COVETOUS COWBOY
Jane Campion sets her sights on
a study of (toxic?) masculinity in
the American Northwest with
The Power of the Dog, based on
Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel.
Phil and George Burbank, two
wealthy, ranch-owning brothers,reign over a Montana valley
sequestered from the moderniz-
ing world. Benedict Cumber-
batch stars as Phil, and Elisabeth
Moss is Rose, a widow subject
to his various cruelties when she
marries George. Campion has
said of the project: “It will bethe first time I’ve worked with a
male lead, which is exciting.”
Pre-production is slated to
start at the end of the year.CAN’T COPE
For Wicked Games, his first fic-
tion feature since the ParadiseINSPIRED/ By Ari Aster as told to Nicolas RapoldCommunity Building
In Midsommar, the director of Hereditarysends a young couple
to a mysterious village festival in Sweden6 | FILMCOMMENT| July-August 2019THE PRE-SHOW
News, views, conversations, and other things to get worked up about
MIDSOMMAR:^ PHOTOBY^GABOR^KOTSCHY,^COURTESYOF^A^24 ;^MCCABE^&^MRS.^ M
ILLER:^ WARNER^BROS./KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK1: The Wicker Man,2:The Blood on Satan’s Claw,3-4:Midsommar,5: McCabe & Mrs. Miller,6: A Married CoupleW
hen i was approaching this village and building
this community, I was doing a lot of research into
theosophy and anthroposophy. I was staying far away
from paganism and thinking spiritually about this place. I was
looking at a lot of theosophical artists like Frantisek Kupka, Reme-
dios Varo, Hilma af Klint. And I was reading The Golden Bough[by
James George Frazer] while I was writing the script. I love that
book, and the first script I wrote was twice as long as what we ended
up shooting—so much of it was just this anthropological tour
through the village. The first cut was three hours and 40 minutes.
I really liked The Wicker Manand films like The Blood on Satan’s
Clawas a kid—but I had never felt the urge to be in dialogue with
them. That said, the inherent trajectory of these [folk-horror]
narratives felt like a great fit for what I actually wanted to write: a
breakup movie. I wanted to write a breakup movie because I
needed to write a breakup movie, because I was going through a
breakup. I was turning to relationship dramas, and I was almost
looking at teen breakup movies, and the clichés inherent to those,
like “the girl who’s got the bad boyfriend, but the guy who’s good for
her is right under her nose,” as far as just the arc of the film [goes].
For Hereditary, I had screened several films for the crew in
preparation: Autumn Sonata, Don’t Look Now, The Innocents,
Cronenberg’s Spider... I had a whole screening series planned forMidsommar, but we were only able to do one film: McCabe &
Mrs. Miller, because even the most minor members of Altman’s
community ensemble could suddenly become as important as the
main characters. But also we were building a village from scratch,
and I thought it would be inspiring to watch that film, because
that’s what [Altman’s characters] are doing. The very next movie
that I wanted to show was Albert Brooks’s Modern Romance.
I just can’t imagine making a breakup movie without going
back to that. It’s a perfect movie. And I wanted to show this
great Allan King documentary called A Married Couple. It’s
miraculous, the footage that they got—I still don’t know if it’s
real, it becomes such a spectacle.
Midsommaris set in Sweden, we shot it in Hungary, and I was
also thinking about showing this György Palfi film called Hukkle—
this panoramic portrait of a Hungarian village that pays just as much
attention to the insects as it does the people in the village. The
person who was doing our prosthetics did Palfi’s Taxidermia.
I obviously understand the expectations [of a movie] when you
have Americans entering a foreign land, and it’s in the horror genre. I
hope that it gets there in a way that isn’t expected, because in a way,
the movie is a perverse, wish-fulfillment fantasy. It’s a horror movie
about codependency, a fairy tale, but it is really a dark comedy.
Closer Look:Midsommaropens on July 3.123456