this case, I just sat down and wrote it and sent it to my producing partners. And that was that. Was there something you're, some of your films your films are spiritual in a way, but this is a very direct

kind of grappling with the nature of existence in the span of time. Was that something that you had been wanting to do or did it just appear to you? It just sort of came out in the project. I mean, I didn't sit down thinking that this was going to be the movie in which I, you know, kind of expunge all of my own personal worries about existence, but it just naturally happened as I was writing it. And I was, you know, in that time period in which I wrote it, having something of an existential crisis. And I found myself engaging in very nihilistic thought patterns that were not making me happy. And I wanted to fix that and change that. And in the process of writing and then making this movie, I was able

to do that, but it definitely wasn't my intention going into it. When I sat down that night to write a ghost story, literally that wasn't the title yet, but that's what it was. Uh, that wasn't what I was setting out to do, but it just, you know, these things take on a life of their own. And this one in its very short life became all about that. It's interesting to hear you say that, that you were having a little bit of an existential crisis. You know, I think to people who certainly don't know you, but even are just observing your career, they'd say, this is a guy who worked really hard for a long time to create a career for himself. You had a successful Disney adaptation that actually worked and was both appreciated by audiences and critically accepted and lauded.

You know, what were you going through and what was making you think of this weighty material? I mean, you know, like as a filmmaker, you sort of always wish your films would be released. You always hope that your films are going to get put out on a Criterion Collection Blu-ray. You know what I mean? And I had reached a point where that didn't matter to me anymore. I was like, I was like, I don't really care what happens to my movies. I don't really, it doesn't matter to me. Like I don't, you know, I used to really want to make movies that stood the test of time and that would outlast me and that would be, you know, respected or liked, or at least appreciated to some degree after I was gone. And that stopped mattering to me and not in a good way. I just started to not care. And I didn't like that.

I really was not happy with that. And I didn't know why I had suddenly started to feel this way, but it didn't feel healthy to me. And so I just, you know, some, some deep soul searching was in order. And when I do deep soul searching, that usually results in a movie. Is that, do you think a product of having this Titanic experience with a big film and a big budget, or was it just where you were in your life? I think it was both. I mean, I don't want to like put any pressure on Pete's Dragon for having brought about this existential crisis because I love that movie and it's probably the work I'm the most proud of in my career.

But I definitely had come out of that movie just so worn out and exhausted because making a movie for that period of time is, is exhausting. The, the, the principal photography took, you know, six months and that just kind of wore me out. And, and, uh, and so I was in a very sensitive mindset, I would say, and I don't like want to make that sound precious. I mean, I was very lucky to get to have that opportunity and I don't take it lightly and I, I can't wait to do it again, but I still was very just I was tired. I was worn out. And I also was sort of,abilities in my future. And, and all this stuff was just sort of like swirling around and, and, uh, and contributing to a general sense of unease and dissatisfaction. And I don't like letting that take precedence in my

life. You know, I'm a very optimistic person. I'm a very happy person normally. And, and, and I like what I do and I'm glad I get to do it. And the fact that I was getting so down about it all was, was not good. So I had to do something. And in the pursuit of figuring out what that something was, this movie came about and that turned out to be exactly the right thing. We're about the same age. So I can identify with some of those feelings. Certainly. Um, you know, a lot has been made about sort of the making of this movie in secret. Not a lot of people knew that it was happening.

And then when it appeared at a festival, it was like, whoa, what is this? And it caught a lot of people by surprise. How strategic and purposeful was a lot of that work versus just kind of the vagaries of just doing what you're doing? It was very purposeful, but there was no strategy to it. The strategy was just don't tell anyone we're doing it. And it worked. I've had projects announced that I'm not even attached to in the trades. So I know that those things can happen. And it's frustrating, especially when it's a movie that you're not actually intending to make and it gets announced and you're like, how did that happen? Like I was just a meeting I went to. So I knew that there was a chance that somehow this could become public knowledge. And I was ready for that to happen, but it just never did. We never like took any measures. We just, we just kept our heads down and did the work and didn't really talk about it. And

Casey and Rooney were excited to do that. Then what they were, I think the idea of doing something in secret outside of the public eye was appealing to them. Um, they didn't even want to tell their agents, but because we're all at the same agency, I felt we kind of had to let them know. But, um, the, you know, the, the biggest reason that we wanted to keep it under wraps was because I wasn't sure it was going to work. And I wanted to have the safety net of failure on our side, because if no one knew about it and the movie failed and it didn't work, we could just quietly brush under the rug and no one would ever be the wiser. Whereas if there had been a press release or an announcement, or if people were anticipating it in any way and we didn't succeed, we would just feel that failure far

more acutely and would have to answer questions. And, and I'd just rather not be in that position. So we were able to have a more, you know, a more creative process because we were operating anonymously. And, and I think everyone just felt that the weight of expectation lifted, lifted from our shoulders every step of the way. Do you think that that's true? Even in some of the choices that you made artistically, like there's been some, some, a lot made of the pie eating scene, for example, which is unusual. And would it have been more difficult to convince an actor to participate in something like that? If this was, had been on deadline.com nine months ago and you know, there was this weight of expectation building against it. Could you,

could you actually do things in this movie that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to do? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I think, I think that even if the script had leaked, it was so vague of a document, you know, that scene is in the script, but it's like one line. It's just, you know, her character who has no name in the screenplay or in the film, walks through a door, oh, you know, pulls the foil off a pie and starts eating it. There was like no description of like the emotion of it. It was very dry. And so I feel like even if it had leaked, there would have been still a little bit of that safety net and that people wouldn't know what the movie was or what to expect or

anything like that. But certainly some of the satisfaction would have gone away because certainly there is great satisfaction in revealing something to the audiences on your own terms when you're ready to do it. And if people had read the script, there are scenes that were in the script that aren't in the movie. And then you have people asking, well, what happened to that scene? Or there's just all sorts of expectations that get assigned to a project before it's time. And that usually is fine for most movies. But this one, it felt appropriate to, to, to free it from that and to, to liberate it from that. And, and I think that while

I'd like to believe that the cast would have been happy to do it regardless and, and, and we would have not been, you know, beholden to anyone, even if the news had broken that we were making it, I do think it would have affected things. It probably would have affected what I had did more than anything else. It would have affected me more than anyone else because I would have felt more pressure to deliver and I would have been more afraid of taking certain risks. And I would have wanted to placate this imaginary audience that I was imagining was expecting this film or looking forward to this film, and I would have stopped making it for myself. And that would have probably created a lesser movie.

How did it feel to reveal to the world? Were you nervous? Were you excited? The funny thing is that it was revealed before I was ready to. I figured Sundance would announce their lineup, and that would be the first revelation that this movie existed. But Casey spilled the beans a little bit early during his Manchester by the sea press, uh, tour. And he, uh, he told someone that we had made a movie in Texas over the summer and, uh, and luck, I mean, it was like a week before Sundance announced. I was fine. And I was, I just thought

it was hilarious that he was, that of all people, he was the one that accidentally spilled those beans. But, uh, but it was, uh, it was, you know, it, it was announced at the right time. Like that was the right time for it to come out and that we had made this and for the, for the world to find out about it. And it was just enough time for people to get excited about it without, you know, spending, you know, expending too much ink, wondering what exactly it was, because I knew that with the synopsis as simple as it was and the title, that there wasn't going to be, no one really knew what to expect until they saw it. Hey guys, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor.

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Is it strange to be trying to illuminate where you were going and what you were thinking when you were making it? A little bit, particularly because I'm still trying to figure it out for myself. This is the first movie I've made where I'm able to sit there and watch it and experience it with some degree of objectivity. And the first time I watched the cut all the way through from start to finish, I was really caught off guard by the movie. It didn't work the way I thought it was going to. For me, usually watching these movies is a very technical experience. I'm watching them to make sure that the color correction is all lined up properly and that the sound mix is at the right levels.

And I'm just watching it. It's a technical experience for me. And so watching this movie and having an emotional reaction to it was really unusual for me. And and I don't quite know how to quantify or qualify that yet. I don't know if it you know, I don't think this movie has answers per se. And it's not about providing them, but it does point the way towards something, I believe, because it was, you know, it literally was me fumbling for answers in my own life that led me to make this. And so the cumulative effect of all of the decisions we made going into it does yield something that feels affecting and it's affecting to me and I get a unquantifiable benefit from watching the movie.

It's very comforting to me. I'm put at ease by the film and provide solace and it's a comfort. And I don't know what or why that is. And I'm a little bit of, you know, I don't really want to analyze it too closely because I feel like that's going to just remove some of that magic for me. And for once I'm able to actually experience that magic and it's a really nice feeling, but, uh, I hate like avoiding the, the question that you asked. That's a great question. And I hate, like, I don't have a good answer for it, but it's actually a luxury for me for once that I don't have a good answer for it. So I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, hold onto that while I still can. Do you go back and look at your work? Are you self-critical or do you just kind of move on to the next project? I can't watch them again. Like,

like I say all this stuff about like, you know, having an emotional experience, watching a ghost story. And that was like over the past six months. And now like, I think I watched it four weeks ago just to check the DCP. And that's probably the last time I'll see it. And, um, ain't the body saints I have not seen in four years now, nor do I want to see it again. And Pete's dragon is a little easier for me to watch, but, um, you know, we finished it a year ago and I, I, I didn't even watch the premiere. I walked out of it cause I just can't do it. I can't sit through them anymore. And not because I dislike them, but just because I'm too close to them

and it's too intensive an experience, especially at those first public screenings. Like those are just, you know, you can't watch the movie properly and it's just such an emotional experience. It's better for me to step outside. And then, yeah, you know, you gain some distance from the movie and, and, and, uh, and when you go back

and revisit them, I've learned from experience, you just see too many flaws and you see things that you wish you had done differently. And, and that's not fair to you as a filmmaker, because, you know, as time goes by, you grow and you get better and you learn from your mistakes. And so it's okay to have all those mistakes on screen. It's okay to have learned from them and to have gone through them, but I don't really get much out of, you know, rehashing it. And it's still like, it's still an uncomfortable experience and, and it's, it sounds like a cliche, but it's vaguely painful to do. And, uh, and so I just, I, I know for the, the sake of my own, you know, mental health, it's best to just let them fade away into memory.

And I cherish those memories. I love thinking about the movies. I just can't watch them. Does the reception of the film really matter to you critically or even audience-wise? Both matter a great deal to me. I make the movies for audiences. Pete's Dragon, obviously, is made for the widest possible audience. A Ghost Story is made for a much smaller audience, but I'm making these movies for those audiences

regardless. And I know that there's some crossover there because they're both movies that I would want to go see as a moviegoer. I love going to see movies. I enjoy most movies. It's rare that I just dislike something. So I'm an easy person to please. And at the same time, I love film criticism. I love being critical. I love the art of film criticism. And I think it's a valuable and worthwhile art about it, you know, with, uh, intellectually and academically and are figuring out, you know, whether it works or doesn't work. That's great. I always hope that they like them. I want film critics to like my movies as much as I want audiences to, and I, and I value, uh, what they do, what critics do and the thought they put into their work.

And I always want to give them something worth chewing on and worth discussing and hopefully in a positive way. But I know that that's not always the case. And because of that, and because I know I'm fragile sometimes, I don't read my own reviews anymore. I stopped doing that after or during the Ain't Them Body Saints process because I just realized that no good could come of it. But I appreciate any critic who takes the time to write something about my work. And again, I hope they find value in it. Just from reading some of the things that you've written about, like on your blog, for example, where you chronicle some of the making of your work, it seems like you're still an avid watcher of movies, and that's not necessarily true for every filmmaker that I talk to.

Do you find that you're still learning a lot about the kinds of movies you want to make and little things from inside of movies? Or do you feel like you have a real handle on the craft right now? I've got like an OK handle on the craft. Like, you know, I feel like I'm OK at it. I'm getting better at it. I'm pretty good. I'm always going to be learning. I, I want to keep learning. I feel if I ever stopped learning, that's going to be a sadness, uh,

for me. Like I don't want to ever reach a point where I just don't want to learn anymore. But, um, I watch movies to learn more about movies. I'm inspired by them. They, they provide a great source of inspiration. Sometimes they, they teach me more about this form and this art form that I've dedicated my life to. And other times I'm watching them just because I enjoy them. I get a great deal of pleasure out of going to the movies. That's my favorite thing to do. If I'm not making a film or not in production, I try to watch a movie a day. And I love it.

That's when I'm at my happiest. And I probably enjoy watching movies more than I enjoy making them. But when I'm watching a movie, I feel like I'm, you know, watching a conversation that I want to take part in that conversation. And as I get better at it and as I develop a better vocabulary, I hope my arguments become more succinct and worth hearing, but I'll keep butting in regardless. Do you specifically target certain kinds of films to watch before you start making a movie, or do you ask your cast and crew to watch things or is it, do you try to avoid that process? No, I think it's valuable. You know, I would love to do what Tarantino does and just like rent out a theater every weekend during production and screen a movie for the cast and crew that, that some in some way sort of feeds into what you're doing, even if it doesn't. Like I think just watching stuff while you're making

a movie is really helpful. I try to watch at least one movie a week when we're shooting and that they never have anything to do with what I'm actually making. But nonetheless, it's helpful just to like sort of see things like that and and to just remember what it is you're doing. See it to see a finished product, just seeing something that's done. It's helpful. But but yeah, I do. I you know, I always try to find a couple of titles that I mention. And we never sit down and watch them together, or rarely. We don't often do that. But I always have a list of movies that I think are worth checking out for one reason or another, whether it be a lighting idea that I want to share with my cinematographer or something tonal or a piece of music that I think my co-imposer should hear and watch in concert with an image. So there definitely are always like, there's always that list that goes out, you know, amongst us when we're first getting going on a film. Anything notable before a ghost story? It's just so specific and, you know, doesn't have a ton of specific precedent. I've talked about this before,

but right before we went into production, we went to see The Conjuring Part Two, and I just flipped out for it. Like, and that became a big visual touchstone for the movie. Oddly enough, like that movie really, you know, that whole sequence with the family that is being haunted by the ghost was, there's a whole bunch of The Conjuring Two in that, in our, in our, in the language of that sequence. And we talked a lot about a Pechapong, Virth Sestical. I think I'm pronouncing that right. You got it. And I'm a huge fan of his work as well. And Syndromes in a Century had just come out.

So my cinematographer and I watched that before we started working on this. And then we meant to go, we were going to watch Uncle Boon Me again. And I began to watch it and realized that it was probably not a good idea. We should probably stay far away from it because we might, you know, step too close to it. It does have some of that for sure. Uncle Boon Me crossed my mind. Actually, it's funny that you say that. It definitely like, you know, we were thinking about that movie because that is a film in which, you know, one of the most profound images in it is of a fellow in a

gorilla suit with two light up LED eyes. And, and that is such a goofy image. And yet in the movie, it's so haunting and beautiful. We felt that that kind of could serve as a model for what we were hoping to achieve with our own Halloween costume of a spirit. And, and so that was definitely in our minds, but we didn't go back and rewatch it. And we talked a lot about other movies that were shot in that aspect ratio, like Kelly Reichardt's work and Andrea Arnold's work. And we looked at imagery from those and we looked at sequences,

but we never actually sat down and watched a movie from start to finish. And it's funny, like the stuff that we watched was just, uh, was classic horror movies and ghost movies and poltergeist and the conjuring part too. The conjuring part too, is very good for those of you who haven't seen it. I it's interesting that you say that, um, you mentioned that the aspect ratio, which, which is what one three, three one. Yes. With those weird vignettes on the edge. Yeah. Why did you guys decide to do that? It's a little jarring at first when you first start watching the film, but then it makes perfect sense as it's going along.

I just love that aspect ratio and had wanted to make a film utilizing it for a while. And this one felt thematically appropriate because it's about a character who's trapped in a box for most of its running time. So there was that to begin with. I also really like prosceniums and seeing an image through a proscenium. It gives a context to the image that I find very pleasing. And when you take a one, three, three image and watch it on, you know, most movie theater, watch a movie theater today, or at home on your widescreen television, it's going to have a pillar box on the edges that creates that proscenium. And that just is really satisfying to me for some reason as a, as a viewer, I just really feel like the

image is given a context that makes sense to me. And it just, it just deepens the viewing experience to be looking at the image through this proscenium frame. So I like that about it. And, um, Andrew, my DP, we, we were excited about the challenge of, of having to not think in widescreen because we're both just trained to think in rectangles. And this was a, a chance to sort of reformat our brains for a few months and figure out how to make images fit into a square. And then during the edit, at some point I added those vignettes. And part of the reason was that it helped make that proscenium even more profound of a shape. It really kind of let the image be defined by the size of the frame in a more overt way. And I liked that. That just really

worked for me. And then they also, I have to admit, added a degree of nostalgia to the image itself because they resemble to me the slide projector images that my parents would project onto the walls or the shape of old photographic prints that we had in our photograph albums. And in a more modern context, it kind of looks like an Instagram filter, which is either a good thing or a bad thing. You could take that or leave it. But to me, it just added a little layer of nostalgia that I found meaningful. It also gives it kind of like a picture book quality or a story quality. And, you know, all of your movies have this folkloric aspect and you've talked a little bit about that before, but I'm curious where it comes from for you. I have wondered that, like why that became so important to me. I really wanted, you know, with St. Nick, my first feature, I wanted it to feel like a fairy tale and that

carried over to Ain't Nobody's Saints, which was meant to feel like a folk song and Pete's Dragon was meant to be a folk song as well. And then this film, I mean, I guess it's a little bit of both and I don't know. I think it probably comes back to my dad singing folk songs to me before I went to bed at night or telling me ghost stories when we were out camping. And the act of storytelling has always been a very important one in my life as a child and as I grew up, that was something that really grounded my childhood and really was a hallmark for me and all my siblings of how our parents raised us. And so I would assume that's where that came from. Again, I haven't done enough self-analyzation to really pinpoint the root of this inclination,

but I would assume that's what it is. So now you're working, you just finished shooting a new film, which is based on a true story. Is that right? Yeah. This is the first movie I've made that it will not feel like a folk song, but maybe it will. We'll find out. Well, that's what I was going to ask you is what is that like to sort of be trying to render something that is true, but also try to maintain sort of your vision of movies? It's funny. I wrote the first draft four years ago now because I started working on this project the same time that I was working on Pete's Dragon and Pete's Dragon wound up taking precedence. The first draft was very Zodiac-ish. It was very much based on the true events. And I went and interviewed people that were involved in them and was trying to be somewhat journalistic about it.

And it couldn't hold my interest. It just didn't hold my interest. It's a true story about a bank robber who's 70. And I just couldn't really find much in myself to, I couldn't find it in myself to really get that engaged with the cops and robbers of it all and the facts. And so the more I sort of veered away from the truth and just tried to capture the spirit, the more it started to work for me. And we finished shooting it about four or five weeks ago now. And we're getting, you know, the editing is just now getting going and I don't know what to make of it yet. I'm at that weird stage where I, you know, I, I'm too close to the production and not, you know, far enough away from that experience yet. And the,

and the footage isn't all right in the right place just yet. So it'll be a couple of weeks before I can kind of really make heads or tails of it. But it did definitely represent me trying to push myself outside of my own boundaries because I wanted to see how far I could push myself and still have the movie end up feeling like one of my movies. And maybe it won't feel like one of them at all. That could be the end result. Or maybe it will be a disaster. But I think it'll be good.

I think I'm excited about it. I'm excited to watch it become good over the next few weeks as we really get into the edit. And it's, you know, it's not like the other movies, but there are similarities for sure. I mean, Casey's in it and there's Robert Redford's in it. So I've got a lot of the same cast coming back and a lot of the same crew coming back. But a lot of the same cast coming back and a lot of the same crew coming back, but a lot of new, new folks as well. And, and I, every, every step of the way, whenever I felt like I was kind of relying on my old bag of tricks or, or doing something that felt a little too familiar, I would try to go the other way. I would try to just, you know, turn left instead of right

and go up instead of down. And, and I wanted to see what would happen. I just wanted to kind of push myself, provoke myself, and just try to take myself outside of my comfort zones. And so the end result could be very, very different, but I have a sneaking feeling that for better or worse, it's going to wind up still feeling like one of my movies. Yeah. It's an interesting time for David Grant adaptations too. I talked to James Gray a few weeks ago about Lost City of Z and there's this interesting thing where you read one of his pieces and they feel like a perfect movie as soon as you read them. And then you start to try to make the movie and it's like, this is difficult to just translate full stop. Right. It is. I mean, his journalism reads like you're watching a movie. It's probably

like, you know, it's probably a warning shot to most directors who want to make them is that like they already are perfect movies on the page. So good luck. So yeah, it was, uh, it was an honor to get to work with his material cause it's so good. Um, it was an honor to follow in James Gray's footsteps because I'm such a huge fan of his. And it was, you know, one of the best moments was when David came to visit the set and said that, you know, we had completely captured the spirit, not just of his piece, but of the character that it's based on who has since passed away and who I never got to meet. And, uh, and, and David said that we were, uh, doing justice to him. So that was a wonderful thing to hear. And we, we got, we gave him a little cameo in the movie as well, um, which hopefully we'll make the final cut. Oh, very cool. Um, well, okay,

let's wrap with this. I always like to ask filmmakers what the last great movie they've seen is. So what's, what's yours? Um, the last great movie. I mean, I want, I was watching Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled the other night, um, when it opened and I was consciously asking myself whether this movie would be great to me in a year or two, because I loved it. I thought it was fantastic. It wasn't quite great, but I was trying to recall, this is all while I'm watching the movie, which is terrible. I should have been thinking about this afterwards, but like I was trying to recall how I felt about Marie Antoinette the first time I saw it because Marie Antoinette is my favorite movie of hers.

I think it's a masterpiece. I think it is truly great with a capital G and I can't remember if I felt that way the first time I saw it or not. So I was wondering if the guile would go from being a three and a half star movie to a ten star movie over the next year or not. Yeah, it's the emotional calculus of adding to the canon. Exactly. But the last movie that I saw that I think really had a big effect on me in a profound sense was, I can't remember which one came first. I'm going to say two, which I saw probably in the space of a week. One was Terrence Davies, A Quiet Passion, which in spite of its very muted title was a passionate film indeed, and really got me going in a big way. I was very, very excited about that movie and couldn't get enough of it. I wanted to go back to see it again.

Yeah, that's his film about Emily Dickinson, right? Yes, exactly. I just thought it was phenomenal. There was a film called Nocturama by Batron Bonello that is, I don't know when it's opening in the US, but I saw it at the Seattle Film Festival. I thought that was extraordinary, extraordinarily provocative, extraordinarily well-made. I was a huge fan of his film House of Tolerance a few years back, and I thought this was a—or he's made one film in between that I didn't see, but this was just a really remarkable work. And because I can't stop listing movies,

I'm just going to say that my favorite movie of the year so far is Personal Shopper, and I can't wait to see if another movie is better than that because I loved that movie so much. So those are the three. Those are the three that I've loved. Personal Shopper would be a fantastic double feature with a ghost story. David, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it. I had a good time chatting with you. Thanks so much. Me too. Thank you.