Improv, Meditation & the Art of Poop: Josephine Decker

By Shalini Adnani

Reality and imagination are one and the same thing for Josephine Decker, who, in amidst predictable and structured films, gives us something fresh and exciting. It seems like only by daring to fail did Josephine Decker give us her latest cinematic gift, Madeline’s Madeline, which premiered at Sundance and Berlinale’s Panorama section in 2018. Sensuous. Corporeal. Tactile. Visceral. These are just a few reactions I have to Decker’s work and it seems that she has finally honed in on her craft in her third feature. A thespian and performer at heart, Decker combines these elements to take her audience the closest they have ever been to being inside a character’s, and an actor’s, mind. Playing with perspective and point of view in such a fluid manner felt, to me, like the first time I witnessed literature on screen - with metaphors literally playing out on the screen - feelings and emotions of being a turtle at sea casually manifests in front of us making them even more powerful. 

Beyond questioning and rearranging film grammar as we know it, Decker, above all, seems fearless. Fearlessly deciding to develop through improvisation, shoot without a perfect script, and be willing to play - that is until she gets to the editing process, which is where most of the writing happens for this filmmaker. Referring to her large imagination, Decker prefers to write in the editing room - where the possibilities are restricted rather than coming up with something from a blank page - which for someone with her imagination, is endless. And then there’s her urgency to make and create. Ignoring the need for investment or even government funds, Decker has an urgent need to tell stories and express herself. This fervour and absolute need to tell and create is rarely found in an art form so expensive. Defying all industry norms, Decker makes films because she has to - although initially creating the work for herself, to discover her voice and experiment, it seems that her work is now reaching larger audiences and breaking boundaries which could be seen as monumental for a female director today.

SA—How did you realise you wanted to be a screenwriter and filmmaker?

JD—When I was 22 I started playing around and making films with friends and then I started a job working on documentaries ,ABC productions and we started pitching ideas and it was about two years later that we got some funding to make the feature length documentary called Bi The Way. And then I realized I could do anything if I could find the money for it. That was a revelation.  Then I dipped into independent film and dipped into TV a little bit but was mostly working in independent film and made a bunch of music videos and eventually just transitioned into making my own stuff. 

Tell me a little about your writing process?

Usually I start with an image. With Madeline’s Madeline it was definitely the image of the sea turtle being born into the movie and that turning into a girl on stage. I was at a zen meditation retreat and that image just came to me and I thought “this is the movie”. I also did a clown workshop where you kind of transcend yourself in performance. That was the seed, so that idea just stuck. And the idea of performance and whether you are yourself when you become something and how can the camera become something else with you. And then I started workshopping with actors. I had a few themes. We were workshopping around concepts of performance, our own family history, parents and children, mothers and daughters, but also patients and doctors, and playing with the surreality and reality of that relationship and also mental health. So we started looking at anxiety and the anxiety scale. So we started to thematically improvise. I worked with a theatre director to find a way to devise the way with actors. And after a while of doing that, I realised I didn't want to continue wasting time and we needed more focus. So I went away and started writing. 

In a way, I wrote a film much more about the process, about how we check in with each other, being honest about how something impacts you. I’d say it was a really healthy way of making a film in a way, even thought it was so hard. It’s really nice to have a lot of input when you are making something. Everyone has blind spots, there is no perfect person who is going to see everything as it really is. So it was really nice to have this be a group of people who were invested in the project, that were willing to check in and give feedback when something isn't working. It was so valuable. That kind of checking in was something I wanted to put into the film because I didn't see that many...artists to some degree are held accountable for the work they make, but it's so easy to take all this credit. And I feel this too. As a director, you take so much credit for everyone’s work. So there is a level of responsibility and ethics that are a little murky. So with this project, I still don’t know how to do justice for all the time these other people put in. These people are amazing, they are the people who made the movie. I just happen to be the one who sat in the editing room for a year. 

So you were cast before?

Except for Miranda and Molly Parker, I worked with everyone before that.

How did you find the actors you wanted to workshop with?

It was a combination of knowing people through various things, like being in theatre spaces but it was also through auditions. So I found Felipe and Lisa Starps and so it was auditions, plus friends, plus people I respect and knew. Molly and Miranda were just people I respected enormously and I hunted them down to get to work with. They were both pretty amenable.

In terms of the writing, did the themes evolve?

I mean yes, we had mothers and daughters with which you could spend like two years. And there was some misdirections, I started off wanting to approach incarcerations and we did a few sessions on that, but I soon realized this issue was so enormous. It was much bigger than what we could tackle in that room, with our resources.  So I transitioned away from that. I thought it would take me four years to learn enough about incarceration to learn more about it. I would still be the wrong person to tell it.

What kind of stories and characters are your attracted to?

I usually fall for a friend. I like fall in love with a person, I just need to know more about you and I need to tell your story. Or maybe not that, but tell a story with you at the center. I just think performance is just this beautiful, spiritual act. And art making, especially art making from your own life. You get to know very intimately. So the people I am really fascinated by, I like to tearing things open with them. But it's a little dangerous to make work that way. Making work alongside or deeply in concern with a real person can sometimes be really blurry and that's why that movie addresses the issues.

My therapist once said “ so you want to make work with real people and maybe even draw from their real lives and you want to fictionalise it and have a deep collaboration and then you want to control the final product and you don't want anyone to be mad at you! She was like, thats not how it works, so you need to look at that. Or you need to be comfortable with the fact that you love the work you do and inspired you and it's also going to complicate your life. That’s usually where I start, with a person or a really strong image. How does that image land.

I feel like a lot of filmmakers I like have that process. 

Which filmmakers are your referencing?

Well Andrea Arnold spoke about having an image of a girl pissing on the floor for Fish Tank and building a story around that. And I read an interview of the Run Lola Run director and he wrote that he just had this image in his mind of this woman running. And the film would just be this woman running and running. He had this whole very elegant way of talking of bodies in motion and the nature of mankind via running. So I think I work that way too, like this thing that is stuck and I have to make that image. I remember there was this one image of the mother and daughter going into the elevator together for the photoshoot. That scene had been in my mind for so long. I don’t know why. Then when we shot that, I took a deep breath, I felt like I took an art poop. I had this thing in my system and then it was finally out. 

How does editing play a part in the writing process for you?

Editing is where I do a lot of my writing, it’s the part that affects me the most. I rather write there than on paper. I don’t like having to write on paper. I have a really big imagination so when possibilities are endless it's very overwhelming. So, I like when you have a limited amount of possibilities, and you have to create something beautiful out of the limits. I really love that.

Have you ever had to edit out images that stayed with you?

Yea, actually the sea turtle was not in the movie for a while. And then the Director of photography saw the film and she felt we needed more of Helena and Molly connecting and we added it back in. I’ve got better at letting those things go. Working with David Barker , the editor of my first feature, kind of taught me that being precious of things is not helpful and it can hold you back for a long time. If you keep stuff that you are not willing to change. The biggest steps forward come when I throw up my hands and want to give up, but the changes I make in totally reinventing the movie I apply to it in the future. But it takes totally giving up to make those small steps forward.

In Madeline’s Madeline was performance always going to be part of the film?

Yea, I went to this clown workshop and I saw how people changed so much in these sessions, by performing and becoming something else and giving themselves to the audition. I wanted to really set something in a theatre creation space. And then I got a bunch of people and created this space. And when we were there, I thought we were going to make something else, like a cool sci-fi, or something. But the theatre creation space was really a place that was charged and a lot of things were happening.

Did you have any connection to dance, since your work is pretty informed by movement?

Yes, I danced a lot when I was a kid. I did ballet from 4 till I was 14. And I loved it, I was really sad when I had to stop. I have really flat feet so then I couldn't dance anymore. I couldn't have continued.

What do you consider yourself first?

A director for sure. I love performing also, but I don’t like waiting. I like to be busy all the time and so often with performing you are waiting for things to happen, you are underused. And as a human being I like to be maximally used. 

How did you embody your characters? When you were in the actual writing process? How did you find your characters voice and embody them?

I don’t think I can write without embodying the character, for some people its mental and for some it’s physical. I just think through the workshops I really had seen a full embodiment of the people. In my own writing, I think it’s very helpful to put things on their feet. I have a friend that just gets up on her feet and records things. 

Your background? How has it affected you?

I was born in London really. My dad worked in private equity and my mom was a journalist, she worked in international development and then quit to raise us and continue to be a journalist. And I should say my dad was a poet and I saw a lot of Tarkovsky. So I saw Sleeping Beauty by Disney and Andrey Rublyev by Tarkovsky. It was a great childhood to receive a lot of amazing filmmaking really early and lots of great writings. It’s amazing to have a literary household. I felt really supported in being an artist. And also my parents came from - well - they both were more working class and poor. But they both put themselves through school and really worked to have enough money to have a family. But I saw that my dad was and is such an artist and saw that the work he was putting into making money. I think you have to complain about the things you choose not to have in your life. And I’ve realised that. Like complaining is a way of accepting. So he complained a lot about not having time to do much writing, so I think I saw that, witnessing someone who made a strong choice to do something else made me realise I don’t need money, I don't want it. It doesn't seem to make people happy. But truthfully, it’s ironic, because I could not do what I do were it not for the safety net they created for me. I get to be an artist because of their hard work and pushed his life to be about that so his children could have more options. 

It’s one thing to say ‘I don’t need money, but I still have some’ so I think privilege definitely plays a part in my ability to make the work I make. I think I had the opportunity to find my voice as an artist. Because I didn't have to go around peddling my work, I did a Kickstarter, but my first feature was self funded and was a very cheap movie. But I scrapped money together from what I had, but that was more than what most people have access to. I think it’s nice to remember that. 

I wanted to ask you about being an independent filmmaker and kinda radical and just willing to go do it and not have to go through the system?

Oh my god, I would say that is literally the hardest work. It’s harder than all the other work. It’s the confidence. It’s debilitating to admit that maybe what your doing had no value that what you are doing LITERALLY had no value. I still have made zero dollars from Butter on The Latch.

I practice zen buddhism and that helps. I don’t think I would have been able to do my first feature without mediation. And the mediation was all about integration and acceptance and acceptance about where you are. 

I felt weirdly, it’s really hard and I’ve found lots of empowerment and power over my body and mind and helped me feel like I could make work. And three months later I made Butter on The Latch. It was exciting. This film was much harder, it’s a longer gestation. It’s been four years since I met Helena. It was longer to agonise. 

How do you keep the radical spirit alive?

I don’t know that I want to keep it. I would love to get distribution, I want my films to be seen. I’ve learnt so much from making my first three features and I feel really ready for my work to have a larger audience. And I really do feel like the work is strong enough, there is nothing that is holding it back from having a larger audience now. Some of it has to do with me but sometimes the system. It’s a little bit about the way things look and the celebrities or names you have in your film that really signals to people - this is for you! I guess in a way, I’m just letting myself take care of the audience and give them what they want - in some kind of way. 

Talk about how you found your voice through making material

Honestly it’s just from making work. And also being an editor is a really important part of being a filmmaker and for me has changed everything. I do think I’ve found my voice most through the edit. And also being an editor has made me realise what I need to get on set or not, what kind of images and how big to go with the images I’m getting. It ultimately just came from making stuff. I’ve been lucky enough to just be able to make stuff and find my voice over time - it’s like your voice is waiting really.  I think the process of making early films is just like opening your mouth and trying weird sounds out and trying things out. Your voice is already there, it’s in there, it’s just about letting it come out and trying to find a way to get it out. 

In terms of M’s M, what was it about mental illness you wanted to talk about?

I grew up close to someone who struggled with mental illness and I had seen that throughout my life. So I really wanted to look at it more deeply and understand it as an outsider. And really look at how someone who struggles with mental illness affects relationships, families, I mean it has an effect on everyone. So it was really a desire to try to understand something and also really study how mother-daughter relationships are affected by this. 

What is brewing in a family and I was just really interested in how a family shapes that kind of situation or experience for someone with mental illness. What is brewing in the family that makes one person seems ill and might look ill, but actually isn’t the one that is ill. With the film, I wanted to question, is the mom ill? Or is she the one that is creating that illness? 

I really wanted that question to be alive. Is this person mentally ill or are her circumstances or people around her creating that. And this whole situation really just creates a dependency for the mother, which is something she really likes.

Authorship in the film, you address this in the film.

I didn't know I was going to go that far with that character of the theatre director, I didn't know she was going to be so central. In a way that character is not me, but is also modelled on me. It was only about a year into writing this, that the character emerged.

Did that feel weird at all?

It was the hardest character to write, because I had no empathy for her and in a way I had no empathy for myself. But I do think Molly brought a lot to her and helped flesh her out beautifully. 

The end of the film? Explosion of expression?

I got to the place where there is a violence brewing inside this character. The natural thing that would end this film is she kills the pregnant baby, that's what you would expect and tonally you expect that. But then I realised that she as a character is too creative to do something like that, like there are solutions other than violence. And then a realisation that ecstasy, creativity, joy, dance is an explosive act that can be violent. I think the reason people resort to violence is because it creates a new reality, a new power dynamic, it ends one thing and starts something else. So I think creativity can do that as well. So I thought about leaning into that instead.

Wow, I’ve never said that actually.

Yea, it sounded really good. 

That ending was a merging of her creativity with her reality. It felt important for me to have a non happy ending, like you have some really happy days but you still come home to your illness. It’s a process of acceptance, that it can’t be cured.

Narrative expectation of the end?

I do think the narrative structure is linear, it builds to an experience to build to a logical end that was satisfying. It took a long time. It took so long to edit. I think we sell ourselves short by thinking linear narratives happen in reality. I think you can be talking to someone and all of a sudden you imagine what they look like without clothes. So the reality of them naked is as real as them without clothes. I think we have a funny idea of what reality is and stories are held back by it. I think those are the greatest stories.

I was talking to my friend Terrance Nance like I make such weird films, when am I going to get some audience. And he said - no that’s exactly those films that get audiences. Look at blockbuster films - there are superheroes, flying through the air, it’s the end of civilisation and things are covered in ice. People love alternate realities that defy rules. I think in dramatic spaces, we forget that the more real thing is the less real.

You said you were really inspired by magical realism? What other literature influences you?

Definitely magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude, I love huge epics that are about genealogies and families that are about families changing. But actually I’ve got into Shirley Jackson lately, she does this thing I want to do in my films. She moves really seamlessly between an authorial perspective and a first person perspective and you end up totally inside a characters mind, but you think you are outside. And she does it so slowly. When I started reading her work, when you try to make work that isn't along the beaten path, it’s really nice to see when someone is trying to do the same thing. And she really is in literature. It was nice I could zero in on the miniscule and then pull out to a truism or something like that.