The New Yorker Radio Hour - Emerald Fennell’s Anatomy of Desire

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

For the follow-up to her acclaimed and controversial début feature film, “Promising Young Woman,” the writer and director Emerald Fennell (also well known as an actor on “The Crown”) has made a dark satire of not just aristocracy but our collective preoccupation with it.  “Saltburn” follows a college student who joins a wealthy classmate at his family’s mysterious old country estate, which the director shot as “a sex object.” Fennell is very familiar with this world—albeit from a distance. Her father was a jeweller who sold work to Elton John and Madonna, and Fennell went to the same boarding school as Kate Middleton. “As a female filmmaker, more than any other kind, you’re expected to be a memoirist. People are more comfortable with that,” she tells The New Yorker’s Michael Schulman. Her previous film, “Promising Young Woman,” about a woman’s attempt to hold a rapist accountable, had an extremely dark ending that infuriated many viewers, but that Fennell found to be more honest. “I don’t think of myself as a liar at all. I hope I’m very honest—but that’s what a liar would say.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The rift inside the Democratic Party now over Israel and its campaign in Gaza is profound. And this week on our podcast, the political scene, Andrew Morantz talks about Israel and the left and how the divide may be impacting the presidential race. Andrew Morance joins host Tyler Foggett on the political scene. a podcast from The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick. Emerald Fennell was an accomplished actor before making her debut as a writer and director with promising young woman. Fanel's second movie comes out this month, and she sat down to talk about it with Michael Shulman, who covers culture and entertainment for the New Yorker. Here's Michael.

You might know Emerald Fennell for her acting work. She played Camilla Parker Bowles on the Middle Seasons of The Crown. I actually couldn't talk to her about any of her acting because of the sag strike. But she has emerged in recent years as a really provocative, hot-button-pushing filmmaker. Her first movie, Promising Young Woman, came out in 2020. And it was just a movie that people loved to argue over. It was a feminist revenge thriller.

And chances are if you saw it, you either loved it or hated it. But she won the Academy Award for Best. original screenplay. So now she's back with her second film, Salt Burn. It draws on the Evelyn Wow novel Brideshead Revisited, and it follows a middle-class Oxford student, played by Barry Keogan, who falls in with a handsome aristocratic classmate, played by Jacob Ellorty. And so the Barry Keoghian character goes to spend the summer with this guy's family at their luxurious country estate, also called Saltburn and more or less infiltrates their lives. Emerald Fennell does not do things halfway.

She really goes dark. She's not a crowd-pleaser. And I have a feeling that Saltburn is going to get people talking just as promising a woman did. I imagine that it was really important not only just to cast the actors, but to cast the house of Saltburn. You found this place that dates back to the 14th century. Can you tell me how you found it, how you chose it?

It was really important to me, and it's funny that you say casting, because it absolutely did feel exactly as important it is a character. And me and Linus, the wonderful cinematographer, talked a lot about shooting the house as a sex object as a kind of fetish. You know, we're always sliding up and down staircases, and it's sort of part of the like erotic texture of the film, really, the house. and so many of these houses have been in, you know, because we're so successful at exporting the aristocracy abroad. So we've seen them all at, you know, we've seen Gosford Park and we've seen the remains of the day and we've seen down to Nabby.

Right. And all of those are within a certain, usually within a certain kind of area of shooting near London. So we knew we'd have to go much further out to find it. And then, you know, part of it we shot because of all of the oners and the way I like to work, it had. to be one place. But it also meant we all became immune to the beauty immediately. And you need that feeling, right, of like, oh, oh, he's just walking through it. And after a couple of weeks, you're like, oh, it's so big. How am I getting from it to be? You know, it's no longer the most beautiful, overwhelming thing you've ever seen. It's suddenly just another thing. Well, but that's the point is that

the people who live there could care less. They're so used to their lives of luxury. This movie is such a vicious satire of the kind of idol. all rich. Is that how you see it and what interested you in sort of observing this sliver of aristocracy? Yes, it's absolutely a satire. But it's also a satire of those of us who want in. You know, it's actually, it's not just, of course, you know, the absurdities of the class system and, you know, which I'm very much like a part of as every single person in England is. But really, it's about our willingness to prostrate ourselves at the altar of beauty. wealth always and our longing for it and even when we know better even when we know that it's not

good for us even though we know that it's never going to love us back that it's that these systems are just like in place to make us feel ugly and stupid and boring and you know whatever we're still that we're still on our knees we all of us are and so and so yes absolutely it's a class satire but the thing for me that I wanted it to feel more like is about what are we what is our relationship with the things we want? Why do we hate them so much? Why do we hate them as much as we love them? Why do men look at beautiful women on the internet?

And because they're so aroused by them, they want to strangle them. Where is that impulse from? You know, what is this constant sort of voyeurism and need and want and endless, wanting, wanting and looking? What does it do? And so, yes, I hope absolutely it's like a comedy of manners. and a social satire, but I'm interested in being a human inside of all of this and what motivates us and the British class system and the house and it's all really, you know, could be any number of things that we are pressing our faces against, I guess.

Well, I'm curious how you drew on your own life and background in satirizing or anatomizing the British class system in this movie. not someone who's coming from the wrong side of the tracks and, you know, peering through the windows like Oliver is. You seem to grow up in a very rarefied setting. Your father, Theo Fennell, is known as the jeweler to the stars, the King of Bling. And, you know, you went to the same boarding school as Kate Middleton and then to Oxford. I'm kind of just curious, like, with your father, you know, the people he supplies jewelry for have included Madonna, Elton John, who's a family friend. Growing up, How did you sort of process this rarefied world you were living in? But this is so interesting because this is all about the intricacies of the class system because I would say, what I would say is, oh, that's very much pressing your nose against the window.

Because actually, the psychotic detail of the class system means that actually, I mean, do you think you're thought of as being very, very, very posh if your father is known as the king of bling? You know, do you know what I mean? So suddenly, yes, of course, but this is what's fascinating is that, yes, by any standards, my life has been absurd, like an absurd parade of mad privilege, of course. I mean, and I'm very aware of that. But also on the other side of things, my parents both, you know, my father's was, his family were in the army. My mother's family, you know, ran a farm, were farmers in rural Wales. and they both, you know, they both went to London to make themselves, and they both worked and worked and worked.

You know, I suppose everyone in my family would just, we're pretty, you know, a bit flashy, some would say, and certainly in Britain that would be, that would be a real slam. You know, there's a kind of... I see what you mean. This is very different from America where, you know, wealth is flash. Well, I think, but everywhere, again, it's just about where... This, again, it's like, it's all. all about learning the rules. And so, you know, for me, for me too, I had to learn those rules. But

if you are a writer or if you are a maker of things, I guess, you're a voyeur and you're a watcher and you're interested in detail and you're interested in how people communicate with each other. You're interested in how you transform yourself to make yourself more palatable to other people. And so all of these things are true. Yes, I'm, you know, from a very kind of, you know, grew up in very rarefied circumstances, but also there are places where that wouldn't be the case at all. You know, there are, you know, I went to Oxford and there, yes, there are, there are lots

of different subdivisions there too. You're divided up constantly until your tiny little slither. Well, it's funny you mentioned Oxford, you know, Salpern, begins at Oxford where these two students befriend each other from across this class divide. And I'm curious if there were things from your own experience there that you directly drew for the movie or maybe more thematic things that found their way in.

Well, I think I did probably what 1,000 people who go to Oxford did, which was I wanted to be a kind of loose, chain smoking, sexy, genius. having affairs with my tutors and of course it was just not I mean I've always felt like a profoundly unsurious person and so it was very important to me to go to a place that at least would I could at least point to so that people might want to be seriously even if they even if they didn't but right but I you know I think I I think I just I don't know I don't know what I was looking for quite, but it's also just a time of your life where you can be anything. And I don't think that lying is, I don't think of myself as a liar at all. I hope I'm very

honest. But that's what a liar would say. I imagine you didn't lead with people saying, hey, my father's the king of bling. I mean, maybe I did, though. Maybe to be with certain people, that's probably what I did do. And you were acting during the. time, right? Did you think of yourself as someone who wanted to be a director someday or were you primarily focused on being an actress? No, I think I was writing a lot, I did an English degree, and I think actually was really interesting. I met Mariel Heller for the first time yesterday, the amazing director. And she said something that really struck me, which was that the only visible job for a woman on a film or a TV set was an actor. And I felt that very strongly because

I think that is probably the truth for me too is that now I know that this is the only thing I ever wanted to do. But I didn't know that it exists. I suppose that acting was the thing that I, because we don't really have film schools in the same way in England as you do here. And I didn't really, and there weren't any female directors at the time. I mean, of course there are lots at the time. But I mean, just in terms of just sheer volume, there wasn't anyone that I could, I mean, I looked up to all of the, like, female comedians who wrote their own things. I looked up to kind of Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French and people like that. But I suppose that acting, I love acting.

Whether I'm not, I'm particularly good at it, I don't really know. But I think that I wanted to write and I wanted to make things. I wanted to make the stuff that I thought about. Well, you know, both of your films Promising a Woman and Saltburn, I would describe as darkly perverse, which is a compliment. They start dark and they get even darker. Were you always like that? Yeah, I think so.

There are a lot of calls to my parents to come and have a talk about a piece of creative writing I'd done when I was in, you know, primary school. I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't know where it comes from. But I think that I want to, I want to, I want to push, I want to push something. I want to press something. And I want, and I, and I, and I want to talk to people.

I don't know, I want, I want to talk about things. And I don't know how else to talk about them. And it's interesting when you make a film, particularly a film like promising, I won't, people expect you to have an answer always. And I don't have one. And it's the same with, you know, it's the same with saltburn. But it's interesting, I think, is also interesting that actually a lot of it is sort of just the work of imagination, which is

something that, you know, maybe we talk less about like in interviews maybe than the like real life things that inspire it. But I just, yeah, I don't, I don't know. I suppose I'm interested in like why we all love poppings it and why people watch it and what that squeamish pleasure is. Emerald Fennell, talking with Michael Shulman about her new film, Salt Burn. The conversation continues in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Michael Shulman is a staff writer covering arts and entertainment for the New Yorker, and he's speaking today with the writer, director, and actor, Emerald Finnell. Finnell made the 2020 film promising young woman. It starred Carrie Mulligan. And it was one of those movies, it seemed like

Everybody was talking about it and not without some controversy. We'll continue that conversation now. Well, this would be a good time. So I don't want to spoil anything about Saltburn, obviously. People haven't, in general, seen it yet. But maybe this would be a good time to talk about the ending of promising a woman. If people have had three years. Yeah, get on with that, guys.

Spoiler in three, two, one, your heroine, Cassie, played by Carrie Mulligan. is on a quest to sort of avenge her best friends rape. And instead of carrying out this revenge in the way that the audience might be rooting for, she finally gets the rapist cornered and he frees himself and smothers her with a pillow. And she has a kind of final victory from beyond the grave. This was a really divisive polarizing argument starting ending. And I'm curious, how did, what? affected you wanted to have on the audience? Did you think about that? Yeah, of course. I mean,

of course. I think for me, it was the purpose of the film was not just to kind of examine the very recent past where all of the nice people that I knew did all of the things in this film. And so in many ways, that scene where Cassie dies, which was in real time, you know, so I found out how long it would take for somebody to be suffocated to death and the answer was about two and a half minute, so it's a two and a half minute shot pushing in. Excruciating. It's excruciating, and it ends on him.

You know, it ends on he then becomes our protagonist, her murderer. And it's not just that scene that's very important in the film, but it's the scene after where his best man comes in, and it's the most broadly comic scene of the whole film. She's dead, too? Come on. I'm not kidding. All right.

You're being ironic. What? You killed the stripper at your bachelor party? What is it? The 90s? Ow. Classic. And we're all laughing because we've seen it.

We're all laughing because we've seen it and we know it. And that was always part of it for me is just, you know, to really talk about how we get, how we get catharsis and how we. and, you know, to try and explain to people that it's no you saying, why didn't you, why didn't you, why didn't you? Because this is the answer. There's no, you can't, there's, you know, the winning is relentless and excruciating and often feels very futile. Well, it really complicates the audience's relationship with our protagonist in a way that I think Saltburn does. in a different but related way, which is that, you know, our instinct is to root for this person

whose story we're seeing, who it seems like somewhat of an underdog. I think that the people who recoiled at that end of promising a woman felt like, wait a second, I was, is this supposed to be a victory for her? Because I don't feel like it is. I felt personally like it's okay. I understand that I'm supposed to feel queasy and maybe even question her self-destructive instinct,

which may be something like a death wish, or there's something kind of psychopathic about her. But do we question that when it's John Wick getting revenge on his puppy? Do we say, why is he putting himself in these dangerous positions? Do we do it when men go on revenge quests and die heroically at the end? We don't, because it looks different. And, you know, there was a lot of, there were a lot of conversations at the time about the kind of, you know, the relationship of the cops to her.

and the fact that they kind of arrest him at the end. And it's sort of fascinating because the cop, the male and female, but mostly the male policeman in this is the most useless, misogynistic person. He goes and interviews Bo's character, who's a kind of children's doctor, and is completely overwhelmed by him. And, I mean, you know, Bo was directed to give the most... This was Bo Burnham. Sorry, Bo Burnham, who plays Dr. Ryan, who is Cassie's love interest in terms of her.

The ultimate, nice seeming, decent guy who turns out to be yet another schmuck. Yeah. Disappointing schmuck, yeah. So, but he was directed in that scene to be as shifty and guilty seeming as possible. And the policeman is like, just get feeding him all the information to free himself. Between you and me, it sounded like she wasn't feeling so good. Mentally, I mean, her father seemed to think she was a little unstable. Yeah, she was.

not in a good place. Do you think she might have wanted to hurt herself? Yeah. She could have. She could have, yeah. I thought that might be the case. Thank you for your honesty. Also, we don't see the court case.

Probably gets off, you know, Scott Free. Well, that's what some people argued. As a criticism, how is this a victory if he's just going to get off on self-defense? not a victory. There is no victory. That's the point of the film. There is no victory to be had. But also when you're making a film like this, you also have to, you kind of have to acknowledge that for it to, for it to hit widely, you can't be so, you can't be so nihilistic that, you know, because the original ending did end with not just, not just the best man and the kind of

perpetrator burning her body, but everyone from the. everyone from the Bachelor Party standing around the mountains and that was the end and you know the initial argument was that was just too bleak that actually it would be impossible for people to engage with it they'd be too annoyed and of course who was making this argument you know the usual people lovely well-meaning honest people who I work with producers studio yeah like all of those people and I and I of course initially my first thing like any person was you're fucking idiots and you hate art and you hate women and I hope you will die slowly and tonight um Well, I'm sure there were people who felt that even your final ending was unbearably bleak and why can't we just end with the bang.

But that was the thing is that actually. With her glorious victory. But this is the thing. This is the thing, you know, is that actually they were right. They were right. It reminds me of fatal attraction, which famously had a reshot ending. You know, it was originally, it originally ended with the Glenn Close character. It's slitting her throat.

in the bathroom alone. And this was so horrifying to the studios, basically that they came and reshot it with, you know, the wife character, like shooting her in the head and sort of protecting the family and the, you know, the sort of stalker, evil chaos-causing woman is sort of cast out like a monster. But that's like, those are the Hollywood rules, which you sort of undermined with your ending.

Thank you. But I think also that's it. have to also operate within those rules because you also want the most people to watch something and engage with it. I think the thing that I'm coming to terms with is that as a I think perhaps as a female filmmaker more than any other kind, you're expecting, you are sort of still expected to be maybe a memoirist. People are more comfortable with that still. And so I found the personal, the fact that I was always such. an intrinsic part of the work difficult because actually even though, you know, because of the

actor's strike and all these sorts of things, I'm sort of here talking about these things, I would really rather it existed without me, that people were able to look at it without me. And so I found that difficult because I, I think, you hope the thing speaks for itself, but you also don't, you know, me and Kerry were at a point with a promising young woman where we're constantly being asked about our personal relationships and material and really quite kind of openly, frankly being asked in what manner we'd been sexually assaulted and could we please detail it in lovely graphic detail to the man who just introduced himself to us via Zoom. You know, it was kind of bleak and I think that that stuff is the stuff that I always will find difficult

because it's necessary. But I also feel like the, you know, you hope, you know, you sort of want to step away from it a little bit yourself. For sure. I mean, so much of the press around promising woman had to do with you as a specifically female storyteller showing a female point of view and how women experience issues like consent and sex and her. harassment so much differently than men, just like a different universe. Saltburn really is about men primarily. You know, the central relationship is between these two men. Did that interest you, like exploring male friendship?

Male friendship is a really excellent way of describing the things that happen here. Yeah, it's insufficient to this relationship in the movie. Friendship with a big wink. Male ways of relating to each other. I guess. Well, again, you know, perhaps in 2006 as well, even more than now, there feel like more barriers between male friendship physically, less now than, but, you know, with all my female friendships are very tactile. You're often entwined together, for example, certainly growing up at that age. You know, when you're a young woman, you often change in front of your friends. You're often in the bath in front of your friends. You're often talking about masturbating. You're often, you have intimate relationships. relationships that are kind of maybe a bit different, certainly again during the period that this was in. And so, you know, I suppose that this film about a kind of bottomless well of desire that can't ever be sated kind of felt uniquely male.

But again, you know, that's just me honestly pulling something out of my ass because you asked me. I think truthfully it just was. Right. And I'm interested in men and boys as much as I am in women and girls. You know, we're all in it. A couple years ago it was announced that you were making a film about the character as Atana for DC Comics. And you've also been attached to a Nemesis movie at Marvel.

First of all, I'm curious, are those still happening? Are that still in the works? No, no. Those aren't in the works. So Nemesis was, I think, that was a few years ago. And that was just a, that wasn't anything I was ever. like formally attached to, but did some work on early on. And it was one of those things that it interested me because I, again, I like genre.

And so, and I don't, and I'm not, I wasn't at the time hugely familiar with the superhero genre actually. And I thought, well, this would be interesting. If I could, you know, if I could make a film that would appeal to me maybe and people like me, which is, you know, maybe people who don't, wouldn't traditionally go and see those films, then that felt like a really fun exercise. But I think the truth of it is, is I'm, I am. much, much, much better on my own.

The development process, the traditional development process is one that I've done in the past for lots of reasons and I do love collaborating with people, but it's not, it doesn't work for me, I can't do outlines, can't have endless conversations about ideas before writing. For me, I can't write anything down until it's finished because once it's down, it's sort of it feels complete, not entirely, you always have to change things a little, but. bit, but it's sort of a secret. It has to be a secret. And if you're going to be really honest with yourself and you're going to write the things that you find really troubling and interesting and sexy and difficult, you kind of can't, you need to sort of work it out in your

head alone. So are you at all interested in doing like a superhero or franchise movie or is the sort of corporate mechanism around it where you have to outline things, just the barrier of entry at this point? Yeah, I think so. And I honestly don't. knows the answer. Like certainly for the next few films, if I'm allowed to make them, I already know what they're going to be of my own. And that's, you know, I've got two small kids. Like, I can't, I can only ever do one thing at a time. So I do one thing at a time. And so at least for a few years, again, if I'm not, you know, if I'm, if I'm allowed to, I'll just make my own things. But, you know, you never know. Doing something, you know,

doing something that's difficult or that seems counterintuitive is always something that appeals, but certainly not for a while. Well, Emeril, thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure. Thank you. The New Yorker's Michael Schulman spoke with writer, director, and actor, Emerald Fennell. Her film's Saltburn comes out on the 17th. You can find much more from Michael Schulman at New Yorker.com. He just profiled director Ridley Scott, looking at his new historical epic, Napoleon.

I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening to the show this week. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbes of Tune Arts, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Walton, Adam Howard, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, and Louis Mitchell, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Mike Cutchman, Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandro Decker.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.