Atom Egoyan Reveals the Dark Heart of Seven Veils

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey there, listeners. If you're enjoying Sean Kelly interviews, why not take your experience to the next level? By signing up for our patreon at patreon sk on movies.com you'll unlock access to exclusive archival and unedited interviews. It's your chance to dive deeper into the conversations you love, hear behind the scenes stories and support the show while you're at it. So don't wait. Visit Patreon SK on Movies.com today and join our growing community of fans. [00:00:39] Speaker B: John Kelly on movies interviews Adam McGoyne on Seven Fails like. And subscribe for more content like this. All right, that's Katari dummy. So could you talk about your history of directing Salome and how and when you decided to produce a film based around the opera? [00:01:04] Speaker C: This opera, this production was first mounted in 1996, long time ago. It was a success. It's been remounted in different places around the world since that time. But when I found out that the Canadian Opera Company was bringing it back to two years ago exactly in February of 2023, I started thinking about a lot of things which, you know, I was thinking about for, well, we're living in a very different time than 1996. And yet when you do a remount, you can't really change things that much. You know, you don't have the time. And I was feeling the frustrations. I thought, well, maybe I can, if I, if I wrote this script, I could actually address how this opera or this production fits into our society now. So that was the origin of it. And then this character began to emerge of Janine who's remounting the show. And I really, you know, when I thought of Amanda and I thought of, you know, cause we'd always talked about, you know, collaborating on doing something else after Chloe, this seemed like the perfect role. And she began to become really vivid to me. And this person who had a history, you know, with the production, who was involved with it as a younger person who had maybe even creatively, you know, given ideas. In this case, this didn't happen, but had a relationship with this director. And the story of Seven Veils is that the original director, who she had the affair with has passed away and in his will has said that she must rebound it because he knows her connection to this story or this interpretation. And so the question is, does he do this as a gift to her or does it become like a curse? Is it this crazy thing that kind of unleashes all these other feelings that she's been living with? And it's a very intense ride and Amanda just pulls it off like it's an incredible performance for her. And I think unlike any other movie I've ever seen because it is combining these two worlds. But in a very. It's not an opera movie. You don't have to know anything about opera to see this. It's just the working environment and it's this. This person that's going on a journey that's super intense, emotional, personal and unexpected. [00:03:34] Speaker B: So how was your experience working with Mandra Sifri different with this film than it was with Chloe, like more than 15 years ago? [00:03:44] Speaker C: Well, Chloe was, I would say, a more, you know, it's a more commercial. You know, I wouldn't say it's that it's formulaic, but we. That film is also a remake, right? It's a remake of a French film. So we knew what the parameters were and it's more classically made. I mean, there's no question about that. And. And this is much more like we don't really know what the alchemy of it. It was going to be. We didn't know how it was these pieces were going to come together. There was nothing formulaic about it at all. It's fresh territory in terms of what it's exploring creatively. And she seized that opportunity. We were able to just do things. We didn't need approvals. Chloe is a studio film, so it has a lot of layers of approval. You can't just do stuff without it having being vetted by a number of people. This was a more independently made film and we could just explore things without having to ask for permission. Permission, you know, so it's very different. Like. Like the working. You know, like I had a. We had a great experience on Chloe, but we also understood that there were different sort of parameters on a film like that. And also, honestly, I don't. I never liked the ending of Chloe. I tried to change it, but, you know, we couldn't because that was sort of embedded in the script. And with this. I love the ending. So. So it's creatively just. It's been a more satisfying thing from that point of view. [00:05:32] Speaker B: I'd like to talk a bit about the themes of the film without getting too much into spoilers, but say, one line that stuck out with me early in the film is Janine is describes Salume wanting the head of John the Baptist as being the first recorded sex crime in biblical history. So how would you say that that relates to the overall. [00:05:53] Speaker C: Okay, first of all, I think I Think characters can. It's not. I mean, the story of Delilah, there's the story of Judith. You know, there are other stories, but I think that's what she comes up with at that point. So actually, it's interesting how that's come up, because a lot of people are saying, well, you know, that's wrong. Well, character can be wrong. I mean, like, know, she can just say, you know, for her, it's. It's. It's the first story. So, yes, it's true that I might have had the character who's interviewing or say, well, what about Delilah or Judith? But, like, I don't think she would know that. You'd have to have some background to know what the accuracy of that statement is. So. But it is a sex crime and it's a horrific one, and it is one of the earliest ones. And it's. It's probably. I would say it's more famous than the other two I just mentioned. I mean, it's probably, you know, one of those things that I like to think that everyone knows the story of, you know, like, beheading John the Baptist and kissing his lips or, I mean, you know, let's be clear about that, too, that Oscar Wilde also transformed the story. Right. Like, the original biblical story is pretty sparse. Like, we know that it's Herodias the mother that actually kind of orchestrated this, like, you know, the death of John the Baptist. And so Salome was just like a kind of a proxy. A proxy. But, but, but, you know, look, we can go on, because this. This actually, this fascinates me. But, but I know we have limited time, but. But yes, you're absolutely right. It's not the first recorded history. [00:07:31] Speaker B: But like. Like, sexual violence is a theme in the film. [00:07:34] Speaker C: I. Oh, for sure. Look, what. What is in setting the story in the current time, we are. We're trying to understand it in. Like, there is. And I would say that as much as the MeToo movement has had a lot of attraction in other areas of the arts, I would say, and it's going to be controversial, that the opera world is actually the last bastion where you still find, because of the dynamics of it, there are these holdouts. So when you see this character who's playing John the Baptist and his kind of the way he behaves, I've observed that. I've seen these types of people, because what happens is that you have to imagine when you're singing, there's a sense of power and this, you know, you are this superstar, and some people take advantage of that. And so we're seeing the dynamics of that as it plays in an opera company. And that comes from years of my own observation. And it is shifting and it is changing. But you have to also realize that this dynamic of understudies who are aspiring to get that chance to sing the role is a very real thing. It's. You know, there's a cliche around. You know, people who are brought in on stage at the last moment in careers are made that does happen. So there are a lot of machinations going on. Like, there's a lot of seething aspiration and tension. And, you know, it's. It's. It's a kind of a crazy brew of ambition and drive and bad behavior at times. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Okay, well, time's running low, so I'll just conclude by asking, do you hope that you said that it's not an opera movie, but do you hope that Seven Veils opens up people to attending the opera? And do you have plans to direct another remounting of Sao Mee in the future? [00:09:28] Speaker C: I'm not doing Samue, but I'm doing another. I'm off to Berlin to do this play at the Maxim Gorky Theatre. And then I'm doing an opera in Montreal in the fall, Yennefa by Janacek, which is also a pretty intense, grim story, but a great music. And, you know, I love. Look, as someone who uses a lot of music in their movies and has a very rich relationship with a composer, Michael Dana, for us, like, having access to opera music and being able to incorporate that into the score was like a dream come true, especially given what the nature of this story was. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Okay, well, thanks. [00:10:07] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Okay, Sean Kelly on Movies interviews is part of the SK on Movies podcast network. You can access links to all our shows by going to SK K on Moviespodcast, Ca or search us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or where else you listen to your podcasts. This has been a production of Sean Kelly on Movies.