The success of Beasts, as a prime example of the amazing smaller-budget films that have debuted this year, feels like a sign that independent cinema is starting to mean something again, regaining its voice and its power and affecting the landscape of Hollywood in a way that recent years haven’t allowed. For a film such as this to be recognized on such a large scale, especially among the likes of critically-acclaimed and internationally loved directors like Michael Haneke and Steven Spielberg, makes me to be hopeful that this generation of emerging artists is truly going to take back the reigns on what it means to create something not only artistically brilliant but socially and culturally relevant that lingers long after the credits have rolled.
Academy Award Nominated Director Benh Zeitlin Opens Up About ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’
A truly memorable film soundtrack not only opens up the world onscreen, but allows you to enter it—providing a sensory gateway that isn’t so much manipulative as it is emotionally captivating. And when a soundtrack is great, you can listen to it months or years after seeing a film and find yourself thrown back in your cinema seat, consumed by the sights and sounds happening before you—and with Benh Zeitlin and Dan Romer’s stunning soundtrack for Beasts of the Southern Wild (written and directed by Zeitlin), you get the pleasure of that experience precisely. Turn up the volume and drown out the world with “Once There Was a Hushpuppy” and suddenly your tear ducts begin to tingle as you find yourself back in the world of the Bathtub, filled with the strength of the little girl who astounded us all.
Musically Speaking: Talking With ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ Composer Dan Romer
BlackBook, June/July 2012
The experience of watching Beasts of the Southern Wild is like looking in on another universe through a keyhole. You watch the scenes between Hushpuppy and her father and wonder: how was a camera even present in this moment? Visually speaking, the film is pure poetry, shining a light on a unique corner of the world and presenting it in a way that’s entirely magical. But it’s the performances given by everyone in the cast, especially Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry, that truly capture the essence of what the film is really about: people having the courage to love and defend the people and place they call home. But before Beasts of the Southern Wild, there was Juicy and Delicious, a play by Lucy Alibar about a boy who feels like the whole world is collapsing as his father is dying. And it’s from that play that Alibar and director, Benh Zeitlin, adapted Beasts of the Southern Wild, carrying through the same themes of loss and strength, all set in a mythical world that’s as brutal as it is beautiful. We sat down with Alibar to see how her play transitioned from its original form, having a strong female hero, and seeing through tough exteriors.
Lucy Alibar on Adapting Her Stage Play into Beasts of the Southern Wild
One reason, perhaps, that there have been so many movies made about New Orleans is that the very geography of the city is the stuff of Shakespearean drama. The constant threat of annihilation, vibrancy in the face of fear, an electrifying inequality, a touch of hubris perhaps—it’s all there. Equally true is that in many cases these seductive narratives have all but obliterated the people who make New Orleans: New Orleanians.
This is the backdrop against which Beasts of the Southern Wild, the debut feature from director Benh Zeitlin and one of the most powerful movies ever made about the city, emerges. Zeitlin, a 29-year old filmmaker who moved there from Queens in 2004, is a member of Court 13, a community–based film collective headquartered near the French Quarter that has coalesced around what Zeitlin calls, “a code of honor.” It’s like an American Dogme 95. “The most fundamental idea behind our process,” Zeitlin explains, “is that we try to make the creation of the film mirror the reality of the actual story.”
That’s a tall order considering the magical realism of Beasts of the Southern Wild. The film unfolds in a fringe community of misfits called The Bathtub. Residents of The Bathtub live beyond the levee, effectively beyond the reach of either the laws of man or God and beyond the protection afforded the levee. It’s an enclave of beaten-up trailers, jerry-rigged boats, crab feasts, outcasts, and glorious bacchanals. There’s no money in The Bathtub, but as Zeitlin says, an “absence of money doesn’t mean poverty.” His film, executed on a shoestring budget, is proof.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is the Best Movie About New Orleans
Dwight Henry’s famous Buttermilk Drops courtesy of Fox Searchlight. YUM!
