Transcript
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw. A jaunty, jazzy tune reminiscent of the opening theme of a movie. Music continues as April begins speaking, then fades out.
april wolfe
Welcome to Switchblade Sisters! Where women get together to slice and dice our favorite action and genre films. I'm April Wolfe. Every week, I invite a new female filmmaker on—a writer, director, actor, or producer—and we talk in-depth about one of their fave genre films, maybe one that's influencing their own work a little. And today I'm really excited to have writer Caroline Williams. Hi!
caroline williams
Hello!
april
Um, so for those of you guys who aren't as familiar with her work, please let me give you an introduction, a This Is Your Life of Caroline. [Caroline laughs.] Uh, she's a screenwriter born in Atlanta, Georgia, who then moved to Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and southern California. When she got to LA, she went hog-wild with degrees! Earning a BA in Theatre from USC first, and then an MFA in Film from UCLA. You know, just covering—covering your mas—
crosstalk
April: You couldn't decide between the two— Caroline: [Laughing] Right! April: —so you might as well get both schools.
caroline
You know what, more the better.
april
Yeah. Uh, but theatre was still close to her heart. And her first play premiered at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Kentucky, which led to a career in television. Which is actually—a lot of folks who start off in play writing do move to television, and that, like, focus intensely on dialogue and, uh, character. Um, she created the 2008 ABC series Miss Guided, starring Judy Greer and Chris Parnell, about a high school guidance counselor who must relive her unpopular high school days when another old classmate joins the faculty and staff.
april
From there, Caroline went on to write for The Office, Modern Family, Up All Night, BoJack Horseman, and others, including most recently, Arrested Development and Maniac for Netflix. It's just a—I mean like, some people may have heard of those.
caroline
[Laughing] Yeah. They're—they're obscure little niche shows.
april
Niche shows. Not a lot going on. [Caroline laughs.] She's looking for work, right? Yeah. [Laughs.]
caroline
I can take no credit for any of them, truly. [Laughing] Even the one I created I really don't, really—I can't claim ownership of completely, so I do feel like I owe credit to other people for that.
april
I mean, every—that's every TV writer.
crosstalk
Caroline: That's true. I should— April: That's— Caroline: —just take credit for all of it. April: Take credit! You did a lot of work. Caroline: That's true. I showed up. [April laughs.]
caroline
I mean, that's half the battle.
april
[Laughing] That's half the battle! In addition to television, uh, she's also written studio features and directed short films. Um, and we'll talk about some of that stuff. Writing on studio features, credit, not credit, things that show up on IMDb, things that don't.
caroline
[Laughing] Right.
april
Uh, [laughs] and she's also stepping on set now, though, and is currently setting up her feature directorial debut. Um, which I think is probably going to be a horror comedy, if we're lucky.
caroline
If we're lucky! [Laughing] Yeah!
april
Okay. She is married to fellow filmmaker Drew Goddard, uh, Oscar-nominated writer of The Martian and the director of Cabin in the Woods and several other projects. You may have heard of him, too. They live a glamorous lifestyle together. Um—
caroline
We do.
april
—they live in LA with their three beautiful children. [Caroline laughs.] I added "beautiful" even though that wasn't in the bio, but—
caroline
[Laughing] They are—they're gorgeous.
april
They're gorgeous children.
caroline
I mean, some more than others— [April cracks up.] —but they're all—they have great—they have great personalities.
april
Bringing shame upon the family again!
caroline
[Laughs.] Already!
april
[Laughs.] So, uh, the movie that you chose to talk about today, um—
caroline
Yes!
april
—it's—it's a great one, one of my favorites. And it is, uh, Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock. Can you just tell us all a little bit about why you'd decide to choose that one? Why—or why it's even one of your fave genre films? [April responds emphatically several times as Caroline speaks.]
caroline
It's one of my favorite movies overall, I think mostly because of the way that it looks. It presents this story that is just—almost, like, intoxicating, the way that it's shot, in—in a way that I guess I hadn't seen before. I discovered it later in my life, and it became just sort of one of my favorite, um, sort of aesthetic inspirations, not just for film but also just for clothing, [laughing] and photography, and art, and I just loved it. And I love, um—I love the ending. So it has this ambiguous ending that the first time I saw it, initially made me frustrated. And then the more that I kind of reflected on it and looked at it, the more I appreciated that it had given me that reaction. And I felt like, really inspired by—by what it had done, and I—I mean, I think, you know, we can talk more about sort of other things that have made that choice, but it was the first time I had seen anything like that that affected me so much.
april
Totally. Um, for those of you who haven't seen Picnic at Hanging Rock, today's episode will give you some spoilers, obviously. But that shouldn't stop you from listening before you watch. As always, my motto is that it's not what happens but how it happens that makes a movie worth watching. Still, if you would like to pause and watch Picnic at Hanging Rock, this is your chance.
music
"Doina Sus Pe Culmea Dealului" by Gheorghe Zamfir begins. Ethereal, ghostly wind music.
april
Now let's introduce Picnic at Hanging Rock! Adapted for the screen by Cliff Green from the novel by Joan Lindsay, and directed Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock opens up at the remote Appleyard College in southern Australia, 1900. There, an ethereal girl named Miranda reads poems and gets ready for a picnic outing with her classmates.
clip
Miranda St. Clare: I love thee. Not because thou art fair, softer than down, smoother than air. [Music stops.]
april
But her dear friend Sara is told that she's being reprimanded and isn't allowed to come.
clip
Mlle. de Poitiers: I believe Mrs. Appleyard has decided you're not to go on the picnic, Sara.
april
The headmistress, Mrs. Appleyard, warns the girls that Hanging Rock is a dangerous place. And then they set out on their journey. At Hanging Rock, the girls eat their lunches and lounge in the shade. The buggy driver notices his watch stopped at noon, however.
clip
Ben Hussey: Blowed if me watch hasn't stopped! [Long pause. Someone is speaking in the background, too softly to make out over the sound of crickets.] Ben Hussey: Dead on 12 o'clock!
april
It is as though this place is timeless. Miranda, Irma, and Marion and Edith are given permission to get measurements of the rock, and set out on their own. It's, uh, maybe not something they should have been doing! [Caroline laughs.] They're stretching the rules! They cross a stream and are watched by an English boy named Michael, and an Aussie valet, Albert, where the beautiful Miranda catches their eyes. At the top of the rock, Miranda, Irma, and Marion enter a peculiar cave-like feature after they all kind of fall asleep and then wake up in a weird daze. While Edith protests and shrieks at the top of the—the rock, and—
crosstalk
Caroline: Poor Edith. April: —she can't stop them. Yeah.
clip
Edith: Miranda! MIRANDA, DON'T GO UP THERE! COME BACK! [Edith shrieks, and there is the beginning of an eerie, echoing sound effect.]
april
The girls arrive back at Appleyard hysterical.
clip
Mrs. Appleyard: Mademoiselle, why are you so late? Mlle. de Poitiers: Madame, s-something terrible has happened. Mrs. Appleyard: What? What do you mean? Mlle. de Poitiers: [Whispering] I can't.
clip
Mrs. Appleyard: And where in Heaven's name is Miss McCraw? [Students are gasping and crying.] Mlle. de Poitiers: We left her behind. At the rock. Mrs. Appleyard: You left her behind? Has everyone taken leave of their senses?! [The students get louder.] Mrs. Appleyard: Miss Lumley, get these girls to bed immediately!
april
Miss McCraw has also been left behind, because she went up to try to find the girls. A search party finds nothing, so they go back. Edith says, complicating things, she saw Miss McCraw climbing the rocks—[gasps]—without her skirt!
caroline
Oh my gosh!
april
Okay. So Michael, the English boy, remember him—he becomes obsessed with finding Miranda, and he convinces Albert to take him to the rock so they can search for her. Michael finds a bit of lace after he's left alone on the rock at—uh, overnight. And Albert returns the next day and finds an unconscious Irma. So Irma's dehydrated, her corset is missing—
caroline
[Laughing] Again!
april
—but, you know, the doctor says she has not been defiled. Um, she—or molested, I'm sorry. He says—
caroline
Yeah, "she's quite intact."
april
Yeah. [Laughs.]
caroline
Is how they say.
clip
Dr. McKenzie: I have examined her. She is quite intact.
april
[Laughs.] She can't remember a thing of what happened. Irma becomes a reviled figure because of her memory loss. She visits her classmates to say her goodbyes, but they go apeshit, demanding to know what happened to Miranda and Marion.
clip
[Jaunty piano music.] Edith: Tell us, Irma, tell us! Student: Yes, Irma, tell us! Student: Tell us, Irma, tell us! Student: What happened to Miranda, Irma?! Student: Tell us! Student: You know what happened, tell us! Multiple Students: [All shouting at Irma, difficult to pick out anything but "tell us!"]
april
And Irma must flee. But not before seeing Sara strapped to a strange posture-correcting device. All have gone mad together. People begin to leave Appleyard, and Appleyard herself is running out of money. She tells Sara that her garden—guardian has not paid for her tuition, and so she must go back to the orphanage.
clip
Mrs. Appleyard: And as your fees have not been forthcoming, I have been forced to make, uh, certain arrangements on your behalf. [Long pause.] You will be returned to the orphanage.
april
Sara's body, unfortunately, is found the next morning, dead from suicide. Terrified of returning back to the orphanage. Nearby, and this is a weird thing, too—nearby, Albert tells Michael that he had a dream that his lost sister Sara visited him and said goodbye.
clip
Albert: "Goodbye, Bertie," she says. "Come a long way to see you. And now I must go." She went. Clear through that wall over there.
crosstalk
April: Ooh! Caroline: Yeah.
april
We find out in voiceover that Mrs. Appleyard killed herself at the base of Hanging Rock, and that Miranda and Marion's mystery disappearance was never solved.
crosstalk
April: [Inhales deeply, sighs.] Caroline: Yeah. It's mass—it's mass hysteria, basically.
april
Yeah!
caroline
Ensues after—after the—the picnic at Hanging Rock!
april
Yeah. It doesn't start out that way. It—it's—
caroline
Yeah.
april
—a strange thing. Now, the writer, uh, of this film, um, Cliff Green, he said that the first 20 minutes of this movie were an absolute joy to write.
caroline
[Laughing] I bet they were!
april
That they were so—it was just, like, setting up a mystery, this is what it is, [laughing] and then he said that the last however many minutes of the movie were excruciating.
caroline
Oh!
april
And it was so difficult. It was—he said it was still the most joy that he's ever felt—
caroline
Right.
april
—writing a piece.
caroline
Yeah.
april
But at the same time, it was so difficult.
caroline
I feel like that is standard for me when writing anything. Like, at the beginning, you're like, "I've got it! This is"—you know, you have—
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
—all the hopes of—of what it could be, and then by the middle you're like, "Oh, maybe—maybe I'm falling a little bit off track," and by the end it's just like, "What have I done?"
crosstalk
April: Second act shitting the bed that we all do. Caroline: [Laughing] Second act—the second act shit-the-bed, yeah.
caroline
That— relate to that. [Laughing] I also would say, the beginning of the movie was more fun for him to write because it's just hot chicks everywhere. Like—
april
Mm-hm!
caroline
—like, the sexual tension and the beauty of this girls' school—
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
—which I think is a high school—is—
crosstalk
April: Yeah, they call it a college, but it's— Caroline: A college. April: —it's a high school.
caroline
Yeah. I mean, these women are gorgeous.
april
Yeah.
caroline
It's just you have to be a smokeshow to go to this college, [laughing] and they have just the most incredible hair—the first 20 minutes is sorta them—I don't know, just photographed so beautifully!
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
And kind of showing their life where they all kind of have crushes on each other, and it's Valentine's Day, and they're wearing amazing dresses. It's—it's—yeah. The first 20 minutes are incredible.
crosstalk
April: I—I—yeah. Caroline: I'd say the first 30 minutes, and then I think at 30 is when something, um, untoward begins to happen.
april
Like you're in a different movie, suddenly.
caroline
Yes.
april
But there are things that set you up for that, too, and—
caroline
Yes.
april
—we'll—we'll get into that a little bit. One of the things I wanted to bring up is the fact that, um, the prologue of the book is something that they brought into the movie as well, and it is: "Whether picking—whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. All the characters in this book are long since dead." It's a thing—it's a mystery that has actually never been solved in real life, because Joan Lindsay, who sat down to write the book—she dreamt it, in a series of dreams, as though every scene every single night was being handed to her while she slept. And she awoke, and she wrote until she slept again, and then—so she wrote the book in two weeks. It was—
caroline
As people do.
april
It—yeah! [Caroline laughs.] [Stutters for a moment.] She always had a kind of like a spiritual life, a mystery life. She couldn't—she herself could not wear watches because they stopped on her.
caroline
Oh!
april
Um, she always, she had—would often see people, and other people wouldn't see them, and then she would go and research and those people actually in fact lived there or had a terrif—or horrific thing that happened to them in the spot. So she's—
caroline
Oh.
april
—always been kind of connected in that way, and no one's quite sure if this is just based on a little—few things that have happened, or if she had seen someone coming to her from 1900 to tell her about the strange occurrence.
caroline
Right.
april
But it's a—it's a fascinating thing, and I'm—I—[breaks off, laughing]. [April responds emphatically several times as Caroline speaks.]
caroline
Well, it's funny because I—you know, looking it up, and there was several sort of references to The Blair Witch Project, how that was sort of another time where the creators of a film—and in her case it was a novel, but—have kind of intentionally… built this mystery around whether or not something was real. And of course now you could never do that, because you would just Google, you know, "What happened to April? On this day and this time?" But then, you could really kind of say anything; and the fact that she literally tried, or—I mean, maybe it really was based on something that happened, but she really was kind of building this sense of mystery! And I love that! That she knew that a story of young girls missing on this rock would—and—and giving them really no clear answers about what happened, would intrigue people. And novel or film, it really worked!
april
Yeah. And Patricia Lovell, who is the producer who—she was a—a television personality in Australia, so she found this book, read it, read it in an entire day. Just sat at the kitchen table and read it the entire time. She, too, felt something strange. 'Cause they actually filmed it at Picnic Rock. Or, I—at—
crosstalk
April & Caroline: Hanging Rock.
april
So they—they actually filmed it there, and that was something that—that was—[laughs]. So Patricia herself, she was like, "Okay, watches on me are stopping. Um, things are disappearing, things are being moved. I'm not going to say anything because I don't wanna freak people out." [Laughs.]
caroline
Oh, I did not know that! I loved hearing that, that's amazing! [April laughs.] That the—the rock itself had some magical power, I'm always [laughs] excited to hear about that. If there is a haunted tour of something, if there is a ghost story—
april
[Laughing] Yes!
caroline
—if there is a, you know, [laughing] connection to a horrific event, I wanna go to the place, 'cause I feel like places hold so much energy, and I'd think—
april
Oh, yeah!
caroline
—you know, definitely—you know, Australia has this incredibly complicated and violent history. It's—
crosstalk
April: Yeah, you just watched Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale, too, so— Caroline: [Laughing] I did! I learned a lot!
caroline
And I loved it, and I urge everyone to go see it, not just because it was educating—I got to learn about sort of what had happened, but it was also—it's so—it makes you feel something.
april
Yeah.
caroline
And—it's not necessarily, like, a great feeling; but I always applaud any movie that makes me feel anything, 'cause I'm—
april
[Laughing] Yeah!
caroline
—dead inside. [Both laugh.] So I felt so much when I watched her film! And then to compare it to this, as I happened to watch them in the same week, was so fascinating.
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
Because they're both dealing with sort of the wilds of Australia, but one is from this colonial perspective and one is from more of a, you know, native inhabitant perspective, and—
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
—oh my gosh, it—it couldn't be more different, but yet, kind of weirdly complementary—
crosstalk
April: Yeah, they are! Caroline: —to watch them back to back.
caroline
So yeah. I love that. And I—you know, I told you I loved her [laughing] on your podcast! She was so funny, which I like to see, because that has been my experience in life with—people who make really serious material are often the most delightful in person.
april
Oh, yeah.
caroline
Whereas sometimes people who make really delightful material can be really humorless in person. [April laughs.] So to hear her—
crosstalk
April: They're assholes, you know? [Laughs.] Caroline: They're ass—they're all jerks.
caroline
No, but to hear her be such a pleasure and so funny, and—and yet, I had no idea. I was—well, I mean, I love The Babadook, but I—I've—I had no idea what I was walking into with The Nightingale. And then it was just—it was masterful. It was amazing.
april
That's also—for Peter Weir, every single person, all the interviews that I was looking up with him, they were like—
caroline
Yeah.
april
"He is the gentlest, most funny person to have on set, and he was just—he's just a joy to be around," is what people were saying, you know? The, um—
caroline
That's—
april
—the producers, the McElroys—Hal and Jim McElroy are two producers who came onto this project later. They said that it was one of the things that they—that made them wanna work on this project. More so than even having—not—they hadn't read the book, they didn't know, but they were like, "This is a guy that I would like to be around, and people feel comfortable around him."
caroline
That makes all the—that's everything! I mean, I think the older—I mean, that—that's probably, you know, an obvious thing to say, but the older that you get, the less patience you have for people who are not pleasant on set. And when somebody has a reputation as being a nice person, you think of all the hard stuff that it takes—all the... trauma in going and making a film that—and—I block out—
april
Are you conscious about how you interact with people, knowing that it's like—this is the mood, the atmosphere you're setting for this project? Like when you go into a new writers' room, it's just like—[inhales deeply].
caroline
Yeah! It's—I mean, I always think of, um, being the lowest man on the totem pole, [laughing] and I often still am!
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
So it's not that far removed, but you always try to imagine that when you're the person at the top, you'll set a positive tone.
april
Yeah.
caroline
You know, and some people—I think everyone tries, and then some people are more successful than others, but I always remember the people who were pleasant.
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw fades in.
april
So, uh, we'll come right back and we'll talk a little bit more about the look of the film that Caroline's getting into and kind of melding these periods together, and also, um, a—a curious man named Martin Sharp who pulled this movie together. Okay, we'll be right back.
music
“Switchblade Comb” continues for a moment, then fades.
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music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
Welcome back to Switchblade Sisters. I'm April Wolfe, and I'm joined today by Caroline Williams, and we're talking about Picnic at Hanging Rock. [Music fades out.] I wanted to get into a little bit—oh, I sh—I promised you I'd tell you the wig thing, so I'll tell you a little bit—
caroline
Oh, yeah!
april
—about the costuming. The costuming is really interesting. Um, Peter Weir's wife, who was working on the film—she noticed that the costumes, they did them very period. It was specific. It was exact. It was supposed to be exact what it is, so they were—
caroline
Oh, wow.
april
—a very bright white, but, um, they noticed that for the—the actual look of the film, that the—the costumes couldn't be bright white, because it was just popping too much. You know? There's a softness to the light. So she actually hand-dyed every costume in a light tea dye.
caroline
Oh, wow!
april
So it has just a—a little bit of a staining on it, to—
caroline
Like an antique kind of look.
april
Exactly.
caroline
And I think they—there's something they did to the lens; it said something like they draped a veil, or—
april
Oh, yeah. They did—um—
caroline
—something, 'cause everything is sort of diffused in such a beautiful way that nothing—nothing looks brand new. Nothing looks harsh.
crosstalk
Caroline: You know? April: Yeah. It's— Caroline: That costuming— April: You're exactly right.
april
In fact, uh, Russell Boyd, the DP—it was only his third feature film. He was very worried that— when he told Peter Weir that they would only have an hour of filming every day—
caroline
Oh my gosh!
april
—at Picnic Rock, because the light was only perfectly diffused—'cause they were looking at the Heidelberg School of Painters in Melbourne, and Melbourne is—uh, that school was just, like, the—kind of backlit. Really beautiful soft lighting, um, you know, pastoral scenes, and that's what they were looking for reference, and so Russell Boyd was like—
crosstalk
April: "We've got an hour to shoot with that light." Caroline: Oh, my—that makes sense! April: "I'm very sorry."
april
And so he was like, "I feel like I can use an old camera technique," and they—and they were like, "Okay, fine," so he walked into a bridal shop and he got a bunch of different veils, he brought his wife's, um, you know, nylons with him, he tried a bunch of different stuff. But the wedding veils, there was a—a few different sorts that had different kind of diffusing on it, because they were—you know, like mosquito netting, almost. And that's what they were using to—
caroline
Mm.
april
—to create that effect.
caroline
That is cool! And also the bridal veil, they're so—there is something there, too—
crosstalk
April: Isn't it?! Caroline: —considering there is so much attention [laughs] paid to the fact that these girls are "intact."
april
Yes!
caroline
"Quite intact," is how they say it—
april
Yes!
caroline
—when they are not molested, it's—their—their purity is held up in such high regard, [laughing] and yet all they wanna do is make out with each other—
april
[Laughing] Yeah!
caroline
—it seems like, which is—
april
Yeah!
caroline
—such a—it creates this amazing tension which, you know, clearly resonated.
april
Yeah! It is—everything is a metaphor in the making in this movie.
crosstalk
April: Everything! Caroline: Yeah! Everything!
april
And I'm wondering, like, you know, for a writer, I think that, um—especially a writer who's moving into direction, that kind of thing—uh, people don't normally think about, "Oh, the light will be good at this time."
caroline
Yeah.
april
"Oh, the light will be—" But it is, you know, something to think about in terms of, you know, writing for a certain time of day. Writing, you know—
caroline
Yeah.
april
—for budget constraints, too, you know? Like, what can you get away with writing for a certain time of day? Does it always—
caroline
Right.
april
—have to be, uh, golden hour?
crosstalk
[Both laughing] Caroline: Yeah! April: 'Cause you're never gonna get those shots, you know? [April responds emphatically several times as Caroline speaks.]
caroline
I mean, that's part of the appeal, I think, of directing, is that you have the control to do that! I mean, I think—I didn't, you know, grow up thinking it was ever even possible to direct anything; and even as a—you know, a younger writer, that wasn't really brought up. I think, as a woman, but also as a comedy person—which I don't really consider myself, I just sort of went where the opportunities were—but I feel like having the ability to control the way what you write looks, is a fantasy that I think is achievable, if I try, you know, to make this happen. It's not that I want to, you know, become the best director in the world. It's more just I would love to control what I write and have it be at the time of day that it was in my head, and it's actually a lot harder to do that than—than it sounds, meaning to see your thing to fruition, and especially when you come up in a system where, uh, they bring in the director… It doesn't always seem possible. But I'm—I'm hoping that it will be. You know?
caroline
You just—you just have to sort of start, you know, talking about it as if it's going to happen. You know? And that's—it's the—you know, advice, if anyone ever asked for advice, [laughing] which they rarely do; but you know, you don't say "when I'm gonna be a writer," you say you are a writer. You don't say "when I'm directing," you say you are a director. You have the ability to do this. You just have to, um, make it happen. I feel like, uh, seeing stuff like the visual side of what I'm trying to say is so exciting. You know? And that's part—I think partly why this movie is so appealing to me, is because it's so visual. You know? If you actually start peeling the layers back, there's so much going on, and—and even now, especially after watching Jennifer Kent's work, there's so much even going on—like, layers upon layers. That—that's something that, you know, you wanna explore all aspects of.
april
Uh—I wanna get into this person I mentioned, Martin Sharp. Um, he was the artistic advisor to the director on this movie. Now, let me explain that role, because he's unsung except for when you listen to the interviews. People love Martin Sharp. And you look at his IMDb, and he's like, directed a couple of things, and I don't even know if he's still alive, but—you know, he came from the theatre in the same way that, um, Peter Weir came from the theatre, and Peter Weir's completely—uh, you know, enamored with the way the theatre does things. And so he brought in someone who was essentially his dramaturg. Um, and that's just not something that you would normally have. You know, he kind of folded into the—you know, the art department, um, a little bit, and folded into other areas; but he was never part of one department. He just came on and he oversaw things as the artistic dirvi—uh, advisor.
april
Um, and quote. People said that, um, "Peter felt unthreatened enough that Martin could speak his mind," end quote, meaning that Martin said, "[Sighs]. I don't know. I just—I don't think that that seems right for the period," or "I don't think that seems right for this character or the novel," and Peter would be like, "Oh, okay! Well, let's talk about it. What could be there?" And Peter Weir was very, very concerned with getting the right details. If you notice, every single thing has detail. Um, so this is what, uh, Anne Lambert, who played, um, Miranda—uh, what she said:
april
"Martin had an extraordinary attention to detail, that artist sensibility. You'd go to open a drawer in the—your room, and there would be the things that would be there, and those things would have a charge for you. He fit that into every space. When the girls finally go up into that crevice, too, it was a meaningful moment for us in the filming. It was funny for me, because I—when I went up to that crevice, there was Martin holding his hand up, helping you through to the other side." And so he was apparently—according to everyone, he was obsessed with this book, obsessed with the story; he lived it, breathed it, dreamed it. He always came up with new things, but he was the person who was putting stuff in the drawers that would never be seen.
caroline
Oh, wow.
april
But would—that would make everyone feel as though they were a part of this place. And so he came in, and brought—and created a world.
caroline
That's super cool. That's amazing. Yeah! I mean, that's—what—I would be curious, if he worked with Peter again and again. You know? You—sometimes you hear about these collaborations where people work together and, you know, the director won't continue forward unless they have the okay of this—
april
Oh, yeah.
caroline
—other person. And I just—I—that's really incredible, that you would have such a—um, trust and a bond with someone, and also—
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
—just somebody like that probably doesn't come along—'cause he's clearly not getting all the credit.
april
No!
caroline
And yet he's transformed this experience for the performers and for the viewer.
april
Yeah! He's just—he's—he was in love with the story, and went deeper into it than anyone else had—
caroline
Yeah.
april
—and he—he was just kind of like this, you know, was it Charon crossing the River Styx?
caroline
Yeah!
april
You know? Like, that's—he was just that person, who was gonna—helping them cross over into this more mystical side of the story.
caroline
Right! And well, that scene where they're going into the crevice—
april
Mm-hm!
caroline
—is so mystical! Because that's what it's all leading toward, is this "What happens?" in this—this sort of rocky, um, mesa area.
april
Yeah!
caroline
And they're—that the—I mean, from the beginning of—of our talk, where I was saying it has this ambiguous ending, you know, is it supernatural? Is it, you know, alien? Is it, uh, you know, nature?
april
Mm-hm!
caroline
What is causing all of this—these phenomenon? The strange phenomenon to happen, and that—[laughs] it's—picturing that guy kind of representing whatever it is—
april
Yeah!
caroline
—it was probably helpful to the—to the girls, because then they could say, "Well, this is like—"
april
"You're projecting" or something.
crosstalk
Caroline: Yeah! This is— April: Like, this is an—
caroline
—this is the other side.
april
Yeah.
caroline
Whatever that means.
april
And he saw a—uh, Peter Weir said that Martin Sharp, quote, "He'd seen a structure quite apart from the linear story. The mystical connections in it. Botticelli's Angel and The Birth of Venus. That found its way into the story." So he was drawing these other connections, and of course you see, one of the schoolteachers is, you know, looking at these drawings of, uh, The Birth of Venus, and you get these small details of the story kind of foreshadowing into what's happening. But—
caroline
Yeah.
april
—that wasn't in the script, and that wasn't in there, it was just Martin Sharp coming in and being like, "I see it like this."
caroline
Oh, that's—you know, that's really cool. Because there is a—a weird, um, cross between sort of art and science, where you have the math teacher, and she's looking at the rock, and she's looking at—she's reading some book about, uh, as people do, geometry. [Laughs.]
april
Mm-hm!
caroline
Something about isosceles triangles or something, and then the other French teacher is talking about Botticelli, and they're both looking at this rock, and then ultimately whatever happens at the rock—
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
—seems to be some kind of intersection of—of art and science, or, you know—
april
Oh, yeah.
caroline
—beauty and—and kind of horror at like—they're—whatever happens is—is unexplained, but they kind of give you little clues.
crosstalk
Caroline: You know? Whether it's— April: Yeah! If you're paying attention.
caroline
Yeah! They're sort of—they're suggestions that you can kind of run with, which is why I liked it so much, 'cause then whatever I'm thinking it is—it's like with Blair Witch. Whatever—I remember, you know, when she opens the handkerchief and there's teeth in it or something.
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
Which was so horrifying at the time. And it was so much scarier—seeing a tooth is so much scarier than seeing, like, a whole chopped-up body.
april
Yep!
caroline
Because what you think happened to that person is so much worse—
crosstalk
April: Yeah! We never have any—yeah! [Laughs.] Caroline: —than whatever some old lady in the woods probably did to get that tooth.
caroline
[Laughing] You know? Whatever the case may be!
april
And that's something that, um, that Peter Weir was talking about, too, in terms of, um, mysteries, um, and telling a mystery. Because this is essentially a mystery.
crosstalk
April: You know? Caroline: Yeah!
april
It is, and he said—he was quoting, um, the—the Alfred Hitchcock thing about how mysteries are the worst genre to do, because inevitably the—the solution to it will be absolutely disappointing.
caroline
That makes total sense. And you know, the little details of, like—that they do give you, don't necessarily answer the mystery.
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
But they—they make it feel more real, like how the girls are all—have, um, [laughing] jacked up fingernails—
april
Mm-hm!
caroline
—after whatever they experienced.
april
Yeah.
caroline
And sort of scratched faces, but their feet are clean.
april
Yeah.
caroline
Weird coincidences like that, that—that aren't, like, "Well, A+B=C, so that's the solving of the mystery—"
crosstalk
April: Yeah, it can never be solved. Caroline: It's more just like, "Oh, gosh! These clues are adding up to something amazing!"
caroline
I don't know what it is, but I'm super excited and into it.
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw fades in.
april
We're gonna take another quick break. When we come back, we're gonna get a little more into that experimenting with structure idea, though. Um, so we'll be right back!
music
[Music plays for another few moments, then fades out.]
promo
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promo
Stuart: —Stuart Wellington— Elliott: —and me, America's rascal, Elliott Kalan. Stuart: New episodes every other Saturday at MaximumFun.org, or wherever you get your podcasts, dude. Stuart & Dan: Bye byyye! Elliott: Bye bye! [Cheerful outro music.]
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
Welcome back to Switchblade Sisters! I'm April Wolfe, and I'm joined today by Caroline Williams, and we're talking about Picnic at Hanging Rock. [Music fades out.] Um, I wanted to get further into experimenting with structure, too. Peter said, quote: "It's wonderful to experiment with structure, and I came from experimental the—in the theatre, with writing sketches and trying things out. It was great to do that on film, to get the actor who's willing to try things. You can't do it if your structure isn't strong, though. If it doesn't work, you go home to Mother. That's what I always say. The structure is the safety area. But it shouldn't be rigid. The script should be alive. The cast and crew love that thing. Somebody comes in limping, and then I say, 'My god! That's what's been missing from the character! You should have a limp, of course!'"
april
And that's how they did a lot of this production, you know?
caroline
Yeah.
april
The script was there, and they had his "mother," you know—they had the mother, Cliff Green had, like, written these beautiful things.
caroline
Right.
april
But they experimented, in terms of creating character. But that might be one of the reasons why each character seems so vivid in such a way. [April responds emphatically several times as Caroline speaks.]
caroline
Yeah. Yeah! I think structure is—every writer I think I know bemoans it, and yet, like, it is sort of the foundation. If you can find a way to—to make it enjoyable, which I think is what TV does really well, and it's such a good education in structure, because you actually don't have the luxury of trying to reinvent the wheel. You have to hit these certain marks, and I'm sure the whole time you're like, "Well, if only we could have done this," and "if only we could do this, it would be mesmerizing!" But just knowing how to tell a story under the rules that you're given gives you more freedom to break them, 'cause you know it's worth it. You know? I feel like that's—that—I—I'm glad—I'm happy to have had that experience. You know, 'cause if I'm just presented with a blank page, and say, you know, "Do whatever you want," the pressure is overwhelming. The—the expectation just collapses in on itself like a black hole, and I don't wanna do anything.
april
"Oh yeah, that's great, that's fine."
caroline
[Laughing] Yeah! I mean—
april
That's alright.
caroline
[Laughing] "Fuck it all! Who cares?"
april
Yeah.
caroline
[Laughing] "Why are we even here?" But having the—the structure of television, it gives you the confidence of knowing a story can work, you know, in various ways, as long as you know the ways that are the most effective—
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
—[laughing] historically, you can work around that. But to have, you know, no mid-point or no end of act two, no episode seven out of ten, you're—you're gonna be flailing.
april
Yeah.
caroline
You know? So it just—knowing those rules, it's such a—a obvious statement, but it really helps you.
april
Does it get you excited to maybe move into features so that you could break some more of them?
caroline
Yeah! Except it doesn't seem to be like that's what people are buying.
crosstalk
Caroline: [Laughing] I mean— April: Nooo, but—
caroline
—if you can make—it seems like doing something out of the box is so appealing, and yet there's all these forces that are like, "Well, just do something in the box! Just you get in that box!"
april
Yeah.
caroline
"Box is great!" [Laughs.]
april
Yeah. First feature, just do in the box.
crosstalk
Caroline: [Laughing] Yeah, I—yeah! April: "Get it—get in the box, Caroline! You'll be fine and safe in the box!" Caroline: [Laughing] Yeah! The box is awesome.
caroline
Everyone's rich there. It's so great. [April laughs.] Um—[laughs]. But yeah, obviously coming from TV, you wanna break out! You wanna do something unexpected. The—the filmmakers that I admire are generally people who are not, um—by-the-book people—
april
Yeah.
caroline
—you know? I like—
april
I mean, obviously Peter Weir, if you're like—
caroline
Peter Weir, I—yeah! I actually—Peter Weir, I was think—looking at his list, and I was like, "Wow! I—I didn't know he did The Mosquito Coast." [Laughing] I really liked that movie! Or—
april
Yeah!
caroline
—Dead Poets Society!
april
Dead Poets Society!
caroline
That was amazing! Like, there's so many different directions he went in, which I, uh, you know, it makes me all the more a fan.
april
Mm-hm!
caroline
But you know, for now this current business that we're in—it seems like it's—people are still, you know, there—there's this huge gap between what makes money and what is—I want to see.
april
I wanted to get into a little bit, too, of the idea of experimenting with structure in terms of post-production, too, which is something that, um, is also afforded to, you know, the director. Um, obviously some of your—like a showrunner would be able to do that in TV, but the post-production finding things in the edit is something that Peter Weir loves doing. And according to his, um, producers, Patricia Lovell, Hal and Jim McElroy, the—the way that he worked is he would get so much coverage in a scene—meaning he would have the actors just try something different a lot of the time, you know?
caroline
Yeah.
april
And each time it kind of evoked something different in—in the tone or the mood, and he wanted to have those choices. Like, he wasn't afraid of it. He wasn't afraid of the post-production process, and sitting and like, really kind of crafting what his narrative was. He wanted to have a kind of looser structure so that if, uh, he needed to follow a different story path, then he could actually take that.
caroline
That's—that's something I think is so exciting about directing, and—and definitely about this movie, [laughing] knowing that there's other versions of it—
april
Yeah!
caroline
—that could have been is very cool! Um, yeah, with—generally, setup and payoff, especially with dialogue-heavy things like comedy, you're somewhat limited to what—
april
Yeah.
caroline
—you can do, because—
april
Yeah, 'cause you need that!
caroline
You need to set up the payoff, or you need the payoff or why did you spend the frames setting it up?
crosstalk
Caroline: And I think— April: Absolutely.
caroline
—you know, certain choices of, you know, the camera being on the face and seeing the lips move during a joke, or—
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
—you know, having those restrictions depending on what kind of thing you're doing—that—that's very common in—this movie or potentially things that I would direct, where I would not be restricted in that way—
april
Mm-hm.
caroline
—would be incredibly fun, I think. And maybe more—
crosstalk
Caroline: —dramatic? April: Potentially maddening. [Laughs.]
caroline
Yeah! May—horrible, I guess? But—unless you like your editor, and you like being in a small space with them. [Both laugh.] You just—it's a good time!
april
And there's also, like, you know, when he's talking about, like, that atmosphere stuff, one of the things that he employs in this movie is the use of slow motion. But he said—Peter Weir said his favorite uses of slow motion are not the ones that you notice. So he’s like, you know, fine when, you know, Miranda crosses the stream and it's slow motion—
caroline
Right.
april
—and it's just, like, dreamy. But the way that he wanted to use slow motion was so you couldn't see it. So there's a lot of close-ups of these girls, and those are actually shot in—in slow motion. He just directed them not to blink.
caroline
[Laughing] Oh, wow!
april
He was like, "Please don't blink because it will give it away it's slow motion." But you'll notice that there's something just kind of dreamy and strange, you know, like almost like a—a slow vibrational thing that's happening. And he also filmed the, um, the—the rock, Hanging Rock, while an earthquake was going on, a—a small earthquake, in slow motion.
caroline
Oh, wow!
april
And so there is—it feels like—like you can see it; like, it registers, he said, on the optical scale. But you can't place your [sighs] finger on, like, what's wrong with it. There's just something slightly moving about it.
crosstalk
Caroline: Oh, wow! April: But it doesn't seem like it's slow motion. So I thought that was a really funny and interesting technique that he was trying to— Caroline: That's super cool! I would definitely do it— April: But he's playing with the subconscious, you know? Caroline: He is!
caroline
Well, and there's the one moment that he does fast motion; I think it's only one, but it's like—I think it's bugs?
april
Yeah.
caroline
Ants or beetles or something—
april
Yeah.
caroline
—and suddenly—and obviously there's so much about time in this movie; but making that part of the atmosphere, and… [stutters for a moment] Yeah, it's unconscious. You don't—subconscious, I guess. You're not watching happen, but then afterwards you're like, "That was weird."
april
Yeah.
caroline
"I feel—I feel all weird inside!" [Both laugh.] I love—I love this conversation, it's so much about atmosphere and all these subtextual things, and I'm like, trying to make a connection to—[laughing] to series comedy. [Both laugh.] But if nothing else, I just sort of wanna say, like, you know, just because you're considered—or you are used to doing one thing, that doesn't mean you aren't inspired by, you know—
april
Absolutely!
caroline
—completely the opposite! You know?
april
Yeah! You may be writing, you know, for Modern Family— [Caroline laughs.] —or The Office, but there's—you're at home watching this and being like—
caroline
Exactly!
crosstalk
April: "This is what I wanna make!" Caroline: "This is it," yeah! April: Like, "This is what I wanna do."
caroline
This is—uh, this is—you know, another level that I could only dream of ever, you know, being a part of, so yeah. It's pretty amazing. [Laughs.]
april
I wanna thank you so much for coming in and talking to us, uh, about Picnic at Hanging Rock. And, uh, people can keep an eye out for all of your stuff on... the TV's tubes?
caroline
[Laughing] Yeah! I was gonna say—
april
And—
caroline
Allll the Internets are gonna have, I'm sure, lots of, uh, schedules, and I will keep you abreast. [April laughs.] You can Tweet it, since I don't have a Twitter. [Laughs.]
april
You're Internet-averse, yes. [Both laughing] We'll Tweet it.
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw begins fading in.
april
Alright, thank you so much for coming in today.
caroline
Thank you for having me! It was an honor.
april
And thank you for listening to Switchblade Sisters. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you do, we'll read it on-air. Here's one from LP421. They say, "Oh my god-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. As a lady who loves movies that don't always love me back, it's fantastic to hear women both gush and honestly discuss issues with the genres that are close to my heart. Noir, crime, horror, sci-fi. Also fantastic to hear unapologetic, unblushing, unembarrassed discussions of these genres that are assigned the label of, quote, 'not serious,' though they often allegorically or otherwise deal more honestly with societal problems and offer main roles, though not always flattering ones, to women or marginalized people, than many so-called, quote unquote, 'serious movies.' Plus it gives me such a great movie list to tackle! And I know that they have been vetted by people whose opinions to trust, and April is an amazing interviewer. Switchblade Sister 4-eva!"
april
Okay! Thank you so much for this long and extremely thorough—this is our press packet right here! [Laughing] This is what we should say! Thank you, LP421. Um, if you wanna let us know what you think of the show, you can Tweet at us @SwitchbladePod. Or email us at switchbladesisters@maximumfun.org. And please check out our Facebook group, too. That's Facebook.com/groups/switchbladesisters. Our producer is Casey O'Brien. Our senior producer is Laura Swisher, and this is a production of MaximumFun.org.
music
[Song ends.]
clip
Mrs. Appleyard: Has everyone taken leave of their senses?!
music
[A cheerful guitar chord.]
speaker 2
Comedy and culture.
speaker 3
Artist owned—
speaker 4
—audience supported.
About the show
Switchblade Sisters is a podcast providing deep cuts on genre flicks from a female perspective. Every week, screenwriter and former film critic April Wolfe sits down with a phenomenal female film-maker to slice-and-dice a classic genre movie – horror, exploitation, sci-fi and many others! Along the way, they cover craft, the state of the industry, how films get made, and more. Mothers, lock up your sons, the Switchblade Sisters are coming!
Follow @SwitchbladePod on Twitter and join the Switchblade Sisters Facebook group. Email them at switchbladesisters@maximumfun.org.
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