The Big Picture - ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ and the 21st Century Noir Movie Canon

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Sean and Amanda discuss a recent run of positive 2025 movie news (1:00) before digging into Rose Glass’s second feature, ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ (20:00). They take stock of Kristen Stewart’s unique movie star presence, discuss Glass’s genre command and audacious screenwriting, and praise Katy O’Brian’s wonderfully physical and emotional performance. Then, they run down a list of films they’re calling the 21st Century Noir Movie Canon (36:00). Finally, Sean is joined by Glass to discuss the production of ‘Love Lies Bleeding,’ working with a star like Stewart, why she set the film in America, how Ed Harris became involved in the project, and more (53:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Rose Glass Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey. Over 25 years ago, on September 29th, 1998, we watched a brainy girl with curly hair drop everything to follow a guy she only kind of knew to college. My name is Amanda Foreman, though maybe you know me better as Megan Rotundi, the roommate with the mysterious box. I'm teaming up with my Felicity husband, Greg Grunberg, and The Ringer's Juliette Lippman to revisit our favorite moments from the show and talk to the people who helped shape it. The rewatch begins on March 13th. Listen now to Dear Felicity on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey.

I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about love, sex, and death. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Rose Glass, the English filmmaker behind one of the year's most exciting new movies, Love Lies Bleeding. In a very short period of time, Glass has emerged as a rising star in the world of genre filmmaking. I hope you'll stick around for our conversation. We will talk about her movie a little later in this episode as well. But first, let's talk about some news. A lot has transpired while we were, we had our head in the Oscar clouds. You know, we were thinking about last Sunday's great event. We were chopping it up about the future Oscars. We've forgotten about what's coming for us, which is just like so many good movies

in the next 24 months that I'm really excited about. In the next 24 months, as opposed to the next 12 months. All of the news that we're about to discuss is a 2025 and later. So we're just, we're looking like further ahead. You know, Tuesday's episode with Joe was like short-term future.

Yes. And this is our long-term future and our big dreams. Are you as excited about all these films that I've listed here as I am? Well, I'm excited about three of four. And I guess everything I just said applies to three or four of these, I believe. There's one 2025 release on my list. There's one 2024. 2024.

Yeah, release. Which is like really, it's funny. I'm fired up. I'm so fired up. I will laugh. Let's start with the big news. The big news is that earlier this week, there was some shifting in the Warner Brothers scheduling. Probably the biggest title that moved was the Batman 2 moved to 2026. But along with that, a bunch of other films got dated and that the PTA movie, which we talked about briefly at the end of last, the most recent episode about, you know, whether or not 2025 will be his Oscar year, was dated for August 8th, 2025. We'd already heard that this movie has a budget that is like a hundred million dollars. Leonardo DiCaprio is starring in it. And we also learned that it's going to be in IMAX. Yeah. Which is just amazing. I mean, obviously, we're moving into this moment where large format viewing is the center of the business. Dune Part

2 has proven once again that this is the best way to create an event, to make money, to create the exciting moviegoers. I'm not sure I ever thought of Paul Thomas Anderson as an IMAX filmmaker, but I'm kind of giddy right now with the idea of just rocking out in a massive movie theater. I don't know. I guess CityWalk would be where we would go watch this movie. That's probably the best IMAX theater in Los Angeles. IMAX campus, notwithstanding. Okay. I'm trying to think. I mean, we could do CityWalk. I always find the parking pretty intimidating there. It is tough. Yeah.

And they closed Margaritaville. It's closed? Yeah. What? You guys went without me and then it closed. You missed the fucking updates? How is this not listed in the news section of this outline? Oh, God.

What? Oh, my God. Wow. That was a historic space where I shared at least one beer with Chris and Andy. Margaritaville Universal Studios. Oh my God. Now I got to go to like Buca di Beppo or something? Jesus Christ.

Oh, maybe it's still open. Okay. Maybe it's just that Jimmy Buffett died. Don't do this. Well, it's actually worse if it's still open, but Jimmy Buffett's no longer with us. No, his family needs to continue to thrive. Okay.

All right. It's still open. I'm sorry. I apologize longer with us. No, his family needs to continue to thrive. Okay, all right. It's still open. I'm sorry. I apologize to the people of Margaritaville. Jesus. I think I was just doing that in my head as my own personal mourning for Jimmy Buffett. That reminded me a lot of the reaction we got back when I was working at Grantland. And Stephen Hyden wrote a piece honoring Gene Hackman.

But the headline of the piece somehow made people think that Gene Hackman had died. I think it was like remembering Gene Hackman, colon, one of the great actors. I mean, that would, wow. I just clicked through the menu and Margaritaville, they've got boneless chicken bites, chicken quesadilla, spinach dip, appetizer. I mean, this is just my heaven. Okay. So August 8th, 2025. They've got coconut shrimp. Do you know how much I love coconut shrimp? I do know that. Yeah. Oh my God. Food pod. We're talking food pod here. It keeps coming up. This looks so good now. I'm so hungry. It's like 10.03 in the morning. They don't open for another hour. Yes. The other thing, how are you feeling about August 8th as a release date? Well, it's usually when I go on vacation.

So I can't say I'm thrilled about that timing. It also obviously indicates, I would say, a general lack of courage and excitement about its commercial prospects. August, not quite a dumping ground, but not not a dumping ground for big, expensive movies. Maybe it's also when they felt comfortable that they could book all the IMAX theaters. I think that's right. I think that's what it is. I think that there are a lot of big movies coming out in the first seven months of the year. And so because of that, this is a window where they can own those IMAX screens for probably four to six weeks. It's better than September 5th, I would say. If it was September 5th, I'd be like, I would think to myself, wow, they think this is

neither commercial nor an awards movie. So who cares, ultimately? It's Paul Thomas Anderson. Yeah. But I got to figure out. Maybe I'm going on vacation in July next year. I actually want to talk about our schedules after this podcast. Okay. But just between us.

Okay. Wow, what a tease for the audience at home. Well, you know. And then in a year, they can listen for one year. And then they can wait and find out. This is one week away from my birthday movie. So I feel a little disappointed that we couldn't have really. I never get a good birthday movie.

This year, I'm getting Horizon Part 2. Yeah. Well, please savor it because it sounds amazing. Part 2 is what I get to celebrate my milestone birthday. It's the day after. Yeah. Well, as you recall, I birthday? It's the day after. Yeah. Well, as you recall, I had a special screening for my birthday. Maybe you should consider the same.

I saw just a rent out an AMC this week, one theater, which you can buy if you're an AMC Stubbs member. I think it was $469 for up to 40 people to get just a single screen here at like the Americana, which is, you know, it's not cheap, but that's not bad. Is anything included with that food and drink wise? I don't know the answer to that. Okay. Do they have Lava Cotto toast, which is crispy shrimp, guacamole, mango, tomatoes, queso fresco, Thai chili sauce, sesame seeds, cilantro, and toast?

What kind of toast is unspecified for $14.95 at Margaritaville Universal Studios. It's incredibly affordable as well. I just want to make sure that you understood. Lavacato toast. Yeah, I got it. Because it's like spicy avocado toast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's wordplay.

All those years of editing have really paid off. You're really picking up on all those puns. I didn't write it. I just, you know, I'm appreciating the good work that the people do at Margaritaville. I think we should get to City Walk sooner rather than later. Got to figure out what's going to bring us there. But I'm really, really, as you know, really excited for the PTA movie. Maybe more so than usual because it feels like this is something new.

Like we've never really seen him do a big scale movie. So I'm pumped about that. Another movie that was announced or confirmed, I guess, this week was Eddington, which is there was much speculation about the Ari Aster director jail possibilities. Post-Bo is afraid. Let me just tell you, he beat the charges. Ari has beat the charges. He is coming through with an original Western that is starting to film very soon.

And it is starring, hold your breath, Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, and Austin Butler. It's astonishing. Let's go. It's sort of, I guess you were talking on Sunday night about what happens when it feels like the Oscars is sort of like our age, at least maybe not the age of the people listening, but it's like, we're the target audience. They're marketing to us. The references are for us. You know, it's like having Usher at the Superbowl and you're like, wow, I love these songs. And then they're like, oh my God, like that's just 20 years ago. And now I'm my parents.

But this to me feels like, like we did it. And now like the time is ours because they literally, they just cast Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, and Austin Butler in the new Ari Aster, you know? But it is a Western. So how are you, you know, you're, you're, you're not the biggest Western fan. Yeah. I mean, they do get dusty, but i believe in everyone okay involved i'm very very excited about this as well so the other bit of news that came over the transom that i was very

pleased to see was um we've got a new date for the forthcoming venom movie this is the third film in the venom trilogy uh we also have a new title yeah the new date is october which is where venom films belong the previous two venom films you love to tweet about this every year. Yeah, it's your favorite weekend. I love October so much. It's horror season. You know, Venom is kind of a horror character. He's a very scary superhero figure. And the title of the film is Venom colon The Last Dance. That's really funny. That's the best thing I've seen all year. That's really funny. That is so funny. I don't care about this, but it's genuinely funny. Good job to everyone involved. So let's just, let's read a little bit more deeply into this.

Okay. Now, The Last Dance, of course, is the name of the wonderful Michael Jordan, 96 Bulls documentary that our friend Jason Hare directed. So that film was about kind of the end of an era, the closing stages of the peak of the Michael Jordan experience, his last year with the Chicago Bulls where he went out a champion. Is that, is that, that's what they think this is for,

is that a representation of the superhero era? Of the Venom era? Of Tom Hardy's era as a, as a symbiote auteur? Is it, is it the last dance between Eddie Brock and the alien costume that covers his body? Like, what is it referred to? So, Venom is a man named Eddie Brock who puts on an alien costume and becomes Venom. Yes.

You haven't seen Venom? No. You've never seen Venom? No, he didn't take me. Oh, my God. Oh, that's tempting. That's very tempting. Oh, is that the big betom? No, you didn't take me. Oh, that's tempting. That's very tempting. Oh, is that the big bet now? Oh, my God.

Venom! Venom is so funny. Well, the first one came out the same weekend as A Star is Born, right? I don't want to spoil Venom for you, but here's the scene. Speaking of the food part. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. It's very appropriate.

You can sell tickets to this. Okay. All right. Well, we'll see. All right. All right. But it did come out the same weekend as A Star is Born. I think the original. It's very appropriate. You can sell tickets to this. Okay. All right. Well, we'll see. All right. All right. But it did come out the same weekend as A Star Is Born. I think the original.

It did. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was just on A Star Is Born wave and you loved it, but were also like Venom. You know, it became a bit for you. Yeah, it's a bit. Yeah. So I didn't feel that I needed to infringe on your bit.

Mm-hmm. Was Michelle Williams in the first or the second Venom? Both. Both? Yeah. Will she be in The Last Dance? I suspect. Okay.

So she's not dead. Not dead. I mean, they could bring her back to life. She's sort of his, how to describe her character, forlorn, somewhat bored ex-girlfriend who has moved on, but she's still concerned about Eddie's well-being. Okay. She does know that Venom exists and she often asks him

in the films how's it going with Venom. Okay. Does she know that Venom is him? Venom is him. You're absolutely right. When we think of him

we think of Venom. She does know. Well, he's not though. Venom is just this alien that is attaching itself to Eddie Brock. Oh, interesting. Like, it has its own personality. And it sometimes takes over Eddie's lifestyle. Okay.

I mean, this is really, this is podcasting. But me explaining how Venom works to you, I feel fucking amazing right now. Does Eddie have, like, free will in this it's a complicated okay the longer the longer you spend with venom the more he kind of consumes your agency so somewhat of an allegory for toxic relationships i mean it is you know like that's kind of the joke of the movie is that this is what it's like when you have a bad boyfriend, but he's an alien that is black goo. Right. So, Which I've always wondered about. The movies are,

I genuinely believe one of the reasons why I love the movies is because they're super in on the joke. Like, they completely get how stupid it is and how goofy it is

and they're playing it up and Tom Hardy is having a blast, which is why I think they're great. Naming your movie The Last Dance is chef's kiss. It's like, Venom is what Deadpool

thinks it is, but Venom is actually that. Okay. That's my take. Great. I will die on that island. And I like Deadpool, but it's not as

dumb smart as it thinks it is. Venom is as dumb smart as it thinks it is. Okay, that's my take. I mentioned the Batman 2 thing, which, I don't know. I don't, you know,

that's fine. I look forward to that movie. I thought the first one was great. I love Matt Reeves as a filmmaker. I also enjoyed the first one. Happy for Robert Pattinson. Hope his family is doing well. No news on that, which is good.

I hope that, you know, sending them my best. You think he'll be a good dad? I do. Yeah, I do too. Seems like a nice guy. And also this gives him some time, you know, this gives him some leave. And then they can then he can get back in the suit or whatever.

What he doesn't know that I know is that the human body after you've had a child atrophies significantly. That's really true. That's true for the mother and I'll be honest,

it's true for the father as well. I know. So I wish him well bulking up for Batman 2. The other thing that happened... I wouldn't say that he was like the bulkiest in the Batman. He was a little... which I appreciated which i appreciated a little bit of like welterweight boxer energy you know like he was

pretty cut stiff yeah not muscular also like some of that is like the contouring of the suit like the suit was cut and he was very tall you think he had a gut in the suit i don't think he had a gut but there's like there is a middle ground between having a gut and, you know, being John Cena at the Oscars. That's very true. So, it's sometimes it's okay to live in the middle there. Who do you think should be the villain? Do you think Venom should be the villain in Batman 2? Well, I was going to ask you, so.

That's MCU, DCEU. That's not going to work. Venom's? Oh, right. Venom is MCU. Venom is Spider-Man. Batman is DCU, sure. So, it was Colin Farrell.

As the Penguin. As the Penguin. What's up with that show? I believe it's coming. When will you finish editing it and release it to the world? I've been working on it for a long time. And Colin and I have been in the lab together. And I'm feeling really good about it.

I don't... Yeah, that show's coming out. I don't know what role, if any, he plays in the Batman 2. Presumably, they'll go either Joker or another canon hero. Oh my god, I just remember what I had to text you. Who is that at the end of the Batman? And you were like, that is the Joker? Yes, played by Barry Keoghan.

In my defense. But also, he was kind of playing him as like the guy from salt burn i don't know if like when we look back on it okay you hear the voice and the energy he's giving oh kind of similar okay i nox was like a month old you know i couldn't really be like i watched it over four nights like in my defense i'm trying here um okay so that's that's good i hope they bring Murder on the Dance Floor in. That would be funny. Yeah. Because Joker dancing in Murder on the Dance Floor is kind of a fit.

I'd like it. That reminds me a lot of Jack Nicholson cooking as the Joker to Batdance. Yeah. You know, something similar there. Okay, the other one too that just broke this morning is that Greta Gerwig has been cast in her life partner's new film, which I think is untitled. I think that they are married now. Oh, that's nice. Remember, because they-

They're also life partners. Yeah, they are life partners and sometimes work partners. Do you not think of Zach as your life partner, just as your husband? I really, really ask him to not use partner. I'm like, you can just say wife. It's okay. Because you think that's like woke verbiage? No, he's really weird in the way that he

references me in his writing and i think it becomes of like deep fear which is good and we have like instilled that over time you know when i talk to him about this he says whenever he writes my wife he hears it as my wife i know but sometimes i'm like he he once, he interviewed Paul Giamatti once. And it was when we still lived in New York and they were in Brooklyn Heights, which is where I used to live. And I guess we were engaged. Fiance was also like a real sticking point for both of us as a word. You didn't like that word? Yeah.

I mean, it just, you know, sounds a little debutante. But anyway. You guys are so weird. You think this is normal behavior, but like all living humans in America are like, yeah, my fiance, never thinking twice about it. Well, I mean, you know that I had complicated feelings about weddings, bride, all of that stuff.

Not my vibe. Also the legal arrangements of your finances, that seemed to be an issue for you. Yeah, we've worked through that. Anyway, so he told Paul Giamatti, and this is how he phrased it. He was like, the woman I'm going to marry used to live here. And Paul Giamatti goes, have you met her yet?

And it's like. But that is exactly. It's a true story. It's a great response. Shout out Paul Giamatti. That's so good. Every single time he is describing me, it's always just story it's a great response shout out paul giamatti that's so good and every single time he is describing me it's always just like some like future it looks like he's gonna marry

venom or something you know it doesn't make any sense so sometimes i'm like just like let's keep it simple it is like technically wife let's go with it but life partner work partner all of the above i just wanted to know that i do think we know that Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig are married because they celebrated at the Billy Joel concert, right? Oh, yeah, which is incredible. Which is just iconic. So that's why we need to remember that. I mean, their social lives, aside from raising their young children,

is just going to Knicks games and Billy Joel concerts. Just wildly relatable. Wildly relatable. And she's going to be in his new movie. The cast of his new movie wild stuff George Clooney Adam Sandler Laura Dern

Riley Keough and Billy Crudup it's described as a funny and emotional coming of age film about adults I believe this film was made for Netflix

and also that's the description of all of his films yeah that's why I laughed that's just so you could just paste that on every film

past and present it's being described as a movie featuring that on every film, past and present. It's being described as a movie featuring humans and we're looking forward to it greatly. Okay. A lot of good news. That's nice.

It's nice when we get exciting news about this year. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about 2024 as well. I felt like Love Lies Bleeding. I have no idea what you're going to think of this.

Another movie we have not yet discussed in any form or fashion, which is a good trend we have going on the show. I had a lot of fun with this movie. I'm a huge Kristen Stewart fan. I was looking forward to this as a fan of St. Maude. A movie that even on this show, I think, got a little lost in the shuffle of the pandemic

because I think it played festivals in 19, was meant to be released in 2020. I think I saw it in a screening room in 2020 and then eventually came out in 2021 in the spring when we were like, can we go to movie theaters? What's really going on here? A24 especially was trying to stick hard to that theatrical model. And so that very good movie, I think was a little bit overlooked by some. I really enjoyed it. I think this is a big step up personally. So what did you think of Love Lies Bleeding? I enjoyed it. I had a good it. I think this is a big step up, personally. So what did you think of Love Lies Bleeding?

I enjoyed it. I had a good time. I think it'll surprise you that I liked, well, it won't surprise you that I liked the sex scenes. And Kristen Stewart has a complicated and evolving relationship with a bodybuilder played by Katie O'Brien and they get hot and heavy and it's great. And just the Kristen Stewart-ness of this movie, she's like full mullet, incredibly hot, and it's really working and she feels like, it feels very natural and very essential

to what is so appealing about Kristen Stewart, so that's great. So I liked the sexiness and I actually liked the gore. Really? And I would say that that actually, there was some joy to it. It leaned into the physicality and just like the actual

like physical pleasures of this movie were what stuck out to me. The story, we've seen it a million times, and then I'm not sure I totally followed it. But yeah, I really liked the experience. Yeah, it is a somewhat conventional noir film. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about noir movies in the 21st century and how we think about them.

But the Katie O'Brien character, who is this very imposing bodybuilder figure, comes to town. A woman comes to town. A queer woman who, Kristen Stewart's character is also gay, and they fall in love. And there's a mysterious and violent figure in this world

who Katie O'Brien's character actually goes to work for. And we learn that that character, who's played by Ed Harris, is actually Kristen Stewart's father. And, you know, I don't want to spoil too much about what happens in the movie, but it takes a pretty traditional stretch. You know, we see a lot of events that we're used to seeing in movies like this. What differentiates it, I think, is a little bit of what you're describing. You hear the word visceral used to describe movies a lot of the time when someone's like,

this is a visceral thrill ride. And I think that word is sometimes misapplied in this case a movie that is about bodybuilding the use of steroids that features incredible and explicit violence a kind of stunning choreography in some of that violence and also the way that the movie is cut together where there's this incredible emphasis on the human body and the way that it grows or the way that you know someone can kind of flex their power makes it an unusual proposition and i agree with you i like i think it makes it really effective i saw the movie at a special screening on valentine's day or maybe it was like the three days before valentine's day and it was billed as a valentine's day. And so the audience was mostly women. And, you know.

I don't want to speak on behalf of a community to which I'm not a member, but the lesbian community seems quite excited about this. And I'm excited for them. Yeah, I mean, Kristen Stewart has been out for a long time. And she was in Happiest Season, which was a very sweet rom-com. But another movie released during the pandemic that was a fun streaming movie that kind of was like your best case scenario streaming movie. This is a little bit, this is like the first time she's like, I'm a, this is like, I'm a gay superhero, basically. Like, I'm a gay, like, you know, Barbara Stanwyck, basically. Like, that's what her character is doing in this movie.

And you could see why it's an event. But anyway, I saw it at the screening, and you could tell half the audience was like, this movie kicks fucking ass. And people were, like, clapping and really excited. Then the other half were pretty grossed out. And were like, what did I sit down for, not knowing what it was going to be.

It was like, before the marketing had hit. It's hard to imagine this movie without her. Yeah, it does not. I mean, it doesn't work. And that's what's so cool about it is that she is a pretty, she's a unique movie star. She has the presence.

She takes up the frame, but not in that razzmatazz. It's quiet charisma. It's charisma that draws you towards her. And the movie understands that in a way that, like, you know, even happiest season, she's kind of, like, smoldering in the corner while everyone else is doing, like,

their zany screwball jokes. And then everyone is like, well, why don't you and Aubrey Plaza just go make out? Because you're the only two people we like in this movie. Valid point. But this movie understands and builds itself around her appeal, which is awesome to see. Yeah, a lot of times you hear about a movie star that has a quiet appeal, like a John Wayne or Steve McQueen, where they're kind of removing lines of dialogue from their films. You feel a similar thing with Kristen Stewart,

but that there's almost like that sense of discomfort that she has. It's not quite anxiety. It's just an unsureness about how to engage with the world that is a signature feature of hers. In this case, it's deployed because she has a lot of secrets. And there's a lot of things about her and her family history that she doesn't want revealed. And at other times, it's because she has a lot of secrets and there's a lot of things about her and her family history that she doesn't want revealed. And at other times it's because she has feelings for someone that she doesn't quite know how to express. But it is the same logic with a Steve McQueen type, where when you're looking at him, you're thinking, what is he thinking? And what is he going to do

next? And she has the same power. You know, not every movie star has that. We're in an era of motor mouth movie stars. Which I love. I like it too. But sometimes you get Chris Pratt action movies. And that's not, this is a different proposition, right? So I thought this movie was really effective. Katie O'Brien is gigantic and incredibly good in this movie. She's so good.

So she, I am not a Mandalorian person. So apparently she's on seasons two and three of Mandalorian. She was also in Quantumania. She was. You remember her from Quantumania? She was like the big bruising character on the planet. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sure. But not Corey Stahl with the giant head. No, no. But in addition to those credits, she was a cop for a while. She has been, like, trained in martial arts since she was five. She has done bodybuilding competitions before. Like, she is physically can play this part. And it's, I mean, that is astonishing.

Just her body, which is used a lot in this movie. But then she and Kristenart really also do have chemistry and that is really nice yeah i agree i think that's a huge part of the movie too and i also i think an actress like her who is maybe not as seasoned as someone like kristen stewart needs a really seasoned actor opposite them for a part like this she has kind of the ingenue role and kristen stewart has you know the leading man role, for lack of a better phrase. The kind of like the tough person you meet first. Well, like in the genre's convention, she's the Bogart, for lack of a better word.

Precisely. She's like the kind of hapless detective that you would find in a noir movie. Thought she was wonderful. Ed Harris is out fucking fucking outrageous in this movie so this is the wig okay that's what i thought when you were like what wig and i was like well he's wearing i mean it's like bald ed harris no you know no disrespect love beautiful but full ball and then he has like just long flowing hair from the ears down. Right? Yeah, probably more from like the back. Well, yeah.

Like the neck. The top neck. Right, but just like the effect when you see it is it's just like a bald man on the top half and then, you know,

like long Sidney Sweeney locks. Important question. Should CR have this haircut? No, that would be upsetting. Okay. It works incredibly well

in this movie because Ed Harris is wearing a hat some of the time so you can see that he's got the hair going down the back and then you remove and you see the classic Ed Harris. Ed Harris at his advanced age, he's got to be in his late 70s,

maybe even his early 80s. He is as menacing and screen owning as he's ever been. He does a couple of things in this movie that are truly gross. And he's pretty darn good. Like this is the kind of thing that a movie like this could seem a lot smaller if it doesn't plug in the wattage that Harris and Stewart bring to it. And a lot more slight maybe too,

because it is ultimately fairly faithful with one significant exception to the conventions of the genre you know it doesn't really go that far outside of it i wonder so like we'll talk about noir and noir being an incredibly pessimistic and kind of cynical genre frame for storytelling did you see this as a pessimistic movie or did you see it as a as a kind of more hopeful story again without spoiling the end could go either way i will also be honest that the end doesn't totally work for me i think katie o'brien is great and what they do with that character over the course of the film doesn't totally isn't totally fleshed out you know it's even

though it's quite fleshed out let's do so let's do a quick five minute spoiler section about this because i wanted to discuss this with you i did discuss it a little bit with Rose Glass as well. So if you want to listen to my interview with her, we talk for about 15, 20 minutes about the movie and then we get into a little bit of spoiler territory as well in case people want to hear about it because there are a couple choices that she makes as a filmmaker that reminded me a lot of St. Maude.

And so maybe that'll give this discussion some context. So if you don't want to know anything about the ending of Love, Lies, Bleeding, fast forward five minutes spoiler warning so are you referring specifically to the end of the movie where in this final confrontation between kristen seward's character and her father ed harris's character she grows to an enormous size like attack of the 50-foot woman and like just kills him destroys him kills him and then they run off like frolicking in the in the field together um i am specifically but also for the last third to maybe last half of that movie the character is in a totally different movie and she goes to vegas

and they have that like you know the the bodybuilding competition as a look at bodybuilding competitions is like quite visually impressive and shout out to all of those women and you know even like the behind it's that's a very cool scene that feels disconnected from the rest of the movie. And then the character is just in like steroid robot mode and doesn't, to the motivations and everything that like lead you to that attack of the 50 foot woman moment, just feel separate from the rest of the movie. I agree with you. I think it is a little bit disorienting to understand the psychology of her character like she becomes a very desperate person very quickly and part of it might just be the incredible humiliation that she suffers after going to las vegas with her dream and failing right now she has this moment where she gets very sick on stage while having this delusional moment

and then her character does become this kind of like robotic agent of death very briefly working for ed harris's character um the 50 foot woman moment is a big swing i really liked it it reminded me a lot of the ending of saint maude where like you see the saint maude character basically like having a vision and levitating and you can't you have to decide for yourself whether it's happening in her head or actually happening the same is true of this moment you know it's like is this a literal 50 foot woman moment no but in a way it's sort of like it's how lou her head or actually happening. The same is true of this moment. You know, it's like, is this a literal 50-foot woman moment? No, but in a way, it's sort of like, it's how Lou, the Kristen Stewart character, sees her.

You know, she is like her avenging monster, her avenging angel, however you want to see it. So I love that choice. But you're right, leading up to that moment, it's a little bit complicated. I agree, and it's memorable. I do like the choice too, but to answer, you asked me, is it optimistic or pessimistic? Like, I don't, I don't know because I don't know enough about like what comes before it. And if, when they're romping together at the end, is that supposed to be happiness? And they, these two people got themselves out of a sticky situation or is it.

They're on the run now like they're on the run and she's a steroid monster who was maybe always just staying with kristen stewart anyway just you know as a place to crash and to get steroids yeah i think it can be both and it can be both but like i i don't know how to answer the question which is which is my note that's why it's a great question yeah well yeah there you go congratulations there's no binary yeah the the interesting thing about that too is that um historically like a movie like this has a much more an ending with them with more finality and this felt like a movie where you'd be like what's happening in the sequel like where are they going next and also the movie that this reminded me of is a movie that a lot of people haven't seen and probably will never see which

is magazine dreams which is a movie that played sundance um last january which stars jonathan majors and he was widely acclaimed for his performance in the movie i thought he was exceptional in the movie this was before the revelations about the domestic violence charges against him and it has a very similar framework where he becomes increasingly steroidal and crazed. And there has a kind of performance moment at a bodybuilding competition. And I think if that movie had come out in the fall window that it was expected to, this would have seemed weirdly iterative. It would have seemed very similar.

And so that movie not happening, I think in this perverse way, this very kind of tragic way too, it makes this movie feel a little bit more fresh than it otherwise would have. But I like it a lot. And I think it's like an interesting entry into the way that this genre has changed a lot. So I,

Patton Oswalt was on the show for nightmare alley a couple of years. Right. That's right. And I love nightmare alley. Nightmare alley is in couple of years ago. Right, that's right. And I love Nightmare Alley. Nightmare Alley is in some ways a traditional noir. It's a remake of a noir, but even by the noir standards, it has a kind of absurdity to it

because it's set in this kind of carnival atmosphere. So it's kind of gross and kind of strange in a way that noir films are not necessarily, but the original film shot in black and white. The Guillermo del Toro Nightmare Alley was eventually screened and sold in black and white. It features a femme fatale. It features a kind of hapless guy who thinks he's smarter than everybody, but doesn't know anything.

It features an intriguing world of confusion and shadows. So that movie fit pretty well. And if you haven't listened to that episode, check it out. Patton is really great. Patton knows everything about every 40s and 50s noir ever created. The genre itself basically came out of a post-war period in America where there was a sense of frustration and confusion around the powers that be, and the sense that masculinity was a trap. Capitalism was a trap.

Government and power structures are a trap to not get too engaged with them. They're some of the best American movies ever made. They've since been like widely adopted, refracted, re-imagined. They had a bit of a boom in the 70s. They had a boom in the 90s. I love the 90s neo-noir movies.

21st century though, they're the same but different. Because, like, for example, you would not have had, like, a queer love story be a noir movie in the 1940s. You probably wouldn't have had it be something in the 1970s and maybe not even really in the 90s. They weren't really a fixing genre to gay love stories. And even in the nineties, for the most part, maybe a few exceptions here and there, but now it feels like it's a much wider aperture while still using the same tools.

So what, what do you, what do you make it now? I mean, I'm even trying to think of, of nineties examples where it's a, a woman at the, as like the,

this, the Bogart stand-in, the detective. It's very rare. Right. So it's just... You did have even stronger women. You would have Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction. Sure. She'd be at the center of the movie, but she was still the Barbara Stanwyck. Yeah, exactly.

So for so many years, it was confused white guy gets pulled into this world full of colorful characters and questionable to absent morals and is trying to figure out where he fits in it the protagonist the person at the center of that story has kind of widened um gender sexuality and then also the the nature of the world that is being explored has kind of widened from kind of like shadowy crime underworld to suburban kansas or wherever they are in gone girl i think they're in missouri missouri i don't remember you know the midwest to the world of bodybuilding las vegas and love lies. You know, kind of everywhere. So setting and the characters. But the story beats.

Nobody's up to good. And there's maybe a slightly righter side, but not a right side. And how are we going to navigate all this? And a bunch of people are going to die. And there will be a lot of beautiful people also. The one movie from the 90s I think that is the exception

that proves your rule that is obviously must have I didn't ask Rose Glass about this but must have been a huge influence is Bound with the

Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon gay noir movie. I think maybe Set It Off too. Did you ever see Set It Off with Queen Latifah? Yes.

Which is a little bit like Heat not so much pure noir but that's another one. But I think you're right about what's happening right now which is it's not just ever see set it off with queen latifah yes just a little bit like heat not so much pure noir but that's another one but i think you're right about what's happening right now which is it's not just about identity or or class or race it's about where these movies are taking place there are some 40s noirs that take place like in the countryside but it's very uncommon those are usually urban set dramas and now they can kind of be anything like do you have a personal favorite of classic or of this well i would be curious about to know well i mean you know the classic is maltese falcon and

big sleep and and gilda i guess which is not a bogart but you know features like the all-time rita hayworth yep um and then 70s you know we were all raised on chinatown and long goodbye yeah so that that created our personalities um i all of the fincher movies but gone girl in particular obviously because of the way it turns all of the conventions on its head i mean it's still in like in some ways it's the most conventional right because ben aff Ben Affleck is just very confused. And Rosamund Pike is the femme fatale. And there are law enforcement characters who can't really figure things out.

And things have gone wrong. But you're fully just rooting for Rosamund Pike. I mean, maybe you're not fully, but... This is a little bit of an anatomy of a fall situation, too. No, it is true. You're like, who's right about this? It is true. It's like, is this Ben Affleck character

who's pretty much a dipshit, but definitely not, shouldn't be put in this situation? Sure. Have you been following the Kate Middleton scandal at all? Pretty much exclusively through you. Okay, great. Thanks so much. So like there has been like one of the,

and these are one of the more fun conspiracy theories. We really need to have a conversation about conspiracy theories on the internet. And like you do need to be an artist or you need to be creative to to be doing this on the internet all the people who are just like she's in a coma i'm like or she had a you know bbl that's that's not a matter what's a bbl brazilian butt lift ah the kardashians um but all the people who are like i too would gone girl my husband if xyz and so like kate middleton

is gone girling them is is a great strain and that's like those are the people that i want to spend time with um but implied in that is like a empathy with kate middleton and it's like well her whole family this whole family that she's married into is so crazy that she had to create like an entire scandal. I genuinely think this is a really good screenplay you could write. Okay. I think there's a lot here. I think Royal Noir is an untapped area of interest

that I think you could really hit on well. I guess it's asking, you're right, that you aren't, how could you not be rooting for Ben Affleck in some ways? I mean, that's the genius of the movie is that- How could you, Amanda, not be? Sure, I know. But it's like pulling you both ways. It is i the genre in the 21st century is tricky because like in the

early days of the genre or in the early days of the century there were a handful of like stone cold classics that were also revisions like mulholland drive yeah is a noir but it's also a surreal dream movie about the complicated nature of like fame and love and identity. Another movie that features a gay love story, actually. And, you know, there's like Memories of Murder, the Bong Joon-ho movie. I'm trying to think of what are like the early, you know, Minority Report in a way. Sure. It's kind of a noir.

It's kind of an early century noir. And so we're plugging in sci-fi. We're plugging in serial killer investigations. We're plugging in serial killer investigations, we're plugging in all these kinds of ideas. As the century goes forward, and this is really, Christopher Nolan basically starts using the tonality that he nails in Memento in movies like The Dark Knight and Inception, and Leonardo DiCaprio becomes kind of like the signal figure

in these kinds of stories. Shutter Island is a huge homage to the kind of like psycho drama noirs of the 40s and 50s that Martin Scorsese made. I think like one of the great underrated movies the last 25 years. That is, it's almost like noir dress up because it's happening in the mind of a person who doesn't realize what's actually going on. And it's almost like he's envisioning himself as this Bogart-esque character. And then Villeneuve too. I mean, you know, Prisoners and Enemy, these movies are, again, using the kind of psychological, cynical conventions about lost men who don't really understand, who lose touch with their relationship to the natural world because they've been driven crazy by something. And maybe sometimes it's a woman, maybe it's your

child being kidnapped. Maybe it's the idea that there might be two of you in the world. There are also like some conventional ones too. I think the, probably the, the biggest and most classic one is drive. That's the, I added that. Oh, you did? To our list. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like Drive is. That's, yeah. That's the example, right? We also, I think this week,

we all learned once again that we need to not take Ryan Gosling for granted. You know? Early word on the fall guy. I know. So positive. Also, I mean, shout out my guy. Straight from the Oscars to Austin for South By.

And I mean, he's just back on the roadshow. He's hosting SNL. The renaissance is truly upon us. This is clearly not just a one movie, I'm just Ken situation. I'm thrilled. Which is incredible. Yeah. I mean, and he spent, one of the reasons why I came to love him is he spent a lot of time

basically making movies like this that we're talking about in that little window where he was working a lot with Nicholas Winding Refn. He was working with Derek C in France Blue Valentine is not a noir film but it has a similar kind of energy

Drive of course is Place Beyond the Pines of course is in many ways he had a sense shout out our friend Tim Simons

and his $3.99 DVD of Only God Forgives I mean or was it a Blu-ray I'm sure it was a Blu-ray we don't buy DVDs can I ask you something about this well i i recently had to is it gonna work in my player what kind of a player

is it i don't know what do you mean you don't know i don't know it's whatever zach has okay here's my here's my advice yeah go home yeah open it yeah place it in the machine i know but if it plays if you see a menu screen i know but this. I know, but I ordered it for 1977 draft. Remember? Yeah. But it was only available in DVD. Uh-huh. I haven't watched it yet.

Uh-huh. I was going to do it tonight. So the film that you're referring to is The Turning Point. Yeah. Which is a Herbert Ross film about the world of ballet. Yeah, I'm fucking psyched. I've been saving it. You know, he made two movies that year.

I know. He also made The Goodbye Girl. Which I just watched last night for the first time. It was okay. I'll. He also made The Goodbye Girl. Which I just watched last night for the first time. Lovely. It was okay. I'll tell you what, we really need to reconsider where the modern rom-com era starts. Because I watched that movie and I was like, this is a fucking Nora Ephron movie. Yeah, but I mean, Annie Hall is also this year.

It is. So there is like a different, there is that era of rom-coms and then. Well, maybe let's not step on our situation. Okay, anyway. Tim's Only God Forgives Blu-ray, $3.99. I mean, what a deal. Only God Forgives is not really a deal. comms and then well maybe let's not step on our situation okay anyway tim's only god forgives blu-ray 399 i mean what a deal only god forgives not really but let me just ask you just to go back this for a second what do i do if it doesn't work in the the player that i have open your front door hold the disc in your hand and throw it out like i need to be able to see it no give it to me and i'll find a way to play it you And you can watch it at my house. Okay.

I mean, that seems like a lot of work. To come to sit in my couch alone and watch a movie? Yeah, because I got to schedule it on the calendar, you know, through like the Museum of Sean. You're being rude. You're being rude. We're having a fun pod. I thought it was still a nice pod. It's like a submission page. You have to do the captcha just to get something on the cow.

I would be willing to open it up in the evening time. Oh, thank you. Like if you want to put Knox down and then come on over. Okay. You can watch The Turning Point. I've never seen it. Yeah. It's rich enough.

An Oscar film. Yeah. He is. He's actually been in two Herbert Ross movies. He's also in Nijinsky. Mm-hmm. You up on that? Yes.

Okay. Help me pick some more movies. I've got some personal yeah picks for this i'll here's what i'll say shutter island i strongly believe should be in mulholland drive is a no-brainer yeah brick it's weird if you don't put brick in ryan johnson's debut film because it is such an overt homage relocating a humphrey Bogart movie to a high school. Gone Girl, I think, is the right pick. I think Decision to Leave, the most recent Mark Chan-wook film.

Also, again, a film that is simultaneously paying homage to the genre, but also subverting our expectations of the genre. Okay, how many is that? Is that five, Bobby? Can you help us keep track here? So we're building did you explain the exercise here so we're doing the canon so we did chris and i did the can the 21st century sci-fi canon okay for the creator and we were like this movie makes me think of

movies that i loved from the past love lies bleeding does a similar thing these movies are still being made in the 21st century we're still getting versions of these movies. People can quibble with our choices. Right. But... Okay, so we've got Drive in there too. Yeah. One, two... So right now we have five.

Shutter Island, Mulholland Drive, Brick, Gone Girl, Drive. I'll throw a few more out at you. Okay. What do you think of Inherent Vice? I think that's probably

a no-brainer. Are the movies that we're picking too close to the movies that we got 70 years ago and not modernizing these stories i think that's unfair to inherent vice a movie that spawned a major fight in my marriage but is still um that's how it'll be best remembered engaged with the genre and certainly updating it now a lot of that is like the pension as well, but, you know, it is true to the spirit.

So, I would like to submit Sexy Beast. Oh, good. Yeah. I got some recommendations on this as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jonathan Glazer's debut film, which is an old person noir. Yes.

A retiree noir. Which is a great movie. And also like a sunny noir. Spain, right? Spain? Yes. That's a terrific film. I'm in. I is a great movie. And also like a sunny noir. Spain. Right, Spain? Yes. That's a terrific film. I'm in.

I'm good with that. Okay. I'm going to put up Killer Joe. And I've got a segue related to Killer Joe. Killer Joe, of course, written by Tracy Letts, the acclaimed playwright, directed by William Friedkin. And I'm bringing this up because, of course, the great Carrie Coon, who's married to Tracy Letts, was on The Tonight Show this week. And roughly 88,000 people sent me the clip of Carrie Coon talking about her hard media collection that she shares with her husband. And just want to say thank you to them.

Thank you to them for doing the work. 10,000 Blu-rays. I noticed that she specified Blu-rays. She was also talking about a website where you look up physical media listings. DVD Beaver. Do you also use that? I don't. Okay.

I'm really more just on like boutique Blu-ray Reddit. That's where I go. Okay. Yeah. That's my space where I check stuff out. I agree with Carrie that the naming there could be examined. Well, you know, I was very young when I named that site and launched it. So I have some regrets.

Are you on the Blu-ray Reddits before or after you're doing like shit posting on the CR heads Reddit? That's a daily occurrence. Every day I wake up, I fire up CR heads. I look at every post and then I add all my thoughts as... I can't even think of a fake name. I don't know. I literally don't use Reddit. I don't know how to post on Reddit.

I've never done it. But Boutique Blu-ray is helpful. DVD Beaver, I'm sure it's helpful. I just don't look at it. Do you think the Boutique Blu-ray people can be of help to me if my disc doesn't work tonight? No, because they're like, check out these DVDs I got.

You know, it's really just people posting pictures of their shelves and stuff. But they're like, here's a new one. This one looks cool. Big controversy going on right now. The aliens and true lies and the abyss. Yeah, but they're bad.

Right. They're green. But they're also, they've been delayed. The deliveries have been delayed to many people. So that's like people are saying like, are they withholding them

because they're trying to create demand or are they withholding because the feedback has been so bad about the transfers? I don't know. Big scandal. Anyway. Okay.

Did you want to put decision to leave in? I do. I want to put decision to leave in i do okay so that means that yes i think that means we have eight one two three four five six seven eight and we have nine this is a great episode of sesame street that we're making i'll make a oh man this is so tough because there's so many good ones i mean i'll list the, the short list of films that I added are Phoenix, the Petzold movie, which I love,

The Place Beyond the Pines, 25th Hour. I mean, one of my favorite movies. And it does fit. I mean, it fits. It fits.

Memento? In terms of influence, that is pretty important. Old Boy. I'm not sure if Old Boy fully fits. It kind of sort of fits. Memento In terms of Influence That It's a big one Is pretty important Old Boy I'm not sure if Old Boy Fully fits

It kind of sort of fits Widows One of my favorite movies Of the last Second time it's come up This week on the show I know yeah And A Touch of Sin

I mean The Gia Chunky movie I think it probably Has to be Memento Wow Huge What a Huge for Nolan. What a week for Nolan. From Best Picture to the 21st Century Noir.

I mean, we have our favorites, but in terms of what it signaled, both of his own personal filmmaking and then people trying to do what he's doing. Okay. I'm in. I like it. There's a ton more movies that could fit the bill and some people will say how could you not put in

Looper? How could you not put in Under the Silver Lake? How could you not put in I mean Mystic River? You know like there are a lot of movies that are that fit the bill here.

You're not going to do the Match Point? Mystic River? Yeah. You're not going to do the Sean Penn movie? Is that my daughter in there? Sean Penn's also going to be in the new PTA movie, by the way.

Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He seems to be doing well. Very normal guy. That's it. That's our 10.

Okay. I'm going to read them. Shutter Island, Mulholland Drive, Brick, Decision to Leave, Gone Girl, Inherent Vice, Killer Joe, Memento, Sexy Beast, and Drive. It's a good list. Pretty good. Yeah. All of these movies are elite.

Big fan. Okay. That's a 21st century noir canon. Any closing thoughts before we go to my conversation with Rose? See Love Lies Bleeding. Kristen Stewart looks really hot as she has in every single press photo. Have you been following the press tour? I read a really good feature about her in Variety.

That's all I've done. I mean, I just like all her promo appearances. She's going for it, fashion-wise. She looks awesome. Great. I'm a big fan of hers. I hope she continues to make genre movies, because what I really like is genre movies, as you know. All right.

Thanks, Amanda. Let's go to my conversation with Rose Glass. Very happy to be joined by Rose Glass. She's here with her second feature film, which is very exciting, Love Lies Bleeding. Rose, I wanted to start by asking you, do you remember the first movie you saw that made you think, maybe I want to make movies? There's like a handful, but definitely one of them was Jason and the Argonauts.

I think I saw that on TV when I was quite young and I think the sort of animated skeletons. Yeah, the Harryhausen one. Yes, exactly. So I think the sort of that animation and those skeletons are going, oh, how did they do that? That seems really cool because I used to like drawing a lot as well. So I then started trying to do little kind of stop motion animation things, I think sort of inspired by that. And then I think probably like the Lord of the Rings trilogy like was one of the first sort of like I'm gonna say franchise whatever like sort of um world of films that I got really obsessed with and would get like the DVDs and watch the sort of behind the scenes featurettes of those films I think was the first time I started to really sort of get a sense

of what goes into making a film and and started thinking that that was something i'd really really want to do did you come from artistic family is that how how was it received when you started exploring how to make things like this yeah i think it was met with kind of um amused encouragement for sure like they um i mean i think i'd say like members of my family are very creative people but they don't work in creative i've got one um aunt who's a sort of experimental musician but otherwise no quite sort of sensible sensible professions so i think they um uh i think i just sort of went on and did it and they kind of were like okay cool that's what you want to do i'm always interested when a filmmaker like yourself has success. And, you know, your films are very genre forward, genre bending, very propulsive,

but also very in your face. Like, did your family know that these were the kinds of movies that you would make? Are they surprised to see the kinds of movies you've made? I don't know. I know that my grandma came to see St. Maude and I think was quite shocked. And I'm not sure if she'll be watching this latest one

or not. I think my parents probably weren't all that surprised. Because I'm not sure if she'll be watching this latest one or not. I think my parents probably weren't all that surprised. Because I mean, even when I was making little films, when I was sort of like a teenager at home, they'd always and I'd sometimes rope them into acting in them as well. Even at that point, they were all quite surreal, silly, hammy, over the top kind of things. Where does that passion for genre come from? It's interesting hearing you say Jason the Argonaut's Lord of the Rings. That actually makes sense now than when I think about the movies that you've made. But is that just something that kind of primally interested you as a kid?

I think so, yeah. I think I'm a bit of a crap cinephile, to be honest. I'm not very good at analyzing a lot of this stuff. I think the films that would get me excited wouldn't, probably wasn't until I went to film school and kind of like, ah, discovering my Bergman and all these kinds of probably more sophisticated tastes. But otherwise, it was always quite sort of just fun, bombastic, bloody, funny stuff, which I don't know, maybe that just instinctually comes from growing up in a fairly kind of,

like growing up in the countryside, not having many friends. So it's all the kind of like violent and being a bit sort of shy. So maybe sort of something, feeling some sort of like release or living vicariously through things that are bigger than you are. It's funny because I really, really liked Saint Maud quite a bit, but I don't know that I would have expected something in this tonality of Love Lies Bleeding. I think it's brilliant. I really, really loved it. But I'm curious like where it came from and I'm hearing you talk about that and maybe the fact that maybe some of these characters are isolated in the same

way that Saint Maud is kind of isolated, that there is actually a kind of coherence between the protagonists of these movies too. So where did Love Lies Bleeding start for you? Yeah, I kind of isolated that there's there is actually a kind of coherence between the protagonists of these movies too so we're like where did love lives being start for you yeah i kind of see like lou and jackie and maude is all having been some kind of spiritual sisters in some in some kind of way um they i guess with it sort of started with jackie's character like i think the wanting to like have some follow some story about a female bodybuilder having some kind of physical mental unraveling as she's training for a big competition that was sort of like the initial thing and I guess in that sense she's kind of similar to Maud you know they're both kind of people who maybe feel a bit invisible wanting to make themselves very visible and going through some weird kind of transformation in probably slightly questionable ill-advised methods.

Jackie is a is a is a is a critical component, but it often feels like Lou's movie. So at what point, as you were thinking about the Jackie character, does it become where she becomes this kind of person who comes into the life of the person who we see the movie's eyes through at the beginning? Yeah, I know what you mean. It did kind of end up being, I mean, maybe I sort of just personally, I guess I'm probably a bit closer to Lou or in a way, I guess the fascination for me of somebody who manages to be a bodybuilder is because it's so far removed from what I am. Like just having that degree of discipline and dedication and physical kind of strength are just quite alien things to my personal experience. So the idea of um somebody falling in love with somebody like that and I don't know I think it sort of ended up having something to do

with like so I co-wrote it with a with my friend Veronica and we sort of as soon as we decided to make it a romance and not like just looking at Jackie which was quite early on I think the sort of romance we were both interested in looking at is the kind where it's not kind of uh you know a sort of love conquers all and brings out the best in people I think sometimes you can sort of fall in love with an idea of a person without necessarily knowing the real them and I sort of think in a way Lou and Jackie are kind of I think that happens to an extent they both kind of take what they need from each other. There's something a bit kind of, I don't know, I think the sort of romance I was interested in looking at

was something which is a little bit more parasitic, maybe a little bit toxic and slightly codependent. And people who sort of like using romance to kind of get them where they need to go. I don't know. No, I think that makes sense. It's quite a cynical romance. Even thinking about Maude

and the kind of that parasitic relationship she has to Jennifer Illy's character and what she wants from that character versus what she needs from that character. Those things definitely seem like they're in conversation. I'm curious about setting the movie where it's set and the time that it's set. It feels like it's very influenced by a kind of like 80s and 90s neo-noir in America that I really, really like. Also feels like a little bit like The Terminator at times. I don't know if that crossed your mind, but the sort of Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger,

but side by side. And then also very clearly like some Cronenberg going on too. So why New Mexico? Why 1989? Where did all that come from? I think we settled on a decade first. I think we just wanted it to sort of be kind of removed from the here and now so it sort

of took on this slightly more heightened slightly fable kind of feeling um and also some of it's just practical it's kind of like if you set stuff now then just the internet and social media just plays such a big part in your in like characters logistics and it's it's really you know you want to make your characters life lives difficult and it's really annoying when they can then just whip out a phone and kind of call someone too easily and i think by setting it then and in that place it sort of was to kind of highlight the isolation of both of them like both characters are sort of from different small towns they feel very disconnected from people so it feels like a bit more of a jolt when they then physically cross paths with somebody that they kind of resonate with um yeah i was a bit nervous

about setting it in in america to be honest i think like really briefly in the beginning i think i was trying to find a way to set it in the uk because i was kind of intimidated by the you know i'm obviously not from america and i hadn't really spent any time out here so i was like am i qualified to do this um which i'm probably not but but the story just naturally the story just naturally seemed to kind of go there it just felt like like i sort of toyed with the idea of setting it in Scotland and I still think the Scottish version of these characters could be would have would be great as well but um I think just the scale of it and I guess because it sort of ends up becoming on some levels about ambition and you know just the setting it in this

country and you know obviously then it leans into all these like tropes of like you know following the american dream and all this kind of thing and you know um just seemed to sort of like an american dream fairy tale that just goes very wrong so it felt like i don't know by putting it in something quite recognizable in time and space you can then because there's so many films of that kind of era and place it's almost there's some kind of like mythological kind of quality to it. A lot of these kind of elements of Americana, it's sort of so familiar. That was sort of the fun challenge was trying to find a way of making those familiar things feel alien somehow. That makes sense too, given that it's proximity to Roswell and there is a kind of alien quality to some of this as well.

I was an idiot. I didn't even think about that until we were out there. And then someone kept sending me gifs of aliens and I was like, what's that about? And yeah, New Mexico was like, I think we were looking at other states and I think it ended up being sort of like practical kind of budget sort of reasons we ended up there. But I'd literally never even been to New Mexico until we started doing location recce's um and then we went to Albert with Kirky and I've been a bit nervous about pulling off like the period dressing and stuff and it was like oh this well this looks good yeah I mean it works so well too because Jackie arrives and lose life like an alien has landed in a way and it's someone she hasn't really seen before

quite in this way yeah um you know I saw a screening of the movie and Kristen Stewart came out and she was like I don't know if I've ever been more proud of anything I've ever been a part of. She was really, really excited about being in this movie. She's obviously a big star. Indeed. But, uh, I'm just, I'm curious, like, one, what it's, how does someone like this come into a movie like yours after St. Maude? Which was, you know, acclaimed, but it's still a smaller film. And also what it's like to work with somebody who has that level of notoriety and there are people following her and you know how does all

that work in a production like this sort of i mean very quickly once you start production you're just in your own little bubble and she's you know kristin's great and like super unpretentious and very um down to earth really so she and i think maybe because we were filming it in like a fairly quiet place there weren't too it wasn't like occasionally if we'd go out for a drink or something at the weekend and then suddenly you're like oh fuck I forgot I forgot she's quite that famous and she has to have security everywhere and all this kind of thing but you sort of forget it when you're in the midst of making the film but definitely when when she first signed on for it that was just that was insanity like it was

mad like she you know she'd obviously just come off the back of spencer oscar nomination she can do whatever she wants really so um yeah her and i guess particularly sort of ed as well i guess i'm just very grateful they sort of took a bit of risk because yeah i've only done one film they could have been and i'm sure it was a bit of a odd one i don't know she just seemed very up for it they both seem to be having a lot of fun in this movie. And I wonder if it's because maybe they don't get offered these kinds of parts. I did want to ask you about Ed too, Ed Harris, who's now like a legendary American actor. Seems to be lapping up the opportunity you've given him.

Like, what did he say when you guys first met? Why did he want to do this? What was it that connected you to him? I met him at his house in LA, and we were sitting outside in his garden, which is lovely. And his wife, Amy, I think, to be honest, I got the impression she particularly was a fan of St. Maude. So maybe she encouraged him to hear me out. And he was very chill. He was like cool so you know this character i'm not quite i think i think i don't i don't want to paraphrase him but the impression i got

was that he was kind of a bit like i'm not totally sure what this what this weird thing is that you're asking me to do but you know i i like you i like your film you know you seem like you're trying to do something you know i like kristen sure let, let's give it a go kind of thing. And I'm sure there were days on set where he was like looking around just being like, what the fuck have I got myself into? But he hid it pretty well though and was wonderful. And like, yeah, I just think he's fantastic in this. Because I think that character particularly,

I was quite nervous about who to cast, how he should this kind of thing because you know a lot of the film is kind of like playing with archetypes and all this kind of stuff but you know hopefully doing something fun with it and his character is on some level just you know the evil patriarch and i just wanted to make sure we found a way of i wanted to avoid doing the thing where he's just the overly conservative macho man kind of dude who sort of disapproves of his lesbian daughter and you know I wanted to avoid that kind of thing and I don't know he just brings I don't know I just I mean this like as a compliment but he just brings this like slightly freaky unpredictable strangeness to the role which I really love and I guess throughout the film you sort of meant to

piece together that even though Lou, Kristen's character, even though she's like oh I hate my dad so much I'm nothing like him you know I think growing up she used to she used to admire him a lot and used to think he was really cool so I guess knowing that Kristen was playing Lou and knowing what he was like it was sort of like okay well let's try and cast the guy and do the version of her dad someone that you could imagine younger Lou being a little bit sort of in awe of. So he couldn't be too sensible, basically. Yeah, it really comes across. I mean, his character is not one-dimensional at all.

And I don't think there's a strong case for his moral compass, but you do kind of understand by the end of the movie some of what he's up to and specifically how why Lou is the way that she is yeah hopefully what has what has made her the way that she is um one thing I wanted to ask you about I re-watched St. Maude last night and this is true in both of your movies incredible sound design in both of these movies and I feel like this is something people don't understand how to do I don't really understand how to do but it seems like you pay a special attention towards it is that something that's like in the script or is it something that's happening mostly in post-production how

do you think about it well i'm delighted that so many people seem to be picking up on the sound design um because yeah i it's um i work with the same sound designer paul davies who did who did the sound design for saint maude as well um i think he's just brilliant he he does i think he's done most of like lynn ramsey's films as well um very lovely man and he um yeah i guess this film and maybe i'm just not very good at being subtle but i suppose like uh just every element and the sounds obviously half the film from the beginning i was kind of giving him the same note as everyone else of like don't be afraid to kind of go big and you know i'd always before we even had the story for this film it was more about knowing that the sort of tone and feel of it needed to be kind

of visceral and heightened and pulpy and um bodily I guess so yeah quite a lot of this there's I mean particular big sound moments are kind of written into the script a bit but there's so much yeah so much of it basically happens in in post that you sort of essentially lock the edit first and then you basically pass it on to the sound and he's got a whole team of people sort of working with him so he had he had like a particularly good vfx sorry effects editor who's kind of doing all of the you know just the sounds of like physical stuff that's happening in the scene he kind of like mostly does the designs kind of like layering the more abstract kind of mood things on top and there's loads of stuff always going on and you know he's got foley artists and all this kind of thing um so yeah you just kind of it's

whatever to make it feel like you're really there i don't know i think i i think maybe i think of making films as like more of a sensory visceral thing i think of it in those terms more of a sensory, visceral thing. I think of it in those terms more than intellectually, maybe. It just may be obvious. When you're writing, are you writing in squelch and splat and the sonic feeling you want the viewer to have? Yeah, a little bit. I mean, there's loads of it that's then built on that's not written in the script.

But yeah, probably any time there's a particularly big blood splat or violence and gore, or sometimes you hear something before you see it so then you've got to write then you find yourself writing like weird we're like how do you spell or how do you spell um so yeah it's all it's all good fun in in 2020 you gave an interview after saint maude where you said you were working on something that is sort of body horror. And I assume that that is what this turned out to be. Yes. So do you still think of it as body horror when you look at the film now?

No, I can kind of see that there's body horror elements and moments in it. But no, I don't really think of it as body horror. It's got flirts with elements of body horror. There's a really stunning, scary death sequence in this movie. I was wondering if you could talk about designing something like this, like how to capture it, how to make... You mean the first one? Yes, the first one, yes. You don't have to spoil anything,

but I'm curious how you think about the way you want to shoot it, the way you want it to be edited. Because we've seen thousands, millions of death sequences of murders on screen. It's hard to come up with an original way to murder someone. In the screening, I was in people like, oh my God. It was intense. Yeah, it was fun to hear people reacting to that way. I wasn't expecting it to be quite that. I think with that one, I'd sort of... Maybe I wasn't expecting it to be quite that um it was I think with that

one I'd sort of maybe I shouldn't admit this I think maybe just the way that she does it that had just been a specific visceral sort of imagining like fantasy I'd sort of had in a particularly weak angry moment about I don't know I would never obviously do anything like this in real life but I guess films a lot of it is kind of like getting out some of those um secret hidden kind of things and definitely smashing somebody in that particular way against table was something that I had like imagined and envisioned myself doing and you can sort of you can imagine the feeling of it so that sense it was just kind of it was just sort of living out some horrible, shameful thought of mine and getting Jackie to do it.

And it's fun to film. Like it's, and some of it comes down to practicality, like in terms of like what you see, what you don't see. Because, you know, someone's head gets sort of smashed open basically. And it's, I think we toyed with seeing the moment of the smash and we were going to have like a big vfx shot where you sort of see someone's face kind of breaking open and then i think it's partly because it's very difficult and expensive to pull off and you start going oh is it going to be prosthetics is it going to be prosthetics plus vfx or whatever and then so sometimes it's better to sort of play play those kind of beats off screen because i think people's

imaginations can sometimes fill in the gaps more effectively. And again, sound's really important. And then it means that sort of the aftermath kind of becomes the reveal. So, you know, there's this grisly death and then later on Kristen's character finds them and then you sort of have that ridiculous reveal of a particular character's face.

It's so brilliant, that reveal too. It's like you get double the payoff for the kill. It's really great. It was quite fun. I don't know, did you say spoilers at the front of the thing? I mean, it doesn't matter anymore. If you don't want to have it spoiled, it is shocking. But in a way, you're kind of telegraphing from the very first moment

we see this character that this character's going to die. So Dave Franco spent a lot of time basically having to just lie on the ground with lots of fake blood over the bottom of his face. And we sort of knew, I was like, was like okay well I know this is we weren't doing prosthetics I was like okay I know that um Time Based Arts are VFX company back in London I was like they're gonna have to do something and I knew how he'd been killed but I didn't know exactly what it needed to look like so we sort of put dots on his face and all the blood and then I basically gave the shot of the sort of aftermath to Time Based Arts and was like do what you can

with this and then they sort of came up with the idea of like his jaw kind of um hanging off so then when we've got a shot later on when they're moving the body it's like oh actually if we've established that this is how his jaw looks now then we could get it to flap around a little bit when he picks him up so that's um that's all fun stuff to figure out it's brilliantly done like what is your favorite part of the filmmaking process at this point is it that kind of like probably post to be honest and like editing yeah like uh because i think that's the first time that you're actually you feel like you're actually putting the film together and it's not sort of because obviously when and obviously you know there's wonderful parts of the process and shooting is really exciting and um but it's not you know it's obviously it's very intense shooting and very um

draining as much as anything like for me anyway it's just the amount of uh interacting you have to do constantly every day like it's just the amount of people um and maybe being a slightly socially awkward person it's just the amount of interaction and people that you're having to deal with every day is really exhausting um so then when you edit and I edited with Mark Towns, who did St. Maude as well, and we have a lot of fun together. It's just like then you're just like the two of you in a room and you've actually got the footage in front of you

and you actually can tell there in the moment what's actually happening instead of going, oh, maybe if we film it like this, is this going to work? So I really enjoy it. And you sort of end up not like rewriting but it's kind of it's the last i don't know i think everyone says that you know you write it first first right past like when you're actually writing the script and then you shoot it it sort of gets written again and then editing and you know you keep sort of having to you sort of have to let

go of whatever you had locked in your head when you're writing the script and look at what you've actually shot and sometimes sometimes that's a bit different in places, but you sort of then have to try and find what it is again. And you can do it all from the comfort of like a dark room. So I've heard filmmakers say that before. Some love the post-production process. Some love to be on set. Some love just prep or writing the script or whatever.

Oh, masochists. Nobody likes writing the script, but some people like prep. But I'm always interested when someone says that they like post especially someone who says that they like jason the argonauts and lord of the rings too because it how much does that affect what you write in the future and the kinds of movies that you're going to make right because if you know that something is going to be this massive kind of managerial process which a lot of directing can be. Does it change your feeling about how big the scope of the story you want to tell is? Or, you know what I mean when I ask that?

I think, I mean, you know, it's only my second film, so I'm still, you know, figuring out as I go along, but I'm getting the impression it makes sense to sort of like expand and contract a little bit in terms of, I guess, Maud was kind of quite insular. And I remembered when doing all the promotional stuff for it and people were asking, what have you learned? And I was like, I was like oh I'm so glad or like what are you glad that you did I'm like I'm so glad that I made it a film which was like contained like one or two people in

one location and that was definitely a big part of how I think we managed to pull it off and then I basically did not listen to my own advice with this film but kind of deliberately was like I think I was at that point riding a sort of wave of excitement and momentum but kind of deliberately was like I think I was at that point riding a sort of wave of uh excitement and momentum and kind of wanted to challenge myself a bit so I knew it was going to be bigger and trickier and I guess that was that was what was exciting about it this time around but maybe now that I'm at the end of it potentially looking towards the next one I'm like maybe maybe a little more contained next time. But I'm still in the middle of writing it though,

so it could expand again. Because I think, yeah, Lovelace Breeding probably started off fairly insular in the initial premise, and then me and Veronica, it sort of kept expanding out and out. And actually on this one, I'll go just in terms of like enjoying

which bit you enjoy most. I do really enjoy post I particularly I basically I really didn't enjoy writing Saint Ward because it was very isolating I was very um scared that I was just writing something rubbish and it would never get made and I was you know that it was all going to be a disaster co-writing I hadn't done before and I loved it and that was so much fun um because again maybe similar to editing it's kind of just you and a friend in a room just kind of bouncing ideas off each other without having to without the sort of logistical circus of actually shooting it before we get too far into what you're going to do in the future but I do want to ask you a little bit about that

um Katie O'Brien you know it worked before but it is an incredible find and amazing in this movie. In the world of bodybuilding and female bodybuilding, you mentioned it a little bit, but did you research it significantly? What was it about that that, why did that come to your mind as a central figure? I think probably because I'm so not a bodybuilder it's like again it's the sort of just fascination with um something about like having that degree of obsessiveness and discipline that i think must be an essential component of being a bodybuilder is something that i find interesting i've always been interested in the relationship people have with their bodies but i guess i think the more i looked at bodybuilding particularly just the strangeness of like but in a I think in a very like beautiful

way like there's something sort of like quite anarchic and surreal about it in that it's sort it's a sport but it's almost like a performance art as well you're doing all this physical work and physical training getting incredibly strong but actually the thing you're then getting judged on is just purely an aesthetic thing it's um you know it's kind of quite surreal since we've already spoiled a couple things i have to ask you about something that i'm very interested in there's what feels like this incredible homage to some version of attack of the 50-foot woman needs like bigger than life i don't know if you've bigger than life as a movie you've seen or you know but it's this nicholas ray movie about james mason who's taking a drug in the movie yeah it's not a

steroid but it's a movie it's like something that keeps him like energetic. Yeah. And you know it's this big metaphor and he's shot in the movie

like he's much bigger than everybody. Oh I haven't seen that. Very good film. You should have done. But I love that choice that you made at the end of this movie.

I think it's so cool so fun and you know that's the reality that you were talking about. Seems to divide people a lot I've noticed. Yeah. I mean it's bold yeah like that was stupid no it was really bold and i'm sure you'll get split feelings but um can you just talk about like where that came from and

you just second guess yourself like how did you think about it i think me and veronica we'd kind of that sequence sort of what happens the final showdown towards the end we did write a bunch of different versions of it and and several of those were versions where nothing surreal happens and it's all very like real world and it just felt a bit sort of unsatisfying and we'd already established the sort of teased these kind of surreal bodily kind of elements throughout the film so it just felt like the natural sort of culmination consummation of those kind of things and i guess it was to sort of set it more in a emotional poetic reality I guess rather than a literal one so even I don't know I'll leave it for people to sort of decide

what they think is like literally going on or if that is literally happening or not but it just sort of I guess it felt it felt right um but definitely when we were writing it we were kind of a bit like can can we do this I think that's okay and everyone sort of seemed to kind of go like okay like yeah let's let's give it a go um but again that's one of those things which like when it's just you and you and your friend in the room writing it it's great but then you're on set and it's like fuck how okay okay so yeah so that was um but again yeah maybe it comes back to yeah the sort of like early influences and stuff that got me excited about films it is this stuff where it's kind of you

know going into flights of fantasy and um you know that's what's that's that's the side of it that i find exciting um but yeah filming it was was really fun i'd never done any of that kind of stuff before with like green screen and you know we had to sort the plate shots of like Ed and Kristen reacting to the giants and you know they're looking at like tennis balls on a uh we had to do this shot where they're reacting to the giant I think we cut the shot out in the end but we used to have a different reveal where Katie kind of appears as this giant and sort of like marches down a slope sort of towards where they are um and so we had like different sort of tennis balls on stands to sort of map out her journey and so we're doing the takes i think there's just me on

me having to like yell to kristen and ed kind of like okay she's walking down towards you and she reaches for ed and he picks you up and ed's just having to go i'm sure they're all just like what the fuck are we doing there was so much fun and the first time time-based arts did the little they had to make a little digital ed for the shot which is now the first reveal where she's like picking him up um and i just love it so much i was so it was so good to see that shot complete because before she was just holding like a little kendall or something like that. And I was just like, oh God, is this going to work? I don't know.

It works. If you're not taking risks, what's the point? I agree. I loved the risk. The movie is, you know, it's got big stars in it, as we talked about. And so there'll be like a significantly bigger amount of attention on a movie like this. What kind of expectation do you have when something that you've worked hard on, that you care about, that is personal to you, goes out in the world?

And is, frankly, very different than the way that St. Maude went out into the world because of the pandemic, which I know you talked about when the film was released. Like, this will be different. This will be in a lot of movie theaters, and a lot of people will review it, and a lot of people will see it. So how do you feel about that? I feel mostly numb at the moment, to be honest. It's all really weird. It sort of fluctuates between being incredibly exciting and and you know it's great that a lot of people seem to have enjoyed seeing it already i don't know to

me it almost feels like it's all happened already just the fact that i think that the biggest shift seems to be like just actually showing it to even like festival audiences for the first time just the fact that anybody who's not involved in making the film has seen it it's already i don't know how much different it's going to feel when just more people have seen it um i'm expecting the reactions to get more mixed maybe i'm not sure i'm sort of endeavoring reviews or look at box office do you think about either of those things the box office no i mean i mean i guess it's only coming out today so i'm sure i'll get updated at some point I don't know enough about um about anything to know if to know what we're aiming for in a way I'm just kind of um being willfully ignorant of that side of it to be honest and yes see what

happens I have no idea to be honest um but the the reviews yeah at first I did. And then I think you start to, I think it's like, it's good to sort of like get a sense of how it's going down and then have to quite pointedly sort of try and shut off the phone and that kind of thing. Because it's just, you sort of get sucked into an internet vortex and can't get out. Very understandable. So you don't know what the next thing is or you have an idea, but you haven't really cracked it. Yeah, I've got the idea.

I'm writing the thing, but I'm being moody and secretive about it. Very understandable. Okay. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen. Obviously you're promoting right now,

but have you seen anything you like? I know I've had another interview like this where they were like, oh, what have you been watching or reading? And it's like, literally, I have not been like this. I've been like listening to you been watching or reading and it's like literally i have not been like i've been like um listening to podcasts and that's it what's the last great thing i watched um well actually having been to you know we premiered at sundance and i caught a few films there including

love me kristen's other film which i really enjoyed so odd and lovely um but to be the standout thing i saw at sundance was this documentary about Brian Eno. I think it's just called Eno. Oh, I haven't, I didn't, it wasn't there, but I heard it's like,

it is an experience, right? Yeah. Well, it's kind of the, I'm probably going to explain it all badly now, but they, they sort of edited it.

They sort of created a program where basically every time the film gets screened, it kind of self generates a different edit. So I think they they sort of edited all these different and you know because a lot of like you know his music it's this kind of like generative music where he kind of creates loops and then they kind of you know it sort of um keeps self-generating new versions and so the the way they've edited this documentary is meant to mirror that a little bit so every time you watch it it's a different version um and there's sort of you know many different you know no one's ever different version um and there's sort of you know many different

you know no one's ever going to watch the same version twice the first Sundance screening was one version of the film the next one's completely different and no one else will see exactly that version of it again and I think I had they did a Q&A afterwards and they were saying that maybe they'd um maybe whenever the film gets when it goes to streaming or whatever they want to try and find a way to do that somehow I've no idea how they'll do it but yeah he's um yeah so he's a inspiring guy and the yeah the film was quite inspiring that's a great recommendation before we wrap i'm just curious like does that concept his ideas about creativity of just exploding the format like does something like that even cross your mind as something you could do yeah i mean i love the idea of i don't know what or how and probably wouldn't be

on this next one but i do like the idea of at some point in the future not um i've always been interested in the idea of sort of exploring stuff which isn't necessarily traditional kind of narrative film that you watch in a cinema or something i don't quite know what the next thing would be but something that's a bit more immersive or um not entirely narrative or there's some different context than a cinema, but I'm not sure what it is yet. Watching your shorts and music videos is what has me thinking about that

because I feel you kind of like toying with this idea of linear and what we experience. So that's why I ask. Anyway, love, love, lies, bleeding. Thanks for doing the show, Rose. Thanks so much. Really nice to talk to you. Thank you to Rose Glass

and thank you to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. Amanda gave us a little hint of what we'll be doing next week. The 1977 movie draft. This one requires a little bit of homework.

Sure, it's the year of Star Wars and close encounters of the third kind and Sorcerer. But what else? What else is out there? What else haven't you seen? What else haven't we seen? I'll be doing homework this weekend. I hope you will be too. And we'll see you on Tuesday.