with everyone heretic When you see promotional material about blueberry pie and Hugh Grant being creepy, you’ve probably never thought about Jodie Foster. But the film’s co-writers and directors, Scott Beck and Brian Woods, had exactly what they had in mind.
“Scott and I talked a lot. [Robert] Zemeckis’ contact And Stanley Kramer inherit the wind It serves as a template for conversations about religion,” Woods told io9. “There is a lot of ‘religious fear.’ I put that in quotes because there are a lot of Catholic horror movies that use Catholicism as justification for some kind of supernatural threat in the film. There are many movies like that, but movies like this are very rare. contact or inherit the wind It’s kind of an adult conversation about religion in a popcorn movie context.”
That was my inspiration paganGrant appears as a creepy man who traps two Mormon missionaries. yellow jacket‘Sophie Thatcher and Pavelmans’ Chloe East} comes home and asks to play a game. He wants to use two women who have chosen religion as their life’s work to explore what that means, and, well, things get very sinister.
pagan It’s out this week, and ahead of its launch, io9 spoke with Beck and Woods about it. contact (Zemeckis film based on Carl Sagan book) On inspiration, what it takes to make a film about religion, and what he thinks about the future.f quiet placeThey helped produce it. Then check back where we’ll be releasing the second half of the interview, where we discuss the film’s ending, spoiler reveals, and specific pop culture references.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Germain Lussier, io9: I was so excited when I saw your film at Fantastic Fest and when you mentioned it later. contact By inspiration. The concept of religion versus science in that movie really struck me as a kid and it crossed my mind while watching this movie, so I’d love to hear more about what that movie meant to you and if it inspired you. I’d like to. pagan.
Scott Beck: Yes, first and foremost Zemeckis is a master of making films that will get you to the cinema, but he’s also rich in what the characters are like. And I think going back and forth between Jodie Foster’s character and Matthew McConaughey’s character was really thought-provoking at the time. Don’t go too deep. But at that point I was a teenager and going to church every Sunday. And I think that’s one of the few movies that opened me up to thinking about my relationship with faith and atheism in a three-dimensional way, outside of what I knew growing up.
And if you look at the other side of the spectrum in the movie with the Jake Busey character, it becomes a kind of fundamentalist point of view. And then it suddenly occurred to me, “Oh, I have a friend whose family was involved in the Jonestown Massacre.” And how crazy is it that someone who initially followed this charismatic leader’s belief system and seemed balanced would suddenly commit suicide? There are points where religions intersect to some extent. contact Personally, in a very absurd way.
io9: How about a direct connection to this movie? Did you specifically think, “Oh, let’s make our own?” contact?” Or, while writing, you might think, “Oh, this reminds me of this. contact?”
Brian Woods: It was a conscious decision. Over the years, Scott and I have talked a lot about Zemeckis. contact And Stanley Kramer inherit the wind It serves as a template for conversations about religion. There is a lot of “religious fear”. I put that in quotes because there are a lot of Catholic horror movies that use Catholicism as justification for some kind of supernatural threat in the film. There are many movies like that, but movies like this are very rare. contact or inherit the wind It’s kind of an adult conversation about religion in a popcorn movie context.
So in the years since Scott and I first saw that movie, we’ve been asking ourselves this question. “Can we do it? Wow, it would be a dream come true if one day we could make one movie that is a conversation about religion, all our emotions, all our fears, everything we think is beautiful and scary about religion. “Can we do that?” And honestly, it seemed like an impossible task. I thought we could never do it [do it for a number of reasons.] What is our position on religion? We will never know enough about the history of religion. What seemed impossible was this bucket list dream. Then, over the years, you reach a place in your life.
I recently lost my father suddenly to esophageal cancer. [also] Just like Scott lost his father. Because at this point, we’re all basically family. We were at a low point in our personal lives and felt very vulnerable and dark. And we said, “Now it’s time to write an exploration of religion.” It’s time to talk about the fear of what happens when you die, and explore it in the context of scary movies.
io9: I’m really sorry about your father Brian. I also lost my father a few months ago, so I understand.
Both: No, sorry. I’m really sorry.
io9: Thank you. thank you But up to that point, it’s one thing to say that, right? “We’re going to write this movie about religion.” Actually doing it seems like a completely different thing. It’s a massive, overwhelming, impossible amount of research. So how did you approach gathering information and different perspectives on the film?
beck: Yeah, I mean, I’m interested in everything, be it religious or cult or anything else. Lawrence Wright writes amazing articles about Scientology. It becomes clear. Read the works of Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins from an atheist perspective. Looking back at the Bible and diving into it Book of Mormon. We strive to understand everything from a truly empathetic perspective so that we can see complex conversations about religion from multiple sides.
All of our fears about the movie avoid this, but I think it subtly addresses it. It’s a fear of people with convictions. A place where they are firmly rooted and unwavering in what they think and believe. For us, that’s not really how we personally live our lives. We are constantly evolving and responding to new experiences, relationships, etc. And I think a lot of the film infuses the personal journeys we’ve been through and the spectrum of friendships that represent different belief systems. The film centers on these three characters, along with Hugh Grant’s characters Mr. Reed, Sister Paxton, and Sister Barnes. These are all characters that represent the triangle at various points of our relationship with the great unknown. And I definitely think that in-between is where we come down in the discourse of the film.
io9: I agree with that. But I’m curious how that affects the process. As you write something like this, do you ever find yourself arguing with each other while remembering each other’s positions? Because, yes, it is. Because even though it’s in the middle, you still have to write both sides.
beck: Yes, that’s something we can’t say we’ve fully reflected on. I feel like Brian and I have known each other since we were 11 years old. And thanks to that, much of our outlook on life coincides with one another. So the arguments we have are not necessarily arguments because we have different opinions. I think we are sponges. I think we look at the outside world and try to understand why people come to these conclusions. Sometimes it can be synonymous with Donald Trump. How does Donald Trump become Donald Trump? Because you weren’t born into an environment where television was bombarded with nonsense. There’s something that makes you that way. So we like to investigate the world as a whole together. The discussions we have are more creative discussions. If Brian talks about a movie he really likes but I don’t, I think we’ll be happy to participate in it.
Woods: That’s the good thing about having a partner, right? We are open. So we argue about certain things. And it’s like, “I feel this way too. “Scott thinks so too.” We talk about it. Or maybe he changed my mind, or maybe I changed his mind. Maybe now we are on opposite sides of the spectrum. And the ability to listen is the most important thing you can have as a writer. You must listen to the world. You need to listen to what people say. You have to empathize with everyone and put yourself in everyone’s shoes. This is a kind of toolkit of our art form. So this kind of work felt natural.
io9: You changed the topic slightly. quiet place. How does it feel to see it still going strong, and how involved are you in how it plays out in the future?
beck: First of all, we never in a million years thought it would last this long. That’s simply because we designed and created it. quiet place With very modest means. We were like, “Nobody’s going to want to make this weird silent horror movie. We’ll be shooting it right in our home state of Iowa.” But last week we went to the maze at Universal Studios. quiet place And we’re walking around watching Universal actors portray characters right off the page, and it’s unexpected and we’re still living in the surreal reality that there is life.
But what happens from here is, so to speak, like sending a child off to college. Our focus is not here. quiet place Space now. For us. It’s a movie like this pagan We like the original idea, but if you approach the script page without knowing what this is, we’ll make it. This is the exciting lifeblood of filmmaking: the unknown. And whether the movies we make fail or succeed, it’s about pursuing unique things that are interesting to us. But we liked what Michael Sarnoski did. first day. We thought it was a really interesting entry. So if they continue to produce products, that means we continue to innovate on ideas. quiet place As for the movie.
forest: We really want to see international movies. quiet place universe. It doesn’t necessarily have to be English-based. I think it would be really nice.
pagan It opens on Friday. Check back next week for more from Beck and Woods.
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