Nicole Interviews Gillian Wallace Horvat
On #MeToo, found footage films, getting your hair done by Beyoncé’s stylist, and murder as feminist praxis.
This is the unedited version of my interview with Independent Spirit Award nominated director/star of I Blame Society Gillian Wallace Horvat for The Arts Fuse last winter. It’s almost a word-for-word transcription of our conversation, albeit edited for clarity, readability, and grammatical consistency. I Blame Society is now available to stream (for free!) on Tubi and Kanopy.
Ahead of the VoD release of the mockumentary horror-comedy I Blame Society, I sat down with writer, director, and star Gillian Wallace Horvat to discuss her latest film, the difference between “likeability” and “relatability,” female movie making in the shadow of #MeToo, neoliberal Hollywood hegemony, and our shared irritation with lazy found-footage films. Though I Blame Society is Horvat’s feature-length debut, she already boasts an impressive resume of collaborators on her previous projects, including Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters and the late Anton Yelchin. Horvat also worked as an archivist for the Samuel Fuller estate and produced the documentary A Fuller Life based on the director’s personal memoirs.
I Blame Society is available to rent on VoD February 12th. Her previous two shorts (Kiss Kiss Fingerbang and Whiskey Fist) are available to watch on Vimeo, and the documentary A Fuller Life is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Me: And...okay, we’re recording. Yay!
Gillian: Hi!
Me: Hi! Hi Gillian!
Gillian: Nice to meet you.
Me: You too! So there are three main reasons I really wanted to talk to you: one, obviously, I really enjoyed the movie and I found it incredibly relatable, and to quote, as someone with a master’s degree who also “can’t find any full time work that I’m qualified for.”
Gillian: [Laughs]
Me: I actually had to pause the movie when that line came up, cause I was like, “Oh my god.” Two, when I was doing pre-viewing research on your work I came across an interview you gave and you talked about working at a video store and watching Sweet Movie on repeat.
Gillian: Mm hmm, yeah!
Me: And that’s when I knew I was gonna like you.
Gillian: Awww!
Me: And third, you worked for the Samuel Fuller estate, which is interesting because I actually started watching Fuller films fairly recently after watching Underworld U.S.A. for a book review for The Arts Fuse. And you produced the documentary A Fuller Life. So my first question for you is how big was the cigar budget on that documentary? Because it looks like everyone was smoking a cigar.
Gillian: [Laughs] They’re not smoking it they’re just chewing on it. It was very low-budget. So they’re all probably chewing the same cigar honestly. Some pre-COVID times, you know? It’s intimate.
Me: Well let’s talk about I Blame Society. So I really, really loved the meta aspect of the film. There are so many layers of reality and unreality with you playing a persona of yourself and your incorporation of real documentary footage, but at the same time the meta component really allows the movie to balance being transparent in its themes and absolutely off-the-wall bonkers all at once. Even at the peak of absurdity, when you’re vivisecting Stalin in a bathtub, it just felt like the natural progression of your character arc. The frustration that culminates into murderous madness comes from a genuine place of being so frustrated and beaten down constantly having to prove yourself that you feel you’re going insane. And I found that incredibly relatable; hopefully that doesn’t mean I’m a murderer in the making. I’m guessing that comes from a very personal place of experience, correct?
Gillian: Yeah, yeah. [...] I’m so glad that you empathized with that. I think that was basically why we knew that we could make the movie; was because despite the fact that, you know, she [fictional Gillian] ends up becoming a serial killer, she is relatable. [...] I think many, many women and also many gay men and people of color can also identify with her outsider nature, with her feeling of frustration and also a feeling of post-#MeToo complacency.
Me: Yes!
Gillian: And a lack of transparency where it's kind of like, “Listen, we fired those guys, the problem is solved. Would you shut up about it? Like don’t worry, everything is fine and you’re equal now.” It’s just that hypocrisy is, I think, even more aggravating that before.
Me: Yeah, I agree.
Gillian: Because before, men were more transparently misogynistic. And now they’re really scared, so they just gaslight you instead.
Me: Yeah.
Gillian: And I prefer transparency above all else. I like to know where I stand with people. So I think that I trust a misogynist more than a passive-aggressive person anyway, because I think with a misogynist, you’re also like, “You know what, maybe there’s a way forward?” You have these views and views can change. Being passive-aggressive isn’t about having a view—that’s the kind of person that you are, and the decisions that you’ve made about how you wanna live your life, and there’s nothing I can do about that, and you should just throw yourself down a fucking well.
Me: I totally agree. And speaking of the meta aspect, I have to ask: were you deliberately trying to look like Drew Barrymore in Scream after your make-over? Because it’d be really funny if it were a coincidence, because that was another sort of meta aspect I read into it. [Laughing]
Gillian: That’s just how I look with that haircut!
Me: You just looked like Drew Barrymore in Scream.
Gillian: That is such a sweet compliment! Thank you!
Me: You’re welcome!
Gillian: After that I dyed my hair strawberry blonde and it looked a lot better. That was like perfect but it’s too expensive to upkeep though. It was crazy; I cut off all my hair on the camera. And then I didn’t dye my hair on camera. They took me to actually a really experienced and wonderful hair colorist. Actually, one of our producers paid for out of pocket. She’s Beyoncé’s colorist for Beyoncé’s wigs when she goes on tour.
Me: You got your hair done by Beyoncé’s stylist!? Yes! [Claps]
Gillian: Yeah! So [...] we knew she could like match stuff, so like we were like, “What needs—what we need—what we’re thinking is, is that, you know, she—[Zoom audio cuts out for 7 seconds]—also can’t look awful because we don’t want me to look awful. But we want me to look ridiculous, you know? And she’s [Beyoncé’s wig colorist] like, “You want me to color your hair like I don’t know what I’m doing?” We’re like, “Yeah.”
Me: [Laughs]
Gillian: And so I think she did a great job, because it’s, oh man. My boyfriend at the time was like, “Your hair’s kinda hipster piss gold color.”
Me: Yeah. Well I thought you worked it though. You worked it.
Gillian: You know what? [...] If it had been like a professional looking blonde color I would have felt that I was trying too hard. Because it is that hipster thing of like, “Yeah I dyed my hair blonde but I don’t really care.” You know, it made me feel like I could live it a bit more.
Me: You pose the question as to what exactly constitutes a “likeable” female character or a “strong female lead” and you pretty explicitly critique it as something that’s really just a hollow PR move developed in focus groups of male movie investors. Likeability is obviously this very gendered concept, but there’s always been this market for stories about women going absolutely out of their mind and lashing out at the world that’s wronged them, hence the film’s title. I like to think that’s what it insinuates. How do you think this current cultural atmosphere has altered the concept of female likeability compared to a pre-#MeToo movie making atmosphere?
Gillian: I think like most politics now, it’s polarization rather than consensus, but in a good way. And that the discussion is more out in the open. I think that the people who identify with the outsiderness nature of Gillian’s character—meaning basically everybody who’s not a straight white guy of a certain age—finds her easy to identify with. And because of that can journey in her shoes comfortably while they’re watching the movie at a remove where they’re entertained by all of the violence and mayhem. But there are some people who watch the film, and usually they are white men of a certain age and straight men, and they feel like she doesn’t have a good enough reason to do what she does. I mean, I’ve read these reviews and they don’t find her likeable, they don’t find her believable, and I think that’s because of their subjectivity. They don’t wanna find somebody like that credible because it questions their complacency. And it questions their complicity, and nobody wants to feel complicit. [...] I mean I’m sure that every single one of these guys [...] probably identifies as liberal or probably neoliberal.
Me: Yes! We’ll get to that!
Gillian: They don’t wanna think about things that way. They wanna think that they’re good guys and they love their daughters and their moms and whatever. I think that, you know, when they see somebody that angry, they don’t wanna feel that it’s justified, especially if they feel like they could have unconsciously played some part in her ire.
Me: Yeah, totally agree. So on that note, what I found most unique about I Blame Society was its perspective on post-#MeToo Hollywood and the post-#MeToo moment—although we’re not really, you know, post-anything, and whether we are is totally up for debate. Your main target isn’t this Harvey Weinstein stand-in or the casting couch, but more the neoliberal hegemony of the Hollywood system and its gatekeeping. It’s the two meatheads in the boardroom. Nothing materially has really changed, especially for independent female filmmakers like yourself. The new concern for female voices in Hollywood has kind of more or less just become a new marketing opportunity to a lot of people, and I know “woke marketing” was your target in Whiskey Fist,which I think the backstory behind that short is absolutely incredible. You have balls for doing that. [Laughs] And so there’s this lip service given to investing in the artistry of female filmmaking and meanwhile it seems as if every up and coming female director is being recruited to direct a Marvel movie. So how would you describe what I Blame Society critiques about #MeToo’s effect on the filmmaking industry?
Gillian: Well I mean I’m very happy and supportive of those women who are out there directing Marvel movies because number one, they deserve that [production] money. They should get that money. Number two, it positions them to do something else that might be more personal. So I understand that it’s an irresistible offer. I do think though that it is not the example that anybody should point to, saying like, “Look! The door’s open for women!” Because what they’ve opened the door for is now women have a chance to direct ideas and characters that were conceived by men that form men’s opinions of the world and the systems that they believe exist and the hierarchy that they see. [...] It’s definitely co-opting them [female filmmakers] into this system, and of course they benefit from it and they can bring a perspective and some of what they think is going to show up on screen. But it’s not like they’re giving these women or any of the men a free hand either. All these Marvel movies and things are directed by a committee, and the men in the Marvel hierarchy who are in control are all these very experienced comic book writers. But they’re mostly dudes. [...] I think that Hollywood doesn’t know what to do with women’s opinions yet. It wants to do the right thing, because I’m not saying that anybody’s evil!
Me: Right.
Gillian: They want to give women jobs, they wanna give women a seat at the table, they want to do what they want, but they also want business to go on as usual and they wanna feel comfortable. They don’t know what making original ideas by women really looks like and having women’s voices on screen and represented. I think it’s obviously a no brainer that it would work because half of the audience is women, so you’re gonna appeal to them. They’re going to show up, they’re going to enjoy it and think it’s authentic. I think that’s kind of one of the amazing things about the new Wonder Woman movie. I haven’t seen it, but the discourse around it is like, wow, Patty Jenkins made this first movie that was like a big hit and everybody loved. The second one she failed and fell flat on her face, but not of anything that had to do with being a woman, but because of a bad script and ethnic stereotypes so it seems. She’s gonna get to make another one. She’s gonna get to fail and pick herself up and do it again just like they would give any guy. And I find that more comforting than anything.
Me: Another thing I really liked—and if you can’t tell I liked a lot of things about the movie—was your approach to the mockumentary/found footage format, which I feel in a lot of the time in movies it’s just used as a cheap gimmick. I’m thinking Paranormal Activity or something where it’s obvious it was shot with studio-grade cameras and edited in post to look like it was filmed on an iPhone or whatever. But the fictional you has a specific reason for turning the cameras on herself, which is more than a lot of found footage movies do. The more you descend into madness, the more you film yourself, so there’s a logic behind why the cameras are always rolling. Do you think your background in documentary filmmaking really helped your approach here, especially since this film did evolve out of a documentary short you had shelved?
Gillian: I think [...] that kind of formalist rigor of the film more has to do with my OCD nature, and the fact that I too am frustrated when I see people shooting on Reds and Alexas and then adding some more digital grain and saying that, you know, “Shot on a phone.” And I hate when people fuck up the aspect ratios, and it always takes me out of the movie when they’re watching some 16mm film that they found in the basement and they’re watching it in 16x9. I’m like, “How dare you!” I don’t think I’m being a prick or an old fogey about it because it’s like—
Me: Standard movie making?
Gillian: It’s not even a cinephile thing! [...] First off, who would rebel against mixed aspect ratios? Nobody. And also anybody who’s old enough to have used a 16mm camera, anybody over 40 or something, would recognize it and also be like, “Kay, it’s not really how I remember them looking.” So I think they don’t know how to harness the authenticity that they’re looking for. They seem to be picking and choosing in a really lazy way. So it’s not even like cinephiles or cinematographers who find it irritating that there are these inconsistencies. I think anybody can pick up on them and feel the shoddiness of it.
Me: You have a real knack for writing funny dialogue, and you’ve cited Daniel Waters, who wrote Heathers and co-produced your previous two shorts [Kiss Kiss Fingerbang and Whiskey Fist], as a major inspiration. Heathers is still kind of the cultural gold-standard when it comes to endlessly quotable, female-driven black comedy, and there are a lot of things you say throughout the film that I just perfectly envision Winona Ryder in shoulderpads saying. But was there a set script with pre-written dialogue or did you ad-lib anything on the spot? Particularly the boardroom scenes. That seemed like a lot of really good ad-libbing. So to what extent was there pre-written dialogue and how much was ad-libbed?
Gillian: The first half of the movie is more ad-libbed because there was more room there in the shooting schedule really to play with that because the cameras were just locked down and we could do as many takes as we had time for and not worry about coverage, knowing that it was all gonna be single take or jump cuts anyway. Then as the movie gets more complicated and has that cinematic look, we had less time to play with that. So there’s less ad-libbing in the second part of the movie. [...] Chase [Williamson, co-writer and co-star] and I wrote a script and we stuck to it, but the scenes where there is the most ad-libbing is the end of the first scene. I wasn’t supposed to cry. That was just me.
Me: [Laughs] That worked so well.
Gillian: Thank you! And then parts of those boardroom scenes, like the beginning of the first scene when they’re insulting me, that’s pretty much all ad-libbed. Except for the New York stuff. That really happened to me so I wrote that in.
Me: Was the mispronunciation of “intersectionality” an ad-lib? Because that got me.
Gillian. No. All that stuff was written. What was some of the other—? Oh! The thing where they’re trying to set me up with their friend who also wrote a script. That was ad-libbed, but that was based off a story that I told them about going to a meeting at a pretty well-known genre production company. They read the script and we pitched [the producers] the idea and they really loved it, and then spent most of the meeting trying to convince me why I should direct a script that his male friend had written who, he was like, “You’re gonna love him! You guys have so much in common.” The script that his male friend had written with a female character at the center who now, they were thinking with the climate maybe he shouldn’t direct it, and it would kinda be inappropriate for a man to direct it and so maybe it would be a good project for me. The truth was that I didn’t tell [the producer] but I did know who that guy was and I did not like him. I’d gotten into an argument with him before years ago about the movie Margaret and I had no desire to see him again. It was interesting. [...] This is like the situation that we’re talking about; instead of wanting me to direct this script that I wrote about women that is my idea, he wanted me to rescue from #MeToo-ness this script that his male friend had written about women. [...] This isn’t a Hollywood company, this is like a relatively big indie company. Everybody in this industry right now is looking for like, female beards to rescue them, but that’s not what we’re here for.
Me: Final question: What’s the perfect murder weapon in your opinion? Mine’s an icicle but I’m pretty sure I ripped that off from The Lovely Bones.
Gillian: No, no, no! The icicle is the famous key to that famous locked room mystery, and it was the first locked room mystery, and it was the icicle was the murder weapon. But yeah, that is a classic one. I say it’s probably something that, you want a weapon that won’t get you, your hands, or your body dirty. You don’t wanna be covered in blood because how are you gonna make your escape from that? Too much work to burn your clothes or bury them or something like that so it would be something that was like relatively hands-free. Like maybe like a BlueTooth headset; that would be the perfect murder weapon?