The New Yorker Radio Hour - Josephine Decker’s “Shirley”

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

The film critic Richard Brody regards Josephine Decker as one of the best directors of her generation, and picked her 2018 film “Madeline’s Madeline” as his favorite of the year. Decker, he says, reinvents “the very stuff of movies—image, sound, performance—with each film.” Decker’s new film is “Shirley,” starring Elisabeth Moss as the unique horror author Shirley Jackson. In it, Decker dives deeper into the themes that have also shaped her previous works: the creative drives and the relationships of women. Decker tells Brody that, though the film may be a step toward mainstream, she remains guided by “poetic logic.” 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. I've been seeing and talking about movies with the New Yorker film critic Richard Brody for decades. He rarely leads me wrong. And I can't remember the last time that Richard was as excited about a filmmaker as he is about the director Josephine Decker. In 2014, he wrote a piece about Decker with a headline, A Star is Born. And her film, film Madeline's Madeline was Richard's pick, whether you heard of it or not, for the best movie of 2018. Josephine Decker's new film is called Shirley, and it stars Elizabeth Moss as the writer's Shirley Jackson. I have a title. Hangs a man. It's about that girl. The missing one. The Weldon girl.

What do you think? Well, you haven't said much. It's just an idea. I can try something else. sounds trite and a bit trashy, but give it a go. I'll read, of course, before you wait too far in. It's going to take some time. Give it to me in a couple of days. It's a novel. No, dear, that's...

You're not... You're just not up to it. You're wrong. That was Elizabeth Moss as Shirley Jackson. And Richard Brody joins me now. Richard, what is it about Josephine Decker's work that you love so much? Well, very simply, Josephine Decker is one of the very few filmmakers who seem to be reinventing the very stuff of movies, image, sound, performance, with each film.

And she's coming out of a fusion of traditions, which is one of the things that makes her work so interesting. I knew her as an actress. She had appeared in some films by Joe Swanberg that I was familiar with. So her direct filmmaking experience comes from what I would call Mumblecore film. In other words, films that were made on a very low budget, the script improvised. But her way of making images is, let's say, expressionistic. It has something to do with the films of John Cassavetti,

something to do with avant-garde filmmaking. And that fusion of traditions, along with her own personal inspirations, makes for a really original form of work. And what's Shirley about the new film? Shirley is a sort of biopic about Shirley Jackson, the author of The Lottery, published in The New Yorker, of course, in 1948. But the movie digs very deep into Shirley Jackson's creative process. And it does so experientially with a hectic image repertory, fantasy sequences, nightmare sound design,

and above all, a performance by Elizabeth Moss that is itself spontaneous and ferocious. So I hadn't heard of Decker until you told me about her until you wrote about her. How did you first get to know her work? Well, actually, I was just talking with her about that the other day. So I remember vividly when we met. We met at the Maryland Film Festival. Oh, right. In those days, the sort of the gathering area where the coffee and snacks were, was a parking lot.

But I did recognize you, because I'd seen you in Joe's films. I asked you, are you in a film that's in the festival this year? And you said, no, but I have a film. I directed a film that's in the festival. It was a short film, and I asked you if you would send me, not a link, of course, I didn't exist, but send me a copy. And you did send me a DVD. I popped it into my DVD player. And from the very first images, my eyes got extremely wide. This film is called Me the Terrible, which is a wonderful comedic and yet really kind of poignant fantasy about a child's adventure. life. It is. And it was very, oh my gosh, it's funny because I really remember your response to that and was really floored by it and grateful that you connected to it so much. And I said to myself, you know, I'm impatient for anything you do next. But, right, so essentially, you know, the two main

themes in your career until now, and your work until now, are the relationships of women and the artistic and creative drives of women, women artists, and their attempt to create in the face of private and public obstacles. That's very true. And it's interesting. I mean, it was funny almost to be blindsided by how much I didn't even realize the amount of thematic crossover there was between Madeline's Madeline and Shirley. Madeline's Madeline is a feature I made before I made Shirley. and Sarah Govins, our writer on Shirley, saw Madeline's Madeline. And I just remember us looking at each other and being like, there is a lot in common between these two movies.

There's an older, established artist, kind of maybe the right word might be preying on the innocence and connection she has with a younger artist, a younger woman. Right, Madeline's Madeline is the story of a teenage acting prodigy, who's a member of a professional theater company where she's, in effect, exploited by the director. Now, you know, I love that movie. One of the things I love about it is the sense that you don't deliver a script to the actors and merely photograph them performing it, but rather that it's the result of a real-time, ongoing creative process in which you yourself are participating.

Yes. I think I had, my first film was improvised, but on Latch was fully improvised. That was Wild and Lovely, was scripted. And there's a tiny bit of improv, but not much. And I kind of missed improvising. But in the improv movie, I had missed the kind of like clearer turning points that a script allows you. So my next storm I had set out to build through scripting, you know, from improv. And then I cast our incredible acting troupe and spent the next six months working with them, improvising towards these and around these themes that I wanted to be at the heart of Madeline's Madeline,

which were mental illness and parent-child relationships. And also how art, low-budget art tries to address these large things and the question of how, yeah, how does this, how much impact do you have? And I think Madeline's Madeline is one of those movies that really shouldn't exist. It's, you know, it's an extremely, the beginning of the film is about an actress dressed up as a sea turtle. You know, it's not like an action film. So part of the reason is it exists is that I felt encouraged to keep going closer and closer to the things that I was really interested in and excited by.

The New Yorker's Richard Brody with director Josephine Decker, whose movie Shirley is just out. More in a moment. Did you have the sense that making a film about a well-known historical figure like Shirley Jackson would help make the film more accessible to a wider audience? I mean, I think in a part of me really wanted to reach a wider audience and, you know, I'm me. So I hired a crew that was pretty interested in the dangerous edge of what cinema is. So, you know, I think I remember Stirla, our DP, at one point being like, I don't know if everyone understands that we're making an art film. This is an art film. And I was like, oh, no.

You know, I did not tell the producers that he said. that, but, but, but we definitely took a lot of risks. And I mean, I remember Lizzie, Elizabeth Moss, would be like, what? We're on, I think we're on my close up, but he's not filming my face. He's filming the tabletop. And I was like, I was like, and I, you know, we just, I had to be like, well, there's this thing that I'm trying to do, which is, you know, this, you know, this midnight, we called the midnight kitchen scene. And it's a very dreamy scene. And I wanted it to have a, a very specific quality to feel kind of dreamlike, almost like you weren't sure if it's even happening if you just walked into a dream. And so I was like, he has to, our DP has to also be

in a kind of dream state. He has to be liberated to follow his instincts and to, to capture what feels alive to him in every moment. You know, we have to all be alive, alive and connected to what was actually, you know, passing between these two women. They talk about me in town. I see things on people's faces. They're afraid to brush up against me. My dark thoughts are going to infect them. This book, it might kill me.

I can't figure out this girl. A lot of critics have called your film's experiment. Lesmey, that's a term I, I hate, by the way. I mean, I hate the term experimental film. I have my own theories on the topic. Why do you think critics use that kind of banal term for your movies, among other banalities? I think I'm really interested in how to allow the form of cinema to have a structure and a, like a logic that is more of a poetic logic than, you know, your three-act structure kind of thing. You know, I noticed it or I thought about it a lot in terms of woman.

And actually, speaking of Shirley, her stories and the way that her stories kind of move, they're very structured, but there's a cyclicalness and a kind of dreaminess to them that felt really akin to the way I have been trying to make work. And I'm trying to follow the poetry and let it be my guide. That sounds like a good place to stop. Yeah, I think so. Joseph, we've been very good to talk with you and good to see you. Thanks so much, Richard.

Thank you so much for everything and for being here and for also the years, the many years of supporting and paying attention to me. Thank you. It's my pleasure, my privilege, and my job. Filmmaker Josephine Decker, speaking with the New Yorker's Richard Brood. Decker's new film is called Shirley and it's out this week, not in theaters, of course, but you can find it wherever. for you stream movies online.

I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening this week. Be well and be safe. 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 Garbus of Tune Yards,

with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riannon and Corby, Calalia, David Krasnow, Caroline Lester, Gofen and Putubu Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Alison McAdam, Danny Bonner, Mung Faye Chen, and Emily Mann. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Trurina Endowment Fund.