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Emma Tammi Q&A.

“To be able to really see her for who she really is when she’s by herself is such a powerful thing since it turns out that she’s a real badass.”

Caitlin Gerard as Lizzy Macklin in Emma Tammi’s ‘The Wind’.

Of the many possible source materials for a feature film, never overlook the short. Jim Cummings’ Thunder Road, Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, Andrés Muschietti’s Mama, and Sean Ellis’s Cashback all began life as short films. And more: the Saw films. District 9. Dee Rees’ Pariah. Jennifer Kent’s Monster (which she expanded into The Babadook).

After a start in documentaries, director Emma Tammi makes her feature debut with The Wind, a lengthened version of a short film called The Winter, adapted by its writer Teresa Sutherland. The supernatural Western horror revolves around Lizzy Macklin (Caitlin Gerard, Insidious: The Last Key, The Social Network), a woman left alone in a lob cabin on the plains, who is fighting to not lose her mind.

Letterboxd contributor Jack Moulton chatted with Tammi about her narrative debut, the cultural references infused in this haunting feminist chiller, and Westerns in the #MeToo era.

Letterboxd: Let’s start with your take on the origins of this project and how you were brought on board to direct The Wind? Emma Tammi: The screenwriter Teresa Sutherland was a film student at Florida State University and she made a short film called The Winter, which was loosely based on the same themes as The Wind. Our producer Christopher Alender, who is also alumni of FSU, saw the short and encouraged her to expand it into a feature. So Teresa had written this script prior to me coming on board.

Chris and I worked together on another documentary project and he thought I might be a good fit to direct, so I read the script and I loved it. I then met Teresa and I think we shared the same visions for what the film could ultimately be. We did a couple of polished passes together and then we were shooting later that year. It all came together organically based on prior relationships and all of us believing in the story.

What did you connect to the most about the script? I loved that it was a Western and that it was focusing on a female character, which was not something that I felt like we’d seen much before. I also loved that Teresa was inspired by these actual accounts of women who were homesteading at that time, since I was fascinated with the American West as a teenager and had actually picked up some of the books that she used as original research.

I thought it was fun how Teresa was starting with something rooted in reality and taking it to a horror and supernatural place. But the thing that really I think hooked me after I read it was that I thought the protagonist Lizzy was so well developed, and I thought all the character arcs were really strong. I felt that the horror was coming from the dramatic strengths of the characters’ relationships and their own personal struggles. It felt like really strong ground.

‘The Wind’ director Emma Tammi.

You had more of a background in documentary filmmaking before this—what compelled you to make a start in fictional narratives? Do you feel being an ‘outsider’ to the genre aided your vision of the film? That’s an interesting question. I had been working in documentary films for many years and I feel that was great preparation for making a narrative film despite the differences. Both my parents were actors so I had grown up around theater and fiction filmmakers my whole life. So I think that it felt like something I had always wanted to eventually get to.

I’m so fascinated with our world that I think documentary is such an interesting lens to explore things that are happening. But to then be able to step into a fictional realm I think you can explore the human experience to an even greater extreme. Once we started shooting, the process of working with the actors was even more enriching and incredible than I ever could have anticipated.

What were your film influences for The Wind—especially the specific horrors and Westerns that inspired the look and the feel? I think that one of the things that [director of photography] Lyn Moncrief and I really wanted to do was pay homage to some of the frames from Westerns that have become such big cultural references in our lives. But we wanted to find ways that we could have a fresh take with that [and] subvert it to give a new perspective to the landscape, since we were telling this from a female unreliable narrator and I think that both of those things in Westerns are pretty hard to come by. So, in that sense, I liked how we basically turned the camera 90 degrees and held on the women as the men rode off to town. I was really inspired by The Searchers (1956), for example.

In terms of the horror I feel that there is a comparison to The Shining (1980) in the sense of how it’s a slow burn where the environment is coming in on our lead character. Pacing-wise, in building up the tension, I was really inspired by that. I thought Carrie (1976) was also a really interesting reference in terms of the horror. The first horror scene is simply Sissy Spacek getting her period in a girls locker room and it’s completely terrifying.

I thought so many of the things that women experience in this time were horrific and yet they were just coming out of the mundane day-to-day life events of trying to live and sustain in such an inhospitable land at that time. I love that The Wind was taking the horror cues from the everyday things that we all experience.

Caitlin Gerard’s performance is truly terrific. She anchors the film brilliantly as it jumps from its time periods. What drew you to her in the casting process and did she bring anything new to what had already been set in the script? During auditions I kept asking for more people because I really didn’t feel like we found our Lizzy yet. Caitlin was one of the last ones and was so balls-to-walls, showing such range in three different scenes. We just wouldn’t be able to fully enter this world without hanging our hat on a lead actress who didn’t have that level of grit. So that was incredible.

One of the most important things that she brought to the table was the fact that she had a German background, which we didn’t consider before in terms of Lizzy. I had initially been talking to Teresa about Lizzy’s background, thinking that it would make sense for her to be an immigrant, which was very common of that period. To implement that in the script would really add to the isolation that she might be feeling on the land, in this country, and also between her and Isaac [her husband, played by Ashley Zukerman].

We wrote that into the script days before shooting and then were continuing to work on it throughout the shoot. I thought that was such a nice brush stroke and dimension that Caitlin was able to add because she speaks German and it was fabulous.

What motivated the nonlinear structure of the film? Did you have to adjust anything in the edit to make a particular section work better from how it was laid out in the script? Teresa had already tapped into establishing the nonlinear structure of the film beforehand in a way that would reflect the mental fractured-ness of Lizzy’s headspace. I think it really helps us feel the unreliable narrator so strongly. But we did have to juggle some of the order in post so the edit is different from the order of the script, but I think we were able to find the essence of the script at the end of the day. Those were decisions based on logistics like the performances and the coverage, or the sound and special effects. You just need to recalibrate to keep the pacing in the edit.

Were there any notable challenges on set, such as dealing with the period setting or shooting in such a remote location? We really lucked out in the sense that we got a really strong and dedicated team. I think that everyone was so committed and so talented that we were pretty flexible when challenges would come up. The remoteness really added to the production because we were all able to immerse ourselves in that time period and in that world and not be as connected to the outside and technology.

I’m sure our producers would have a different story to tell because not being able to access your email onset is a nightmare. Basically none of our cellphones worked in these locations. Despite the problems, there were great benefits in shooting in the middle of nowhere.

Through the film, you use the realities of settler life for horror and tension, such as the wild animals, the lack of medical care and, obviously, the weather. How did you negotiate the balance between the realities and the supernatural, especially since you often leave questions unanswered with the latter? We really wanted to start in a way that let you experience the environment as it was, and then start to get in a place where you experience the environment through Lizzy’s point of view, letting it really rev up into something that was ultimately quite terrorizing. I think we were trying to push the natural elements into a more hyper-realized place so it was close to a supernatural place. It’s like playing a piece of music where it flows from the peaks and the valleys.

Can you describe the decision-making process around how you kept the ‘monster’ hidden as much as possible? It’s very effective, but also lends itself to questions on the specifics. How the haunting element would be both seen and heard was something we were talking about even in the script rewriting stages, and I think we wanted to really lean into all of this being an extension of the torment that Lizzy was feeling internally. So questioning whether or not there was actually a “boogeyman” out there was more interesting and more true to the character than actually seeing the “boogeyman”.

But the other element of it was that since this was set in the late 1800s I think we really wanted to show and hear hints of it that were coming from the natural world, so “the wind” and how that transformed was really the scary element of the sound design. In terms of the visuals, we were leaning into shadows and elements of fire and dust and things that were of that environment. I wanted to do something that felt practical even when it wasn’t.

I’d like to ask you how you feel the film operates as a period piece to reflect current times. I felt that the way Lizzy is constantly wielding her shotgun is an empowering and feminist subversion of the masculine individualist gunslinger from classic Westerns. Were you consciously revising frontier myth in that cinematic sense? I think we were consciously doing that but I don’t think it was the overt intention of the script, which is what I really liked about it. I felt that all of those things were coming out so naturally and they weren’t forced. What’s so interesting with Lizzy is that we spend so much time with her while she’s by herself, but she’s constantly trying to put on a brave face for her husband, or for her neighbors, and for the outside world, which I think we can all relate to.

And then to be able to see her for who she really is when she’s by herself is such a powerful thing since it turns out that she’s a real badass. She’s wielding the gun, she’s doing all that stuff that she needs to do out of necessity, but it’s also without any pretense and without having to be a certain thing to any certain person because she’s ultimately there being herself and trying to survive.

I feel it resonates in the #MeToo era in the way she’s threatened by powerful forces and then the man in her life doesn’t believe her. Yeah, I think it does and I love that about it. If we’d made it five years ago it still would have resonated. It’s also a very human experience that she’s going through and our current times are shedding light on it in different ways and that’s so cool. I think the horror genre is able to put a mirror up to ourselves in such a powerful way.

‘The Wind’ opens in US cinemas on limited release 5 April 2019.

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