The art of self defense – / Movie

The art of defending yourself It's not your average karate tale. Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) is an adult man who is taking karate lessons after surviving an assault. Sensei (Alessandro Nivola) gives her a wisdom of the "think German" type and Anna (Imogen Poots) tries to help harden Casey. Things are going too fast.

The black comedy of the author / director Riley Stearns can be the anti-underdog tale. There are no winning victories, Stearns preferring to keep the entire movie in silence, and the audience can wonder who and what they aspire to at different times. Casey navigates a world that advocates violence, so how is a man supposed to defend himself?

Stearns spoke with / film by phone about The art of defending yourself, which premiered at this year's SXSW film festival. The art of defending yourself has been released in cinemas today.

This film is so calm. Did you have to remove all the ambient sound?

I like a lot movies that do not let the score influence the tone too much. I ask people to feel things because the characters feel it, not because I tell you to feel it. That said, we have a very delicate balance. One of the things is that the movie is very quiet, as you said. We did not shoot this one on any sound stage. Everything was found. There is a veterinary scene in the film. It's supposed to be sad and fun at the same time, but it's an atmosphere. There is no score for that. This is the noisiest and most striking room in which I shot. The amount of challenges that has been entrusted to the sound design of this scene, which has been cleaned and shredded the horrible audio, our Demetri audio mixer [Evdoxiadis] does an amazing job. We took some things and softened them a bit, but other things are just beginning. Sometimes we play with sound and calm is usually the direction I take. That said, I'm excited for the next movie. I want to play a little more and add a few more points or add something below. I learn all of this as I get to it and see what's right for the story.

Martial arts movies always talk about someone who trains until he can fight. It's perhaps one of the first movies where the person being bullied eventually becomes a bully, which is a very modern prospect. Is this something you have thought about when it comes to scam / martial arts movies?

I guess it was a theme, not with regards to martial arts, I was thinking more about the context of what people were waiting for. As you said, there are a lot of martial arts movies in which you evolve and are willing to accept it, but you can take it from any sports film. Someone who is an underdog, who trains and works hard, ends up defeating or trying to defeat the defeats, but ultimately wins more than his win. I did not want that to happen the same way. I wanted a film that started in this vein, and then over time, basically in the middle of the film, I wanted the carpet removed from underneath and you woke up so that you thought you knew what was going to happen . happen, and you have no idea. Along the way, as you said, it takes the tyrannical aspect. He tries to follow the teachings of Sensei and most of them are very very bad teachings, very openly horrible things that he embraces. I think that even in the sense of spoilery, even in the way he triumphs in the end, it is he who embraces a little of that darkness he has accumulated on the way for the greater good. In my opinion, Casey can make some decisions to solve his problems, which is almost a self-sacrifice. I do it because I do not have to be forced to do it, or anyone else has to manage it in the future. For him, I think it's all about you honoring the dojo, which is so funny to say in an interview, but he's really looking for the dojo's honor and is really concerned about that. He is ready to sacrifice his own morality for the greater good. That's what was important to me. It was something that I absolutely wanted to do.

We have begun to talk, only in recent years, about groups that were once intimidated, like nerds and people who love Star warshave become bullies in the toxic world, even if it is not physical. Do you end up commenting on that through The art of defending yourself?

I do not think that's an intention, but there's something about making a movie or any art form, you have intentions, but something will happen that you did not want. That does not make that inaccurate. So if people get something that was not our intention, then I think it's amazing. I did not think specifically about people online, Twitter or that kind of thing, but I see the relationship and the correlation there. I think it's great. At the end of the day, my goal with this movie was clear, but it was really important to me that it's important to be yourself and not think too much about what others think about you. As long as you are a good person and you do things that do not hurt others, whoever you are, embrace that. Do not try to be something for someone else. I think it's a film, and I've often talked about it when it was shot, that I saw it as a special after-school show where, again, talking about the structure of the movies about martial arts, I thought of it like this: high school for Casey. He joins a new clique and this new clique is a kind of bad clique. He has this group leader who looks almost like the alpha of the clique. All these things are aligned in the structure of creating new friends, you make the enemy one of your friends who has supported you most. At the end of the day, you overcame your difficulties, but in a different way than you expected. I like to play with these expectations and change them a bit. It's definitely open to all the interpretations that people have.

Are you satirizing the myth of the underdogs?

I do not want to believe that I do not care about anything, especially my characters. I know that some people feel that they are so mean and that they overwrite Casey. For me, I never look at my characters. I see myself a lot at Casey. Maybe that's why it's okay for me and I do not see that I'm mean to him, because I feel that every shot he receives is like I'm taking a shot in my own psyche and who I am and who I think I am supposed to be. Satiric may not necessarily be because I do not want it to be a joke, and I think that satire sometimes means that you think you are better than something and I do not do it at all. But I want to entertain with something and expectations. I want to play with these expectations and play with my opinion of myself and other men and of what we are as a society. All of these ideas are ideas that lie beneath the surface and, in other cases, a super strong nose right in front of your face. But I never want anything to feel like preaching or talking to the public. I want people to still be able to communicate and have fun.

Do you think that toxic men like Sensei will understand that he is not a good model and that they should not be like him?

I can not speak on behalf of other people and I hope that the people who look at it see themselves a little in Sensei. Obviously, Sensei is an outstanding character and a very virile representation of masculinity at its best. That's what it's supposed to be. I hope some will see a little bit of themselves and will ask questions. I also think that a lot of these guys are also in their habit. Who has to say, but if the film makes fun of something, it makes fun of this idea of ​​toxic masculinity. These are two words that I do not think I have ever thought of when writing the script, because they were not thrown in the same way. Strangely enough, even though I wrote it four years ago, I think it's more relevant than it would have been if I'd done it that year. So, everything happens for a reason. I hope people will be able to get into the joke, but I do not have any illusions of greatness either. I make no statement with this movie, but maybe a comment about it was important to me.

Sensei and Anna do not joke. They believe in karate, right?

Absolutely. I think that Sensei believes in karate and that he is really good in karate, but he is drunk in power at the dojo. As a character, he is probably still outside the dojo. When he goes to the grocery store, he wears his socks and sandals with a concealed shirt. I think people laugh at him behind the back and he feels it. So, he brings this negative energy into the dojo and that's how he does it, especially in evening classes. So I think he's a little hurt and he reacts negatively to that. Anna is a bit like the counter to him. She sees all the good that can come from karate and that is why she stays around and she sees that the next generation of children will rise in two years. She stays around because she knows that, even if it is taught to her, as well as to the students, in a way that is useless, she sees what the whole thing can do and hopes she can maybe have an effect on people. This is one of those things where, if she stays, she thinks that she will help steer the situation in the right direction here and there and that it is important for her. Like Casey, she sees the honor in the dojo and wants it to be a good thing, but until now, she has not managed to make a huge impact and it's frustrating for her, but that's also why she feels compelled to stay. . She must be there and just try even if it fails. I would say that Casey is not necessarily good or bad. I think it's just malleable and malleable and it's a sponge. I think Anna is probably the right one but she seems a little more angry. She has this harder exterior. She tries to protect herself and her morality.

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