![]() ![]() ![]() For me, that first where we pull the focus reminds me of this strange planet in a Solaris-type world. We tried to follow those horror keynotes but obviously substitute them. "Well, we used them as substitute gore shots. It felt as if my mind was trying to imprint meaning onto this imagery, even seeing a tortured, contorted face in the cabbage on one occasion. The close-ups of the rotten cabbages had an extremely sinister quality. It reeked by the end but I really enjoyed shooting the vegetables." It took a week to ten days and each day the smell in there was getting heavier and heavier. We had two troughs and left stacks of vegetables in there. We couldn't artificially make it look rotten so we had to do it for real. I'd get raised voices if I was heading over budget. "Haha, I didn't know anything about the money - I still don't. Going back to the cabbage stabbing, I have to ask - how much was the cabbage budget for the film? A lot of them were used! The way he edited the film, his complete sense of geography blending into one by the way he cut between physical locations - we did this in Berberian by the way we moved between the studio and Gilderoy's apartment. "Film-wise, I think the biggest influence was a film called The Cremator by a Slovak called Juraj Herz. The 'Silencio' sign - that actually came from the word 'silencio' being used in a lot of Morricone soundtracks, but with a 'z' not a 'c'. Maybe subconsciously, films that are really formative to you get under your skin. That was one of the first films I really, really got into. Eraserhead was a huge influence on me when I was younger. The jarring and unsettling nature of the sound led me to wonder whether David Lynch's Eraserhead was a direct influence. But what if you give it a different context? It can be completely weird." You have the very innocent sound of someone stabbing a cabbage, what you have when you cook a meal in the evening. "It's also about the nature of sound - and how context and association can change it. How do you position yourself between those two extremes? It's very interesting to see with an audience. but what came out of that film was this idea of two extremes - having a highly unpleasant violence on the screen but on the other side having this kind of pantomime element. Where did the original idea for Berberian Sound Studio - or the short film it was based on - come from? ![]() People are a lot more actively involved in the film when you give them less." Sometimes it's a lot more disturbing for that. I think the human brain is a lot more powerful than what we can put on the screen and the audience can readily compensate for what they don't see. but the main thing to achieve was to have the intensity that horror films have. When you don't see blood and so on it's not going to be scary to everyone. "I thought, 'Why not do the complete opposite and not show anything whatsoever?' but still follow the same dynamics as a horror film. I think in the last few years horror has become so extreme and you do feel that people try to outdo each other and you don't want to get into that. "No, it was always clear from the start that it had to be that way. "Haha, it didn't occur to me but maybe subconsciously it might have been there!"Īs for addressing the needs of disgruntled horror movie fans, were you ever tempted to shoot any scenes for the film-within-a-film The Equestrian Vortex? You mentioned The Office - could you see a parallel with the work-induced frenzy of David Brent doing his famous dance and Toby Jones in Berberian Sound Studio stabbing cabbages in front of workers? The only reason I wouldn't call it horror myself is because we had a couple of screenings where horror fans came along and they were really, really pissed off, so I'm just very weary." "But if someone called it horror I'd be more than happy. It's about work, it's about hierarchy and all the problems with work - some very ancient problems to do with nepotism, corruption, bullying and sexism and so on. For me, it's got a lot in common with The Office - that Ricky Gervais character is from Reading as well. In the film, the shady director Santini didn't want his work The Equestrian Vortex classified as a horror movie, which leads to the inevitable question - how would you want Berberian Sound Studio to be classified? ![]() Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play ![]()
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