One thing I’ve realised over the past few years is that, while influences are impossible to avoid, the best thing you can do to ensure your work stands apart from that of others is to avoid being derivative. Below are seven sources which inspired ideas which formed into the style and story of ‘ANHEDONIA‘. All of which we hope we’ve transcended rather than merely referenced.
1. Werner Herzog – Munich to Paris
In 1974, mad genius of film Werner Herzog walked from Munich to Paris, as an act of faith to prevent the death of his friend Lotte Eisner, who had been a mentor to him and many others in the film industry at the time. He believed that she couldn’t die until he got to her deathbed.
Here is where the initial idea for the film came from. ‘Of Walking in Ice’ – Herzog’s account of the walk and his thoughts along the way – was shared with actor Liam Blundell to help get into character.
2. David Lynch
Lynch’s humour and desire to take an audience into worlds within worlds (see: ‘Twin Peaks’) is an obvious inspiration, but it’s his approach to his artworks – whether that be film, music or painting – which is most important to me. ‘ANHEDONIA‘ was me taking the most risks I ever had on a film before, extremely aware that I could fail with any decision throughout. Learning that a belief in your own work and maintaining integrity should be at the forefront of your mind, is something I took from Lynch, and hope to stick to in future. All those risks appear to have paid off, given the feedback we have had so far.
3. Infinite Jest
While David Foster Wallace’s “entertainment” – a videotape which leaves viewers catatonic – at the centre of his behemoth 1,100-page novel was a tool used to emphasise our culture of dependency on entertainment to numb ourselves, the ‘Gestalt’ cassette tape used as a MacGuffin* in ‘ANHEDONIA‘ is used for another purpose. When you create something it can cause great joy and great suffering. Although the piece of music in the film is supposed to take away the pain within the listener, like an analgesic (as some works of art/music/film are), anyone who comes into contact with it, especially during its creation, is inevitably haunted by tragedy.
*A plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The MacGuffin’s importance to the plot is not the object itself, but rather its effect on the characters and their motivations.
4. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
The lives and music of singer/songwriter Nick Cave, and violinist/composer Warren Ellis of the Bad Seeds and Dirty Three, were inspiration for the character of Kino Warren. Liam Blundell was bombarded with notes on character background and playlists largely consisting of their music to help get into character. Their scores for the films ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ and ‘The Proposition’, as well as their collective works in both bands mentioned above were sent to Quandary Productions’ composer Sebastian Moody to influence the score. Naturally Sebastian put his own spin on things to make it his own, and thus far everyone who has seen ‘ANHEDONIA‘ has commented on how exceptional the music is. Fitting really, given we made a film about a piece of music of such great power.
5. The Shining
The unexplained, shifting between realities, was a key inspiration for how to approach the film. The performances of Jack Nicholson and Joe Turkel were also shared among cast and crew to get them into the mood of the film we were trying to make. A few people noted the slightly-off sensation they felt whilst watching the trailer, saying it felt like watching a horror at times; that’d be thanks to Kubrick’s influence, with his mind-bending masterpiece.
6. René Magritte
The Belgian surrealist created simple, witty, and rich imagery which opened up profound questions in the minds of those who saw his works. I realised early on that there were easy and effective ways to fire up the mind of an audience member by dong something similar in cinematic terms, causing them to question their own perception of reality. Although it could be easy to make a film that’s weird for the sake of it, any use of double-exposure, reverse imagery, flashbacks, or any camera trickery, had to have purpose in order to create a specific effect for the viewer.
7. No Country for Old Men
The predator-prey dynamic of the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece, along with their solid story structuring and bold choices, were in mind during the first few drafts of the script. As a key reference during pre-production, myself and DoP Andy Toovey broke down Roger Deakins’ cinematography for this, and pretty much every other film he’d worked on, to find practical ways to light each scene in a simple and elegant way, so we could efficiently work through production without any hiccups. Those who have seen ‘ANHEDONIA‘ so far, seem to agree that it paid off.