Written Interview: Sean Durkin (“Martha Marcy May Marlene”)
An interview with writer-director Sean Durkin on his new movie:
Very few films resemble the structure of Martha Marcy May Marlene. The story follows a young girl, Martha (Elizaebth Olsen), both when she was a part of a cult and when she leaves it to try to relive a normal life. The psychological drama doesn’t give you the introduction of how Martha made it into the cult, which one would expect to take up the first act, and the film also ends on a scene that would’ve been the beginning of any other story’s third act. Martha Marcy May Marlene features subverted conventions, bare-boned exposition, and a whole lot of ambiguity.
However, writer/director Sean Durkin never approached his drama to deliberately “subvert conventions,” it just happened to turn out that way. Durkin confessed to never quite getting the lessons from screenwriting courses, and perhaps that was for the better. By avoiding expected screenwriting tropes, in his feature debut, Durkin made an anti-cliche cult film. There are no heroes. There is no third act bang. Plus, the moral compass of the film, Ted (Hugh Dancy), is almost as off-putting as the ambiguous cult leader, Patrick (John Hawkes). Clearly, not your regular “cult” film.
Some excerpts:
Structurally, you don’t go into what you would expect from the first act — how Martha got into the cult and her life before, etc. You also end the film on a scene that would usually lead to a whole third act.
[Laughs] Yeah, it’d be like another hour.
So, did you see that as subverting conventions, or did you never think of it that way?
No, I’m not aware enough of conventions, to be honest with you. I took screenwriting classes, and when they would breakdown the hero’s journey stuff, my head would spin. I just wouldn’t understand; I wouldn’t get it. Instead of trying to get it, I decided I was just not going to get it and do whatever feels right.
My writing process is not economical — it takes me a long time and I rewrite and throw out everything, although I’m sure most people do that. I never came from a point of wanting to break convention, but it strictly came from what felt right for this particular story, and I tried to maintain that. The structure thing — I hate flashbacks. I can’t think of any movie with flashbacks that I like, so I never thought of these as flashbacks. The structure really just came out of Martha’s perspective, so I wanted to create that confusion, and just follow that.
Here is the movie’s trailer:
Release date: December 22, 2011
For more of the interview, go here.
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