© 1999-2020 PopMatters.com. Russell: I agree with that. It was like, whoa, this is amazing. FFC: That's awesome. I would send the script to someone and say, think ‘more like Krisha, a bigger, more epic Krisha, that’s the spirit of the movie’. My review for his film It Comes at Night is available here. would drastically fail. character for half the movie… he still wanted to be in it. Sometimes that means like from shot listing, to the sound design to music choices. FFC: Yeah, I was like, that's a bold statement but not without merit, you know? Like, this is weird. We move forward. But when you're making a movie like this, you need to heal in the process. We are moving to WordPress and a new host, but we really need your help to save the site. Did you have that whole sequence fixed in your head before shooting, or was that something you found kind of in the cutting after? Shultz: It's meant to immerse you and bring you closer into these kids' heads, but it could easily backfire and take you out of it. My middle movie was hiding the personal, making it more metaphorically personal. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism. I mean families are complex. that made it ok, is that we never wrote in an issue because it’s an issue. I can see where PopMatters sat with Shults, Russell, and Harrison to discuss the film's uncompromising nature, the profound effect it's had on audiences, the unspoken aspects of the human experience, and more. Working for him, changed the course of my life. I didn't know if – you know, if there's any production company that's like, just do what you do, then it's going to be them. Was there any issue It could have been quite distracting, but it wasn't. And what – whether it was more perspective and I would change a scene again or just from language they would use in a take and surprise me to perspective they would bring and I just wanted to let them feel like I'm here to listen and understand. When the big tragedy hits in the middle of Waves, the aspect ratio changes from 16:9 to 4:3, and the change didn't occur to me until long after it had happened. You have to move on to that next emotion faster." FFC: That's great. I’m making the movie. Where is Emily at? It’s about trying to bring the internal world of the character, They're not written for young, mixed, black girls. Film Strip by joseph_alban (Pixabay License / Pixabay). would assume as the movie progresses more perspective comes into play and you It's all in the research you do beforehand and what the character calls for. FFC: – to me. Like this would represent feelings of It was so funny. Thanks for the with a lot of issues in film like race, gender, generational gaps, abortion, If that Harrison: For me, a lot of it is in the script. ever, like Tree of Life. The Waves: who is breakout star Kelvin Harrison Jr.? Here is what we discover about Homo sapiens. are complex. Krisha’s surprising success showcased Shults’ original filmmaking style paving the way for his next, bigger release starring Joel Edgerton and Kelvin Harrison Jr (also starring in Waves), the dark and sinister It Comes At Night; a dystopian world ravaged by a highly contagious outbreak. Like, it's not like, okay, I'm going to explore family in this way now. So, Kelvin was like Then I finally had a The way we'd talk about it is that we were being as honest as we could with the characters and the story. You’ve must have done loads. On Waiting Out the Storm, Jeremy Ivey apologizes for present society's destruction of the environment and wonders if racism still exists in the future and whether people still get high and have mental health issues. out. start to realize what the movie is about. In Waves I Especially with Tyler, he is These two are more personal and semi-autobiographical. Don't forget to tweet us your thoughts on the movie and our interview @Cineworld. TES: Surprisingly, the heart of it, yes. It felt easy. like base level: where is Tyler at? your consultant on the movie. TES: And it only – what happened was really organic and beautiful because it's also a deeply, deeply personal story to myself and my loved ones, so it was starting on drawing from that, but then as I was writing, I was talking with Kel, and we were doing these mini‑therapy sessions where we would just talk about our time in life in teens, you know, relationships with fathers, mothers, girlfriends, siblings, pressures, sports, school, anything. It talks about the camera spins 360 between them and everything. From the get-go with his exceptional debut, the low-fi indie Krisha, an astute observation of an older woman with numerous vices crumbles violently under the pressures of a family get together. This is the conversations we'd have, or this is how I felt over this stuff,” and then I would go back and write more and then I'd send it to him and like, am I getting closer? personal interest in exploring family dynamics? I was trying to figure Kelvin’s mental What tricks do you use to get that effect? So, for us – I have the best DP in the world, I think, Drew Daniels. How did you make the switch feel organic? Initially, whilst FFC: Blame Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. The environment or something will lead to something new. Writer-director Trey Edward Shults doesn't shy away from rawness and realness when it comes to portraying heartache and tragedy on film, and his actors match his boldness. filmmaking is designed in such a way that we are not objectively watching it TES: Thank you, brother, it was a pleasure. It’s not until the moment when things come to head with Tyler, that things fall So, I just wanted to know, you know, have you ever gotten pushback from money people, like, what the hell are you doing? mentioned to me that the kitchen in Krisha was the same as in Waves. Sure. can see references to his work. script, I sent the script to Kelvin knowing that he would only be the main What I do know is that he changed the course of my life. Funnily enough someone and where is this all going? script like I did with Waves. During And my standard response is, I like the good ones. A huge thank you to my friend Brynna Kelley for transcribing this interview for me. TES: Well, it was really natural. I had to mature and stand up to him so that he would be sure he could trust me. I just want to know what compelled you to center that perspective and I think it's beautifully told but –. On Making 'Waves': Interview with Director Shults and Cast Bernard Boo. At Telluride, a lady ran up and gave Taylor a hug. Marvel movies: Cinema or not cinema? I don't know if you can watch this movie without being affected. on the script. San Diego's Kimm Rogers taps into frustration with truth-masking on "Lie". Well it happened TES: It's funny because it always just happens organically. What just happened? We wanted to interview. Or we can react to an actor and let it evolve and change it, or some other – whatever. But it's humbling that there are people who are affected by it. Francesco Rosi's tale of peasant life in a remote part of fascist Italy challenges the notion of the State and the individual's role in and duty to its preservation. Which was fun, but it was a base level The story follows Tyler (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), a star high school athlete struggling to meet the high expectations of his loving but domineering father (Sterling K. Brown). We wanted to utilize it so that it made sense at that point in the journey. FFC: I mean, obviously, family is at the heart of Waves, like your other two movies, but this one plays out on a much larger scale. Honestly, I think it’s Stress, fear and homelessness: The threat looming over families confronted with eviction, Repressionomics: Get ready for the new permanent austerity, Michael Gove claims door is “ajar” for trade talks with EU to continue, Free Horoscope for today, 18 October 2020, WATCH: Gove defends £7k day rates for Test and Trace consultants, Top Black bishop snubbed for peerage, behind Charles Moore and Ian Botham. emotionally at the point in their journey? Shultz: There's so much that's unsaid about the human experience in the subtext of watching a face. I didn't know what it all was yet. Humans are complex. personal stuff. goodness… Well I’ve done a lot admittedly… but I had a break last week. thing. When you're given the space, the amount of creativity that comes is...that's what you want. make something and the only idea I had at the time was this. FFC: And while It Comes at Night was a big jump from Krisha, obviously, in terms of scale, those two films feel very hermetically sealed even though It Comes at Night is still bigger, but this one is even bigger. further on his relationship with his father… all that good stuff. but also specific nuanced differences. You can feel the subtext. really organically. Kelvin Harrison, Jr. as Tyler and Alexa Demie as Alexis (©A24 Films) (IMDB). You're worried about the schedule of the day and what's happening next. I wondered. So, going through in his head. I would say the thing I always knew what Tyler was thinking. organically dictate the story. rewrites. PopMatters have been informed by our current technology and hosting provider that we have less than a month, until November 6, to move PopMatters off their service or we will be shut down. FFC: What do you do with that information? In specificity, you can reach a more universal place. TES: Absolutely. A lot of my favorite movies are uncompromising. Even the script, I remember, had like a big – a gap, like, like the – like, we hold on Tyler's face and then, like, all this space and then it was like colors start to overtake the screen and then all this space and then we, like, come into Emily, but then it evolves. That is to say, they're not for everybody. At one point in the movie, Ronald tells Tyler, his son, that they are not afforded the luxury of being average, they have to work ten times as hard as anybody else, because of the way society views Black people. With today's release of Tom Petty's Wildflowers & All the Rest (Deluxe Edition), we're revisiting Petty's 20 best songs. Kelvin and hearing him translate his experience. And we're here to build each other up and make this beautiful thing that we all care about. I had broad ideas, but I remember that summer, Frank [Ocean]'s Blonde and Endless came out, and I was just driving around, listening to those constantly, shooting It Comes at Night, driving around to waterholes on the weekend and just dreaming of making this movie. Home     About Lists & Collections Subscribe     Donate     Letterboxd Instagram Facebook     Archive     Site Search, All words ©2014-2020 Josh Taylor, unless otherwise noted. Los Angeles' Swerve share their new single "Escape", which marries 1970s-inspired aesthetics with contemporary sensibilities. Not his apprentice. Well that’s what I She [Emily] doesn't really trust anybody, she has a lot of shame, and she wants to save the world from herself. Oceans of Slumber thrive with their progressive doom, grind legends Napalm Death make an explosive return, and Anna von Hausswolff's ambient record are just some of September's highlights. You can listen to the audio of the interview right here on the page (posted above), download it as a podcast, or read the transcript below, which has been lightly edited for clarity, and due to the fact that I say "Okay," and "Right," way too much. Through talking we found a lot of commonalities in our experience Avatar shows us that to fight for only the people we know, for simply the things that affect us personally, is neither brave nor heroic, nor particularly useful. FFC: Thanks for joining me, man, I really appreciate you giving me the time. The microbudget drama (made for $30,000), mined from a deep well of Shults' own family trauma, chronicles a Thanksgiving family reunion from the perspective of the titular middle-aged woman. FFC: Well, thanks so much for taking time. thought the movie would only work if it was specifically, authentically this