![]() I was really interested in how actors interacted with these abstracted objects and environments and how the surroundings shaped the dialogue. All the sets, furniture and props are designed around very basic geometric shapes. This kind of simple geometry is a reoccurring theme in Moon Dust. I can see some connections to the Light and Space movement in the way colour can be used to define a space or a Land Art piece like Michael Heizer’s work North, South, East, West (1967),which deals with very basic geometric forms-not as positive shapes but as negative voids. SR: Besides the filmmakers I already mentioned, I’m sure I was also heavily influenced by visual art. I see nods to art movements, (specifically American Minimalism), with geometric forms cut into and out the sets, as well as careful positioning of grandmas bric-a-brac a la Heim Steinbach or Mike Kelley. ![]() But the difference is the room that I design for a film doesn’t actually have to stand up, it just has to last long enough to make it through the shot.īF: The film has a lot of visual art references too, not just filmic ones. It’s like playing the role of an architect or designer-everything needs to be constructed from the ground up. Setting a story in the future especially lends itself to this kind of re-invention of the everyday. I also love Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Jacques Tati’s Playtime for this reason. ![]() Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) is a great example of this. A lot of early silent films have this feeling of touch-of a world built from scratch where the filmmakers’ ideas become evident through the sets and props as much as the actors and performances. Scott Reeder: I’ve always been interested in film, especially work with a strong visual aesthetic-almost a sense of touch. In your Artforum 1000 Words essay on Moon Dust, you wrote about being inspired by Jacques Tati’s Playtime (1967) and wanting “the sets and props almost become characters themselves.” I’m curious how much did your own preoccupation with producing the mise en scène dictate the activity and narrative of the film? Rather, did the sets come to you first? There are these simple but unbelievable sculptures too, like the one-Twizzler-at-a-time wall dispenser, or the hexagonal toilet bowl. Coming away from it, I first wanted to ask you about the sets specifically. Ben Fain: In Moon Dust (2014), your first feature film, we see this dying resort town on the moon that is in crisis, a collapsing consumer fantasy, all unified by a dreamy narcotic palette.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |