Ari Aster Breaks Down Scenes from 'Hereditary,' 'Midsommar,' 'Eddington' and More

Vanity Fair

Director Ari Aster breaks down some iconic scenes from the A24-produced features 'Hereditary' and 'Midsommar' as well as his newest film 'Eddington.' Get his full breakdown of how he brought the movies to life, from location to the intricacies of the sets and styling.   Director: Claire Buss Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia Editor: Matthew Colby Talent: Ari Aster Producer: Madison Coffey Line Producer: Natasha Soto-Albors Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi Associate Production Manager : Elizabeth Hymes Talent Booker: Lauren Mendoza  Camera Operator: Mar Alfonso Gaffer: David Djaco Audio Engineer: Rachel Suffian Production Assistant: Karla Torres, Quinton Johnson Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo; Erica DeLeo Assistant Editor: Andy Morell

Transcript

00:00I remember at one point he was saying he didn't want the padded desk he just

00:07wanted a regular desk I did not want that in the end the foam was attached to

00:12an actual desk it landed somewhere between what he wanted and what we

00:15thought we were providing which was you know total protection I'm Ari Aster and

00:20I am apparently going to be breaking down some scenes from my movies

00:23no they're yours sheriff they're your streets to keep safe and where is your

00:27man this is a scene from my first feature hereditary so you got some fly VFX here

00:42I wanted to just have hundreds of real flies accumulating in the attic my first

00:49plan was to lock off the set and just leave some you know rotting stuff in

00:55the room for like days just let the room become you know permeated I was

01:00disabused of the notion that that would be possible pretty quickly something to do

01:05with I think PETA was involved fly wranglers are hard to come by but we

01:10actually did I did hire somebody to catch flies and so we did let some flies into

01:16the room but they didn't get very it didn't it didn't do much it just made the

01:20room unpleasant to be in

01:24there's a real corpse we cut off its head it's not true sorry

01:46I will say I was kind of surprised by the time the film came out and people were

01:58telling me that the the clucking was effective because while we were

02:01shooting this I just kept thinking like this is not gonna fucking work this is

02:04so silly

02:16Alex basically went method for this film and he really got into a pretty intense

02:24psychological space he was definitely in a zone for this scene and I think he's

02:30amazing in this scene it in particular especially in what is about to happen

02:36for that I think we at first the idea because I wanted it to feel unnatural as

02:42we tied rope to his hand and tugged it up but we found that it was even more

02:47effective when he just did it himself

02:49Peter what's wrong

02:51Peter are you all right

02:56that push-in ended up working I was I wasn't sure if it would where we can't

03:05it off axis as we push in there's a bit being done here with makeup with his lip and

03:10his eye which which we kind of artificially opened beyond what would seem natural the

03:16rest of what we're seeing here is Alex just acting very well him going

03:22almost purple is not makeup that's him

03:24Peter what are you doing man

03:26in order to get that effect we did that backwards so had had him press his face

03:36into the desk and then pull it back quickly

03:38this he actually did go into the table I think his nose would be

03:46right around there this is a padded table so we put foam on the top to protect him but I

03:52hadn't thought of the fact that you know beneath the foam is still a table so it's

03:57still solid beneath the foam I think he did unfortunately hurt his nose which was

04:03obviously not intentional I don't think any permanent damage was done I remember at

04:07one point he was saying he didn't want the padded desk he just wanted a regular desk I did

04:12not want that in the end because the foam was attached to an actual desk it landed somewhere

04:19between what he wanted and what and what you know we thought we were providing which was you know

04:24total protection

04:25yeah so you know everybody reacting there didn't have to act much because Alex was actually doing

04:39that or rather the reaction didn't take much acting yeah Alex is great in this scene he really he really

04:47gave it I did write backstories for all of these characters more than I ever have done since I went a

04:52little crazy with the backstories wrote like these 20 page biographies for each character but with

04:59Alex it was mostly us just talking about life and family and art and our own histories and and just

05:05closer to therapy do I want to let do I let him finish screaming yeah there it is what's that

05:14that's not for us this is a scene from Midsommar which was my second film I think you should not

05:21so they want her to go to Siv's house uh but she's hearing noises in uh the temple and she has a bad

05:33feeling about what's in there and feels compelled to investigate and uh is about to discover that

05:40her boyfriend is in some sex ritual and it's it'll be disturbing to her

05:46so this is a steadicam shot

05:51nice to have the light from the keyhole illuminating her her eyes

06:03I offered to provide something on the other side of that but she didn't need it some people would

06:17would request something there so that they're not just you know acting but she did not need it

06:22so here again is we have a steadicam shot they have sort of an empathy based language they are

06:33all kind of like a hive mind and so the idea was to have them kind of move in all together at once

06:40to uh to support her and kind of whisk her away here we drift in nice to have the door framing this

06:48here we move into handheld which is the only time we do this in the film

06:52i try to only kick into handheld when uh the scene itself is is is kind of off balance

07:00all of these actresses well most of them we flew in from sweden and uh they are all uh accomplished

07:19theater television film actors we were very lucky to have them

07:24there was a lot of talk about this before we started shooting

07:32florence is not like a big crier and she was very nervous about even taking on the part because

07:39she was just worried that she wouldn't be able to do these scenes and by the time they came around

07:44she was i don't know what she had done to prepare but she was very ready she was able to launch into

07:49this stuff whatever she was worried would be inaccessible to her was not

07:53what the the scene required was kind of laid out pretty clearly in the script

08:11i remember there was an energy that morning among all of these women you know they were nervous but

08:16very excited and you know i think i maybe talked them through the cycle here and like you know

08:22she's gonna crawl off the bed try to crawl towards the exit you're gonna crowd her and kind of make her

08:28look into your eyes you look into hers and just you know follow her breathing and kind of train her

08:35and then the way that they launch into the the crying is uh really strong and really moving to me and

08:55scary and strange and uh i i'm very proud of the scene and i'm i'm really i'm really proud of this cast i think they are amazing

09:04this is a heavily choreographed film there's a lot of dance from actual dance sequences when they're

09:26all competing to become the may queen movements they do and gestures to to you know um a sort of sign

09:32language that we've incorporated into the affect language and the choreographer anna vanuk a really

09:37brilliant swedish choreographer who was a hugely helpful in this film lent a lot of herself to this

09:46couldn't have done it without her

09:53so i think all together we probably did it wasn't many it was maybe three or four takes all together

10:01because at a certain point they're just sapped we set it up so that the first couple takes could be

10:08the prime ones

10:15pretty sure i was in the uh the operator's ear there to move to move closer and then to move out which is

10:21how we have that pull back

10:28their screaming there is meant to uh synchronize with the the moaning screaming that's happening

10:34in the the sex ritual in the next scene so we we we keep that tempo going um over the cut

10:40i really love this scene and i really love these actresses and then just the spill of two 300

10:51construction jobs ongoing this is from my new film eddington the scene is one of the first scenes in the

10:56film and it's uh the first time we will meet the mayor of eddington played by pedro pascal we've just

11:04been introduced to joaquin phoenix's character joe cross who's the sheriff of sevilla county he's about

11:10to walk into frame you just let these guys build this whatever data complex and then they open

11:15close it down for whatever reason we just got to eat there there's clawbacks on everything they're

11:18talking about a hyperscale data complex that's tied to ai and how they can get that through and make it

11:25happen gross receipt taxes payback property there's no wishing tech away whether we jump on the boat now

11:33or get bulldozed these guys they're bringing an actual infrastructure for a real future a real future

11:39they're like what this uh neon sign does for the scene it uh casts both of them in in red light

11:47this was an empty building that was not safe to even really stand in and so we had to we had to

11:53fortify the building itself and then um and build the whole for the whole thing for from scratch one thing

11:59about this set that unfortunately is not clear in the film is we had a mural painted all across

12:08the bar that depicted the history of eddington and uh and ted garcia's family the garcia family has

12:15deep roots in in eddington i just didn't anticipate how dark all the scenes would be and the fact that

12:21that mural is like completely invisible so anyway that's some work that you know just kind of went

12:28out the window can we count on your yay tomorrow what is the problem

12:38well he's outside i had to lock the door to keep him outside it's been a whole hour like this

12:46i can't understand you yes you can

12:53he's disturbing the peace again he's blocking the entrance i was uh pleasantly surprised how much

13:00chemistry joaquin and pedro had they really liked each other and um and they uh just had this like

13:07instant rapport made each other laugh a lot and this scene was actually difficult to get through

13:13because for whatever reason they were very giggly they were making each other laugh

13:17all night and it was a tight night so that was fun for a little bit um what are you even doing in

13:23there it's takeaway drinks town council members that's essential business well you can't just call

13:28essential business whatever you want i like glass because it catches reflections and that just makes

13:34any frame more interesting what is that borges quote uh mirrors are abominable because they

13:40multiply the number of men so i i like reflections not for that reason but i but i but i but i always

13:45think about that the city council meeting wherever city council people congregate it's the mayor's

13:50office if i'm inside okay then you are open and you have a paying customer who's trying to he's aggressive

13:58he's dangerous he needs to be locked up where would you have to send him in your streets no they're yours

14:03sheriff they're your streets to keep safe and where is your man he doesn't have a mascot yeah

14:12you can sort of see the mural back here and it and it continues here and goes over here anyway

14:22uh that's what i'm talking about lodge the homeless man is played by clifton collins jr who's a great

14:28actor and was great in this and yeah he is kind of deliberately kind of sidelined all the way through

14:34the film there's nobody who cares about him he's he's he's not tied to anybody else i i don't want to

14:40give anything away but uh he becomes important and at the same time remains expendable i maybe that's

14:49saying too much he's coughing okay no mask either with this guy well i will say we shot bow is afraid

14:58with all those covid protocols it made the process of making that film so difficult even certain things

15:04like uh actors could not be within three feet of each other for longer than 15 minutes cumulatively

15:12over the day and you'd have somebody with a stopwatch you know so every take that you know it it goes

15:17four minutes and actors are you know within that bubble like that's okay you've got you've got 11

15:23minutes now over the whole day and then and then it's over this would have been a perfect movie to

15:27make in in 2021 when we made beau because everybody was masked up anyway he's also got a young guns 2

15:34poster and i think that says a lot about ted up here you've got winners of the miss fiesta

15:41uh competition it's a beauty competition i'll tell you what this is the kind of thing that i would do

15:48myself that that me and the art team would would do but the truth or consequences museum we shot this

15:54film in truth or consequences new mexico had uh an exhibit for the past winners those were just priceless so

16:03we we actually borrowed those from the museum well yeah the scene continues but uh you're gonna have to

16:11buy a ticket and go watch it

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