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Welcome to Commentary Commentary, the place we sit and hearken to filmmakers discuss their work, then share essentially the most fascinating elements. On this version, Rob Hunter revisits a lesser seen William Friedkin movie along with his commentary for 2006’s Bug.
The late, nice William Friedkin isn’t any stranger to our little Commentary Commentary column with previous visits masking The French Connection (1971), The Exorcist (1973), Cruising (1980), and To Stay and Die in L.A. (1985). He even did a fan commentary for 1943’s The Leopard Man. He might narrate at instances, however his ideas on the movie, filmmaking, and the intentions of the filmmaker are not often lower than partaking.
Whereas identified for some actually influential and unforgettable classics, Friedkin additionally directed motion pictures that garner far much less admiration and dialog. His penultimate theatrical characteristic, 2006’s Bug, is one such movie thanks largely to its restricted locales and darkly somber tone. The movie nonetheless isn’t obtainable on Blu-ray in North America, however Australian label Imprint launched it final yr with some worthwhile particular options together with a brand new commentary monitor by a pair of movie historians. For this entry, although, we went straight to the supply and listened to Friedkin’s personal commentary for the movie.
Maintain studying to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Bug (2006)
Commentator: William Friedkin (director)
1. “With Bug, I attempted to take care of the topic of the masks of sanity.” He wished to make a movie about somebody who appears regular really containing the seeds of evil. He says that is like all of his movies in coping with “the nice and evil which is inside every of us, the fixed battle for our higher angles to prevail over our demons.”
2. The opening sequence with Agnes (Ashley Judd) might sound random, however the introduction of her air conditioner, the fan, and the espresso pot “will later play a big half in unraveling the mysteries of Bug.” I’d argue that they don’t? (However I wouldn’t argue it with Friedkin himself.)
3. The motel within the movie is an precise motel. They didn’t costume it up — down? — in any respect, and there have been folks dwelling there who didn’t really feel misplaced towards Agnes and her bleak paranoia.
4. “Are these pictures from the air merely a type of angel’s view, or do they belong to, let’s say, a surveillance helicopter?” He suggests an unknown, however I’m curious what number of viewers had been questioning the identical factor.
5. He factors out that Peter (Michael Shannon) is a drifter who goes from one place to the subsequent, however the large query is “the place does he come from?” It’s clear that Friedkin sees the movie’s first act as establishing not simply story, however thriller, as to its characters, their pasts, and their futures.
6. Friedkin first noticed Shannon performing in a stage play, and he got here to really feel that the actor “might carry one thing to this movie that no star, no younger actor established or with a much bigger identify, might carry.” He provides that generally an actor who inhabit a job so strongly that they turn out to be inseparable from it, and that’s how he feels about Shannon as Peter. “It’s not an actor enjoying an element, it’s somebody dwelling by way of this half.”
7. He first met Harry Connick Jr. at a celebration in Las Vegas just some months earlier than Bug started filming. “I spoke to him briefly, and I spotted there was one other and deeper facet to Harry Connick than most individuals had ever seen and that you simply by no means see in his music performances.” Friedkin felt that the performer understood the legal thoughts and the darkish facet of human nature. He most likely ought to have simply watched 1995’s wonderful serial killer thriller Copycat to get that exact 411.
8. “One of many concepts behind Bug is that individuals are not, in any manner, exactly as they appear to be at first assembly.” He provides that each one of us carry a number of layers, secrets and techniques, and mysteries, however I’d add that the majority of them aren’t as fascinating as those explored in motion pictures. Equally, he suggests that each one of us carry a loneliness, and that generally it’s sturdy sufficient to permit one other particular person’s affect, world views, and paranoia to turn out to be our personal.
9. He sees the preliminary intercourse seen between Agnes and Peter because the second of an infection. “It’s as if Peter has contaminated her, and infested her, along with his personal deep-seated paranoia, they usually start to attach not solely on a bodily stage, however on an emotional stage as nicely, as the 2 merge into one.” It’s adopted instantly by Peter discovering a bug within the mattress that neither we, nor Agnes, really sees. Quickly each Agnes and viewer alike will begin to consider.
10. A stranger arrives at 1:11:50, and Friedkin it isn’t clear even to him at that time, if this man is an actual particular person or a figment of their collective creativeness. Dr. Candy is performed by Brian F. O’Byrne who’s “one of many best actors working at the moment.” Friedkin’s uncertainty as to Candy’s existence by no means wavers. “All nice writing, definitely is me as a viewer and I hope you, the query of what’s actual? What’s actuality?”
11. He lastly mentions author Tracy Letts ninety-four minutes in, saying that Letts’ screenplay “portrays this different facet, this different world, that all of us inhabit to at least one diploma or one other, a world that units us aside from everybody else, however that generally brings us along with another person who’s in a position to share this imaginative and prescient, and it could actually lead fairly often to a deep and abiding love — or to violence, destruction, and dying.”
12. “The smoke detector’s gone, do not forget that,” he says because the motel room is engulfed in flames and the movie ends. Hey, I laughed.
13. The movie’s finish credit embody two transient scenes/pictures, however Friedkin is lengthy passed by then that means he has nothing to say. Sticking with the movie’s and filmmaker’s method to the fact of the entire movie — ie, the occasions we witnessed within the room might or might not have occurred — these two bits may imply completely nothing on their face. The very best idea I’ve discovered is over on StackExchange the place somebody means that the pictures are supposed to remind viewers of the 2 issues that despatched these characters down their respective, after which shared, lethal spiral. For Agnes, it was the disappearance of her son, so we see his toys, his bike, and listen to an unanswered cellphone. For Peter, it’s the psychological sickness that was created, or at the least exacerbated, by his time within the navy.
Greatest in Context-Free Commentary
“That’s a really good brand. Makes extra sense than a woman standing there like a statue or one thing.”
“The masks is now eliminated.”
“Every of us creates a world that’s contained inside us.”
“One of many questions of the movie, is ‘are there any bugs?’”
“Beneath strange circumstances you or I could be postpone by somebody who turns into obsessive about bugs on the second date.”
“There are a lot of meanings to this title, and none that shall be utterly proper or fallacious.”
“Frankly, because the maker of this movie, I do not know if Peter’s story is true or not.”
“What Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon have executed in creating these characters, is to open a portal into the thoughts’s eye of the utterly, criminally insane.”
Last Ideas
As he has executed now and again, however by no means to this diploma, Friedkin spends a big chunk of this Bug commentary primarily narrating what’s taking place on the display. He does use it generally as kick-off factors for observations on character and intention, so it serves a function… generally. Sadly, that is simply the worst case instance because the filmmaker simply can’t cease himself from telling us what we’re seeing. Not why we’re seeing it, not what it took as a movie manufacturing to carry it to life, not what the higher themes could be — simply what we’re seeing. So yeah, the Bug commentary ain’t an excellent hear!
Learn extra Commentary Commentary from the archives.
Associated Subjects: Commentary Commentary, William Friedkin
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