Karyn Kusama
Making 'The Invitation' and waiting to make it on my terms and getting final cut and doing it the way I needed to do it was incredibly challenging, but it has really been so great for me. I'm so thankful that that's happened, that I got to work with actors I really like and have just such a good experience in delving into that story.Collection: Thankful
There's no glory in climbing a mountain if all you want to do is to get to the top. It's experiencing the climb itself - in all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatigue - that has to be the goal.
Reading the script for 'Jennifer's Body,' I just thought that here was a script that really exposes the horror between girls and friendships. I always sort of approached the film with that in mind first, and then thought about the crazy ways that that horror would express itself.
I think we forget that part of parenthood means having to face and reject or face and embrace a kind of animal capacity for unkindness. And if, when, parents do embrace that, it reveals something very ugly to oneself.
I think that idea that sort of our emotional self and our emotional life is a faucet that you turn on and off, and that we are in control of it entirely, that's a really appealing idea for a lot of people. But there are certainly the times where it's appealing to me, but it never quite works the way I hoped it would.
What makes a lot of suspenseful films work is very, very particular points of view and very subjective use of the camera.
The people in the decision-making positions need to be thinking differently about who to hire, and looking more unsparingly at their choices. Why give this person a break over that person? Why give this person a second chance over that person? I do think that's where gender comes into play.
Claire Denis's 'Beau Travail' is one of Denis's greatest achievements. One of the most mysterious and beautiful endings in movies.
To me, the thing that sets us apart from so many other animal species is our ability to ask questions, investigate, gather information, come to our own conclusions, and sometimes depart from the pack, sometimes move away from the tribe.
I'm a director first and foremost, and I hope that the fact that I'm female is just one of the many things that informs my unique perspective on the world.
A lot of the best suspense operates on a careful withholding of information as opposed to the doling out of information.
It's pretty gratifying to spend so long to make your first film and then feel like it got a lot of love - that was an incredible feeling. But there's something very distorting about that much attention. It felt like such a double-edged sword.
I think I was a pretty anxious dreamer, maybe a fundamentally lonely kid.
Day-to-day concerns really trumped big dreams for quite a while in my life. I was so freaked out about money. And until, honestly, I was in my early thirties and made 'Girlfight,' that anxiety was a real issue: How are you going to live? How are you going to survive?
I had no shortage of wild times in my youth.
It's important to tell meaningful stories and to find new ways to communicate those stories to people.
Making movies, even though it's a business, is also an art, and sometimes you don't hit the bull's-eye.
I've experienced a lot of successes. I've experienced a lot of failures. I've been able to get back up on my feet and keep going.
Always keep absorbing art and looking at paintings and reading books and watching movies in other languages, just getting to know the world at hand and the world of the past. It's important to keep absorbing the world and keep engaging with it, and often that means not thinking about movies and thinking about other things.
'The Invitation' is a meditation on grief and loss carried within a suspense drama. At its core, it's about a dinner party gone horribly wrong and about the consequences of denying our pain.
We have to accept that making movies is a never-ending process of occasional progress, frequent setbacks, and unexpected curveballs being thrown our way. Navigating that process requires stamina, curiosity, openness, and creative fire.
It's extremely instructive to realize that you cannot do everything. You need to delegate, to find experts, to consult with them. A big part of the job of directing is knowing when to take something on and when you shouldn't.
Sometimes you realize that the thing an actor is asking for isn't exactly the thing they want. Maybe they're asking for more dialogue, or maybe they want a deep intellectual exploration of their role. But probably what they really need is encouragement.
As bad as some movies can be, good movies are also possible, sometimes through the very heinous corporations we love to trash.
I'm strong-willed, but that doesn't mean I can't work with people if we're all in the mission of trying to make a good movie.
I have had to really grapple with the fact that, while I wish things could be different at times, I ultimately needed to experience the transformation that comes with pain and loss and sorrow.
That's the most important thing for me is just figuring out how and if I'm growing as an artist.
I guess because there aren't many women working in the kind of variety of spaces that I've had the opportunity and privilege to kind of work in, that there is this extreme scrutiny about my career.
There are times when I'm kind of anti-social, I'm just really shy, and I don't feel like I fit in, and I then attribute that to some emotional state that's crippling me.
I understand the power of sorrow, and I understand how far it can take us from ourselves if we let it.
I don't necessarily believe that stories need closure. I just believe they need a beginning, middle, and end, but the end doesn't have to prevent us from continuing to grapple with the story at hand. It ideally should demand that we remain engaged with the story.
I think most women have to fight very hard for the opportunities they want, which isn't to say that most artists don't have to do that, male or female, but I'm definitely aware of just how difficult it is to find stories that interest me, particularly.
I was lucky to work with Gamechanger Films, who are a consortium of investors financing films directed by women. This is a company that puts their money where their mouth is.
Best advice: 'Just be yourself.' Worst advice: 'Just be yourself.'
For me, there's something about a certain kind of genre film that has real potency in its emotional landscape.
If you look at most mainstream filmmaking, to be honest, some of these films aren't even asking questions anymore at all.
I get why we don't want to be in pain, but there's something very essential about what happens when we're in pain and some of the growth that can come from it if we stare at it straight in the face.
I would love to take another stab at really smart, speculative sci-fi - my first was a bit of a stumble. I look forward to getting another chance.
What might the world look like if we took some chances on the film-makers we might be afraid of?
I was in a very lucky position to be able to consider studio films and had decided to not go that route for a very long time until I read a script that I loved called 'Aeon Flux.'
Genre mechanics are really tricky because if you pay too much attention to the idea of rules of genre, it becomes pretty stale, pretty fast.
It is important to know what audiences might expect from their genre movies, but I think it is also important to not give them everything they want. As a viewer, I think it can get pretty boring that way.
I think my narrative is actually pretty interesting if I step back from it and don't engage too much in it, personally or emotionally.
I don't think I could have had a better experience than I did with 'Girlfight.' It was a humbling experience to be so well received. And it was equally humbling to be ripped to pieces with 'Aeon Flux.'
I want to make big movies - but I don't want to have to die a little death every single time I do. Until I meet the people or the studio or the business people who will let me do things a little bit more the way that I need to do them, I probably shouldn't be making big studio movies.
It's very difficult to figure out, for me, what stops really talented young female filmmakers from having the kind of careers that their really talented young male counterparts are having.
I grew up in the Midwest. I understand a sense of the small-town mentality, small-town social politics.
Our society is constantly creating this framework for girls to feel that their only worth is their appearance, and it's damaging on so many levels to so many people.
There's something about the girls and the boys who just live for the moment and don't think a second beyond their needs and the here and now that, ultimately, is pretty tragic.
I think that there's something about short films that just kind of keeps your muscles sharp.