Both alone and separately, the Zellner Brothers—David and Nathan—have been writing, directing and acting in films since the late 1990s, beginning with their 1997 comedy PLASTIC UTOPIA, and continuing through such works as FRONTIER (2001), GOLIATH (2008), and KID-THING (2012), as well as a bevy of well-received shorts. But it was their fascinating, melancholy tale of a Japanese woman coming to America to search for the buried treasure from the movie FARGO, KUMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER that dominated the 2014 festival circuit and established them as storytellers to be reckoned with.
Always armed with the desire of telling the types of stories that have simply never been told on film, the Zellners have now written, directed and co-star in the alternative Western DAMSEL, a movie that debuted at Sundance this year and seeks to upend the deep-seated gender roles of one of America’s most firmly established genres. In it, Robert Pattinson plays a seemingly good-natured and well-intentioned young pioneer of the Wild West, circa 1870. He’s hot on the heels of his lady love (Mia Wasikowska). But is she being taken from him, or is running away as fast as she can? Whatever the answer, she is certainly not in distress and is in no need of rescue. The film takes unexpected turns through a story that is funny, shocking, violent and altogether unexpected, with both Zellner siblings taking on key acting roles, just to make things even more interesting.
We sat down with the Zellner Brothers recently when they were in Chicago for the Chicago Critics Film Festival to ponder the idea of dismantling the classic Western and rebuilding it for a modern audience. The film opens at the Music Box Theatre on Friday, June 29.
Question: KUMIKO sounded like a comedic premise that turned out to be dangerous and sad, while DAMSEL sounds like a straight-forward Western plot that turns out to be quite funny. Are you always looking for ways of subverting the expected?
David Zellner: We just try to come up with stuff that we want to see, that would be interesting to us. Some of it we plan that way and some of it is intuitive as we go along. It just ends up straddling the line between the humor and the pathos. From the script to shooting to editing, we find the balance of that tone. With KUMIKO, there are little moments of humor in it, but we’re definitely on that melancholic side, which felt appropriate for that. With DAMSEL, initially, we just love Westerns and wanted to write a Western, but we had different idea gelling. But it wasn’t like “Let’s make a Western with a lot of humor in it.” But in the writing, it just bubbled to the surface that way.
There is a delicate balance between humor and something more serious here. Does that happen in the writing or while you’re shooting or the editing?
DZ: It’s a combination. With this, it was definitely tricky finding that balance. We were going for a dreamy vibe with the aesthetics of it, in terms of the score and using lots of dissolves. And trying to balance that with the goofy stuff is not a conventional combination, but we liked the idea of it.
What do you inherently love about Westerns? Perhaps more than most genres, there’s a certain predictability that you can play with.
Nathan Zellner: A lot of different things, like the scenery. KUMIKO was a landscape-driven movie as well, and there’s something about filming in these outdoor spaces and the beauty of that postcard image to place your actor in front of…
Even the worst Western looks good.
NZ: Exactly! There’s a romanticizing of the west where we grew up throughout the Four Corner states [Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah], and as kids we saw all of Monument Valley and the mountains. It always felt like a really great place to shoot a film. That’s that inherent quality that you see in Westerns.
DZ: It’s arguably the most American genre, and so much of it is about idealizing the American way and the west as this idea of starting a new life where you can reinvent yourself. That gave us a theme to play with in general and lent itself to this story. We’ve always liked the different kinds of Westerns, and it’s more vast in terms of their variety than it seems.
Talk about the characters you find in Westerns. Your film reminds me of what some edgy Westerns have done, which is acknowledge that you have to be a little crazy to live this lifestyle, both the good guy and the bad guy. Talk about digging into the psychology of these archetypes.
NZ: We were thinking of this while we were building backstories for the characters about why Penelope is out there and why Samuel is out there—the whole idea of the distance that Samuel is willing to go to find her. And there are all of these fringe people that populate the west back then. So we took that approach when we were looking at casting and how to construct the characters. It’s kind of insane to go out on a whim and conquer the west for multiple strange reasons—to get away from people, to find fortune, whatever. It was this weird period that I don’t think you’ll ever see again, since everything has been discovered in that way.
DZ: In relation to the genre, the things that are tiresome were things that we, instead of hiding or shying away from them, we embraced them and use it as a foundation to give us something to subvert. The hero archetype, the drunk preacher, the damsel in distress—the nice thing about them being cliches is that even if people aren’t into Westerns, they have a shorthand with those archetypes right out of the gate. They need very little buildup, and that gives you a platform where you can play with expectations.
The assume because he says so that Samuel is going in search of Penelope, when in fact, she’s running away from him. It seems like a slight difference, but it’s not…
NZ: It’s all a matter of perspective [laughs].
Exactly. But when we understand the dynamic, he becomes the entitled male: “I don’t care if you love me; you’re mine.” When you shot this, that was not the narrative we are now living in. Could you have ever guessed that the world would catch up to your vision of it?
DZ: It’s interesting and long overdue. It starts when we were trying to come up with characters. There are so many Westerns that we love, but the female characters were so boring and one-dimensional and not given anything to do other than be an object to be obtained. Out of the gate, we knew what we wanted to embrace as well as do differently. In terms of Westerns that are made today, they try to do a faithful take on either a spaghetti Western or a John Ford Western—no matter how good it is, it’s always going to feel like a copy. There’s no way you can make something as good as what you’re mimicking, so what elements of those can we take and embrace and do our own thing with?
It’s not like you’re trying to do it better; you’re trying to do something different.
DZ: It’s frustrating with some of these new Westerns. It’s like they treat it like cosplay.
With the two of you, how does the division of duties work, especially when you’re acting as well in your own film?
NZ: By the time we’re shooting, it’s pretty interchangeable. But prior to that, David and I have spent so much time writing and doing everything to get up to production, we feel very comfortable with what the other is doing, whether it’s acting, producing or directing. That enables us to be really flexible on set, and people can come to either of us. It’s especially helpful, because in this movie, David is in front of the camera a lot, so the goal there is to have him not be worried about anything but the acting part of it.
DZ: Although that doesn’t end up happening [laughs].
NZ: Yeah, but that’s how we’ve always worked.
DZ: This is the first time we’ve put ourselves in front of the camera for so much of the film. It still is crazy and audacious to put yourself in your own movie, but we’ve always done it when appropriate and always liked it. With that in particular, we make sure we have everything worked out with our characters before, so that all the time is for the other actors.
You actually shot this really close to where the Sundance Film Festival happens. It looks great, but what are some of the perils of putting on a modern production in the wilderness?
DZ: It’s fun. We like being outdoors, and that’s what we wanted. The combination of finding amazing places to film and the practical side of finding a hub that is the epicenter of your story, as much as possible. For the most part, we shot the majority of the film within an hour or so of Park City [Utah], with the exception of the Oregon Coast and the opening of the film.
I wanted to talk about Robert Pattinson, who is in the midst of a string of incredible and varied performances. Just when you think you know what he’s capable of, he does something like this. How did you connect with him and what did he bring to the character that maybe you didn’t write?
NZ: That’s what was appealing for us about working with him. Thankfully he’d taken an interest in our script as well as our previous film, KUMIKO. We met with him in L.A., and he quickly got the tone of what we were going for. And seeing the films he’d done prior and after ours, it was like “Oh, you’re working with all of our favorite directors like Herzog, Claire Denis,” and its clear that his choices are very curated, and he has very good, specific taste. It was neat to see how much thought there was behind the choices he’s made, and the fact that he was interested in a role like this, that other actors were afraid to do. He was the opposite of that; he was totally fearless and was down for whatever and adventurous.
Did he have anything to do with Mia getting involved? I know they’d worked together before.
NZ: He played a big part. They’ve known each other for years, and we cast him first. We were fans of her work as well, but he could vouch for her and for us to her [laughs].
Well, thanks for your time and best of luck with this.
Steve Prokopy is the chief film critic for the Chicago-based arts outlet Third Coast Review (www.ThirdCoastReview.com). For nearly 20 years, he was the Chicago Editor for Ain’t It Cool News, where he contributed film reviews and filmmaker & actor interviews under the name “Capone.”
DAMSEL opens June 29th at the Music Box Theatre. CLICK HERE for Showtimes & Advance Tickets.