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Interview | Kelly Reichardt on extreme reactions to The Mastermind, and why she always returns to Satyajit Ray
Acclaimed filmmaker Kelly Reichardt talks about the process of writing The Mastermind and also reveals that she is a big admirer of Satyajit Ray.
In The Mastermind, Kelly Reichardt takes a spin on the heist film that Hollywood has capitalised on for years. In her sensible, politically astute lens, it becomes a meditation on the privileges of a middle-class man from a Massachusetts suburb. Working with actor Josh O'Connor, the filmmaker quietly observes and allows the truth to trickle down through the gaps. Ahead of the film's premiere in Mubi India, HT caught up with the filmmaker for an exclusive chat.
On the influences that shaped The Mastermind
The film's denouement really comes as a surprise, but Kelly would rather not elaborate on it further. “I can say about the writing process, that it goes for so long and it is really hard to remember what the steps were. But I saw a film, and I am not speaking in terms of… I am just talking about the writing process, the Joseph Losey film named Mr Klein. I saw that film, when the 35 mm print came out, and it stayed in New York. The themes of this film are at much higher stakes than my film but it is about an art collector, very self-centred, who is exploiting the political world around him. He feels safe from everything and then, it turns out that the world is more precarious than what one might expect,” she says.
“So yes, looking back, I think that film was quite an influence on me when I was thinking about this story. It is funny how one realises what influences were there at some point, when one has gone down the road quite a bit (smiles).”
The Mastermind focuses on JB Mooney, a struggling family man who plans the art heist. He is so painstakingly obsessed with his own plan that he refuses to acknowledge or engage with the broken socio-political climate of the time. News of protests arrives in the periphery, until it distils itself in a way that he cannot escape.
‘The younger viewers were really mad [at the film]’
Is the film in conversation with the way now, in today's age of so much information on our mobile screens and how we choose to engage with some and discard the rest? Kelly says, “I did not think of it in those terms exactly but I do think that overall, in all the films that I have made I guess, I don't want them to be informational. I want to play with the atmosphere and characters and questions. Contradictions. I want to give the viewer the space to bring their own history and point of view to explore in a shot. To really see versus being shown something. Because one is more passive, in the way that something is handed to the viewer, versus being able to see.”
The filmmaker stresses this point by connecting how The Mastermind elicited polarising reactions at a surprise screening. “It is funny and interesting. There was a screening Mubi had done like a surprise, and a lot of people went that would not go to my films. Then they blogged about it. It is interesting that you put it, the generational thing, because the younger viewers were really mad. The pace of the film makes them mad. They say there's no message here, that it went off the road it was not supposed to go on!” she says.
“In my generation, when you were young,” she adds. “You wanted to go discover things. You were leaving what your parents told you it was, and you could not wait to get away from it. But there is something about the internet generation that is really comfortable with being told. Wanting information, and wanting it fast. The anger at the pace of the film is very interesting to me… The consumer world does not want you to pay attention and question.”
On working with Josh O'Connor
Kelly then goes on to talk about her collaboration with Josh O'Connor. “He is a very lovely person,” she begins with a smile. “He is quite nice to collaborate with. He comes from a family of ceramicists, which I didn't know when I started talking to him. He is very craft-oriented, like he enjoys sewing and creating things. I saw him in God's Own Country, and I thought his performance was so beautiful. He was in The Crown, and I was shocked that this was the same actor! I thought that he had a timeless face, body and posture,” she says.
‘I always return to Satyajit Ray’
Is there any Indian filmmaker that has particularly impressed her? The filmmaker lights up and instantly replies, “Well, I am a huge Satyajit Ray fan. I saw those films in art school, in a class of Indian cinema. There was a lot of Bollywood, except for him. His films… I felt overwhelmed by them, honestly. I had never seen anything like that. I don't know why, they just stayed with me. Then I returned to them because they were in my mind.”
She adds, “I started with The Apu Trilogy, and then I have seen everything I could get my hands upon. Charulata is a film I love so much. Days and Nights in the Forest was screened at Cannes, and when I had first saw that I was like oh my god, it was like the French New Wave meets India."
"I always return to Ray for sound design. So much of the formal structure he imposes, is foundational to me. He never does two moves at once. It is very economical. The filmmaking is beautiful and effortless, but so incredibly economical. It never feels displaced from the economy of his characters. It does not matter what the topic is, I always return to Ray. He is so important to me,” she concludes.
The Mastermind premieres on Mubi India on December 12.
