"Her Smell" director Alex Ross Perry ignites

When Robert Greene first looked at the raw footage his long-time friend and collaborator, Alex Ross Perry, had taken from shooting "Her Smell," a familiar feeling began to bubble up in the editing room. were about to make the biggest fucking movie of all time. Greene, Perry's editor, laughed the way they described it at the time: "People will compare that to Boogie Nights, but when we're done, people will forget how say it words "Boogie" and "Nights". We will erase this shit from history because of what we do! "

Speaking on the phone from his home in Missouri, the editor-in-chief recalled being very enthusiastic about post-production: [cinematographer] Sean Price Williams, the art direction was spectacular, the lighting was beautiful, the whole team was reunited and delivered. "

Even with a tight budget, Perry had always known that they would do it. Virtually all of his department heads were close friends who had already collaborated with him on several previous films, and the confidence he gave them inspired his. On this subject – as on most topics – Perry did not mince his words: "Any script that a studio or Netflix wants to win for $ 20 million, my team can win five", has he said in a recent interview at a cafe near his Brooklyn apartment.

Perry's beliefs about how he makes movies and about those who make them with him are not born of pure pride, but the many lessons he has learned from a bumpy relationship with the company. He explained his philosophy as follows: "Just send me the money and tell me when you need to see a break. And the only reason we know how to do this is because we created movies worth $ 20,000, which nobody at Netflix has ever done.

Perry also offered movies made $ 20,000. Since he landed on the map with "The Color Wheel" in 2011 (which technically equals $ 19,001 per Box Office Mojo), nothing that he has made really broke. "Listen Up Philip" brought in $ 200,000, while last year's "Queen of Earth" and "Golden Exits" sold $ 130,000 worth of tickets sold (though both were also published day after day on VOD, a purist abhors as a horror). If Perry has continued to fail, it's because his films are good, they are cheap and famous characters love to play in these movies. But "Her Smell" was her first real shot at the barriers, a punk bug riot that cost a little too much to collapse and burn without real consequences.

A breathtaking Shakespearian epic starring Elisabeth Moss as Becky Something, a ferocious, drug-laden woman – a ship in distress that seems to want to take the rest of her riot squad into the abyss – "Her Smell "is Barnstormer's heartfelt of a film that will remain one of the boldest American indies of this waning decade. Selling over 10 years, dozens of actors and 135 minutes, the film is by far the most ambitious thing that Perry has ever done. It's a world away from sterile, sardonic comedies that any carefree person could expect from a lean, high white New Yorker like Woody Allen and Peter Bogdanovich.

The film is a whole-body experience from start to finish – a 360-degree nightmare that turns into cold sweat. The first relentless chapters weave their way through an obscure world of ego and addiction to the Gaspé Noé, while the closing scenes condense into a kind of morning frost, creating a cinematic creepy that is so palpable that you can feel them on your skin. Moss is like a piss cross between Gena Rowlands and the Phantom of the Opera, while the cast that surrounds it is composed of brilliant actors who disappear in their roles. Amber heard! Cara Delevingne! Eric Stoltz! The journey is so rich and full of life that you can not believe it did not cost a fortune to make; it's also so punitive and abrasive that you can not believe that someone thought it could make a fortune in return.

"The next morning, after watching the movie, there was only silence," said Perry during a recent interview at a café near his Brooklyn apartment. "No calls, no emails, no indication" it's one thing. "That's always the case when our notions are disillusioned."

"His smell"

TIFF

The big buyers had come to the premiere – A24, Neon, Fox Searchlight – but "Her Smell" was finally sold to the new brand, Gunpowder & Sky, whose most profitable title is "Hearts Beat Loud" with 2.3 millions of dollars.

Greene was not surprised by the evolution of the situation. Not really. "We still think we're doing this big project," he said, "but when people see the film, they say," Um, it's so abrasive, shitty and weird? " "It's a deliberate illusion." To make these huge creative leaps, we have to prepare for a fall. "Despite his box-office miracle," His Smell "seems poised to become the most dramatic of all. 39, between them, to this day – a perfect result for a room as dizzying and striking work.

"I think the template is based on the economic risk of a movie like this," Perry said. "I could not do another movie of this size, and I do not really know why I would make another film as small as" Queen of Earth. "I guess I might be surprised at what will happen next, but people will only support things that seem to be paying, and for now, I have failed enough so that I do not know why I would ask someone to take that chance.What does this leave me? nowhere, take your ball and go home.

Maybe, but only because Perry does not want to play. Now that his moonlight shooting has gone awry, the incorrigible writer feels put at the mercy of a system that is waiting for talented filmmakers to become too fat to support themselves, then forces them to get their graduation to do things that they do not want. make.

For Perry, it's not just wanted to to make "its smell" at a certain price, but also that it had because if the budget was higher, it would have cost everyone his sense of control. "Its smell" was the exact budget nobody really cared about, "said Perry," If this film had cost more, other people would have bought the right to have an opinion on the making of the film. At one point, we had proposed to make the film to literally double what we had done.This producer arrived and looked like: 'You can not earn one cent less than this amount. And I said, "I can and I will do it. In addition, this guy wanted a $ 500,000 production fee for whatever reason.

Perry's voice was dripping with disgust. Or maybe it was incredulity to the idea that other people actually support such bullshit. This producer would ultimately not be involved in the film.

"His smell"

"What I've learned lately," said Perry, "is that there is just one right way to do things and that I can not do something in a way that I feel is wrong. I really feel I've found the right way to make things work, and I can apply this model to any budget and I would not want to do anything that forces me to adapt to a model different. And if people want to make a film with me, they have to understand it. "

Production company Bow + Arrow wanted to make a film with him. They did not transfer $ 5 million to Perry (the final figure was about half), but it was enough for the director to hit the target. Happy to have a chip on his shoulder, Perry used the selfish offer of this producer to prove that the independent cinema did not need to shoot himself in the foot. "By bringing together 30 or 40 people on a film like this, I could test my theory that I can do things more easily, more efficiently and with better results than other people, and that I can give to my team a better experience of this process. , "he said." I could show that my team can work on the screen with a budget that others can not dream of, and that everyone can have fun doing it and doing a job. which they are proud of and who will not feel good … was just a job, I'm sure I'm right about it. "

Judging by all the members of the team who went to Canada for the sumptuous premiere of the film, it seems like it was: it was as if every person who had been part of "Her Smell" had arrived in plane for the big night. Marie Bardi, head of unit production, owes her high turnout to a collective sense of ownership. "Everyone went above and beyond," she said. "Everyone knew that they were working on something special."

They were and they were not. The film is one of a kind, but the response has been mixed. It was difficult for Perry to make sense of his feat, but he was always more weighted for success than any of his characters.

In Perry's films, success does not represent as much the end of the road as the beginning of the descent of the cliff that has just passed the rail. Experts quickly speculated that Jason Schwartzman's arrogant writer in "Listen Up Philip" was supposed to be a breathtaking self-portrait. the truth is that his characters are more like the toxic projections of people that Perry is afraid to become – uplifting tales about what happens when someone's head fills with hype and that it becomes convinced that they do not need someone else to support them. When Philip laments that "the things I have been coveting for years are now mine and that everything I feel is miserable," Perry warns that he does not feel the same way.

This article continues on the next page.

S & # 39; register: Stay on top of the latest news from film and television! Sign up for our electronic newsletters here.