Ghostwritten is a film written and directed by Thomas Matthews. His first dive into genre filmmaking is one that excels in the mysterious elements it crafts, with confident direction and stylistic flair. Our conversation was a fascinating one, touching on everything from Faustian tales and writer’s block to monster movies. Check it out below, and be sure to track down Ghostwritten for a great time.
Alex Papaioannou
Very quickly, I knew this film was right up my alley. It’s super weird, it’s fascinating, and it’s confident. So I just want to dive right in. Guy, the main character, is looking for a place to start on his latest novel. Going off that, where did the story of this film begin? What was the spark?
Thomas Matthews
Well, I’ve been going to Nantucket Island working with the film festival there for some time, and there’s a big culture of ghost folklore. So I started reading about it and where that came from; it’s connected to the history of the island. Around the 1850s, whaling went out of style. As a result, the island got stuck in time, while places like Baltimore and New York kept on growing and moving forward. It was like a freeze frame, and it was a tremendous economic depression. But from that, its whole allure became the fact that it wasn’t moving forward. So I started thinking about ghosts, specifically the concept of something that’s stuck in time, something that can’t evolve or change. From that, I got this idea of a no longer young, white male, heterosexual novelist who is kind of a relic. And if he’s going to be able to move forward, he’s going to need to change. I thought there would be an interesting story about him being challenged, where the only way he could actually survive is either by growing up, or maybe stealing something.
Alex Papaioannou
Like I said, this is a very confident film. I was curious how you got into filmmaking and found such a specific voice.
Thomas Matthews
Honestly, I started in theater, but my family was really film oriented. My brother and I have even made stuff together. He’s also a filmmaker. A couple years ago, we wrote and directed a film together called Lost Holiday. This new one is a lot different, more genre, which I didn’t really have a lot of experience with. But I was really excited and scared by the idea. From there, we just dove right in. I knew that we had a couple of locations donated, and we had a deal with a couple of local businesses due to the island being basically shut down in the winter. So I got a couple of actors and filmmakers together, and we shot a bunch of stuff and tried different things. From there, we sort of found the story and the tone in post. It was a tremendous collaboration. A lot of people involved were theater actors like Thomas Jay Ryan, Maria Dizzia, or Deirdre O’Connell. Jay [Duplass] obviously, is from a film background, and he’s also very collaborative and improvisational. We kept on talking about the kinds of stories that people want to hear. In the case of Guy, it’s the ultimate male fantasy of being some kind of savior; being a hero to feel relevant. From there, we kind of started molding it a lot in post. Trying different stuff like the VHS effects, of what the fears are of being erased, and how that can be kind of funny. In the grand scheme of things, he’s pretty lucky, but he still feels so desperate for some reason.
Alex Papaioannou
Do you remember when you first discovered Faustian tales? It obviously plays a large part in the film.
Thomas Matthews
I was probably in college. I read a bunch about it and I saw a lot of avant-garde theater. The Wooster Group, for example, they did a thing that was called “Gastronome Faust”, about a chef who wants to discover the ultimate taste. And obviously, the ending is always bad with him getting dragged down to hell. But there’s a lot of funny stories kind of like that. And then also, some newer stuff. Obviously Hellraiser isn’t necessarily new, but I think it’s an amazing franchise. It hones in on a yearning for something that’s unattainable. Something that people will make deals in which they don’t even understand, and it always leads to tragedy and horror. I think stories like that can be kind of funny, or sexy too, because it’s kind of scary.
Alex Papaioannou
With Faustian tales, there’s obviously some sort of foregone conclusion. Because of that, is there anything in particular that you find most compelling about them?
Thomas Matthews
Because I think it’s in all of us; we are all that person. Somebody who thinks that their problems can be solved externally, so they’re willing to lie or willing to not be themselves to try to attain it. And I think we see it around us. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I’m waiting for life to begin or this external thing to make me happy. There’s a Mephistopheles line that goes, “Yet in the end, you remain just what you are. You can wear a wig with 1000 curls, wear the highest heeled boots upon your feet. But in the end, it’s not going to change what’s inside of you.”
Alex Papaioannou
We’re getting very deep right now and I love it.
Thomas Matthews
[Laughs]. I know, it’s all a little heavy handed. I heard this line from SNL that you go into some things with these lofty ideas, and then you find a couple years in that fart jokes actually get the best laughs.
Thomas Matthews
There’s things that are tried and true, like jump scares and sound effects and what’s happening off camera. I mean, I’m still really new at this. So I was kind of learning on the job of what things worked what didn’t work. The hard part I think, is throwing things out, even when you put a lot of work and time into them. I still have a lot to learn about that.
Alex Papaioannou
You could go into this film and take it at face value. “It’s a ghost story.” But it wonderfully shows that it’s much loftier than the basic premise and goes into so many different directions. So what do you find to be the most important aspect of storytelling?
Thomas Matthews
[Takes time to genuinely consider the answer]. I’m still learning about that, but I think it’s connecting to the audience. Jordan Peele has talked about this with Get Out. There’s something called connexus, which is the step before catharsis when you actually become emotionally invested in the character. In order to do that, you have to see yourself inside of them somehow. So he talks about the scene in Get Out when they hit the deer you start seeing the deer through Daniel Kaluuya’s eyes. You start seeing that he has empathy and a helplessness for this thing that he can’t really help. And that kind of draws the audience into his arc about his guilt surrounding his mom.
Thomas Matthews
With this film, I see myself in the main character, but at the same time, I think he makes errors. I think he does things that are wrong. And as a result, like Faust, that regret will come.
Alex Papaioannou
Can you talk about what it was like working with Jay Duplass?
Thomas Matthews
Well, he’s a director that I’ve admired for decades. Meeting him was surreal, especially because he was our first pick to play Guy. We thought he would bring a sort of dropped-in aspect that people could relate to, alongside a sense of humor. And he’s also a very subtle performances. He has very subtle performances a lot of the time, which made it a very attractive everyman type of character. I mean, his name’s Guy [chuckles]. So we started Zooming together, I sent him a cut of my last movie, and asked if he wanted to do this role. He liked the movie, but he also wanted to collaborate and talk about what the major themes are of this one. I sent him a script that was not anything close to what we ended up with. I knew this movie was something that we would have to figure out sort of along the way. So we talked about ghosts and identity and hetero-masculine fragility; somebody who is feeling like a victim, like their voice doesn’t matter anymore when our culture is changing, and how that needs to be made fun of. When we were working together, he would be bringing us visual ideas that became some of my favorite parts of the movie. And we fought a lot as well. Sometimes I was right, but most of the time, he’s got a lot more experience than I do. But in the end, it has to be decisions that I’d have to make on set, which was daunting.
Alex Papaioannou
Since the film revolves around this dilemma, do you have any solutions for having creative blocks in your day-to-day, or even in general?
Thomas Matthews
Definitely reading. Jay and I both bonded about jogging as well. We’re both really into it. We run every day and that’s a really good meditation. It can be really boring, but so is meditation sometimes. The greatest ideas can just come out of nowhere in those moments. I also used to love doing Bikram Yoga, because it’s also a meditation that really gets you out of your mental habits.
Alex Papaioannou
For my final question, since this is Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. Now that you’ve played within genre filmmaking, what were your experiences and thoughts? And would you want to tackle a different type of horror on the next go?
Thomas Matthews
I think monster horror is very exciting. With movies like The Babadook or recently Barbarian. And I think we can get at something culturally because we’re sort of in a renaissance right now. It’s something that I’m really excited by, and it gets at something really visceral that I think is inside the collective unconscious right now. So yeah, next, I kind of want to dive more into straight horror, with something a little bit more about identity. With the next one, I’m looking for something that’s going to be even bigger.