I wanted not only for the character, Elaine, to cast the spells, but I wanted the movie to cast spells over the audience in terms of cinematic techniques. The style of The Love Witch is very much part of what I’m trying to say with the movie and the character.
Content is very important in movies, and I think that the style directly informs the content. No Film School: Some criticize films for prioritizing "style over substance." What do you think about this style and substance debate, and how does The Love Witch fit in?īiller: In this case, the style is the substance.
#THE LOVE WITCH HOW TO#
Resurrecting classic Hollywood lighting, color symbolism, and screenwriting techniques, Anna Biller has created a delightfully handmade Technicolor thriller that gives you a rare glimpse into both the external and internal workings of a woman who loves men-to death.īiller sat down with No Film School to talk about writing controversial female characters and how to use film as a construction. In the few years it’s taken for the digital revolution to take root, we’ve shelved many techniques of classic cinema. "I wanted not only for the witch to cast the spells, but I also wanted the movie to cast spells over the audience in terms of cinematic techniques." No film is a better case study on this debate than Anna Biller’s The Love Witch, out in theaters this Friday courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories. (Find a theater that can project it as it should be seen-on 35mm- here.) What about when lighting functions as psychology, or when color functions as symbolism? If you think the style of your film is "presenting reality as it is," you may be missing out on tools of great filmmaking. But putting them in the visuals is the best way to make them work." "You can have political, feminist, and intellectual ideas in a movie.