From Lobster To FavoriteYorgos Lanthimos has become one of the most eclectic and eccentric directors in the world. His new proposal is a film starring Emma Stone. Poor things, is no different. After the press premiere of the film for New York Film Festivalthe director sat down with his fellow filmmakers to talk about the making of this complex and strange film.
Lanthimos delved into the history of the project by reading the book Poor things Alasdair Gray almost 15 years ago. “I fell in love with it immediately,” he said, noting that “the tone of it, the humor” resonated with him creatively. Given the director’s penchant for dark, macabre humor, it’s no surprise that Frankenstein-the esque fairy tale was appropriate. Lanthimos was shocked to discover that the novel had not yet been adapted and the rights to it had not been sold, and embarked on a ten-year journey to make the film.
Although he wanted to start development and production as soon as possible, the fact that he had only made Greek films up to this point held him back (his first English-language film came out in 2015). Lobster). Despite his ambitions, “it was very difficult” to achieve Poor things from the ground, and many advised him to start with “something simpler.” After the Oscar-winning historical drama FavoriteHowever, Lanthimos said, “I thought now was the right time.”
In fact, the pre-production process Poor things started on the set Favorite. Lanthimos told Stone about the new project, “and she was immediately very excited.” Once he and screenwriter Tony McNamara had a draft of the script, he “showed it to her and she was totally on board”, eventually starting as a producer on the project because “she wanted to be involved in everything”. From this point on, it seemed obvious and natural to Lanthimos that Stone would play the main character, Bella Baxter, a woman who was reanimated from death and must learn to live again.
Her performance is a multi-skill marathon, combining physical comedy and intense monologues over the course of nearly two and a half hours. Stone makes Bella’s transformation a miracle, a feat that Lanthimos said was most impressive because of the way she had to keep up the pace; the film begins and ends in the same place (and on the same set, which could only be on location for a very limited time), so Stone quickly played Bella at her most infantile and most mature in a quick succession.
Lanthimos also shared his appreciation for the rest of his colleagues on stage, with production designers James Price and Shauna Heath and costume designer Holly Waddington receiving plenty of praise. Each brought their own talent to an imaginary, fantasy version of the Victorian era. Heath described how their team essentially “built four cities” throughout the filmmaking process, while Price extolled how they were able to use “methods that no one else uses.” Painted sets, massive sound stage sets and more Poor things feel like a film from another era, made in a modern style. One stumbling block? “We’re not steampunk,” Rice emphasized, not wanting to trivialize or pigeonhole the film’s design.
Waddington discussed how fun it was to experiment with the costumes in the film, saying that while “most of the pieces are from the 1890s,” she mixed textiles and clothing items to create a look that was “completely unconventional for the time period.” This adds to
Poor things’ a unique, uncanny look enhanced by a color story defined by “bodily fluids.”Poor things is directly concerned with all things bodily, with a potentially controversial aspect of the film being the sheer amount of sex shown on screen as Bella begins to explore herself and her pleasures. Regarding the film’s insistent depiction of sex, Lanthimos stated: “Just like everything else in the film, just as she learns about language, human suffering, love, science and politics… she has to be equally free about sex.” ” Bold, raunchy and brilliantly absurd, it’s no wonder why the movie is already so good.