Maggie Gyllenhaal says she wanted the sexual violence in The Bride to feel "horrible, brutal, massive, and really difficult to watch."
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The filmmaker adds, "If you gloss over it, it doesn't feel like the brutality that it is."
Gyllenhaal says that she's "interested in violence" and has been "surprised sometimes by the response to the violence" in the film.
The Bridedoesn't shy away from depicting intense sexual violence — and writer-directorMaggie Gyllenhaalsays that the discomfort of assault is an important aspect of her vision.
The filmmaker'sFrankensteinriff sees the Bride (Jessie Buckley) survive several instances of sexual assault, including groping at a shady nightclub, an aggressive attack outside that same nightclub, and attempted rape by a sadistic police officer (Louis Cancelmi) on the side of the road.
Gyllenhaal tellsEntertainment Weeklythat she insisted that these troubling sequences reflect the gravity of real-life sexual assault.
"I have to say, I felt strongly that the sexual violence had to be brutal, real, because if you gloss over it, it doesn't feel like the brutality that it is," she says. "And I got taken to task on that, too. I do not believe that there is any aspect, not one bit of the sexual violence in the movie that is unconsidered or that is gratuitous. I am totally taking responsibility for my take on all of that."
The filmmaker says that she owed it to survivors of sexual violence to make these scenes appropriately visceral. "I think that it is honoring people who have gone through things like that by making it feel horrible, brutal, massive, and really difficult to watch," she says. "That's my take. And it might be different if a man were making the movie."
The film's depiction of sexual violence is just one facet in Gyllenhaal's broader fixation on violence as a theme. "I'm kind of interested in violence, as you can tell in the movie," she explains. "I'm surprised sometimes by the response to the violence; people are like, 'It's a lot.'"
TheLost Daughterdirector points to one particular moment, in which the Bride shoots a police officer during a tense standoff at a swanky New York party. "I wondered if [people's strong reaction to the violence] was because she shoots this cop in the ballroom and I have a slow motion closeup of this beautiful face — him looking down at the gunshot wound, then he looks up at her," Gyllenhall reflects. "He had no idea that that's what was coming, and she didn't mean it, either. It's the horror of violence — then you feel it more."
Gyllenhaal wants on-screen violence to feel severe so that its victims are not ignored or forgotten. "It's the opposite of the stormtrooper thing, right? Where everyone has no face, so you can just shoot them and you don't really care," she says. "I want the violence to be very connected to humanity and to humans and to see the faces of the people that are killed and what they feel about it. And that's, I think, what makes it hard to watch."
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TheDark Knightstar also says she sought to interrogate the audience's relationship to revenge, particularly the differences in how we view men and women who lash out in vengeance. She notes that viewers seemed more comfortable with Frank (Christian Bale) fighting the Bride's attackers outside the club than they are with the Bride's own acts of violence.
"Those guys come after the Bride — maybe they're going to rape her — and Frankenstein smashes their heads in," Gyllenhaal says. "We've seen that before. We're all good with that. He's a hero. When she does it, I think it's harder for people. I really do."
She continues, "It's very complicated. The message of the movie is not violent revenge is the answer. It's the opposite of that."
The Brideis now playing in theaters. For more on the movie,read EW's cover story here.
Reporting by Sydney Bucksbaum.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
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