All together heretic I’m sure you didn’t think about Jodie Foster when you saw the promotional materials that mentioned Blueberry Pie and Hugh Grant as creepy. But for the film’s co-writers and directors, Scott Beck and Brian Woods, that’s exactly what they had in mind.
“Scott and I talked about a lot of things. [Robert] Mr. Zemeckis contact and Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the wind “As a template for conversations about religion,” Woods told io9. “There’s a lot of ‘religious horror.’ I put it in quotes because there’s a lot of Catholic horror that uses Catholicism to justify some sort of supernatural threat in the movie. There are a lot of them, but movies like this are very rare. contact or Inherit the wind It’s kind of an adult conversation about religion in the context of a popcorn movie. ”
that was the inspiration behind hereticGrant appears as a creepy man who traps two Mormon missionaries (played by yellow jacketwith Sophie Thatcher Fabelmans Come to Chloe East’s house and ask her to play a game. He wants to use two women who have chosen religion as their life’s work to find out what that means, but well, things get very sinister.
heretic They’re out this week, but ahead of their release, io9 spoke to Beck and Woods about them. contact (Zemeckis’ film based on Carl Sagan’s book) Inspiration, what it takes to make a movie about religion, and how they feel about the futuref quiet placeThey helped create it. And check back after its release where we’ll publish the second half of the interview discussing the film’s ending, spoilers, and specific pop culture references.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Germain Lussier, io9: I was so excited when I saw your movie at Fantastic Fest and you guys mentioned it afterwards. contact As an inspiration. The idea of religion versus science in that movie was really shocking to me as a kid and it just crossed my mind while watching this movie, so I’d like to know more about what this movie means to you guys and its inspiration. I want to know. heretic.
Scott Beck: Well, first of all, Zemeckis is a master at making movies that bring you to the theater, but are also rich in what their characters are like. And I think the back and forth between Jodie Foster’s character and Matthew McConaughey’s character was really thought provoking at the time. Don’t go too deep. But at that point, yeah, I was a teenager and I was going to church every Sunday. And I think that movie was one of the few that gave me the opportunity to step outside of what I had been taught and consider the relationship between faith and atheism from a three-dimensional perspective.
And we get to see the other side of the spectrum in this movie, kind of a fundamentalist perspective, of Jake Busey’s character. And then all of a sudden it was like, “Oh, I have a friend who has a family member who took part in the Jonestown Massacre.” And how insane is it that a seemingly very balanced person, following the belief system of this charismatic leader, suddenly commits suicide? Religions intersect to some extent contact Personally, in a very pretentious way.
io9: What about things that are directly related to this movie? Did you specifically think, “Oh, let’s make it ourselves”? contact? ” Or were you writing it and you were like, “Oh, this reminds us of this.” contact? ”
Brian Woods: It was a conscious decision. Over the years, Scott and I have talked a lot about Zemeckis. contact and Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the wind As a template for conversations about religion. There are many “religious fears”. I put it in quotes because there’s a lot of Catholic horror that uses Catholicism to justify some kind of supernatural threat in the movie. There are many movies like this, but movies like this are very rare. contact or Inherit the wind It’s kind of an adult conversation about religion in the context of a popcorn movie.
So, over the years, ever since Scott and I first saw those movies, we’ve been asking ourselves the question. Wow, it would be a dream come true if one day we could make a movie that talks about religion, all our emotions, all our fears, all the things we think are beautiful and all the things we find scary about religion in one movie. Can you do that? And, to be honest, it seemed impossible. It seemed like I’d never be able to do it. [do it for a number of reasons.] What is our position on religion? We will never know enough about the history of religion. It was just a bucket list dream that seemed impossible. And after many years, you get to a certain place in your life.
I recently lost my father suddenly to esophageal cancer. [also] Because like Scott lost his father, we’re basically all family at this point. We were at the lowest point in our personal lives, feeling very vulnerable and dark. And we thought, “Now is the time to write this exploration of religion.” Now is the time to talk about the fear of not knowing what will happen when you die and explore it in the context of scary movies.
io9: I’m so sorry about your father, Brian. I also lost my father a few months ago, so I completely understand.
both: No, I’m sorry. sorry.
io9: Thank you. thank you. But at that point, it’s one thing to say that, right? “We’re going to write this movie about religion.” When you actually do it, it seems like a completely different thing. It’s a huge, overwhelming and impossible amount of research. So how did you go about gathering information and different perspectives about the film?
Beck: Yeah, so the interest in religion and cults and all that stuff is reflected in that. Lawrence Wright wrote this great article about Scientology. Going clear. Read the works of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins from an atheist perspective. Looking back at the scriptures book of mormon. We strive to understand everything from a truly empathetic perspective so that we can look at complex conversations about religion from different sides.
I think all of our fears about this movie, which it avoids but subtly deals with, is the fear of people with this conviction. Where they are firmly rooted in their ideas and beliefs and unwavering. For us, it’s not really how we personally live our lives. We are constantly evolving and reacting to new experiences, relationships, and more. And I think a big part of the movie is infused with the personal journeys that we’ve gone through and the different friendships that we’ve had that represent so many different belief systems. The film centers around these three characters, along with Mr. Reed, played by Hugh Grant, Sister Paxton and Sister Burns. These are all characters that represent this triangle of different points of relationship with the great unknown. And I think that’s where we end up in the middle in cinematic discourse.
io9: I agree with that too. But I’m curious how it affects the process. When you’re writing something like this, do you ever think of each person’s position and discuss it among yourself? Because even though you are certainly in the middle, you still have to write both sides.
Beck: Well, that’s not something we reflect on enough. Because I feel like Brian and I have known each other since we were 11 years old. Thanks to that, many of our views on life are in line with each other. Therefore, the discussions we have are not necessarily arguments just because we have different opinions. I think we are sponges. I think we look to the outside world and try to understand why people come to the conclusions they reach. Sometimes that means something like…Donald Trump. How does Donald Trump become Donald Trump? Because people weren’t born to spout absurdity on TV. There’s something about it that makes me do it. I think that’s why we love exploring the whole world together. The discussions we have are more creative discussions. I feel like if Brian was vacillating about a movie that he really loves and I don’t, we’d be happy to be on board with it.
Woods: That’s the good thing about having a partner, right? We are open-minded. So we spar about certain things. And I’m like, “I feel this way.” Scott feels the same way. ”Let’s talk. Or maybe he changed my mind, or maybe I changed his. Perhaps now we are at the other end of the spectrum. And that ability to listen is the most important thing as a writer. We must listen to the world. You have to listen to how people are talking. We must have empathy for everyone and put ourselves in everyone’s shoes. These are really kind of the toolkit of our art form. So it felt natural for me to create a work like this.
io9: Changing the topic a little, everyone wrote this quiet place. How does it feel to see it still going strong, and how involved, if at all, are you guys involved in what it becomes in the future?
Beck: First and foremost, we never in a million years thought this product would have such a long lifespan. Simply because we designed and created it. quiet place From very humble means. This is what we thought. “Nobody would want to make a weird silent horror movie like this. We’re going to shoot it ourselves in our home state of Iowa.” But last week we went to the Universal Studios maze. quiet place And while we walk in watching Universal actors play characters straight from the page, it’s unexpected and we still get a sense of the surreal reality that there was life in it. alive inside.
But from here on out, it’s like sending your child to college. Our focus is on; Quiet Place The current universe. For us. It’s a movie like heretic You just like the original idea, but you go to the script page without knowing what you’re going to create. It’s the exciting lifeblood of filmmaking that we pursue: the unknown. And whether the films we make fail or succeed, what’s exciting to us is the pursuit of something unique. But we loved what Michael Sarnosky did Day 1. I thought this was a really exciting initiative. So if they continue to produce them in large quantities, our hope is that it simply continues to innovate on that idea. quiet place The movie is.
woods: I would love to see international movies. quiet place universe. Things that aren’t necessarily English-based. That would be really great.
heretic Opens on Friday. Check back next week for more from Beck and Woods.
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