Transcript
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw. A jaunty, jazzy tune reminiscent of the opening theme of a movie. Music continues at a lower volume as April introduces herself and her guest, and then it 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. Perhaps one that’s influenced their own work in some small way. And you know, for those of you who are listening now, we are social distancing. We’re remote recording, uh, I’m in my bedroom. Chicken is sleeping, so you won’t hear the cat. Um, birds might be around. Audio’s just a little bit different. Um, but you know, most everything is the same, except for our guest today is the wonderful writer, director, actor Lily Mariye. Hi!
lily mariye
Hi, April! I’m so excited to be here. I’m a big fan of Switchblade Sisters. Thank you for inviting me.
april
We are a big fan of you.
lily
Aw, oh my goodness.
april
And—and, you know, let us go back and explain to everyone why we’re a fan of yours with a bio. [Both laugh.]
lily
What a good segway.
april
I know. Born in Las Vegas, Nevada, Lily graduated from UCLA with a BA in theater arts, and went on to appear in many films, such as Extraordinary Measures, The Best Little Whore House in Texas, Mighty Joe Young, The Shadow, The New Age, and The Doctor. She’s guest-starred in over 30 TV shows, including Murder in the First, Criminal Minds, NCIS: LA, Shameless, and had a recurring character on Teen Wolf. But you may probably remember her best as nurse Lily Jarvik on ER, a role she played for all 15 seasons of the show. An anchor, an emotional anchor for the show.
lily
[Laughs] Oh, thanks! Yes. Alright.
april
But around the year 2000, Lily took steps to move behind the camera, writing and directing the shorts Shangri-la Café, Err, and Thumbing It. Shangri-la Café alone played at 25 film festivals, gaining momentum for her to make her 2012 feature directorial debut, Model Minority, starring Nichole Bloom, who I love in the show Superstore, and I was so happy to see her in Model Minority. You know, you found her when she was kind of just starting, and—
lily
I was—yes. Yes. Yeah.
april
Um, it’s, uh—it’s a very different role for her, too, ‘cause it’s a gritty and frank coming-of-age drama. Um, that film became a launchpad for Lily’s television career, and now she’s directed episodes of Criminal Minds, NCIS: Los Angeles, MacGuyver, The Fosters, The Enemy Within, Nashville, How To Get Away With Murder, Prodigal Son, Stumptown, Just Add Magic, and The Terror: Infamy. Basically, she’s making the rounds. [Lily starts laughing.] She’s doing the things. She’s on TV. [Joins in laughter.]
lily
I’m—I’m dipping into all the genres.
april
A renaissance woman.
lily
Aw, thanks.
april
Um, so Lily, the movie that you chose to talk about today is Truly, Madly, Deeply. Can you give us a little explanation on why this is one of your fave genre films?
lily
Um, when I first saw it, I saw it in an art house, and um, I just fell in love with it. I, um, I loved the writing, of course, Anthony Minghella. Um, I loved Juliet Stevenson, and Alan Rickman. Um, and I just loved that it was a ghost story without being scary, and that it um, it felt very—it felt very spiritual. It felt very um, em—of course, it’s very emotional. And it just felt—it felt almost like a theater piece on film, which I think, you know, ‘cause he was a playwright, and that was his first uh, film. Um, I—I found all this out later, but you know, it all made sense, and it just—it touched me in a way that um, even huge, three hundred million dollar films often don’t.
april
Yeah. Um, an dI think, you know, obviously it hearkens back to the first thing you mentioned, Juliet Stevenson, and Alan Rickman, and you know, the technique of allowing these actors to kind of be and live in the space. And we’ll get into all of that, because the discussion on you know, how he made this film is so wonderful. But, for those of you who haven’t seen Truly, Madly, Deeply, 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 Truly, Madly, Deeply right now, this is your shot.
music
Sonata No. 3 for Cello (Viol de Gamba) & Piano, 2nd Movement Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, 1st Movement, Sarabande, Keyboard Concerto No. 7, Andante Written by Johann Sebastian Bach (as J.S. Bach) Arranged by Barrington Pheloung (T/N: yeah, I don’t know how to format this at all…)
april
Now that you’re back, let me introduce Truly, Madly, Deeply. Written and directed by Anthony Minghella for release in 1991, Truly, Madly, Deeply stars Juliet Stevenson as Nina, an interpreter who’s just moved into a new flat, that’s unfortunately infested with rats. She spends her days surrounded by jovial men who want to cheer her up and entertain her, including Titus, a Polish handyman who’s one of many here to fix her rat and plumbing problems.
clip
Titus: Nina, you are the only beautiful woman I've met in London. Nina: Absolutely right. It’s got nothing to do with the drink. I am the only beautiful woman in London.
april
Despite their best efforts, Nina is truly—[Chuckles] Sorry, Nina is still deeply grieving the loss of her partner Jamie, played by Alan Rickman. Nina goes to a therapist, talks about Jamie and her anger over his sudden, tragic loss, and how she hears him talking to her, reminding her to close the door, even speaking to her in Spanish. She just cannot let go.
clip
Nina: I would have been feeling low. You know, very low and hopeless, and then he’s there. His presence. And it’s okay, it’s fine. And he tells me he loves me. … And then he’s not there anymore. Burge: And then how do you feel? Nina: Okay. Fine. Well, I feel looked after, I suppose. Watched over.
april
Then one day, as Nina plays the piano, she imagines Jamie playing duet with her on his cello, but realizes it’s not her imagination anymore. Jamie is actually there, and he’s cold and grumpy. The two of them fall into familiar, loving rhythms, with Nina disappearing into her joy.
clip
Nina: But dying… actually dying, what’s it like? Jamie: Times were right. It was a general anesthetic, I didn’t know. Nina: Oh. [Sniffles] I’m serious. Jamie: So am I. And I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t die properly. Maybe that’s why I can come back.
april
She returns to work a few days later a happier woman, but that happiness soon begins to wear away. Jamie begins inviting some of his ghost pals over to the house without Nina’s permission.
clip
Jamie: Listen, sweetheart, don’t get… uh, some of the guys wanted to come back and just watch a couple of videos and— Nina: What guys? Jamie: Friends. Some friends. Nina: Dead friends? Jamie: I don’t know. I suppose so, yes. Nina: You’re telling me that there are dead people in my living room watching videos? … Well, I mean, aren’t these videos available wherever they are normally? Jamie: Look, if it’s a problem, these are my friends, Nina. No, okay, I’ll send them away, sure. Nina: No, it’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. Jamie: I’d forgotten you could be like this. Nina: Be like what? Jamie: Doesn’t matter.
april
He turns up the thermostat, moves the furniture, even packs away a prized object Nina put out, which she never could have had out when Jamie was around. With Jamie’s ghost friends around, playing music, watching movies on end, Nina finds comfort outside of the house though, hanging with Maura, a single, pregnant Argentine immigrant learning English. On one such outing, she meets a charismatic psychologist, Mark, who captures her attention. Nina even accepts a date with him, where they hop along the Thames and get to know one another.
clip
[Sounds of shoes scuffing.] Mark: Okay, okay, look. This is what we do. I tell you everything about my life between here and that statue there. Do you see it? And then you tell me yours, okay? And we hop, of course. No lies from the speaker, no interruptions, no questions from the listener. And we’re off. Mark Damian de Grunwald, 32 next birthday, born Budleigh, Salterton. A capricorn. I don’t believe in that. Star signs, I mean. Parents, alive, retired. Father, silent, practically completely silent. Uh, 18 years older than my mother, who is not completely silent. [Nina laughs.]
april
But she returns to Jamie, and it becomes more and more evident that they actually aren’t a good match. After an emotional scene reciting a Pablo Neruda poem, Jamie agrees to leave.
clip
Jamie: Si tú no vives. Nina: I know this poem. If you are not living. Jamie: Si tú, querida, amor mío, si tú te has muerto. Nina: If you, beloved, my love, if you have died. Jamie: Todas las hojas caerán en mi pecho. Nina: All the leaves will fall on my breast.
april
Nina goes to Mark, and they go on a proper date, and when Nina comes home, Jamie is gone. As Nina leaves her home to embrace Mark, we see Jamie and his ghost friends stifling a tear, knowing his work is done, and that Nina will move on. And that’s the end.
lily
Wow! That was a beautiful description of the movie
april
Thank you Lily! [Lily laughs.] Um, I wanted to start this, um, with talking about the—the idea that Anthony Minghella wrote this specifically for his actors, you know.
lily
Yes.
april
[Lily affirms multiple times.] He’d been working in the theatre and this is something he brought up before like, these are, like—its a company essentially, you know, it’s a theatre troupe— —in that, in that respect. And so, he said, quote: “I’d written this for Juliet, she does speak Spanish, does sing and dance and I wanted to exploit all of her skills, she actually plays the piano too, she's an enormous, enormously generous and good human being, very smart and very funny, and I felt like a tailor writing the film for her, it was one of the simplest projects because it was a group of collaborators and a wonderful sense of family in making the film.” End quote. Uh, and that's kind of the basis for this whole thing. This jump—him jumping into film is that he's surrounded by these people that he knows, and he's writing these specific parts for, and catering towards their talents. And I think that's just such a wonderful thing that when you are a writer-director you get to do that. Now you have done both writing, directing, um, you know, with your movie, but then when it comes to TV you can't necessarily do that. Like you're still trying to maybe, um, cater to your actors strengths but you can't do that. And I was hoping you could maybe, help talk about that and address what that means and how great it is to be able to find some of these hidden talents you get to exploit.
lily
Um, yes, I mean I think that anytime I work with an actor, you know if I'm in prep, I’m looking at the script over and over again, figuring out how I’m going to shoot it, you know, trying to think of transitions, trying to do all the things a filmmaker does in prep. But I would say every single time I work with—or I've had the chance—to work with a brilliant actor, um, he or she always brings something that I didn't imagine or couldn't imagine when, you know—once I get to the set. It’s that, it’s that—that always excites me when I start shooting, um, to see that—to see the difference between writing something for someone and knowing that they're gonna—they're gonna say it the way you hear it— [April agrees.] —or even, if you like for instance with Nichole Bloom after I’d written this Model Minority, and she came in to read for it, she read it the way I heard it in my head, and it's not very often when you hear that and I, I always know when I find the right actor because [Laughs] Istart to tear up a little bit. Even when I’m casting television, if the right actor comes in—I just have such a respect for acting that when someone comes in, and—and they're bringing this script to life in a way that I—I didn't even hear when I read the script, um, it just feels like you're connecting to the universe. I mean, it's just overwhelming, that feeling. So I, even with television, try to do that when I’m casting guest stars, but I also feel like when I’m working, when I've had the chance to work with some amazing actors like Viola Davis or Martin Sheen, just that—you know what it’s like. Someone once said to me, “It's like playing a Stradivarius isn't it?” And it's like, yes, it is. It’s like you normally play this instrument, but now you've got this fantastically expensive, one of a kind piece in front of you, and it's playing in a way that you couldn't even imagine.
april
I think—I mean in this too, Anthony Minghella, he had said that when he was writing this, his writing was changing, how he was writing dialogue, his ear for dialogue was changing. [Lily affirms.] And so, it was so special. First off, Juliet Stevenson being able to say those things, but he also said for Michael Maloney who played Mark, quote: “Michael has a perfect ear for fractured dialogue. At this time, I was absolutely obsessed with how writing dialogue for human beings to say. For contemporary characters, you actually analyse their dialogue. There's no real syntax, clauses and subclauses jam up against one another, often unfinished, ideas annihilate previous ideas in the middle of the sentence. My writing became increasingly hard to read, but then Michael hears it perfectly, and when it's done you feel like it's being improvised you train yourself as a writer to never write a sentence.” End quote.
lily
That's great.
april
And I think that's kind of getting at what you’re talking about. Just like, you have these high hopes when you're writing something and you're—you're like, “Well, maybe they can find it.” And sometimes you audition an actor who can't quite find it, and you're like, “Well, maybe I'm the problem,” you know? [They both start laughing.] And sometimes that's true—
lily
It's not maybe, April, it's always I think I'm the problem.
april
But when you find the actor who kind of connects with your voice and hears dialogue in the same way that you hear dialogue, I think that that's a—I mean, have you had that experience as an actor, too? Of being like, “Oh, this is a person who writes for me in a way that I hear dialogue”?
lily
Yes, absolutely. I did a play called Tea in New York at the Manhattan Theatre Club, and it was that same sort of thing where I... it sounded like me talking rather than dialogue that I was going to have to parse out and make sound natural and normal, and like something I hadn't planned to say. And I—you know, sometimes when I coach or even direct actors, I think, when we talk as human beings, we don't like, sink into each emotion as we say the sentence. We like—we flip on each emotion, and we go—and it was something that Anthony Minghella would say, that we go from emotion to emotion to emotion to thoughts, and sometimes the thoughts interrupt each other. And as—as an actor, as a writer, that's what you wanna write. But as an actor, you have to do the same thing. You can't like, sit selfishly in an emotion and then go to the next emotion. It has to be something that flows naturally and bounces off each other, the way your brain works. Your brain has millions of synapses going on at once, and each one does not luxuriate as it comes in, it bangs off each other, and that's the way you have to deliver dialogue as an actor. And as a director, I have to try and help you, as an actor, find that.
april
Okay, well try to help me, what—what would you say to me?
lily
I would say—I would say you have all the right thoughts and emotions and feelings, but don't sit in them. Take each one and let it bounce off each other. Don’t—don't luxuriate in them. Go, go from one to the next to the next to the next. Trust yourself. I see that you have all the right—you're doing all the right things. Trust yourself that you don’t have to show me each one. [Snapping fingers] That it can go, that it can snap along. [April affirms.] Sometimes that's what I say when I try to get you to go faster, too. [They both laugh.]
april
Instead of saying go faster, you're like, “If you could maybe flit along like a butterfly, like…” [April breaks off, laughing.]
lily
Right, just trust yourself! You're doing it, you've got all the right thoughts and feelings, just let them happen, you know? Let them happen the way they would naturally would happen.
april
I think we should say, in terms of trusting ourselves, there's really a lot of great stuff in the, um, the commentary of Truly, Madly, Deeply about Anthony Minghella trusting himself that he could figure some things out. There’s one quote, he said, quote: “I'm ashamed to say—and I believe this to be a magical thing rather than a failure—I knew this was a required scene in the film when they both confront that it would be better if he left at the end. I knew it would be translating the poem, and I didn’t know what poem it would be. And then I went to my Neruda, and I found within a page this section of the poem. I just knew that if i looked at it, it would be there. I've done that so much. If you're on the right track, I believe that everything will be waiting for you to use it.” End quote. [Lily agrees. April laughs.] You're like—she's sitting here nodding her head like, “Oh god, yes.”
lily
I mean, that’s—that’s one of my—that’s one of my—my favorite quotes of his, you know? And I feel like—I mean, I was so sad when he passed away, ‘cause I always thought—I—I feel like—I feel like a kindred spirit with him. I feel like he understood, and he works in the same way that I do, you know? That he talks about being open and like, witnessing everything that you're writing, or everything that's coming to you. And that you just—you just take it in, and you show it outwardly. And it's that same—it’s that same feeling of, yes, it's all there, you just—it’s, um—there's a—one of my acting teachers, Jack Plotnick, talks about the difference between, um, any actor in the world and Meryl Streep. And it's not that her technique is that much better than yours. She has something—she has something that you don't in that she doesn't block herself. She just—she learned how to just open the floodgates, and be receptive to the thing that Anthony Minghella was talking about. That everything is there for you. It's you who blocks yourself, and that if you can open up to see it, to witness it, to be there for it, that art and music. And, you know, for him to have been a musician—he talks about that in his commentary—it wasn't a surprise that he can do many different things. That he can be a—that he is a musician, but that and he is a writer, and he is a director. That, you know, that he's just open to everything, and that it all—that he's just able to open the gates and let it in, in whatever form it comes to him.
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
Uh, we’re gonna take a quick break. When we come back we’ll talk a lot more Truly, Madly, Deeply, we’ll be right back! [Music ends.]
promo
Music: Sophisticated electronic/string music. Teresa McElroy: Shmanners. Noun. Definition: rules of etiquette designed not to judge others, but rather to guide ourselves through everyday social situations. [Music stops.] Travis McElroy: Hello, internet! I’m your husband host, Travis McElroy. Teresa: And I’m your wife host, Teresa McElroy. Travis: Every week on Shmanners, we take a look at a topic that has to do with society or manners. We talk about the history of it. We take a look at how it applies to everyday life. And we take some of your questions. And sometimes, we do a biography about a really cool person that had an impact on how we view etiquette. [Music fades back in.] Travis: So, join us every Friday and listen to Shmanners on MaximumFun.org, or wherever podcasts are found. Teresa: Manners shmanners. Get it? [Music ends on a bright chord.]
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
Welcome back to Switchblade Sisters. I’m April Wolfe, and I’m joined today by Lily Mariye, and we are talking about Truly, Madly, Deeply. So, one of—you know, we talked ab—about trust, and I—I wanna talk a little bit more about, um, trust in terms of being on set, trusting your collaborators, trusting that, you know, like there’s an—a larger world for you. Um, and uh, for Anthony, you know, we were talking about how he comes from a theatre background, and he wasn’t completely aware of everything that you could use as a filmmaker. [Lily hums in affirmation.] You know, he—he kind of criti—criticizes himself when he looks at this film sometimes, talking about like, “Oh, it’s just recording performances.” But there was also, you know, a nice learning experience that you can kind of see that he points out shots in the commentary, like, “This is the one I realized this, this is the one I realized this.” But he said, quote: “I didn’t trust any shot that was wide. It all looks so tight to me now though. It’s the joy of the film that relies on the actors’ expressions. It wants to get in tighter and tighter. If I hadn't had some modulation from Remy—” his cinematographer, “—I think it would all be a face, nobody at all.” [Both laugh.] “Since I’ve gotten bolder as a filmmaker. It’s what you can put in the frame, what you can see in the background of shots, using the various planes of view behind a butt, a body or a head. This movie is just recording performances, though. But they’re wonderful performances. “For many people, this is still the best wo—piece of work I’ve ever done, so there’s no correlation between skill and technique and experience. The work is some strange alchemy of the time and collaborators and idea, and the idea is a very strong one here. It’s a true one, one that’s come out of a genuine regard for a person and a partic—particular time and place.” So, I mean, he’s got so much humility, uh, for working on this first film and knowing that, like—he’s—he knows how to work with actors, he knows how to write, he already knows these things. But he has the humility about the other, um, the other tools of a filmmaker, and that it takes a little time. But, you know, he’s so talented that he could get by on the other things, and kind of learn a little bit as he went along. And, um, I think that’s funny, cause when I watch it now, I’m just like, “Oh, that’s right, there are quite a few tight shots in this.” There’s like, a lot of—
lily
[Laughing] I know, I thought that too! I thought that too. There’s another—there’s another scene where he talks about—it’s where they’re jumping on one foot, and—and— [April affirms.] There were two things about that scene. He was saying, you know, the exposition is always difficult because, you know, you’re just like vomiting facts out. And he made up this little game for them to hop on one foot, and tell their story until they got to the tube stop. Um, and then he did a—I don’t know if you heard him say that apparently, you know, the—the culty fans would wear t-shirts with—with their pictures on them, and then hop on the south bank, which was right in front of the National Theatre there, up to the tube stop—[She breaks off, laughing.]
april
Which I love! I s—I heard that, and I was just like “that is so sweet, for a film like this.” To—I mean, like, it’s not Harry Potter. It’s a romantic drama ghost story, you know? It’s like someone doing that for, like, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. [Both laugh, and April laughs a second time as she continues talking.] Like, planting a monkey puzzle tree for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, like, that’s a—that’s such a weird thing.
lily
It is a weird thing! But it’s lovely, and it’s lovely that he, like, doesn’t think it’s weird. He thinks it’s sweet, and wonderful.
april
Yeah! And he embraces it. And—and I think there’s, um—but I—I do think he is correct, in—in that quote that you brought up, too, ‘cause he said quote: “One of the difficult things to write is exposition. It’s an explanation of where they come from, and who they are, and you’re always trying to bury exposition. And I had the idea not to bury it, and to make it a game.” And that—I think that that’s a—an interesting thing, because yes, as, you know, writers we do try to bury exposition. You do have to kind of, like, hopefully—maybe it’s, like, in a mannerism or a piece of set design, or something that can tell you about—
lily
Or—or a little kid comes in and starts asking questions.
april
Exactly! [Lily laughs.] And you’re just—and it’s—it’s like, always contrived. No matter what we do it’s just—feels so contrived. And then he’s like, “you know what? Yeah, contrivance? Sure. Lean into it.” Like— [Both laugh.] It’s a game! This is what it is. He just—and I appreciate that, so much.
lily
Me too. And I—I love that scene. Also, he talks about how, you know, he said, “If I were shooting it today, with all the money that I would get for a film, it would take me three days to shoot it, because I would wanna shoot at exactly the same, like, portion of time, so the lighting was exactly right every day.” [April hums in affirmation a few times while Lily is talking.] But because he didn’t have any money, he had to shoot the whole thing all in one day. And he said you—if you look carefully, the top of the scene was about 11 a.m., so the light’s one way—you know, looks one way, and by the time they got to the end of the scene he said it was nine or ten o’clock at night, and they were like, pulling up a thousand lights to try to make it look like 11 a.m. But he said, “When you look at it you realize it doesn’t. It doesn’t look like 11 a.m.” But, he said, “If people are—” and I never noticed it. And he said, “If the story’s strong enough, and the acting’s strong enough, and—and you’re riveted on—” and I’m paraphrasing, but, “—if you’re riveted on what the characters are saying and doing, you won’t notice all the things that as filmmakers we go crazy about. Ah! We’re losing the light, the light looks different behind her head now than it did back there!” And if—if it’s all those things that—I think, as a director, when I heard him say that I thought, that—that actually gives me more confidence to make mistakes that stay in the film, or the TV show. And people don’t really notice, if the story’s strong enough and your actors are strong enough.
april
Uh, you had mentioned before, the idea that that story kind of gives you more confidence, when you go on set. And I wanna talk about confidence, and projecting that, especially when you are a debut filmmaker, in a feature. [Lily affirms with a hum.] Because, um—and I’m sure you remember the story, I thought this was really heartening, the one that Anthony Minghella told about his first day shooting on set. He said, quote: “The very first day of shooting I drove my car to the set, to the car park at Heathrow near to where we were shooting. The first AD then came onto set and said, ‘Whose car has all the doors and its trunk open?’ And I was so nervous that I’d taken all my bags and left everything completely open, abandoned. What hasn’t changed is I will never approach any day of shooting without feeling nauseous and like I couldn’t do it. I still get sick to my stomach seeing all the campers and people who have to work with you. I just remember the humiliation of having to go back and close all the doors, revealing how nervous I was.” [Lily laughs.] So one of the—that’s one of the reasons I wanted to bring that up, is because before we started recording, Lily, uh, rushed to put on some lipstick. And I love that, because she—we were like, “Oh, lipstick, um, you know, like, we’re not recording this,” and what did you say? You said…
lily
I said, um, I started wearing, like—I always have lipstick with me, and I started doing it mostly because, um, well, one of my mentors, Lesli Linka Gladder, always puts lipstick on and she’s very feminine, and always said to me—you know, at one point I said,”I’m going to be a director now, do I have to be, ike, macho, do I have to be like—present myself like a man on the set to, you know, have authority?” [April hums affirmatively.] And she’s like, “Absolutely not. You just show up as yourself.” And, um, and then I read an article, um, about Anne Fontaine, who had directed Coco Before Chanel, and she said that lipstick always makes her feel like, um, like that’s her—not so much her shield, but that it’s—it sort of gives her power on the set. And she even said what kind of lipstick she used, so— [Both laugh.]
april
Oh my God. You’re—do you have it? Is that what you’re holding up? I love it.
lily
So I bought this, yes. And it’s got a mirror, in the lipstick, and then you put it together like this. And I love it cause it sort of looks like a weapon.
april
It does, yeah.
lily
[Laughs] But I never forgot that. I thought, “Wow, you’re right.” You know? You’re talking, and people are looking at your mouth, ‘cause you’re talking.
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
Yeah, it’s just like, look at my mouth, here it is.
lily
Look at my mouth, here it is, and it’s— [April laughs.] It’s coming at ya.
april
We’re gonna take a quick break, we’ll be right back to talk a little bit more Truly, Madly, Deeply.
promo
Music: Relaxing ukulele music. Manolo Moreno: Hey, you've reached Dr. Gameshow. Leave your message after the beep. [Music stops.] [Beep!] Sara: Hi. This is Sara, and I'd like to tell you about Dr. Gameshow. Dr. Gameshow is a band of geniuses, or nerds, or brilliant artists, or kids, or some combination of all of those who get together to make a show like no other that's family-friendly. It's an interactive call-in gameshow podcast. When I found Dr. Gameshow, I found joy. I told my friends and family that if they weren't listening, they were wasting joy. I sent them the episodes that made me laugh until I cried, played it for them in the car. They laugh, too! Laugh their butts off. But they still don't listen on their own, so they're wasting joy. And I keep looking for someone to understand me. Maybe it's you! Give Dr. Gameshow a listen, and find joy. [Beep!] [Music resumes.] Jo Firestone: Listen to Dr. Gameshow on Maximum Fun. New episodes every other Wednesday. [Music fades out.]
music
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
Welcome back to Switchblade Sisters. I’m April Wolfe, and I’m joined today by Lily Mariye, and we are talking about Truly, Madly, Deeply. Um, so, you know, we’ve talked a lot about production, but I would love to talk about the fact that, um, when you’re shooting your first feature, it’s so kind of daunting to not really know how it’s gonna show up in the edit room. And that was something that, um, was kind of uh, a bane of, uh, Minghella’s existence, uh, of making this movie, cause he just—you know, he didn’t know. [Lily affirms.] And, um, you know, for him it was about finding the rhythms of scenes, and um, for him it was also about lack of coverage, and not being able to—to find those things. So he said, quote: “Um, the scene—” and this is the—specifically the scene where they’re in like, a laundry room, and they're kind of like, catching up, and they’re just like—you know, it’s just like, emotional. It’s like, right after they had to, you know, come together. He said, quote: “The scene has some very clever editing. Who had to constantly—the editor had to constantly struggle with the lack of material. There’s no coverage, and there’s a very unhappy cut of a two-shot to a two-shot. The reason you have coverage in movies is because the rhythms you have when shooting is not the same when you’re cutting. “Perhaps an actor needs an enormous amount of time to generate a line, but in metabolising the film, you want the scene to be faster or slower. If you can’t go to another shot, you’re forced to stay on the shot, which means you can’t control the music of the scene. If you’re only—if you’ve only got two shots to choose from, you can only cut between them. If you only have one, you’re locked into the rhyme of the day you shot it.” End quote. I’m curious, you know, like what’s your experience with that, of, you know, trying to find ways to alter the rhythm. Maybe coming up against a roadblock, or feeling like, “Oh, we’ve got it” on the shoot day, then being like, “That doesn’t actually work in terms of the whole piece globally.”
lily
Yes. Um, I mean, really my film school, other than uh, AFI, was ER. The set of ER. And um, ER, because of our directors, had developed this style, and a lot of it was one-ers, with steady cam, just one continuous shot for like, four pages. And so, to me, that didn't seem scary. That didn’t seem uh, you know, not doable. And so I—and a lot of, I would say, pretty much most everything I direct, I will have a steady cam shot to take you from one thing to the other. Um, and so uh, it’s—sometimes in terms of rhyme, it—it works. And sometimes you’ve got too much shoe leather coming from one thing to the other, which sometimes doesn’t really matter. But um, especially with television it—every second counts. Every frame counts, ‘cause you’re trying to cut to 42 minutes. So, I’ll shoot a one-er, and sometimes if it, you know, if it—if I’ve got a showrunner who is giving me carte blanche, or if I got really lucky and this one-er is just fantastic, the whole thing will just stay in. Um, but uh, often times I'll do a one-er, and then I’ll stop, and if I were making a film, I would just leave the one-er in, but with television, I will stop—I’ll do the one-er as many times as I need to—
april
Get your master, yeah.
lily
And then I’ll get—and that will be my master—and then I'll get tighter coverage, if in the one-er we've stopped to have a conversation and then we go and we have another conversation. When I'm there and when I see it, I—I’ll prep it, thinking, “Well, maybe we have to do this, this two conversation, and we have to do it when these three people talk.” But, mostly what happens is, once I watch the rehearsals and once I watch the master, uh, one-er then, I'll say, “Okay, we need to cover this, we need to see the—we need to see, you know, inserts of the cut, we need to whatever it is, we’ll need to—”
april
Whatever you need to draw attention to, yeah.
lily
—right, um, and I—if I—if I need to, I'll put it in. Usually I try to get away with it and not put in to my cut. [Laughs] And then when I see that TV, I see that, you know, they've added a few, uh, pieces of coverage. But usually they're pretty good about not messing with it too much, ‘cause one-er, a one-er in an of itself is—is beautiful to watch, and there's a rhythm to it that you don't want to cut into too much.
april
And speaking of that, too, I think it's—it's good to talk about transitions in scenes. And how to—how to really create some successful ones. ‘Cause I think that—something that I thought really fascinating in that commentary track is that Minghella was talking about the, um, the fact that he didn't really understand transitions, because from a theater background you're not really thinking about that necessarily. It’s like performance carries to performance, you fade out, you know? Like, there’s—there’s like, the light dims and the curtain comes, right? But for him, you know, he was talking about, there's a moment where, uh, Nina’s in the backyard area, and she’s like hanging out the sheets, and there's just a really lovely transition, where he realized when he was shooting. He said, quote: “The transitions of the sheet to her face was the first time I understood that you can make lyrical transitions become devices. You have to—you have to have more time than I had to find those transitions though. The flapping a sheet is also a ghost of course.” End quote. [Lily affirms.] Um, and I think that's really that's lovely thing, and you can see sometimes that the transitions in this—in this movie are a bit more rudimentary. You know, you're like, “Well! Here's a scene and then here's another scene!” [They both laugh.] But the times when he does do it, you know, like the sheet, I think he's—there's a deliberateness to it that I find really elegant. There's always something very elegant in the way that he's making these movies, but specifically these transitions. And then later on, you go and watch The English Patient and you're just like, transition, transition, transition, you know? Like, these are amazing things, you know?
lily
Right, right. Um, you know I—I try to plan as many transitions as I can, and sometimes when I'm shooting, I see—I see, “Oh, here's a good transition.” But I always alert everyone. I don't just tell the DP, I tell everyone in the room, [Clapping rhythmically] “This is the end of act three! And I need a good out!” And uh, I swear to god, by telling the whole room, everyone like, gets excited. [April affirms] And they're like, “How can we do this? What can we do?” And it, you know, many brains are better than just my one little one, and I always find a great transition. And sometimes—sometimes I'll have several transitions, like, they'll be like, “We can transition off this, we can transition from him, we can transition,” so everybody is working on a transition for me. And then I have an embarrassment of riches in editing. Like, I'm like, “Ugh, do I want that one? Do I want that one?” But it's good! It also teaches me, ‘cause you know—and Anthony Minghella talks about this—that no matter how—and, I'd I've heard other directors say this—no matter how many films you've directed, your crew has been doing their jobs longer than you. So, they—they know—they just know more, and you really just have to lean on them. And so I've learned more, I've learned to lean on them, um, as much as I can, and um yeah. So they're—I've always—I always enlist everyone, because we’re making this, we’re doing this together, you know? This is--this is a collaborative art, and I want everyone’s—and I want everyone's thoughts. One of my mentors said if the craft service guy gives you a good idea, take it, because in the end your name’s on there, and you'll get the credit. You'll get the blame if it doesn't work, but you'll also get the credit if it works, and it's up to you to see what is a good idea.
april
Yeah, and then when you go get a snack later on you can be like, “Todd, it didn't work. [Laughing] It did not work!”
lily
“Gimme another idea because that one didn't work!”
april
Come on! [They both laugh] Um, Lily, I wanna thank you so much for coming on the show and selecting such a great film.
lily
Oh, thank you April!
april
Um, could you tell people how could they watch Model Minority?
lily
Model Minority is available on Amazon, um, and about ten different other platforms. You can find that on it’s, uh, Model Minority has a Facebook page. It's been—it's on like, twelve different platforms, and um—
april
Alright, so search it out on VOD.
lily
Yes.
april
And any of the shows you direct, they're all over the place, you know. Maybe go take a look back at The Terror Infamy, uh, and—
lily
I directed episode five of The Terror Infamy.
april
You've got—I think you still have a few episodes coming out of, um—
lily
I, um, my last two episodes I directed before the pandemic were, uh um, “Prodigal Son” and “Councils of Dads”.
april
Wonderful, so seek those out. Look for Lily's name. And thank you so much for coming on the show today!
lily
Oh, thank you, April, this was a joy. I really enjoyed this.
april
And thank you for listening to Switchblade Sisters. If you want to let us know what you think of the show, you can tweet at us @SwitchbladePod or email us at SwitchbladeSisters@maximumfun.org. Please check out our Facebook group. 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 fades.]
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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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