Speaker 1: Hello and welcome.
Speaker 2: My name is Joel Monique and I'm Carmen Lalan.
Speaker 3: And welcome to x Ray Vision Extras and Xtra Vision series,
Speaker 3: where we died deep into even more of your favorite shows, movies,
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Speaker 3: and our rotating panel of producers and guest hosts will
Speaker 3: be submitting to help Jason and Rosie cover all of
Speaker 3: the amazing nerd content out there.
Speaker 2: We're back today with a new series of extras in
Speaker 2: preparation for the highly anticipated Nose Fit upo by these
Speaker 2: two horror girlies, myself and Joelle, and we're going to
Speaker 2: be recapping the filmography of Robert Eggers and talking about
Speaker 2: him as a director. Thus and today we're starting with
Speaker 2: his first feature length film.
Speaker 1: The Witch. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: The Witch is a film that follows Tomlinson, a girl
Speaker 3: whose parents traveled to the New World to start over,
Speaker 3: and as she is kicked out of the community with
Speaker 3: the rest of her family because their father is a
Speaker 3: street preacher who is loud and annoying and when they
Speaker 3: asked him to calm down, he said, I'd rather live alone,
Speaker 3: and she said, and.
Speaker 1: So has no choice.
Speaker 3: They got to the woods to try to conquer nature
Speaker 3: in the ways of all white men.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't go well.
Speaker 3: You know, the crops they don't grow, the animals mean
Speaker 3: as hell, and then the family starts to turn on
Speaker 3: each other and that's pretty brutal. And mostly they're angry
Speaker 3: at Tomlinson for bizarre reasons. You know, the sun is
Speaker 3: sexually attracted to her, that's weird. The dad he sells
Speaker 3: his wife's jewelry and then blames it on his daughter,
Speaker 3: effin coward. And then yeah, the mom is I really
Speaker 3: think she's jealous of her beauty. And then later her
Speaker 3: youngest child is stolen by a witch while Thomlinson was
Speaker 3: watching her, and so now they're mad.
Speaker 1: The mom's really mad.
Speaker 3: Okay, then it really just dissolves into atmospheric craziness where
Speaker 3: they're just picking at each other.
Speaker 1: Mom breastfeeds a crow. More on that.
Speaker 3: Later, people start dying, children die, want to stick into
Speaker 3: the woods by a witch?
Speaker 1: How does a little sister die?
Speaker 2: Little sister dies from just like they're praying over oh right, Caleb,
Speaker 2: and she like tells she's like insisting that they get
Speaker 2: down on their knees to do their prayers. And they
Speaker 2: just like fall over. They're just like they just like
Speaker 2: drop dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, yes, just from the chaos of it all, the
Speaker 3: twin bond, it was, it's strange. Okay, so that's really spooky.
Speaker 3: And then Dad tries to fight a goat and it
Speaker 3: doesn't go well. It does pretty bad.
Speaker 2: Dad dies from trying to fight the goat. And then yeah,
Speaker 2: it all ends with a showdown between Mom and thomasin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Thompson wins, thank god, because honestly she deserves
Speaker 3: We'll get into more. Is this good for her film
Speaker 3: or not? And then yeah, and then it ends with
Speaker 3: the devil black the goat on the farm, coming with a.
Speaker 1: Great question, what is that like to live? Deliciously?
Speaker 3: Twich Tonson says, oh, yeah, look, yeah, I can't sign
Speaker 3: my name, but I'm in, and he's like, great, don't
Speaker 3: worry about it, babe, I got you. And she goes
Speaker 3: and has the naked rave in the woods with her
Speaker 3: new witch buddies and learns to fly. Honestly, the best
Speaker 3: possible ending for this story, and that is a crazy
Speaker 3: we can't of the witch.
Speaker 1: The witch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the first time we see her smile is
Speaker 2: when she becomes a witch. Finally, so I say it
Speaker 2: is yeah, but will with more on that.
Speaker 3: In the episode she got a peekaboo smile and then
Speaker 3: right at the end and she's like, I'm actually free.
Speaker 3: You never have to watch another child ever again in life.
Speaker 3: I agree, what a choice. Okay, let's get into this movie.
Speaker 3: I was really excited when we sort of talked about
Speaker 3: doing this series.
Speaker 1: Egress is a really interesting new like guy on the scene.
Speaker 3: He comes along in his early thirties. I think he's
Speaker 3: thirty one thirty two when The Witch drops in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: and he had done a series of short films that were,
Speaker 3: you know, in his own words, not good, and then
Speaker 3: he made a proof of concept with Brothers and that
Speaker 3: sparks some attention.
Speaker 1: Brothers becomes the.
Speaker 3: Witch, and it was such a revelation for me this
Speaker 3: film because it has all of the things I like
Speaker 3: in a horror movie and have missed and I don't
Speaker 3: really think we've been served since a night.
Speaker 1: Shamalan's The Village.
Speaker 3: The Village, okay, which is a film I walked away loving,
Speaker 3: So prepare yourselves for whatever that might mean.
Speaker 1: I was thirteen. I lo came Village. Also, Phila, I
Speaker 1: got Carmen's sisters. I love it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was like, listen, it's creepy, it's weird, it's a
Speaker 3: lot of vibes. I don't think there are a lot
Speaker 3: of similarities between this film and The Witch and the
Speaker 3: village other than setting, but I had been missing the vibes,
Speaker 3: you know, and so to come back to a director who's.
Speaker 1: All about atmosphere, I was really really excited.
Speaker 3: Carmen, When did you first see this film and how
Speaker 3: did you feel after watching it?
Speaker 2: You know, every October, except for this past October because
Speaker 2: I was I was on a cruise ship. Every October,
Speaker 2: I like to do a I like to do a
Speaker 2: Halloween you know, list of movies every day to challenge
Speaker 2: myself to watch. So about two years ago, you know,
Speaker 2: they were like, watch a movie about witches, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, well, I've always wanted to watch The Witch.
Speaker 2: Finally put it on and I loved it. I didn't
Speaker 2: fully and I was just saying this before we started recording.
Speaker 2: I didn't fully understand it on my first watch, but
Speaker 2: I knew that I loved it. And then when I
Speaker 2: went back and watched it for the second time in
Speaker 2: preparation for this I was like, Oh, I fucking love
Speaker 2: this movie and I need to watch this every year,
Speaker 2: maybe multiple times a year, because it's so good.
Speaker 3: What is it that you love about the movie specifically?
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, so first of all vibes. We've been
Speaker 2: talking about the vibes. Okay, it is, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: the perfect example of you know, great cinematography, great sound design,
Speaker 2: great location, and just a perfect, perfect use of such
Speaker 2: a small budget as well. It blows my mind that
Speaker 2: this movie only has a four million dollar budget, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: And it looks as good as it does, and it's
Speaker 2: as like fully like it feels as fully fleshed out
Speaker 2: as it does. And I think the other thing I
Speaker 2: really enjoy about this movie is that it's also a
Speaker 2: perfect example of why ninety minute movies are the perfect
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 1: Movie king makers.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I love Christopher Nolan, but sometimes he needs
Speaker 2: to edit, okay, And you know, Robert Eggers really makes
Speaker 2: a great use out of these ninety minutes. And it
Speaker 2: really doesn't feel like any moment of the movie is wasted.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel like anything is is indulgent or anything
Speaker 2: at all. It feels like each minute really takes you
Speaker 2: on a really awesome journey.
Speaker 3: You know, I agree, and it sort of goes into
Speaker 3: what I love about this movie, but also a large
Speaker 3: critique of the film.
Speaker 1: So yeah, one of the.
Speaker 3: Biggest critiques of the film is they're like, oh, it
Speaker 3: feels draggy in points like it there are some and
Speaker 3: I don't mean like drag performances, I mean like it
Speaker 3: lags in some spaces. Yeah, like, yeah, there's two at aspheric,
Speaker 3: there are not there's nothing driving the story forward. I
Speaker 3: completely disagree. Like that's a really mind boggling statement. It's
Speaker 3: a feeling a lot of people have. But for me,
Speaker 3: what I love about the film is like a really
Speaker 3: character study on a family. Yes, for me, I walk
Speaker 3: away thinking about a pious father who thinks he knows
Speaker 3: best for everyone so much so that he shuns society.
Speaker 3: Has like this very toxic masculine idea of like I
Speaker 3: will conquer the woods, and if you think about manifestociny
Speaker 3: in this country and these being like an early settler
Speaker 3: and sort of embodying that idea, and too, on top
Speaker 3: of that, you get like the creation of Anya Taylor
Speaker 3: joy am I that I mean, this is a superstar
Speaker 3: vehicle that launched a Superstar because it's such a challenging role.
Speaker 3: Dialogue alone is really really intensely difficult. Eggers pulled a
Speaker 3: lot of these lines directly from historical texts. You have
Speaker 3: a lot of great character actors doing some really great work,
Speaker 3: and then you get this mythos created around the woods.
Speaker 3: And if you're a person who like it, we both
Speaker 3: like horror. I mean, American horror really derives from two places.
Speaker 1: It's everywhere.
Speaker 3: Like you can come to the Southwest and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of desert horror stories. There's a lot of mountain
Speaker 3: horror stories. These are vital. But I think for me,
Speaker 3: or at least in the way I was educated, I'm
Speaker 3: leaving a lot of caveats because I'm not a historian.
Speaker 3: I don't want to claim anything, but I think a
Speaker 3: lot of really great history comes out of Louisiana and
Speaker 3: our swamps are deep South spaces and New England and
Speaker 3: the woods.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the woods. My backyard was a
Speaker 1: state park.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, this is creepy.
Speaker 3: Maybe making a lot of like cracky noises, things be
Speaker 3: slithering out, people disappear within, and he cantually embodies all
Speaker 3: of that, but he does it all of that tonally
Speaker 3: within the family dynamic, and what you're seeing and experiencing
Speaker 3: throughout this film is a family rejecting an out broken daughter.
Speaker 3: Egger said that he selected Anya because at first he
Speaker 3: was gonna have Tomlinson be really homely, kind of ugly,
Speaker 3: and he was like, but our main character needed to
Speaker 3: be somebody who could never be a puritan, right, would
Speaker 3: absolutely have to be rejected, Like Anya Taylor Joy is gorgeous,
Speaker 3: so there's going to naturally be a covetous nature around her,
Speaker 3: whether that's sexual or she's the popular girl or whatever.
Speaker 3: Like that stirs in humans some kind of conflict immediately.
Speaker 3: Nothing needs to happen, It just naturally occurs within us, right,
Speaker 3: and when you brace it against a fanatical father and
Speaker 3: then isolate them.
Speaker 1: He said that a big inspiration was, uh, the shining. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the shining.
Speaker 2: He said he's embarrassed how much he sees the shining
Speaker 2: in this movie when he goes back and watches it, and.
Speaker 1: Don't be embarrassed. Bro, Yeah, I don't you made it
Speaker 1: much cooler.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say cooler, but yeah, like the
Speaker 3: choices you made to build on again, if you're a
Speaker 3: person who's costantly building a narrative.
Speaker 1: I guess is I don't see any reason that taking.
Speaker 3: From the best and yeah, yeah, twisting it in a
Speaker 3: way that makes it interesting and fun in a new
Speaker 3: way for your audience.
Speaker 1: I think that's just storytelling.
Speaker 2: Because I would have never have if I had not
Speaker 2: watched the interview where he talks about how much the
Speaker 2: Shining inspired him for this, I would have never really
Speaker 2: pieced that together myself.
Speaker 1: It's not the first thing that comes to mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's not even in the same sort of setting.
Speaker 1: But yeah, not Yeah, the setting is different.
Speaker 3: Your father, while a fanatic, is not necessarily a villain, right,
Speaker 3: And that's really interesting, Like he's really.
Speaker 2: Trying to hold the family together, but also right the
Speaker 2: reason that they're out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, through a flawed pretense, Like he really believes if
Speaker 3: I love God enough and I am devout enough, then
Speaker 3: I will be able to do the thing that's been
Speaker 3: promised to me by my culture, the thing I left
Speaker 3: my home country to do, which is to establish this
Speaker 3: new land as a free space God. Okay, that totally
Speaker 3: makes sense for this character. And I think knowing that
Speaker 3: having a pious wife on top of that, who's clearly
Speaker 3: so jealous of her daughter. Watching the two younger siblings
Speaker 3: completely one has a creepy, weird sexual obsession with his sister,
Speaker 3: and the other it's kind of like she's a child,
Speaker 3: but she's kind of bratty. Can we call out baby
Speaker 3: girl for this? She's a little bratty. She's not a wind, yes,
Speaker 3: but she's a little bratty. Boy creepy needs to see
Speaker 3: a therapist. Not gonna find one out in these woods.
Speaker 3: And so I think just as a woman in America
Speaker 3: and the very idea of like, okay, this is early
Speaker 3: settlers were really looking at an American story really tainted
Speaker 3: by a Christian belief to the point of complete isolation.
Speaker 3: And then you have a young woman who's she's just
Speaker 3: trying to free think and like eat and have nice things,
Speaker 3: and people are like, you're bad. Her father lies on her.
Speaker 3: I says, wasn't going to be a recap. Let me
Speaker 3: tighten this up. I think that I really connect with
Speaker 3: Tominson as a character as somebody who's like, I don't
Speaker 3: understand why who and what I am is so offensive
Speaker 3: to everyone? Yes, and her journey it's why Okay, to
Speaker 3: conclude on this part, do you think this is a good.
Speaker 1: For her movie kind of I think it is.
Speaker 2: And then there's like two ways that I think you
Speaker 2: could interpret, like the ending of the movie, and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of foreshadowing throughout the movie. So the first
Speaker 2: way that I want to interpret it is that she
Speaker 2: is actually being led to becoming a witch the entire
Speaker 2: throughout the entire movie.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and it's just.
Speaker 2: Kind of like she's not even aware of it, but
Speaker 2: her fam what her family is accusing her of and
Speaker 2: all of this, She's subconsciously being led to becoming a
Speaker 2: witch by this witch in the woods, because there's the
Speaker 2: whole conversation where she like jokes about being the witch
Speaker 2: in the woods. We get all these familiars that are
Speaker 2: showing up to the house and seemingly trying to connect
Speaker 2: with her. But then the other mind, you know, the
Speaker 2: other way I think of it, or I interpret it
Speaker 2: is her family rejects her so much, which is something
Speaker 2: that I also relate a lot to of course in
Speaker 2: this movie when I watch it as like being villainized
Speaker 2: by your family, being rejected by your family, and they
Speaker 2: reject her so much that she is forced to becoming
Speaker 2: a witch as her only other way forward.
Speaker 1: You know, and like and.
Speaker 2: All of the bad things that they've said about her,
Speaker 2: and all of these things become true because they've given
Speaker 2: her no other other option to explore.
Speaker 1: I completely agree, And let's we'll pick up.
Speaker 3: More on that when we come back, and we'll talk
Speaker 3: about Robert Edgars at the start of his career after
Speaker 3: this commercial break.
Speaker 1: And when we're back. Okay, here we are.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Mariger is really interesting kind of dude. I
Speaker 3: watched a ton of energies in preparation for our discussion,
Speaker 3: and something that kept coming up is people wanted to
Speaker 3: understand if I remember, this is before we have the Lighthouse,
Speaker 3: before we understand really more intently, the obsession with history
Speaker 3: with the Northmen. They were like, do you believe in witches?
Speaker 3: It is so like what which literature are you reading?
Speaker 3: And what about God? Like, what's your relationship with God?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: And he was very fervent upfront, like I'm not going
Speaker 3: to talk about my faith, Like I'm keeping that private.
Speaker 1: That's a choice I'm making.
Speaker 3: It's a thing I think we'll come back to again
Speaker 3: and again in this series as we examine his films.
Speaker 3: I think people kind of can't help but want to
Speaker 3: know the artists behind the art. Particularly if you're struck
Speaker 3: by this, I will say what I I find really
Speaker 3: interesting about Edgar's the stuff that he does choose to reveal.
Speaker 1: So one I watched a lot of interviews.
Speaker 3: My favorite was an interview speech combo from BAFTA that
Speaker 3: he did in.
Speaker 1: Like I think twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: It's after the Lighthouse but before the Northman, and in
Speaker 3: it he says that he's really happy that people view
Speaker 3: The Witch as a feminist film, despite the fact that
Speaker 3: he didn't set out to make a feminist film. He
Speaker 3: actually set out to make a film about literally the
Speaker 3: Witch in the woods. He said, early drafts mostly featured
Speaker 3: her and how she was coming after the family, but
Speaker 3: as investors and producers were around, they had suggested sort
Speaker 3: of flipping that angle and making Tomlinson the main character
Speaker 3: and allowing.
Speaker 1: The Witch to be this sort of secret thing.
Speaker 3: So when you understand like that really opened up my
Speaker 3: head a little bit about how much impact because I
Speaker 3: didn't think the witches were having a lot of impact
Speaker 3: to you know, before we went to break, you were
Speaker 3: talking about how much she felt that Tomlinson had no
Speaker 3: other choice, she had to become a witch.
Speaker 1: It's much more sinister to I think view film.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's a plan happening behind all of this and
Speaker 3: it's working. Yes, How did you feel about like, if
Speaker 3: you walk away from this film, do you think there
Speaker 3: is and how do I want to I was gonna
Speaker 3: ask you if you think there's a villain, But I
Speaker 3: think that's a silly question.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 3: Here's the other thing that a lot of folks were
Speaker 3: sort of debating, is is this a horror film or not?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Is it a psychological thriller or a horror film? Is
Speaker 3: there something that's driving this in either direction?
Speaker 1: For you? I see it as kind of both.
Speaker 2: I feel like there it truly is in my opinion,
Speaker 2: it's like a good old classic horror film. But it
Speaker 2: does have those elements of psychological thriller in the sense
Speaker 2: that like the family's heads are constantly being fucked with,
Speaker 2: and and the mom is being messed with because of
Speaker 2: the death of her, her children, Thomasin is being messed
Speaker 2: with because of the being blamed for all of these
Speaker 2: deaths of the children and the family. But the horror
Speaker 2: elements for me are the creepy, just like atmospheric things
Speaker 2: that are going on, like I love all of the
Speaker 2: different appearances of the familiars. I love when we go
Speaker 2: into the woods and we really see like one of
Speaker 2: the most chilling scenes is when we see the Witch
Speaker 2: in her young form and yes.
Speaker 3: She she snatches donning, Yes she's sunnying. I too would
Speaker 3: follow Caleb Calees, Caleb, the eldest brother, Caleb. Yes, I
Speaker 3: would absolutely follow this gorgeh beauty into the woods as
Speaker 3: she were to promise me literally anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's very chilling. So I think it has
Speaker 2: elements of both. And then of course, like I didn't
Speaker 2: mention this at the top, but like people say, you know,
Speaker 2: you were talking about how people talk about how this
Speaker 2: is a slow burn and the movie doesn't really start
Speaker 2: until until Black Phillips shows up. And I disagree, because
Speaker 2: the movie within the first ten minutes, we kill a baby,
Speaker 2: we crush up the baby, and we're we're bathing our body.
Speaker 1: Sound is horrible. Yes, the carbon the baby bones crushing
Speaker 1: in the being mashed into a pulp. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And so that just sticks with you. That sticks with
Speaker 2: you the whole rest of the time you're watching the movie.
Speaker 2: It's so creepy, like it's so scary yeah, the image
Speaker 2: of the witch like bathing herself in the blood, like
Speaker 2: it's scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's genuinely scary.
Speaker 3: I think there's two key moments to me that's really
Speaker 3: set this up as a horror film. So one is
Speaker 3: the opening which Edgar's actually said that he did not
Speaker 3: want to do the introduction to the film. He fuck
Speaker 3: it really really hard. But they were like, we need
Speaker 3: to know what they left behind. We need to understand.
Speaker 3: This is for me a very key element. You understand
Speaker 3: who the father is, You understand what is being taken
Speaker 3: from Tomlinson. In this moment where she's like, I would
Speaker 3: really like to say, you have the community. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of options for her here. You understand
Speaker 3: the abject horror of there's no one around like you
Speaker 3: really there's not a lot of people here. At one
Speaker 3: point you see like like a crew of Indigenous people
Speaker 3: just like walking by, Like there's a tentative peace in
Speaker 3: this space that both your knowledge of American history and
Speaker 3: the closing of that gate really solidify as being like
Speaker 3: this is all tentative, but you want to be withinside
Speaker 3: this gate. It's safer inside the gates, right, stupid, don't
Speaker 3: leave especially because they give him so many chances to stay.
Speaker 3: They're like, bruh, just like repent and don't do that,
Speaker 3: Like you can't be yelling in the streets about your God.
Speaker 3: And he's like, no, you're all crazy, you're forgetting why
Speaker 3: we came, and which I.
Speaker 1: Meant kind of agrees with him.
Speaker 2: But then part of me is like, dude, just suck
Speaker 2: it up and stay.
Speaker 3: This is what it is to live in a society, sir.
Speaker 3: It's it's frequently sacrificing and coming to the middle on things.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, this was clearly a foolish or immediately you're like,
Speaker 3: oh god, no. The second is the witch scene you describe.
Speaker 3: Egers grew up in New England, and he said that
Speaker 3: the story he was mentioned specifically coming across graveyards in
Speaker 3: the middle of the woods. He was like, you just
Speaker 3: kind of feel that all this stuff is alive and well.
Speaker 3: He also comes from a background of design. He went
Speaker 3: to the American Music and Dramatic Academy where he studied
Speaker 3: theater design, and one of the ways he builds his
Speaker 3: scripts is by building what he calls a doll house.
Speaker 3: If you think about his films, right lighthouse easy to
Speaker 3: understand how that's a dog dollhouse. You have the cabin
Speaker 3: in the witch in the Northman. It's a little harder
Speaker 3: to see, but I would say he just has multiple
Speaker 3: quote dollhouses. There's the space in Iceland where they all live.
Speaker 3: There's the actual boat that he spends a good amount
Speaker 3: of time on, and then probably the village that they ransack.
Speaker 3: Like those are the three kind of places, and they
Speaker 3: very much drive story forward and you kind of see
Speaker 3: that and in each one he takes time to really
Speaker 3: explore those spaces.
Speaker 1: I think the.
Speaker 3: Cabin in the woods they shot in Canada, and he
Speaker 3: was saying that it was very difficult to find a
Speaker 3: location because you know, it's cheaper to shoot in Canada.
Speaker 1: That's why way there are a ton of productions. They
Speaker 1: have a like really good tax back rate. But he
Speaker 1: needed the for it.
Speaker 3: You know, he's a perfectionist when it comes to both
Speaker 3: history and like visuals.
Speaker 1: It just needs to look right.
Speaker 3: So we needed the forest to look like the forest
Speaker 3: from his childhood. So they wound up actually going to
Speaker 3: somewhere very very remote, which force the just sort of
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time together, so they got to
Speaker 3: sort of blend and become a family. Eggers talks about that.
Speaker 3: He makes two cardinal filmmaking sins. One is, don't shoot
Speaker 3: with children. They have very limited You can shoot for
Speaker 3: four hours with kids. That's hair, costume, make up, lighting them,
Speaker 3: getting these scenes coordinated, and then filming and hoping the
Speaker 3: kids are in a good enough mood and focused enough
Speaker 3: to shoot.
Speaker 1: It's very fairy can.
Speaker 3: Actually do a great job in this movie. By the way,
Speaker 3: sensational actors.
Speaker 1: If you don't know.
Speaker 3: Eggres also has twin I know you know Karma, but
Speaker 3: audience members, if you don't know Eggres's twin brothers, they
Speaker 3: are also filmmakers.
Speaker 1: One of them helped him write The Lighthouse.
Speaker 3: And I think it's very funny that hes movie.
Speaker 1: It's like Little Terrors.
Speaker 2: I was like, I wonder if they little, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: wonder if they're special thanks in the film.
Speaker 3: So I think, uh aware and somewhat okay with it,
Speaker 3: but uh yeah.
Speaker 1: So like he he has established.
Speaker 3: Oh the other thing that he did was work with animals,
Speaker 3: and the animals specifically the goat that played Black Philip.
Speaker 1: Who frit I had his name Eric.
Speaker 3: It's something very regular where you would be like that
Speaker 3: kid that name does not denote the absolute horror.
Speaker 1: He put one of the actors in the hospital briefly. Yes,
Speaker 1: Charlie was the goat's name.
Speaker 3: Thank you, and he didn't want to Froz why I
Speaker 3: see a lot of black Philip's scenes are by himself
Speaker 3: because they were like, yeah, the goat is doing things, record, record,
Speaker 3: but it kind of gives you an ominous feeling like, oh,
Speaker 3: the family is not observing what the goat is doing
Speaker 3: is evil and twisty, and they're not seeing its influence.
Speaker 1: I love, love love that, Okay.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to hear from Robert Eggers in his
Speaker 3: exact words. So this is a quote I pulled from
Speaker 3: the bathed speech he gave. Both my two feature films
Speaker 3: have very simple stories. The Witch is a very clear,
Speaker 3: simple story. The Lighthouse is almost void of a story.
Speaker 3: It's almost the same scene over and over and over
Speaker 3: again with changing power dynamics. So in my film, you
Speaker 3: need atmosphere for the world to survive, for the film
Speaker 3: to survive. The atmosphere is an accumulation of details that
Speaker 3: come from my research. The weather, the light, the format
Speaker 3: that we shoot on. They come from all those things.
Speaker 3: An atmosphere is in some way a visual obstacle, and
Speaker 3: I mean that in a positive way. But I love
Speaker 3: how atmosphere propels his stories. And one of another critique
Speaker 3: that we've been talking about Edgar's in the X ray
Speaker 3: vision chat a lot, and one of the critiques some
Speaker 3: of our fellow friends and producers had was that too
Speaker 3: much atmosphere, not enough story. Carmen, can you make a
Speaker 3: good argument for why atmosphere is enough?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I mean, especially with this movie in particular,
Speaker 2: it is what gives you those feelings. It's what gives
Speaker 2: you those visceral feelings, and it's what the hair on
Speaker 2: the back of your neck stand up. The script alone,
Speaker 2: the setting alone, the actors alone aren't necessarily going to
Speaker 2: do that. But I really feel like one of the
Speaker 2: reasons why this is such an effective horror movie is
Speaker 2: because the atmosphere is like its own character. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like its own character in the movie. The woods
Speaker 2: are very when you go into the woods, it's very
Speaker 2: claustrophobic and imposing, you know. And the appearances of I
Speaker 2: keep going back to the Familiars, but the appearances of
Speaker 2: the familiars alone, a little bunny rabbit wouldn't be creepy.
Speaker 2: But the way that it's shot and the way that
Speaker 2: they do the sound design is what makes it creepy.
Speaker 2: And so I think atmosphere is like, if this movie
Speaker 2: was not as atmospheric, it would not be as effective
Speaker 2: as a horror movie. And so I completely agree with
Speaker 2: what he's saying there. But yeah, that's I mean, that's
Speaker 2: all I have to say about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think to Egger's point, details, right, you know,
Speaker 3: if I blend what you're saying about, how the little
Speaker 3: things really drive a creep factor and also eliminate a
Speaker 3: chance of hope if the film is dependent on family
Speaker 3: and whether these bonds can come together to survive, you know,
Speaker 3: the crops failing and our mom choosing to breastfeed a bird,
Speaker 3: and there's eventually like there's just no sense of like
Speaker 3: where would the hope come from. It's not coming from
Speaker 3: the gray sky, it's not coming from the ground. It's
Speaker 3: not like our everything here is bad. And because of
Speaker 3: that you also sort of understand how, again, human nature
Speaker 3: drives you to just sort of be an asshole when
Speaker 3: things are uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a real special person.
Speaker 3: Who when dirty and tired and hungry and not being
Speaker 3: able to provide for the family, which this is a
Speaker 3: guy who absolutely back to the forefront of his mind.
Speaker 3: It's like prospering for the family and supporting the family
Speaker 3: so they can go out and spread the word of God. Like,
Speaker 3: when all of that stuff is stripped of you, trying
Speaker 3: to be a good person and a good friend and
Speaker 3: a good family member becomes much much more difficult, and
Speaker 3: so the sniping, the weirdness, like all of it makes
Speaker 3: more sense and it sort of creeps into you. And
Speaker 3: I also think that it leaves enough space for your
Speaker 3: own horrors and traumas to seep into the film. And
Speaker 3: that is the shit I really dig on. I really
Speaker 3: like when I'm thinking about the my in my head
Speaker 3: as I'm watching, if there's enough space within the narrative,
Speaker 3: you're actively inserting yourself wrongly or rightly.
Speaker 1: But I think that's sort of what it.
Speaker 3: Is to experience art is right to somehow either inject
Speaker 3: yourself viewing it or inject yourself actively into the narrative
Speaker 3: being told to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think.
Speaker 3: I guess had from this film on such a good
Speaker 3: grasp of how to do that and immerse you in it.
Speaker 1: And also.
Speaker 3: Because I really feel like Usually if a film is
Speaker 3: without hope, I feel so depleted by the end of it,
Speaker 3: you know, and maybe it's because of let's okay, we
Speaker 3: have to take another quick break, but when we come back,
Speaker 3: I want to talk about the ending and also sort
Speaker 3: of how we feel about Edgar's as a first time director.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll be right back.
Speaker 3: What is thou like to live deliciously? The answer is
Speaker 3: immediately yes, yes, I don't know a woman who is
Speaker 3: like what he's like. I got cakes and sweets and
Speaker 3: pretty clothes. Girl, let's go say less. I don't know
Speaker 3: how to sign my name, but I guide my hand
Speaker 3: like I'm ready, right, Okay, I asked you earlier he
Speaker 3: thought this was a good for her movie. If I
Speaker 3: should have explained if you don't know. Good for her
Speaker 3: film is a film, usually of the horror genre, where
Speaker 3: at the end your final girl.
Speaker 1: This is a girl who survives all of the horror.
Speaker 3: Triumphs in a way the society might frown upon, but you,
Speaker 3: as an audience member who knows what she's been through.
Speaker 1: Are awaited for her. Yeah, her, for me?
Speaker 3: It really this resonates as a good for her. I
Speaker 3: think Carrie is a pretty great good for her. What's
Speaker 3: the one with the shotgun?
Speaker 2: Is that pearl?
Speaker 1: Pearl is probably a good for her?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's ready or not? It looks like ye, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: I have not seen.
Speaker 1: Ready or not?
Speaker 3: You not see Okay, Well, one day Car's gonna watch
Speaker 3: Ready or Not and we may have to go. I
Speaker 3: saw Ready, You're not at a I was a part
Speaker 3: of a secret screening for this where basically I didn't
Speaker 3: know what was going to be projected, and this came
Speaker 3: on and I was Ready or not as completely enthralling.
Speaker 3: I've derailed conversation once again. Final Girl films. My favorite
Speaker 3: final Girl film is Midsommar. I think I almost everyone
Speaker 3: is like, that's not a happy ending. I was like,
Speaker 3: for me, it's an incredibly joyous ending. Fuck your boyfriend
Speaker 3: who can support you through the most traumatic experience of
Speaker 3: your entire existence, Get out of here. I love a
Speaker 3: good for her film, and I think The Witch really
Speaker 3: works as a good for her film. Like I think
Speaker 3: it's a strong but because in a modern world, you'd
Speaker 3: be happy.
Speaker 1: She got all she found sisterhood.
Speaker 3: Okay, she's got a beautiful place out in the woods.
Speaker 3: Her family can no longer bother her. She's free. I
Speaker 3: love this ending. You said that you were unsure about
Speaker 3: the film when you start, when you first saw it.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about it? How did you feel
Speaker 3: about the ending originally, and how do you feel about
Speaker 3: it now?
Speaker 2: I was confused as to like how we got to
Speaker 2: the ending. I was like, wait a minute, why did
Speaker 2: she choose why did she choose to go with black Philip?
Speaker 2: You know, why did she choose to become one of
Speaker 2: the witches? And I was I think just kind of
Speaker 2: like absent to a lot of the like way that
Speaker 2: her family berates her throughout the movie, and the way
Speaker 2: that they they even subconsciously are kind of blaming her for.
Speaker 3: The dad hates that she's beautiful, she's so jealous and like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a lot.
Speaker 2: And the mom hates that her baby, her youngest baby,
Speaker 2: was taken while under her daughter's care, and that's all
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 1: Like she did have somewhat reason to be mad.
Speaker 3: I don't know that harfult, She's like pekaboo, supernatural elements
Speaker 3: were at of fact, ma'am anyway, I guess yeah, So, yeah,
Speaker 3: how do you feel about it?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: I completely understand it, And that's why I do feel
Speaker 2: like now I can confidently say it's like a good
Speaker 2: for her movie because whether or not she was being
Speaker 2: subconsciously led to becoming a witch or she chose to
Speaker 2: become a witch. After the events of you know, all
Speaker 2: of the Ship, her, the grief that her family put
Speaker 2: her through, she is finally has her own, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of her own.
Speaker 1: She has her own.
Speaker 3: Friend, agenda, her own yeah, and she gets she literally
Speaker 3: gets to fly.
Speaker 1: At the end, I was my breath was taken away.
Speaker 1: I was like, look at her, like wow, and she's happy.
Speaker 3: She's free. It was like the first asked her to
Speaker 3: do anything weird. She don't have to watch no children,
Speaker 3: she don't have to clean no houses. She had a
Speaker 3: mad ask kill. Like, so far, life's looking pretty good
Speaker 3: for her. And life was looking pretty good for Robert
Speaker 3: Eggers at the time as well.
Speaker 1: Uh. This was a.
Speaker 3: Huge coming out for him. He won uh Best Director
Speaker 3: at Sun Dances for a first time director, I mean tremendous.
Speaker 3: He comes out. Also, it's a star vehicle for Anya,
Speaker 3: which people will often credit the director. He credits the
Speaker 3: casting team in the UK. But it was great and
Speaker 3: he comes back with the Lighthouse. I think I was
Speaker 3: really anticipating The Lighthouse premiered at TIF.
Speaker 1: I was there.
Speaker 3: I was very excited. I think there was a lot
Speaker 3: of buzz. It was going to be completely different, but
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of similarities. He was doing black
Speaker 3: and white. He was willing to stretch himself. I think
Speaker 3: this was a director who, to me, felt unafraid to
Speaker 3: try things that were going to be weird and difficult
Speaker 3: for people to understand. And also somebody who had such
Speaker 3: a grasp on tone that even if his stories were
Speaker 3: not groundbreaking, they were sort of entertaining at that Shakespearean level.
Speaker 3: And by that I mean Shakespeare was designed to entertain everyone,
Speaker 3: from the dimwitted to royalty. Stories I think that are
Speaker 3: accessible have a lot of value, even if they are
Speaker 3: not maybe your most technically precise things.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Eggar's first time director pretty great. I love
Speaker 1: The Lighthouse. It's a great movie.
Speaker 2: I just watched it this past October for the first time.
Speaker 2: I'm late to a lot of a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: something that was either me and I loved The Lighthouse,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to watch again. But I think that
Speaker 2: this movie is, like so far, my favorite movie out
Speaker 2: of all of his filmography, and I haven't seen notes
Speaker 2: for Autu yet, so that could change. But I just
Speaker 2: think for this to be a director's first feature length film,
Speaker 2: it's absolutely it's amazing. I mean it's incredible. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a Triumphal.
Speaker 3: Carmen, thank you so much for being here and doing
Speaker 3: this with me. I had a lot of fun talking
Speaker 3: to you today.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun. I can't wait to
Speaker 2: talk about The Lighthouse. So yes, thank you Joel for
Speaker 2: joining me and live deliciously.
Speaker 1: Y'all join us back here tomorrow.
Speaker 3: What We're going to hop in our speeders and check
Speaker 3: out the pilot for Star Wars Skeleton Crew. Then on Wednesday,
Speaker 3: abook is this is a guy through the next episode of.
Speaker 1: Dune and Prophecy.
Speaker 3: Thursday, we're going to take a look back at the
Speaker 3: comic books and novels of twenty twenty four that.
Speaker 1: Stuck with us. Then come back and join us.
Speaker 3: On Monday, Carmen and I are going to break down
Speaker 3: Edgar's next film, The Lighthouse.
Speaker 1: That's our EPP. So thanks for listening. Bye bye.
Speaker 4: X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kensumsion and Rosie
Speaker 4: Knight and is a production of iHeart podcasts Our executive
Speaker 4: producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer
Speaker 4: is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and
Speaker 4: Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 3: and Heidi
Speaker 2: On Discoored Moderata