Katy O’Brian in Love Lies Bleeding Equal components romantic horror film, revenge thriller and twisted, small city household drama, Rose Glass’s second function after Saint Maud, is a midnight film for the arthouse crowd, full with Hollywood stars (Kristen Stewart, Ed Harris, Dave Franco, Jena Malone) doing wild and loopy issues all within the identify of intense physique horror. Set within the late Nineteen Eighties, the movie stars Katy O’Brian as Jackie, a lady making her means by way of the American Southwest en path to a bodybuilding competitors in Las Vegas. In New Mexico, Jackie picks up a job as a waitress at a cheesy capturing vary run by an intimidating gun nut and his fool son-in-law (sporting hairstyles equally hilarious and mortifying, the roles are performed by Ed Harris and Dave Franco, respectively). Needing a spot to work out within the evenings, Jackie visits a neighborhood fitness center and meets Lou (Kristen Stewart), who’s losing away unclogging the institution’s bathrooms. The two develop into romantically concerned, share anabolic steroids and struggle again in opposition to the abusers of their lives. Is Jackie a symbolic determine able to what Lou can’t perform herself? Is she a manifestation of what Lou doesn’t have the braveness to be? What occurs from there is sensible whereas the viewer watches it however not essentially to a reader skimming by way of a quick plot abstract, so I’ll simply observe that the movie has enjoyable toggling between the desires of its two leads, blurring the road between the place one lover ends and the opposite continues.
After premiering at Sundance and the Berlinale earlier this yr, Love Lies Bleeding goes into vast theatrical launch right this moment from A24. I spoke with Glass concerning the movie’s distinctive soundtrack, its intelligent use of VFX, working with an intimacy coordinator and extra.
Filmmaker: How quickly after the discharge of Saint Maud have been you planning a second function? Was it a selected location or the dimensions of the manufacturing that you? The two ladies on the heart of the story? What was the unique impetus?
Glass: I began arising with the concept in direction of the tip of post-production on Saint Maud, driving off the wave of pleasure of getting really been in a position to make a primary function. The optimistic reception the movie acquired was vastly emboldening, and when it got here to enthusiastic about what to do subsequent, it wasn’t [like I had] a narrative in my head for years. This was fairly contemporary. In a means, I didn’t need to cease and take into consideration what can be the tasteful, smart factor to do, and as an alternative wished to make one thing a bit bombastic, to take a giant swing and see what I may get away with doing.
The preliminary hook was of desirous to do one thing a couple of feminine bodybuilder who maybe finds herself unraveling as she’s coaching for a giant competitors. I teamed up with Weronika Tofilska [to write the screenplay], as she’s additionally a writer-director and we’ve been associates for years. That’s one other factor—I initially discovered writing on my own fairly tough and anxious, so I wished to strive collaborating on a script. I got here to Weronika with this very embryonic concept, then from most likely some level in 2019 and all through the pandemic, we have been principally scripting this script. It was so bizarre attending to make Saint Maud, which was an thrilling [experience], after which it lastly got here out (or didn’t come out) simply because the [pandemic] lockdown occurred. There was all this pent-up vitality from [making that film] which then didn’t go wherever as a result of the movie simply ended up getting launched on-line or no matter, as many issues did on the time. Some of that pent-up vitality most likely simply smooshed itself into this script as an alternative. It turned this bizarre, bombastic outlet to discover all types of issues.
Filmmaker: Was it at all times set in New Mexico, in a desert space, within the Nineteen Eighties?
Glass: By the time we began writing the script, we had settled on the time and place, however for fairly some time whereas engaged on [the treatment], we went forwards and backwards with that. Initially I used to be considering of setting the movie within the UK, perhaps Scotland, however because the story grew, it simply didn’t really feel proper. America felt like a way more applicable backdrop for the story, [as it has] characters who need to get away with a lot of murders and there are numerous weapons flying round, and so forth. The movie can be, on some stage, about ambition and taking a barely cynical have a look at the pursuit of the American Dream. I suppose it’s additionally about ego. There have been numerous parts within the movie that made America really feel like probably the most potent, crystallized world to set this story in.
Probably a great deal of filmmakers who aren’t from America are closely influenced by American movie and tv. The affect on our cultural consciousness is big, so anybody who desires to make movies who isn’t from America most likely hears some bizarre siren name coming from that facet of the nation, from Hollywood and this concept of “the American movie.” Love Lies Bleeding ended up inadvertently virtually turning into a movie about movies, however not actually. Even with out straight referencing particular movies, the viewers is aware of about these sure cinematic tropes, so setting this in America made these simpler to play with and hopefully subvert these parts extra boldly.
Filmmaker: When I consider bodybuilding or intense exercise tradition, it’s comically, through Jane Fonda VHS tapes or maybe [Hulk Hogan]. Those, too, have been of the Nineteen Eighties.
Glass: It undoubtedly felt like the proper decade for this.
Filmmaker: Did you might have enjoyable to find these aspirational quotes hung up all around the fitness center Lou works at?
Glass: Yes, however I stole numerous these from bodybuilding and weightlifting posts on Instagram. There’s a one-track mindedness to these [posts], of “following your dream.” The movie is simply taking a barely extra cynical have a look at that. Following anybody’s particular person dream most likely comes on the expense of another person’s anyway, proper?
Filmmaker: From the movie’s opening and all through its period, there are a number of pictures during which the digital camera friends down right into a crack that has fissured deep throughout the Earth. Bathed in darkish pink lighting, it’s a putting picture. The desert (the place the fissure is positioned) is an space the movie returns to usually and you discover distinctive methods to depict it on display screen. At instances, the blackened sky seems to be like a matte portray or a inexperienced display screen, one thing deliberately lower than actual.
Glass: A whole lot of that stuff’s VFX. The starry skies, once they go into the desert and there’s that huge crack within the floor, that’s all VFX. We labored with this wonderful firm in England, Time Based Arts, they usually ended up doing an enormous quantity extra work on the movie than we’d initially [asked them to] as a result of I stored including new bits. Anytime there was a plain black sky, I used to be like, “Oh, imagine if it was more of a starry field.” A whole lot of these are digital matte work, however for a few of the extra landscape-y issues, I informed them it was fantastic to go a bit extra painterly, that it doesn’t need to be too literal. While I don’t suppose there’s an excessive amount of connection to [the finished images in the film], [I wanted] the matte portray backgrounds to seem like those you’d see in movies by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. I really like that sort of factor.
Filmmaker: I like how these darkish reds seep into the movie, not solely within the fast cutaways the place Kristen Stewart or Ed Harris threateningly look straight on the digital camera, but additionally in a scene the place they reconvene subsequent to a Coca-Cola merchandising machine within the hallway of a hospital. The pink from the model’s emblem illuminates their faces in a lot the identical these earlier pictures do.
Glass: That was a lucky accident. It was meant to [take place] by a merchandising machine however then it simply occurred to have that incredible pink gentle [emulating] from it, the pink [of a] Coke bottle. My cinematographer, Ben Fordesman, and I obtained very excited by that, and the scene most likely fed into our wanting to incorporate the pink flashbacks you talked about, as we really shot these as pickups in a while as soon as we have been midway by way of the edit. All of these items stacked up on high of one another.
We set a LUT for the general grade, so we had a glance moving into [to the film], however there are at all times good surprises that occur. We labored with an incredible colorist as effectively. We at all times wished the movie to have a heightened and gritty (however fairly wealthy) visceral feeling. There are numerous reds that get picked up all through the movie. You can’t have “bleeding” within the title with out making a little bit of a factor of it.
Filmmaker: How decided have been you to include ambient gentle sources to assist contribute to that theme? And did their inclusion issue into the ’80s, analog sort of vibe you have been going for? I’m reminded of the luxurious colours that emulate from completely different signage that may be flipped on and off, issues like that.
Glass: Yes, and there are just a few inexperienced neons in there as effectively. I didn’t need it to get too ’80s, too pastiche. That was consistently a factor to stability out, each by way of how we shot and lit the film but additionally through the costumes and hair. While you don’t need the movie to really feel an excessive amount of like a throwback, on the identical time, the ’80s did sport numerous insane colours and hairdos, so it was a enjoyable factor to attempt to stability. Ben, our cinematographer, is phenomenal, and [these aspects] have been actually a collaboration between him and Katie Hickman, our manufacturing designer, consistently having a number of well-placed lamps and light-weight sources and making all of it really feel naturally motivated whereas nonetheless possessing a moderately heightened look.
Filmmaker: Speaking of the hairstyles, have been you working with every actor on creating their character’s particular look (i.e. a mullet for Dave Franco and the abnormally lengthy, flowing hair for Ed Harris) or was that predetermined primarily based on the kind of character they have been enjoying?
Glass: As Weronika and I have been writing the screenplay, we fairly particularly had how Lou and Jackie’s hair would look (and the way they might look collectively). I wished every of the characters to be recognizable and distinctive sufficient in order that you possibly can draw just a little cartoon [from memory] of them. Our costume designer, Olga Mill, wished them to really feel distinctive, in order that in case you needed to gown up as one among them for Halloween, you’ll [stand out]. Our hair partment head, Megan Daum, made certain they every had their very own little story to them, that Jackie’s wig particularly was impressed by a bodybuilder named Lisa Lyon, who I noticed in a guide of pictures by Robert Mapplethorpe. Mapplethorpe had launched an entire guide just about fully of images of her within the Nineteen Eighties. [As The Guggenheim Museum Archives’ Artist Files notes, “Lisa Lyon, the first World Women’s Bodybuilding Champion met Mapplethorpe in 1980, and collaborated with him on figure and portrait studies, a film, and a book, Lady, Lisa Lyon.“] She had this wonderful hair, a bit like Jackie’s, and there are these very putting black and white pictures of her trying muscular and delightful.
Ed’s hair is one thing he got here up with himself. I wished him to look distinctive and completely different from how we’d ever seen him on display screen earlier than, however I wasn’t certain fairly what that might seem like and he steered, “Maybe we could do something with my hair where I’ll get a ponytail.” Then he obtained somebody he knew to place in these amazingly lengthy, lush extensions, which was far more bonkers than I used to be initially picturing. I used to be picturing the character [Lou Sr.] with some little wispy, ratty factor then Ed [shows up] with this wonderful mane. His look helped to determine what Dave [Franco]’s character, JJ, ought to seem like as a result of JJ is his son-in-law and he works for him. So I used to be like, “Well, maybe he’s semi-aspiring to one day be a bit like Ed and he’s growing out his own weedy, pathetic version of Ed’s luscious mane.”
Filmmaker: My eye rapidly caught a primary version paperback of Macho Sluts being learn by a personality within the movie a few times and wished to ask concerning the reasoning behind its inclusion.
Glass: Yeah, it’s proven twice within the movie. At one level very briefly, the working title for the movie was Macho Sluts. I discovered Pat Califia’s guide in a bookshop years in the past and didn’t know something about it. I simply noticed the title on the backbone of the quilt and thought, “Oh wow, what’s this about?” It comprises these very hardcore, BDSM quick tales, and it’s fairly an attention-grabbing learn, and the title felt good. Now clearly, we didn’t use it [for the film] ultimately, however I believe in just a few scenes the place we needed to give Lou one thing to be studying, it felt like we may have just a little nod to it. It felt just like the sort of guide that Lou may’ve discovered someplace in a bookshop and been like, “Oh my God, what is this?”
Filmmaker: I used to be curious concerning the movie’s inclusion of anabolic steroids [Jackie is introduced to various kinds by Lou, who has been purchasing and distributing them discreetly in her gym]. They tackle a extra heightened function because the narrative progresses, however after all, steroids did (and, for all I do know, nonetheless do) persist on the planet of aggressive bodybuilding.
Glass: When Weronika and I have been writing the script, we went forwards and backwards on how actual versus fantastical the drug Jackie’s taking ought to be. In our earlier drafts, I believe it was far more explicitly a magical sort of factor, and I used to be flirting with the concept that anytime you see the steroids on display screen, they might be glowing a bit or one thing like that. Ultimately, it simply felt too distracting, so ultimately we settled on a logic the place, sure, anabolic steroids have been and are round so much again then (and I’m certain are used so much within the bodybuilding world—however that’s fairly a posh topic in and of itself and one I wasn’t involved in getting too deeply and actually embroiled in), however ours was most likely not going to be probably the most strictly sensible depiction of steroid use. We at all times wished it to be just a little ambiguous as as to whether all of that is taking place due to the medicine Jackie is taking or if it’s as a result of energy of affection making her mad in a roundabout way. Or maybe it’s resulting from Lou’s corrupting affect? We have these barely extra heightened transformational moments being seeded all through the movie they usually come, sure, after Jackie’s simply taken steroids for the primary time, however it’s additionally on the level the place Lou and her are having intercourse for the primary time. We took artistic license with it.
Filmmaker: Regarding these extra intimate, sexual moments within the movie between Lou and Jackie, have been you at all times directing these scenes on a really closed set? Did you enlist an intimacy coordinator?
Glass: Yes. Going into it, I knew the movie was going to have numerous intercourse and violence in it. If you’re together with a romance [in the narrative], clearly the intercourse goes to be an necessary a part of the story. But, on some stage, you’re simply treating these like another scene. You write them with (hopefully) an incredible diploma of specificity and ensure every little thing’s there within the script for good motive. When you are available in to movie these scenes, it’s similar to with stunts, however the place you’d sometimes have a stunt coordinator you now have an intimacy coordinator. It’s to assist choreograph issues and to ensure that everybody within the scene feels comfy. It’s clearly a bizarre factor to do, to fake to be having intercourse with an individual who you aren’t in a relationship with, and to do it in entrance of a bunch of individuals with a digital camera. The scenario is inherently odd, so that you need everybody to be specializing in doing the work, having fun with it and never being distracted by being too self-conscious. I believe having an intimacy coordinator takes out any potential uncomfortable uncertainty and ambiguity. Everybody goes into it understanding precisely what’s going to be filmed, precisely what’s going to be proven and what’s not going to be proven. If anyone has any issues about one thing they do or don’t need to do, it’s all been very clearly sorted out beforehand. This additionally helps to make it enjoyable. It implies that then if you’re blocking the scene, it’s all very unsexy and mechanical, like “OK, my hand goes…here? No, we’re here,” and blah, blah, blah. If you recognize that everybody’s comfy, it frees you up and the actors can give attention to [giving] the perfect efficiency and you may take pleasure in capturing it. It’s all fairly enjoyable.
Filmmaker: I used to be curious concerning the influences [involved in] curating the movie’s soundtrack, which feels closely stylized however in tune with the [story you’re telling]. Some I acknowledged and a few I’m much less conversant in.
Glass: Yeah, there’s an enormous quantity. Clint Mansell is our composer and created a beautiful rating, however there’s additionally an enormous quantity of economic music all through the movie. A whole lot of it’s actually woven in there, not even simply within the apparent locations the place a track can be enjoying on a radio. A whole lot of it feels a bit like [it’s] rating. I used to be really working with a music guide who, even throughout prep for the movie and in the course of the shoot, would give you curated playlists for the primary characters in order that we may determine what sort of stuff these individuals can be listening to. And whereas I knew the movie wanted numerous music, the ’80s can be a decade that’s been so achieved to loss of life [on screen] and I wished to keep away from the temptation of filling the movie with acquainted, enjoyable needle drops in order that we weren’t simply saying, “Hey, everybody knows this!”
I labored with my accomplice, who’s a musician, tasking him with discovering a sound music palette, numerous which was made up of music we imagined Lou would hearken to. It’s barely extra different, numerous industrial or ambient sort of stuff [that’s] synthy. We wished to search out some barely much less acquainted ones, aso there’s numerous stuff by [’70s and ’80s disco and hi-NRG composer] Patrick Cowley heard when Lou and Jackie first hook up. There’s additionally Throbbing Gristle, Martin Rev and some tracks by a Japanese artist named Shiho Yabuki that play a giant half within the barely extra twinkly, fantastical, horny, playful facet of the music. Those [choices] then fed into what our composer Clint was doing, in order that when he finally took over, the extra ominous, throbbing, dread [feelings from the music] got here through his [contributions]. It was all about holding it attention-grabbing and there’s numerous nice stuff in there.
