IPOD
RADIO
Asylum director David Mackenzie
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Aug 13, 2005
David Mackenzie first became known in the United States for Young Adam starring Tilda Swinton. Now he has just released his third feature, Asylum, starring Natasha Richardson, Ian McKellen and Martin Csokas.
Asylum is the story Stella Raphael, a cultured and elegant but restless young woman who lives with her husband, Max, a forensic psychiatrist, and their small son, Charlie, at a high-security mental hospital in rural 1950’s England. Isolated from the urban excitement she craves, Stella is unhappy with her husband and her life, and when she comes into contact with the brilliant and attractive sculptor Edgar Stark, a patient who is engaged in rebuilding the asylum's decrepit Victorian conservatory; she begins to fall in love. Her discovery that Edgar was confined to the hospital after he brutally murdered and disfigured his wife in a psychotic, jealous rage fails to deter Stella from her growing passion, and eventually her love for Edgar is pitted against her husband, her child, the institution, and the entire fabric of her society.
Check out the official site for Asylum
Daniel Robert Epstein: Sex is obviously a big part of Asylum. I spoke to Francois Ozon and he says he loves to direct sex scenes because sex is where the real characters come out. What do you think?
David Mackenzie: The very first sex scene I did, I was well aware the art involved, so I doubled the art by putting tear sticks in the eyes of the actors so that they were crying at the same time as having sex. That was a really interesting game as far as their performance. You see another side of an actor when doing those scenes. It's a very physical scene; it's not about hitting a mark or saying your lines. I wouldn't go as far as Ozon and say it's my favorite thing, but there's a degree of awkwardness there. I also think it's a really tough thing for actors to do, so as a result of it being tough it's a good thing for actors to do.
DRE:
Natasha's been doing sex scenes going back 20 years; did she help create those scenes with you?
DM:
No, she said to me when we first met that she's a director's daughter so she respects the director.
DRE:
What attracted you to Asylum?
DM:
I think it's a really rich, very human story with plenty of drama and action. I quite liked the idea of being able to do something that's kind of hard and dramatic. It comes from the characters and some relatively contained forces, so you get the best of both worlds. I'm not going to tell you it’s “an action movie”, but you get to do some cinema within this very contained performance piece. At the same time it's very honest middle class world. Also it's set in the 50’s so I can understand the characters quite well. I think it's a very universal thing; husbands and wives, desire and obsession and jealousy. It doesn't matter where you're from; those things are probably going to have a part in your life.
DRE:
This film would work even if it was not set in the 50’s.
DM:
The ideas of what happens when your marriage isn't quite giving you everything you need and something needs to happen are as alive today as they were back in the 50’s.
DRE:
It reminded me of a Hitchcock movie, but without the thriller elements.
DM:
We were very aware of the Hitchcock element when we were thinking about it in terms of design. I think the penultimate sequence has some not-quite obvious "Vertigo" references there.
DRE:
There are some scenes from the book that might've pushed the audience too far; do you think they still work in the movie?
DM:
I think there was always a fear that certain scenes would eclipse everything else, but that's the story in the book. There were debates about whether you could get away with or without it. It's a realer story with her being so far off in missing this guy and being in her world of obsession. It's shocking to the audience, but that's the story.
DRE:
You say all of us; who does that refer to?
DM:
Myself, the screenwriter [Patrick Marber], the people at Paramount Classics and Natasha as well. Though I don't think there was ever any question in her mind. I think it makes a tougher sale so therefore people will ask these questions.
DRE:
Was [David Cronenberg’s] Spider [also based on a Patrick McGrath novel] an influence at all? The film was quite different for him.
DM:
Very different for him. I don't think it's an influence directly.
DRE:
When did you know you were going to be doing this film?
DM:
A couple years ago.
DRE:
Did you read the book?
DM:
I didn't know the book at first. I first got the script and I wasn't quite sure about it, then I read the book and I thought, "Okay, this is material I can really work with."
DRE:
At first I didn’t realize that Ian’s character was gay.
DM:
Reading the book, he's very interesting. He's kind of portrayed as a cold fish and an asexual character. But it's implied in the book that he's probably gay. He thinks he might find some way of growing old gracefully with this sort of fallen angel lady.
DRE:
Natasha’s character almost has this scarlet letter on her with the way people look at her is with disgust. How do you help an actor portray that?
DM:
A part of that is the other people because they're being told to look upon her in disgust. Part of acting is reacting, so you create that environment. I remember one scene where she's picking up her son Charlie from school and all these people are staring at her. I remember feeling for her at that point in time.
DRE:
What do you think your specialty was with this film?
DM:
It does feel like one of my films in a funny kind of way. It's got tension, phobia, moods, atmospheres and slutty fucked-up-ness; those kind of elements are what I seem to be interested in, and this film had all of those. To me, it's always been sort of an alchemy process amongst all the cast and crew.
DRE:
I've already met some critics who think the film is misogynistic; I'm going back to the idea of “Why can't this woman just be in this horrible position? Why is it indicative of all women?"”
DM:
I think people misuse the word misogynist. She decides to go for the worst man she possibly can, but she's not hated. It's not as if she doesn't have a choice in the matter. I know Young Adam was accused of being a misogynistic and it pissed me off, but I think it's a word that people like to use, and I don't think they actually know what it means. It means hating women, and hating women in general. It's absurd that they'd think a film which involves a female character can be profoundly misogynistic because it's about an individual, not an entire gender.
DRE:
Everything that happens in this film every day probably happens in real life, in this hotel and probably in asylums.
DM:
Well I say, to those people that think it's misogynistic; they're not being very intellectually rigorous with that phrase.
DRE:
Do you do other forms of art on top of film?
DM:
I do write and I would definitely consider writing a book. I'm involved in photography. I'm not a painter, though. If I could paint, I wouldn't be making movies.
DRE:
What are your next films about?
DM:
Hallam Foe is based on a novel by a friend of mine [Peter Jinks]. It's mostly fictional, but with some autobiographical elements related to Peter it.
DRE:
Are you a character in it?
DM:
Oh, no. It's from before he met me. We've adapted the script and it's way different from the book. The other film I want to do is Nico, and it's by a guy who was in a band with the singing Nico.
DRE:
How is it working with David and Janet Peoples [who are writing Nico]?
DM:
I love them dearly, they're great people.
DRE:
Did you all write together?
DM:
I couldn't touch Dave and Jan's script, so I waited. They said, "You negotiate your way and we'll see what happens." It's a big kind of picaresque view of the book, involving rock and roll tours, so you have to contain it.
DRE:
How close is Nico to happening?
DM:
I think Hallam Foe is going to happen first; probably going to be shooting in October with Jamie Bell in the lead.
DRE:
I'm sure Dave and Jan have written plenty of scripts that haven't been made, but what they have made has been a lot of science fiction or kind of deconstruction of a genre. Is Nico like that?
DM:
No, it's not and in a funny kind of way it's a comedy. It's a junkie, rock and roll circus kind of comedy. I’m very familiar with Nico. The book the movie is based on starts with a concert that I was actually at. It's not something I would have thought Dave and Jan would have gone for. I think they were drawn to it by the comedic elements of it.
DRE:
I can't wait to see it.
DM:
I can't wait to make it. I think Tilda [Swinton] is going to play Nico.
DRE:
What was the first films you saw that made you want to be a director?
DM:
Two films that I can definitely say; one was the Jim Jarmusch film Stranger than Paradise which I saw when I was 18, and the other was Caravaggio with Tilda actually. I saw them both right around the same time and they both had a bit of an off-beat sensibility to them. They were both very different movies, and I thought "This is the medium where I can express myself."
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
David Mackenzie first became known in the United States for Young Adam starring Tilda Swinton. Now he has just released his third feature, Asylum, starring Natasha Richardson, Ian McKellen and Martin Csokas.
Asylum is the story Stella Raphael, a cultured and elegant but restless young woman who lives with her husband, Max, a forensic psychiatrist, and their small son, Charlie, at a high-security mental hospital in rural 1950’s England. Isolated from the urban excitement she craves, Stella is unhappy with her husband and her life, and when she comes into contact with the brilliant and attractive sculptor Edgar Stark, a patient who is engaged in rebuilding the asylum's decrepit Victorian conservatory; she begins to fall in love. Her discovery that Edgar was confined to the hospital after he brutally murdered and disfigured his wife in a psychotic, jealous rage fails to deter Stella from her growing passion, and eventually her love for Edgar is pitted against her husband, her child, the institution, and the entire fabric of her society.
Check out the official site for Asylum
Daniel Robert Epstein: Sex is obviously a big part of Asylum. I spoke to Francois Ozon and he says he loves to direct sex scenes because sex is where the real characters come out. What do you think?
David Mackenzie: The very first sex scene I did, I was well aware the art involved, so I doubled the art by putting tear sticks in the eyes of the actors so that they were crying at the same time as having sex. That was a really interesting game as far as their performance. You see another side of an actor when doing those scenes. It's a very physical scene; it's not about hitting a mark or saying your lines. I wouldn't go as far as Ozon and say it's my favorite thing, but there's a degree of awkwardness there. I also think it's a really tough thing for actors to do, so as a result of it being tough it's a good thing for actors to do.
DRE:
Natasha's been doing sex scenes going back 20 years; did she help create those scenes with you?
DM:
No, she said to me when we first met that she's a director's daughter so she respects the director.
DRE:
What attracted you to Asylum?
DM:
I think it's a really rich, very human story with plenty of drama and action. I quite liked the idea of being able to do something that's kind of hard and dramatic. It comes from the characters and some relatively contained forces, so you get the best of both worlds. I'm not going to tell you it’s “an action movie”, but you get to do some cinema within this very contained performance piece. At the same time it's very honest middle class world. Also it's set in the 50’s so I can understand the characters quite well. I think it's a very universal thing; husbands and wives, desire and obsession and jealousy. It doesn't matter where you're from; those things are probably going to have a part in your life.
DRE:
This film would work even if it was not set in the 50’s.
DM:
The ideas of what happens when your marriage isn't quite giving you everything you need and something needs to happen are as alive today as they were back in the 50’s.
DRE:
It reminded me of a Hitchcock movie, but without the thriller elements.
DM:
We were very aware of the Hitchcock element when we were thinking about it in terms of design. I think the penultimate sequence has some not-quite obvious "Vertigo" references there.
DRE:
There are some scenes from the book that might've pushed the audience too far; do you think they still work in the movie?
DM:
I think there was always a fear that certain scenes would eclipse everything else, but that's the story in the book. There were debates about whether you could get away with or without it. It's a realer story with her being so far off in missing this guy and being in her world of obsession. It's shocking to the audience, but that's the story.
DRE:
You say all of us; who does that refer to?
DM:
Myself, the screenwriter [Patrick Marber], the people at Paramount Classics and Natasha as well. Though I don't think there was ever any question in her mind. I think it makes a tougher sale so therefore people will ask these questions.
DRE:
Was [David Cronenberg’s] Spider [also based on a Patrick McGrath novel] an influence at all? The film was quite different for him.
DM:
Very different for him. I don't think it's an influence directly.
DRE:
When did you know you were going to be doing this film?
DM:
A couple years ago.
DRE:
Did you read the book?
DM:
I didn't know the book at first. I first got the script and I wasn't quite sure about it, then I read the book and I thought, "Okay, this is material I can really work with."
DRE:
At first I didn’t realize that Ian’s character was gay.
DM:
Reading the book, he's very interesting. He's kind of portrayed as a cold fish and an asexual character. But it's implied in the book that he's probably gay. He thinks he might find some way of growing old gracefully with this sort of fallen angel lady.
DRE:
Natasha’s character almost has this scarlet letter on her with the way people look at her is with disgust. How do you help an actor portray that?
DM:
A part of that is the other people because they're being told to look upon her in disgust. Part of acting is reacting, so you create that environment. I remember one scene where she's picking up her son Charlie from school and all these people are staring at her. I remember feeling for her at that point in time.
DRE:
What do you think your specialty was with this film?
DM:
It does feel like one of my films in a funny kind of way. It's got tension, phobia, moods, atmospheres and slutty fucked-up-ness; those kind of elements are what I seem to be interested in, and this film had all of those. To me, it's always been sort of an alchemy process amongst all the cast and crew.
DRE:
I've already met some critics who think the film is misogynistic; I'm going back to the idea of “Why can't this woman just be in this horrible position? Why is it indicative of all women?"”
DM:
I think people misuse the word misogynist. She decides to go for the worst man she possibly can, but she's not hated. It's not as if she doesn't have a choice in the matter. I know Young Adam was accused of being a misogynistic and it pissed me off, but I think it's a word that people like to use, and I don't think they actually know what it means. It means hating women, and hating women in general. It's absurd that they'd think a film which involves a female character can be profoundly misogynistic because it's about an individual, not an entire gender.
DRE:
Everything that happens in this film every day probably happens in real life, in this hotel and probably in asylums.
DM:
Well I say, to those people that think it's misogynistic; they're not being very intellectually rigorous with that phrase.
DRE:
Do you do other forms of art on top of film?
DM:
I do write and I would definitely consider writing a book. I'm involved in photography. I'm not a painter, though. If I could paint, I wouldn't be making movies.
DRE:
What are your next films about?
DM:
Hallam Foe is based on a novel by a friend of mine [Peter Jinks]. It's mostly fictional, but with some autobiographical elements related to Peter it.
DRE:
Are you a character in it?
DM:
Oh, no. It's from before he met me. We've adapted the script and it's way different from the book. The other film I want to do is Nico, and it's by a guy who was in a band with the singing Nico.
DRE:
How is it working with David and Janet Peoples [who are writing Nico]?
DM:
I love them dearly, they're great people.
DRE:
Did you all write together?
DM:
I couldn't touch Dave and Jan's script, so I waited. They said, "You negotiate your way and we'll see what happens." It's a big kind of picaresque view of the book, involving rock and roll tours, so you have to contain it.
DRE:
How close is Nico to happening?
DM:
I think Hallam Foe is going to happen first; probably going to be shooting in October with Jamie Bell in the lead.
DRE:
I'm sure Dave and Jan have written plenty of scripts that haven't been made, but what they have made has been a lot of science fiction or kind of deconstruction of a genre. Is Nico like that?
DM:
No, it's not and in a funny kind of way it's a comedy. It's a junkie, rock and roll circus kind of comedy. I’m very familiar with Nico. The book the movie is based on starts with a concert that I was actually at. It's not something I would have thought Dave and Jan would have gone for. I think they were drawn to it by the comedic elements of it.
DRE:
I can't wait to see it.
DM:
I can't wait to make it. I think Tilda [Swinton] is going to play Nico.
DRE:
What was the first films you saw that made you want to be a director?
DM:
Two films that I can definitely say; one was the Jim Jarmusch film Stranger than Paradise which I saw when I was 18, and the other was Caravaggio with Tilda actually. I saw them both right around the same time and they both had a bit of an off-beat sensibility to them. They were both very different movies, and I thought "This is the medium where I can express myself."
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
loading your activity feed...