The Big Picture - Luca Guadagnino on the Gory Glory of 'Suspiria' | Interview (Ep. 92)

Episode Date: November 1, 2018

Sean Fennessey sits down with director Luca Guadagnino to discuss how his latest film, ‘Suspiria,’ relates to the stories he’s chosen to tell thus far, the moviegoing public’s relationship to ‘Call Me by Your Name,’ and how Bob Dylan may be his next muse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You know, it's like a library. You know in your mind that you have an image that comes from something you saw. So I try to get into those shelves and pull down what I like and see them. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the most interesting filmmakers in the world.

Luca Guadagnino might be the world's foremost sensualist. His films drip with passion, romance, heavy physical feeling. Think of Timothee Chalamet and that peach in Call Me By Your Name, or Ralph Fiennes thrusting his pelvis to the Rolling Stones in A Bigger Splash. So Luca's new movie, a reimagining of the Italian horror classic Suspiria, is both a surprise and a no-brainer. It isn't just sensual, it's visceral. It's set in an elite dance school in 1970s Germany

that's masquerading as the home for a coven of witches. The tension mounts and mounts and mounts, and then blood sprays everywhere. It feels like a culmination of all that passion building until it bursts. I talked to Luca about why he made this movie, his life and work after the incredible success of Call Me By Your Name, and why Bob Dylan is his next muse. Here's Luca Guadagnino. Luca, thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me here.

Luca, I must say, I'm a big fan of the original Suspiria. And when I heard that you were taking on the new Suspiria, I was a little surprised. But then I thought about I Am Love. I thought about A Bigger Splash. I thought about Call Me By Your Name, movies that are about artistic people coping with external forces. And it started to make a lot more sense to me. Is that what drew you to it originally as well? Now that you say it, probably.

But I don't know if I consciously had this kind of projection in my mind. Because in Truthfulness, I did want to make Suspiria much earlier than I wanted to make the other movies you mentioned. So in a way, Suspiria is somehow kind of my first desired, thought of project. When did it first come into your life, the original? I think in two times. Once when I saw the poster hanging in a movie theater that was shut down for the summer in Italy, in the north of Italy, at the age of 10.

And once, and at the time when I saw the movie, at the age of 14. And what was your immediate reaction to seeing the film? Well, I think it was like when your heart beat goes very, very, very fast. It was like a wave of emotion, very strong one. I think it's about the fact that probably the movie spoke to me about the possibilities of cinema. You know, that cinema could bring you to places

and emotional places that were very extreme. Were you a fan of horror movies? Is that something that drew you to places and emotional places that were very extreme. Were you a fan of horror movies? Is that something that drew you to it? Well, I've been always very attracted by horror films, yes. And had you been always wanting to make one as well

or was it specific about Suspiria? Horror movies are really the kind of films that I fantasize about a lot for forever, still now. What are some of the other ones that you sort of responded to? I mean, I remember I saw Psycho when I was super young,

even younger than when I went to see Suspiria. The Shining, The Exorcist, Cat People by Jacques Tourneur, Blue Velvet, which is not technically a horror movie, but there are elements of it that are so dark and extreme. Anything that Cronenberg was doing and is doing. Then American Werewolf in London. So many. Those are all different styles too and types and tones.

It's a great genre because it allows you to tackle it in many different ways. What was important to you in terms of putting your thumbprint, the Luca signature, on a horror film? I don't think like that. That's not the way I try to do my job. If I start to think about what's my stamp, I would be dead. I would be a dead director, I would say. I'm very intuitive, so I try to do what I feel

I have to do I don't think okay now what is my style and how do I apply to it no that's not what I

do so where did this one start it's written with someone you've worked with before yeah this actual version of the movie started a few years ago

when me and Dave Kajanik we sat here in Westwood and we we had a pastrami sandwich and we were talking and talking about why and what could have come out of Dario Argento's Suspiria. And this conversation led to more conversations until these conversations turned into David writing this, for me, beautiful script. What were some of the things you really wanted to hit on there? Because you've obviously, you've taken some aspects of Argento's original, but also you've added this great history into the film. You've changed some of the elements of it.

So what were some of the themes that you wanted to make sure you're hitting on? Well, I think the conflict of powers is something that is very at the core of this film. You have an internal conflict within the coven of the witches, and then you have an external conflict in society. And it's all about the role of the past and how you deal with it. And so, you know, how do you go about setting to make this movie? It seems like it got started before the Call Me By Your Name moment really happened. It seemed like you were already in production.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We were in production before I was in production for Call Me By Your Name. Oh, you were. You were in production on Suspiria before production for Call Me By Your Name. In pre-production, yes, yes. We had this great script, and then we had the great cast, and then I met with few financiers and finally the conversations with Amazon led to the actual making of the film I'm wondering if anything that happened in the

experience of Call Me By Your Name either the making of the film or everything the sort of massive exposure that you had afterwards if that changed anything about the making of Suspiria for you no you didn't learn anything new or think about a new way to position things every movie you do is always your first film to be honest and yes you learn

you learn but in a way it's better to start fresh to not have any expectations and to try to

be very direct in what you do they called me by her name a success, quote unquote, is something that happened while Suspiria was almost finished. Was that a good thing to have something else going on alongside the production of a film? Was that challenging in any way?

Just cool. I wanted to do it. I looked for it. I was, you know, when Call Me By Your Name came about, I was already in preparation of Suspiria. And I said to myself, you know what? It's fun. Let's do two movies in the same year.

So then it was cool for me to do it. After two and a half years of working and finishing the films, promoting the films, going around the world with both films, I feel that it's a bit tiring. You need a little break. Yeah. Tell me about preparing for Suspiria. Are you the sort of person who, do you build a lookbook?

Do you watch a lot of films? Are you reading books in preparation? Well, there is that, which is definitely something I do, but it's also there is my imagery. You know, it's like a library. You know in your mind that you have an image that comes from something you saw. So I try to get into those shelves and pull down what I like and see them and watch them. And also we prepare materials, visual materials.

We had a lot of great artists in this film, from Imbal Weinberg, the production designer, to Giulia Pirsanti, the costume designer, and Tom York, who composed the soundtrack and many beautiful songs, and more, and more people. And so it's a very vivid group of people who each of us has the commitment to search and find as much as possible. Did they show you something that maybe you hadn't seen before and said, yes, that has to go into the movie?

Well, I saw, for instance, my Fernanda Perez, my wonderful makeup artist, she showed me images that are very cruel images of extreme violence in reality that were a very good template to understand how to represent the extreme violence in this film. Had you ever done anything like that in any of your work, the sort of the way that we see the violence? Because I wanted to kind of explain that. Well, I don't know if you saw Bigger Splash. Oh, yeah, of course. That's true.

There is a scene in which Paul kills Harry, which I hope comes across as, let's say, death playing it in real time. Yes, it is intense, but I guess maybe not quite as visceral. Because there are no blades and guts exposed. Yes. But yet he's dying. He is dying. But what was it like to, the physical act of creating those scenes?

I mean, there are these incredible moments with these sort of knife-like objects. It was fun on the one hand. Yeah. And It was fun on the one hand, and it was annoying on the other hand because you rip a body and then the body has to be re-sealed, re-cleaned, so it's a lot of time. It was fun because one of our fantastic witches,

Christine Lebout, who plays Balfour, and she's the woman with the gray hair and that she sings at the end of the movie that are very ominous chant. She had to hook a body and then lift the body up. And it was like a hook and a rubber, a piece of rubber, a rubber leg.

And I remember that she was so terrified by this thing. She was so upset by it that she couldn't do it. And she was like turning her face and trying to do it, but she couldn't hit the mark because she wasn't looking at. And then we obliged her to look at it and she was crying and crying because she really couldn't stand the violence, even if it was a piece of plastic. It was interesting. That's amazing. There is something high-level extreme about the movie. I mean that as a compliment.

Thank you. I'm wondering how much you considered that. Were you saying, I really want to push the envelope in terms of how big some of these moments can be? Well, it's not programmatic like that. It's more about the fact that you want you want to be committed to what's the story leads you and these characters you know this is about the coven of witches and that they are exerting power over one another and this power crushes bodies i was thinking also about call me by your name which is about two boys romantic in italy you, this Suspiria is almost the exact opposite.

Germany, women, it's austere at times, it's cold, it's snowing in scenes. Did you sense that that was a sort of reversal in some way? That you were seeing something that has felt quite different? No. We have seasons in life. There is winter, there is summer,

there is fall. So, no. I go for the story. What's the story at once? The story needs and gets. Was there anything that changed from the script that you and David talked about when you were having that pastrami sandwich by the time you got to shooting the film?

Yeah, yeah, of course. It evolved, it evolved. The movie evolved. And, yeah, many things, but always for the best. I remember when we were doing the sabbath scene which is a highly choreographed scene because it's all about the position and the hierarchy and what happens on screen and it's i don't remember but like three pages script and five days shoot and i started to rearrange the scene and i rewrote in my broken english the scene in order to make it more adherent

to the actual mise-en-scene day-to-day of the scene. And then Dave received the scene and he was furious. Oh, gosh. Because I re-changed the scene. I understand that. But yeah, that happens from time to time. Yeah, but I love him. I love Dave so much.

Such a wonderful person and such an incredible writer. The thing is that he was in production on The Terror his television show and he was in very close he was in

Hungary I guess and we were in Milan and when we did The Biggest Splash he spent the entire production with me on set

on a chair beside mine because I love to have my constant backup with him. Right, right. Sometimes you have to change things. He wasn't there.

That's interesting. Tell me about the sheer physicality of the movie, because in both the dance sequences and also in the editing, there's something very, very physical going on. And I'm wondering how you sought to capture that. Maybe you could describe a little bit of the approach that you took. First thing first is that we have performers who are also very great physical performers. The role of Olga is played by this fantastic dancer

and now actress, Jelena Fokina. And the viscerality of the scene in which she gets crushed is such because it's all about her performance. And she's doing all of that. Yeah. So I really can, I mean like I want the weight of things on screen.

You know, we are immersed in this digital world and weight of things is not because it's all about the illusion of it and it's all about the, let's say, define the sense of gravity because digital can make everything.

Like a camera movement is now impossibly fast, no? You remember the sweeping pans that Peter Jackson made through the Lord of the Rings, the third chapter, and you see like thousands and thousands of digital extras being seen from an eagle eye point and this very fast tracking thing, which defies the gravity. You cannot do that with a physical world. You have to do it with digital. And I admire that.

I found it fascinating. But it's not my thing. I am a little bit dull. I like the weight of things. I don't think anybody would watch the scene that you're talking about, though, and call it dull. It is very specific.

It is intense, and it is intimate as well. How do you... Is it different for actors when you're working on a scene that is that intense and it is intimate as well um how do you is it different for actors when you're working on the scene that is that intense and that physical has it been different from anything you've well i mean you have to be careful you have to make sure that you don't cross lines in general but in particular in those sequences you'd like you know like you i you know i'm directing so i like i can go on and and on, but maybe the actor needs time to rest and reassess the balance of their bodies. Yeah, that's the thing,

to be careful about how you understand that someone can be physically tired and needs time. What about Dakota Johnson? This is the second film you've made with her, and she must have trained a great deal to do this movie. We sent her a trainer. She had a trainer in New York two years before shooting. Then we had a hiatus and then we sent her a trainer

while she was shooting the last two chapters of Fifty Shades in Vancouver. And then once she wrapped and there was another break, then she came to Italy for a month and a half, two months, to work with Damien Jalet, the Company of Dancers, and Mia Goth as well. And how do you know that she's ready? How do you know that she can be not just credible, but impressive as a performer in that sense?

Well, I mean, we were patiently building that. Also, Mia Goth did the same. We patiently got there. There was a great choreographer, Damien Chalet. There was a great coach there. So we built. Why is it important that this movie There was a great choreographer, Damien Chalet. There was a great coach there.

So we built. Why is it important that this movie is set during the German autumn and with the Bader Mines? Well, I think because, you know, what was outside of the sealed world of Phantasmagoria of Dario Argento, I thought it was good to actually open this box and make it confront with what was the times. Because I think it's about past. I think it's about guilt. I think those witches are kind of struggling to define who they are in the perspective of their past. The same thing is happening in the society of Germany then. It was a good counter,

how do you say, counterbalance. Yeah, sure. That's fascinating. There's also something, we're making this movie sound very dramatic and it is very dramatic.

It's also very funny. It's got a good sense of humor about certain things. I'm thinking specifically of a scene when some cops visit these witches. You know, how do you... How did you feel

being a man in that moment? Maybe lightly indicted, but mostly just amused. I thought it was really entertaining. Did it ever happen to you? Not quite like that. How about you? Have you had that happen to you? No, no, I'm safe and sound because I am homosexual.

Who knows when we come across witches, I guess. That's true. Witches can do whatever they want. And in any form. But was that something that was important to you, to keeping kind of a light touch at times in the movie? Well, I hope that in my work people recognize a sense of wit. Yeah. I like witness.

I like being wit. I think it's fun. I think it's... And also, like, in psychoanalysis, the wit is one of the rhetorical figure. I think you have the uncanny and you, the wit is one of the rhetorical figure. I think you have the uncanny and you have the wit, the mixture of the two.

It creates a very beautiful, I would say, texture. Yeah, the movie is very clever. I appreciate that about it. Tell me about Tilda Swinton with whom you've made many, many, many films and many, many escapades. Yes, a creative partner of yours.

What's it like at this stage? Is it unspoken? Are you going over it constantly and saying this is how we will approach this film, this is what this film means? Well, it's cool because we're fun. It's like being on a beach with your friend, with a kid like you,

and you're playing with the sand and with the forms and one contributes to one thing, the other contributes to another thing. It's really a kindergarten playground. How do you know when to call on her? Because you've given her some new responsibilities in this movie. So is it just, I have a new project, are you interested? Well, I mean, it depends on the project, guess and she was she couldn't play oliver in call me by your name that's well you never know i mean she she obviously tests the boundaries of kind of who can play what in this film that's true that's true that's true when did you conceive of her uh taking on multiple i think while while we were in the process of

working with the dave okay and how was that for her to just be doing multiple parts? I think she said, sure. No worries. Why was she positioned as another actor? Was that just a fun twist on things? At the beginning we really didn't want to say it because we thought that would have been good for an audience to have this

slight unconscious perception of something strange there but not knowing. Are you frustrated that it's out in the world that that happened now? I like disruptions, so not. Okay. I will say, because what you just described was very resonant, because that was my experience.

I watched the film, I didn't know that she was playing multiple parts, but I felt some sort of phantom essence going on. Also, the wonderful Malgosia Bella plays two roles in this film. Oh, who else does she play? She plays Susie's mother. And she plays this creature that shows up at the end. Oh, yes. Okay, interesting.

That's good to know. I want to talk a little bit about the ending without spoiling the ending. So I'm going to try to do that. The ending is, it has an opera quality to it. It is, and you have, you have worked in opera. And I was wondering if you could just at least describe what you were hoping to achieve with a sort of this sort of, it's almost like a Bacchanal. Well, it's a Sabbath.

There are certain rules to a Sabbath. We wanted to show the order and the ritual, the order of the ritual, the choreography of the ritual. They've been working on it forever and then they have repeated that so many times. It's all very, very well symmetrically made and then chaos erupts. So it's about that. It's an amazing wild sequence. A perfect plan is never a perfect plan.

Did everything that happened with Call Me By Your Name change the way that you feel about the way that films are received? There was a lot more attention on Call Me By Your Name

than some of your previous films and there was a kind of attention. Yes. And there was a kind of phenomenon quality and it became

what we call a meme. I don't know if you're familiar with memes. Did that change the way that you think about after a movie comes out how people think about it and talk about it or are you already on to the next thing i i have a great a great gratitude for the people in the world showed so much attachment to call me by her name and it's very dear to me and i made few friends between quote-unquote fans um i uh am a doer and you know when you harvest an orchard and you get these fantastic vegetables you have to start thinking of the next. You know, like the fruit that you're picking from the garden

is not the end of everything. It's not the point of arrival. There is no point of arrival. It's continuous. It's a process that has to continuously think of itself. You know, like in nature, the winter is as important as the summer. So I have that kind of discipline with me that I don't give anything for granted

and that everything is in movement. Are you already doing on the next thing? Well, I am doing a few things. I'm working on a documentary on the shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo. Oh, interesting. And I am working on a movie that I'm producing for my partner, who is a fantastic director. And I'd love to have a holiday, to be honest. Maybe not yet and it's true that it came out in the press

that I am working on a script with the magnificent Richard La Gravanese from an album by Bob Dylan called Blood on the Tracks

I'm very interested in that I'm sure you won't say very much about it but I will ask about it anyway but first the Ferragamo documentary I didn't know

that you were doing that yeah I've been doing it for a while it's an historical piece it's a documentary of history is it in the previous didn't know that you were doing that. Yeah, I've been doing it for a while. It's an historical piece. It's a documentary of history. Is it in the previous style of documentaries that you've made, that is sort of more archival and collective? There is a lot of archival.

There is a lot of interviews. We interviewed Deborah Nadelman, who is not only the phenomenal costume designer that she is, but she is also a great historian of costume in Hollywood. And Mr. Ferragamo came here in the 20th century, in 1915. He was super young, and he went to Santa Barbara, and then he realized, he felt, he understood that something was happening here in Hollywood,

and he moved here, and he started to collaborate with the industry and he became a provider of shoes for films like The Thief of Baghdad. He made a lot of shoes for films from Cecil B. DeMille and David Griffith and he started to immediately understand the power of star system so that he was part of the, let's say, contributed to the creation of the icons such as Lillian Gish, Marlene, and so on. And so it's a very fascinating figure, Salvatore. Do you identify with that? I think about maybe what's happened with Timothee Chalamet and some of the things you're describing, and I don't know. I don't, I don't. He was he was a real pioneer a true genius true genius so we've been interviewing a lot of people uh historians of hollywood historians of the shoes great

journalists of fashion but not fashion in terms of what is the current fashion what was their fashion at the times it's very it's a beautiful story it's a beautiful story the salvatore story and and salvatore's wife sadly passed away a few days ago oh geez so that's a little moment of remembrance of vanda ferragamo but you had a chance he yeah he passed away uh fairly a young at the end of the 50s at the beginning of the 60s, having left a good company with so much genius creation in shoes. And it's the wife who was like 30 years younger than he, who suddenly lost and alone, decided that she was not going to give up.

Speaking of the importance of women and the power of women. And she made the brand Ferragamo what it now is. Fascinating. Yeah, it's very fascinating. And our story ends with the death of Mr. Ferragamo what it now is. Fascinating. Yeah, it's very fascinating. Our story ends with the death of Mr. Ferragamo. I see. And the Blood on the Tracks project. You are a longtime fan of Bob Dylan.

What is it that draws you to Dylan? I am a fan of Bob Dylan, of course. How can not you be a fan of Bob Dylan? He's such a gigantic teller of human condition wonderful it's just that Rodrigo Teixeira who is the producer

of one of the producers of Call Me By Your Name one day asked me if I was exactly asked me the same question

am I a fan of Bob Dylan what do you think about Bob Dylan and I said that I loved him and he told me that he had the option or both the rights to make a movie from one album by Bob Dylan,

Blood on the Tracks. And I said, oh, wow, that's an amazing idea. Because I think that you can do a movie from anything, even a bottle of water. Not that the bottle of water is comparable to Blood on the Tracks. It's just that the source of inspiration can come from everywhere.

And so I said, yeah, sure, that's an amazing idea. And I said to him, I'll do it only if we can convince Mr. Richard Lagravenese to write it for me. And Richard was up for it. I thought that was so interesting. He's obviously quite a gifted screenwriter, but what are the fans of his? I mean, he's very, very

beyond. So what is it you respond to in his writing? I mean, I's very, very, I mean, beyond. So what is it you respond to in his writing? Like, I mean, I can mention by memory the Fisher King, and then I can go for Little Princess, and then I can tell you about Beloved, and then you go for Behind the Candelabra, the Bridges of Madison County. He has a good sense for the literary while making it approachable.

He knows human nature. I'm curious because there's something inherently American about Bob Dylan. Super American. And I'm very proud about making my very first all-American film. That's what I wanted to ask you. I'm going to disappear into America. I want to be as American as Clint Eastwood. Well, how do you do that then?

Do you have to live here to do that? Do you have to interview Americans? Well, I've been coming here since a long time. Also, I think it's about your attitude. You have to be open to the other. My producer noted before. And many, many filmmakers that came from abroad, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Milos Forman,

they've been some of the greatest storytellers of American life. No doubt. But many of your films are not only set in Europe, but they feel as if they are European films, but also in some respects targeted towards Western audiences. There's often American cast members or British cast members, and we feel they're somehow easier to access, I think, for some American audiences. Was that ever a conscious thing for you? No, I do what I feel doing. I'm not cynical. I don't do things because now, you know, the character is American,

so you can have more, how can I say, you can have more access to the market there. No, I did what I would like to do. Did you feel like you were driving towards making an American experience movie? Yeah, I think that I don't give myself limits, meaning that I am someone who wants to tell as many stories as possible that I believe into. And so now I'm speaking Italian.

I'm sure that quite a few of these stories will be American stories. The first one that is deeply American is I'm Making at the Age of 47. You've made a lot of different kinds of films now, even though they feel like they are all related. They're cousins or siblings. Romance, horror, documentary, family drama. Is there a kind of, is there a Luca war film?

Oh, I wish. Yeah, of course. A western, you know? War films are fantastic because it's all about the tactic so you know how do you show

the tactic so cinematic and that's something you would be interested in potentially doing I would die to do a war movie and musical

those are the two things I'd like to do that is something you should do I end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing

that they've seen so I'll put it to you what is the last great thing that they've seen. So I'll put it to you. What is the last great thing that you've seen? I love The Old Man and the Gun by David Lowery. He was here a few weeks ago. A filmmaker I deeply admire, greatly respect. He's a wonderful, wonderful filmmaker. What is it that you respond to in his work?

He's a humanist. That's wonderful. I think people say the same about you, Luca. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks again for listening to this episode of The Big Picture. If you liked this show, please go to iTunes and rate and review the show and tell us how much you liked it.

Please tune in tomorrow on this feed where Chris Ryan and I will be talking about the top five westerns since Unforgiven. See you then.