'The Substance' Director Coralie Fargeat Breaks Down Key Scenes

When there is a scene that makes everyone uncomfortable

and that everyone ask you to cut

or to do differently, it's most of the time

because there is something very powerful in that scene

that you have to stick to.

Hi, this is Coralie Fargeat

and this is Notes on a Scene for The Substance.

[Elisabeth gasps] [Elisabeth panting]

[water burbling]

The idea was, to me, to portray this world

and to portray my main character was to work with symbolism,

which is the whole language of the way I work

through the screenplay and through directing.

I always look for the strongest symbolism

that's gonna show my idea and that's gonna tell the stories.

I inspired myself really from the Jane Fonda, you know,

character who had this kind of trajectory.

Also, I knew that what was so important

for me with that choice is,

I wanted the movie to be about women's bodies,

and so I knew that I had to have something in my character

where I would be able to film the body,

to film the obsession.

And I knew that this aerobic thing was a main decision

that I took, which would allow me to film for real

what I was gonna try and tell

how your body become an obsession,

how you wanted to have it perfect.

Happy birthday.

[Elisabeth] Oh, thank you!

Happy birthday.

Thank you. [panting]

Here, this is a main element

of how I wanted to craft that world,

this huge corridor with that, you know,

perspective where everything is super centered,

like everything is, like, in one huge perspective,

is meant to symbolize some sort of domination.

Like, you know, this corridor,

she's very, very small at the far end of this corridor

and the walls here are huge,

and so it's a place that dominates her.

And this place is the symbolism of this TV world,

and it represents the world of Harvey, the producer,

which represents, you know, the patriarchy

and that we're gonna discover later on.

Here, you see almost as if fits Elisabeth's life.

Like she started her life here,

and when she arrived at the end of the corridor,

soon enough, we're going to discover that her life is over.

The colors also are a huge element of the film

and the way that locations are really characters

in the filmmaking.

I couldn't tell exactly where the orange came from,

but I think it's probably linked to worlds that,

you know, impact me when I was younger

and I was watching movies that were, you know,

making me feel sensations not through dialogues,

but through images, whether it is yes,

the Star Wars trilogy or the 2001, you know,

Space Odyssey, which are creating a world

that tells you so much without using any words.

[door clicks]

[door clacks]

[door creaks]

So, here, this is also one of the very important location

in the film that start to build the language of the film

in a visual way.

Here, this bathroom,

which is the men's room of the TV world,

this is actually a real location.

It's the real toilets of a town hall near Paris,

but we kind of, you know, build the floor red,

which was not red.

All the red elements, we kind of build them

to kind of add this almost bloody feeling

that something strong and threatening is gonna happen.

What I really liked when I scouted this location,

again, was all the lines.

You know, you have so many lines

that gives a perspective feeling that is so strong,

and when you have a static image has so much trends,

you know, in itself.

And here, you have lines as well.

So, all this visually, you know,

already builds something that is not common.

You know, something that puts you in a world

where there is some kind of gravitas,

when there is some kind of heaviness.

It was also very important for me

that this shot was gonna be a sequence shot.

You know, that from the moment Elisabeth has entered

the bathroom, the camera is locked with this wide angle

and everything is gonna happen in real time

to bring some sort of violence

and the feeling of being into the scene.

So, the camera was just right here,

like, the real wall of the bathroom

was a little bit further behind,

so we had maybe 50 centimeters, you know, to get this.

So, on a very technical process,

we kind of removed the body of the camera to have as little,

you know, room that the camera would take.

And we had a super wide lens, almost a fish eye,

that we had tested with my DOP

so that the image wouldn't be distorted

when you are in a wide shot, you know, it's very static.

But when the character is gonna enter,

then when he gets close to the lens,

he's gonna be a bit distorted.

Look, I'll make it simple.

We need her young, we need her hot, we need her now.

This is crazy.

Like, we are shooting with the Demi Moore

and Dennis Quaid in the toilets of the, [laughs] you know,

suburb town hall, and everyone is hiding in the toilet

or under the lavatory.

The continuity girl, she was crouched like that under this.

I was in a stall that was over there.

We had the gaffer,

which was hidden also in one of the stall.

This is the cinema I love to make.

When you have those mix of elements that you cheat

with everything to create something unexpected.

How the old bitch has been able

to stick around for this long?

That's, [laughs] that's the fucking mystery to me.

So, here, I really like the idea of discovering

this character in real life by the way he behaves

and by the way is gonna take the space.

Literally, like, you know, he start as very small

and basically he's gonna eat all the space.

He's gonna stick in face right in front of the camera,

and he's gonna be like the character

who literally does whatever he wants.

He does whatever he want with people,

and he does whatever he want with the framing

and whatever he wants with the space.

The sound work that we did here was a key thing.

And one of the most important thing that we added

to characterize his character was the sound of his boots,

the sound of his boots with the kind of metallic sound

that we hear.

Every fucking young girl in this fucking town!

In the next few weeks!

I remember the Foley artist, who is great,

Gregory Vincent, who build so much creative sounds

for Foley, and he adds a lot.

So, he create this kind of metallic sound

that we're gonna have all the time

when Harvey arrives someone.

And literally, when he arrives somewhere,

we hear him, you know, we feel him,

and we see him, like, taking all the space

and kind of showing that basically,

he's a king of the world.

Ugh. Promise-

No.

I don't give a fuck what we promised her.

And so, here, it was also the idea

that to have kind of an, in a symbolical way, like,

his peeing on the audience, you know,

like, there is this urinal, you know,

that we figure is, you know, at this place of the camera

and he's literally, you know, go and pee on us.

Unfortunately, when we had the tragic news

of Ray Liotta passing, we took some time,

you know, to process the news.

And when we decided to cast the part again,

I gathered my thought about, you know,

searching for a new idea, which would, you know,

give the similar vibe than what I love with Ray,

but would be also different, you know?

And what I love with the idea of Dennis is that,

first of all, it's something we haven't seen him in.

Like it's very something new and we're not used to seeing.

And I think he has both this softness,

like, cheerful, you know.

You kind of wanna love with him, you know.

He has these kind of funny vibes,

but also, you know, those very sharp eyes

and almost, like, wolf teeth,

you know, that kind of give a very threatening thing.

So, here, this is, for me, such a powerful image

with the eye and with the nose, you know,

and it kind of defines evil,

like he's, you know, the bad guy.

And this relationship to the lens is so powerful.

And I remember what was great with Dennis.

So, our camera was there

and there was a little monitor screen

that is normally used for DP to check the image.

And he asked if we could turn the monitor of control here

so he could see himself in the monitor

and adjust his position precisely

so his eye could be at the right place.

And we did maybe, like, 13 or 14 takes of that,

you know, of that shot.

He kind of is a slow burn.

Like at first, he needs to put the dialogue into his mouth

and then we need to find the right pacing

and everything is very, very millimetery.

[Harvey] Did you know that a woman's fertility

starts to decrease about the age of 25?

How old is Jennifer?

[guffaws] You're gonna get busy.

[Harvey guffawing] [door creaking]

And so, here, everything in the sound is important

to build a scene.

The fact that we're gonna hear him disappear,

his laugh going away,

the [mimics door creaking] of the door, you know, closing,

and then the silence.

[door creaks]

[door thuds]

The silence, and we're exactly in the same shot

then when Demi arrived and closed the door,

but the same shot now has a totally

different feeling, you know?

Now, the space is full with the gross words,

you know, that he used, like the fact that he peed on us,

like the fact that it is this bad joke,

you know, at the end.

And so, the exact same shot with the same framing,

the same silence is received totally differently

and adds to the scene something

that I've totally shifted the scene.

And so, here, it's the first time that Demi

is gonna look at herself in the mirror.

And the way she looks at herself

is through Harvey words.

She's not worth anything,

like she doesn't deserve to be here

and that basically, he just erased her from the space.

Also, the way the shot is framed here,

I really wanted to be in a total symmetry with her

being in the middle, in the center of the frame

with this very aligned perspective.

And she feels that she's a little static person

in the middle of the huge bathroom.

And that all the space around her makes her feel small,

and the way she hold herself a little bit numb,

you know, as if, you know, everything that has been told

was weighing on her shoulders.

So you can see that, you know,

she has everything that we've heard before now

on her shoulders while she's standing in that bathroom.

[water rushing]

This shot, to me, is also very important in the symbols,

in the way that here,

this shot on the water going down the sink,

like, is the projection of her thoughts.

It's like if she was eaten up, you know,

and was disappearing into this water.

All those closeups are, for me,

we're used to call them insert shot,

but for me, they are hero shots.

The same way then for the actors,

they're just hero shots with no actors

but who play a part in conveying to the audience

what's the mind of the actors,

what the mind of the character at that moment.

And this one, in a very, you know,

kind of symbolical way tells the audience that,

Okay, it's something that goes away.

And that you focus your thought into it.

[water splashing] [slow somber music]

This is one of the,

I think, most important shots

and something that I want to tell

about my work relationship with Demi.

I really wanted to be sure that the actress who would come,

you know, and perform that part,

would be willing to take all the risks

that the film required.

So, that's why I spent a lot of time

with Demi when we started to meet,

explaining her everything about the filmmaking,

everything I'm telling now,

the importance that it has to convey the story.

So, it requires a lot of technical challenges, you know,

on sets that the actors have to deal with.

And in that scene, something very interesting

and important happened.

It was one of the first scene

where we were lighting her in a way that is real.

You know, like we were in a real restrooms, you know,

in the middle of nowhere with a very harsh, ugly light.

And I had asked my DP to keep it in a very real way,

not to make a beauty light, not to make a light,

you know, that would soften everything.

I wanted to see the reality of her face of what she feels,

of what we feel on her face facing herself.

And I remember the first time

that she discovered herself in the mirror

for the scene, she said,

Oh, no, but we can't have that light.

It's not possible.

Like, you need to make the light better, you know?

You need to make it here and here

so we don't see this and we don't see that.

And I went to see her and I told her like,

No, Demi we can't do that, you know?

The movie is exactly about getting this reality

about who you are, about seeing you in that mirror

with all the violence of what that guy has just said,

and to see yourself confronting yourself

and looking at yourself for what you really are.

And it's really important that at this moment,

we have the reality of the shitty restroom in a TV,

[chuckles] you know, in a TV show

that's not gonna enhance you.

At first, she was a little bit resisting and, you know,

and then she understood and then she said,

Okay, okay.

And she did the scene.

And that's where I understood

that she had understood the film

and she was there for the right reasons.

Even if this was taking her outside of her comfort zone,

she had the intelligence and the instinct to understand

that it was needed for the film.

To me, that's, you know, what a great collaboration

between actors and directors is.

It doesn't mean that you get along necessarily well

all the time and there are not tough moments,

but it's when you understand the work and the way of working

that is in the service of the field.

[shrimp squelching] [shrimp shell crunching]

People just love that.

[Harvey laughs] [shrimp squelching]

I mean, that's just the way it is.

He really ate them and he was so happy to do so.

He was committed to the part.

I asked him,

Dennis are you sure? Are you okay?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because he loved the excess of this character

and he understood how important it was to symbolize,

I think, you know,

what everything his character was representing.

So, I remember, like,

everything that he's doing it again and again,

we did maybe certain takes of this

and he ate the shrimps all the time,

again and again. [chuckles]

I have to give people what they want.

From the moment when I write,

I already build the way I'm gonna film it also,

because I'm building the way I'm gonna edit it,

because I'm also an editor on the film.

And because those macro shots where the sound

and the image suddenly shift perspective.

[shrimp crunches] Ignore me.

Are a huge tool of my language as a filmmaker.

Because there are a way for me

to express in one image a whole story.

And here in that image, it's really like how this mouth,

you know, which represents Harvey,

all the toxic masculinity,

all the patriarchy and everything,

how he's gonna literally crush and destroy the shrimps,

which, at this moment, represents Elisabeth, you know.

So, there are the words that he says, which try to be nice,

and there is what he does, which he's literally

making as if the world was his and he was, you know,

able to destroy and kill and rip off

all the people the way he wants.

And just with a shrimp,

with this noise that take all the space

and that destroy- [shrimp crunches]

It stops.

A shrimp becomes a war scene, you know?

That's the way I love to express the violence that,

you know, I feel about those issues.

The thing that impressed me the most in the editing

was how much this shrimp scene made people uncomfortable.

It was, from all the scene,

if I had expected people to have a strong rejection

of something, I would have imagined everything

but the shrimps. [laughs]

And really, it was all guys telling me,

Oh, no, but the shrimps.

It's too much.

Please tone down the shrimps. [laughs]

And I was like,

The power of the shrimps, like, you know,

like to make them feel so unwell.

And I learned on my first feature that when there is a scene

that makes everyone uncomfortable

and that everyone asks you to cut or to do differently,

it's, most of the time,

because there is something very powerful in that scene

that you have to stick to.

It's symbolized the way I needed to symbolize Harvey

and the world that represent Harvey.

Oh, George!

Oh, oh! Ah.

I'm sorry, I gotta run.

[George] Harvey! [Harvey yells]

[Harvey] George!

This is, for me, a very strong image of the boys club,

you know, which I think is very there as well.

And, to me, this tap on the shoulder

was very important to have,

and which leaves us with Elisabeth, again,

having this thing on the fly

where the image become the projection

of the way Elisabeth feels.

And she feels like this fly, which is drowning,

you know, in the glass of wine,

and basically, she's been destroyed.

So, again, like with just this very simple shot,

took us a lot of time to get in,

which, to me, is a hero shot.

The language of the film is here.

And this is also one shot that many people

wanted me to remove as if we didn't needed it.

And for me, those shots, they're the one

of course the movie can live without,

but that's what make, to me, the identity of the film.

It's because those shots, you know,

mean so much in a different way that what you see,

you know, in more traditional films.

So, I was so happy,

because it's one of the shot that I prefer

that it's the one that finished that scene

and kind of show us where Elisabeth is

at the moment of the story.

[slow suspenseful music]

To me, the success of the film

is really the greatest achievement I could have

also for myself as a filmmaker, to feel proud of,

you know, having expressed who I was

in all my differences, in all my singularity.

And it gave me, yes, so much happiness and strength,

and I just want to make the next one now. [laughs]

[gentle music]