July 6, 2017

By Adam Barnick

In 2002, a different kind of ‘horror’ film appeared on movie screens.

A loose adaptation of the paranormal book of the same name from author/journalist John Keel, THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES is a meditation on grief and loss, and the desperation that loss can provoke. It is equally an utterly disturbing, disorienting look into potentially supernatural elements influencing our world, cloaked in an investigative story.

For the film’s 15th anniversary, I invited director Mark Pellington (ARLINGTON ROAD, I MELT WITH YOU, THE LAST WORD) to have a conversation about the film, its design, its cast, and the numerous questions it brings up. Did we get any definitive answers? Read on to find out!

Adam Barnick: 15 years of MOTHMAN! I think I read on your website, you mentioned each project for you is a blend of a current life state and what was inspiring you at that time. I’m curious for MOTHMAN, what initially spoke to you about it, what did you respond to?

Mark Pellington: The way I got into it was in 1999, we were finishing ARLINGTON ROAD and the producers at Lakeshore said “We have a script we’d like you to read, we think you should do it next.” And it was THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, written by Richard Hatem. And I read it, I said this is a really weird script, I like this. But God, I’m mixing a movie now..at that time, I wasn’t ready to go from one movie to another. And I passed.

Six months later, ARLINGTON had come out and they came back and were like “Hey, do you wanna read MOTHMAN again?” I read it and was like “Something’s different.” It was more about creatures, a lot of creatures in this..I’m not really into creature movies. They said “Yeah, we’re trying to make it scarier” and I passed. Six months later they came back again and said “Come on, this is a really cool script!” and I read it again and they said they’d added more scares. They had added more of the winged creature with the red eyes attacking people and I was like “I seem to remember a different script, a lot more was left to the imagination. Can I read that?” I went back to Richard’s original script and read four concurrent rewrites, so I saw the evolution of where it had gone from a very subjective, imaginative, collage of John Keel’s nonfiction account of events that purportedly happened in West Virginia in the 70’s to where they had tried to push it into more of a monster movie.

I said to them I’m interested in three things: I’m interested in the power of the mind; I had seen my father with an imaginary phone talking to his imaginary friends when he had dementia; The mind can create anything. I wasn’t really into the paranormal, or X-Files things. Number two, I was interested in fear and subjectivity; and three, the script had many passages of pure visual and sonic enjoyment; it wasn’t super-plot driven; there are some events on this journey, but a lot of it was up to the imagination; it wasn’t a by-the-numbers plot thing. And the ending was kind of ambiguous!

I had been working with an avant-garde filmmaker named Lewis Klahr; his writing partner was Ernie Marrero, at the time. They would give me notes on scripts that I would read, studio scripts, he knew film noir inside out, he really understood film language in a different way. And they’d also been writing. So I showed them MOTHMAN and they said “God, it’d be great if we could write it.”

I went to Lakeshore and said “Guys, these are unknown screenwriters, but let me do a draft that I would wanna do. And if you like it, you like it.” I went back to the original draft, cherry picked what I thought were the interesting things they’d tried to add… I said “How little can I actually see the Mothman?’ And kind of built it that way. So we did it, they read it, Gere read it, and liked it a lot. I met him, and that was it; that was the backstory of how it got greenlit.

AB: I was actually a big paranormal nerd as a kid, so I’d grown up with John Keel’s book; which is very overt, with literal creatures and UFOs, but at the very end Keel makes a great point, looking back at what he observed. He talks about how he doesn’t necessarily think “it’s definitely UFOs” or “it’s monsters.” He agrees that there is SOMETHING out there and the human mind can’t experience it in its pure form. We see it through whatever our filters are; what our subconscious picks. Religious people in history might have seen the Virgin Mary, or angels, somebody who is more materialistic and science-based and modern, might experience a mechanical craft; he has a very interesting take on it. And I like that you took the film in that direction where it really comes down to what the poster says: “What do you see?” Not “this is what you are seeing.”

MP: Yeah, an exploration of subjectivity, and what we create! Now anchored through an objective truth of a reporter, the impetus and connection then, to grief. What did his wife’s death have to do with it? She saw this thing, did she see the thing? What do we see before our death? What do we see in these other states of consciousness?

I remember going back to Richard’s original script which had the basic film: There’s a reporter, he loses his wife, and ends up in this city inexplicably. What happened to time? What happened to space? Those were all really fun and interesting subconscious places to then design the film from. So then Richard Hoover (production designer) and I were designing it.

All those logistics of wanting to find the right town, and in the town, really being able to take it over and design it. There’s all these signs and little weird things we would put in there to create the universe for John Klein to enter into, the “spooky netherworld.’ I grew up in Baltimore, I’d been to Pittsburgh and West Virginia- it wasn’t foreign to me. Driving and finding these huge abandoned spaces, literally with that shape of Indrid Cold’s shoulder already in the wall. So the guy in the hospital (early after the death of John’s wife), we had him hunch his shoulders (when he appears to Gere’s character) because we had already found the place. You’re taking what’s found and merging it with what you’re creating! I really tapped into the real locations and the vibe and the feeling; really became immersed in it, because the script had the space for it.

It was just this great mystery that never really got answered! We don’t really answer. I’ve no idea what Will Patton’s story had to do with Laura Linney and the bridge collapsing, and we got a lot of heat at the end, we said it was based on the true story; but (in life) the bridge really collapsed. There WAS a physical, logistical, real reason the true suspension bridge collapsed. But at the end of the day, it was a movie. The fact that it’s held up and people are still scared by it… At least once a month, twice a month I get an email or a call or meet someone who is like “Man, that movie scared the shit out of me.”

AB: Funny when you were talking about “not getting or giving answers” and the ambiguity, that was kind of the point, to me. You have to let go of the fact that you’re not going to see the big picture; you don’t get a satisfactory reason in life why your loved ones are taken away from you; but as humans, we feel we NEED to have all of that or we can’t move on.

I always saw Alan Bates’ character, even though he’s kind of lost everything, he realized that the only way he could move on was if he let go. And John Klein is still sort of stuck in limbo, because he WON’T let go. And that’s his journey, to figure out how he CAN.

MP: The irony was it was the second movie I’d made about a male protagonist who loses his wife. And then I lost my wife; and then there was rumors of “There’s definitely a Mothman curse”, all that shit about it. I never was into that kind of paranormal stuff; but I still get random emails or Facebook messages from people who are really still into it. It’s really interesting in this day and age of cell phones and the technology era, that the sightings of all the UFOs and the Bigfoots have disappeared.

AB: Yeah, where is the proof on YouTube?

MP: Exactly. But I don’t know! I remember getting just that feeling that it’s about fear, it’s about death, it’s knowing your own death, precognition and identity; I remember talking with Richard Gere about the Ego and The Superego and the Id, ultimately, he came up with this thought and idea of there’s actually two John Kleins- there’s the real John Klein, and then his alter ego John Klein. He’s really not himself, he’s outside of himself; so when he’s looking at himself in the mirror, when there’s the voice of Indrid Cold speaking to him (which was my voice on set talking to him), in a way it’s his own Self; his own projection of his own self, and shape, guiding HIM.

Once you free yourself up to really trip out at that level, and you can design a movie and play a movie on that level, like on a dream level/subconscious level; where every choice and every “Well, why does this town go downhill? Why is this light missing? Why are there not more words on the store signs? Why is this reflection upside down?” There were all these little things you could just do that were “illogical” yet meant to be so submerged, and kind of invisible to the viewer.

AB: I was going to ask you about noticing the signs in town, it felt like piecing together clues via words: Instead of “Earl’s Paint Shop” it’s just PAINT.

MP: Yeah! It’s only very few of them, those are actually like subconscious instructions!

And, how few people are in the town, it’s just weird. Just uncomfortable. I remember I was watching it six months ago, on TV. I hadn’t seen it in years. It reminded me of when I watched DON’T LOOK NOW; or the original BODY SNATCHER. I was just like “This is fuckin’ weird!” But it held me! Definitely. That was shot on film! It was of another period. Even though it was 2002 it felt late 90’s, you know? It’s held up. But it doesn’t feel of this era.

AB: It doesn’t, and you’ve also got that prevalent vibe of like a 70’s paranoid thriller; people watching each other, that kind of thing.

MP: That’s big, I love that stuff.

AB: One of the things watching it again that really got me – you emphasize “what you don’t see” in the film. And all of the townsfolks’ encounters from Gordon, to the mother who sees the thing outside the window. It was so much scarier seeing a talented actor describe some kind of uncanny, inexplicable experience. Versus if you flat-out showed us what happened.

And the times you DO show an encounter, it’s not entirely distinct. Like when the kids in their car see something, or when Gordon meets Indrid, it’s flashes of stuff that your brain just has to kind of put together. I’m assuming you wanted that approach from the start, but was that shaped more in editing? Staying with the people and their stories vs. the actual experience?

MP: I think the script guided us as to what you saw, so you’d shoot it. I had done a poetry film and remembered that sometimes the poet reading the poem was more interesting than my narrative or abstract visualization of it, depending on the tone; so really it was editorial, the feeling choice.

Like when Will’s talking to Gere in the electrical store, describing what happened. That’s like the beginning of Gordon’s arc; he describes it, right? Then they’re in the diner and realizes he was right.

Also, aural. A lot of that stuff was heard. Gordon heard this prophecy, it comes true, now he’s really starting to go off the deep end. When he goes out to the house and tells John this story of meeting Indrid, and we visualize that, ‘this is what happened the night before’. Because Will Patton is so fucking gripping, you could illustrate it just with small details. Also, Gere is involved, now, too. Gere and the audience and Will Patton are all the triangle. Whereas Gere up front was just listening, like the audience.

That was also very much a part of the appeal in the script, to me. The aural ability to tell the story by hearing about it. And you’re going to have to imagine (details). Then letting the score and photography and where they are, the paranoid feeling in the electronics store, it’s really NOT that disturbing but we’re gonna make it feel like everything is coated in this creep factor. There’s not one thing that’s normal, from the minute she drives him into town. Everything is just like fucking strange.

AB: It’s all “off”. And kind of haunted.

MP: All of it. Everything!

AB: Which I think is perfect; after something traumatizing happens to you, everything IS different.

MP: It was certainly not meant to be naturalistic. From the first frame of the movie, the second unit guys were driving around Washington DC (getting footage) and the film camera had a registration problem with its shutter, all their footage was kind of vibrating! And I was like “AWESOME!” Those were film mistakes! We’d be like “Go shoot some underexposed infrared film, see what you get!”

There were SO many visuals for Mothman, and we took so much time, we took over a whole floor of this warehouse in Pittsburgh. And we had just visuals everywhere; I ended up day by day, because it’s so many days of shooting you take location pictures, and all your scraps of visual influences, and put it into one big binder. That movie was so big I had two assistants, just to keep me organized! We were sometimes scouting locations in November and then we wouldn’t shoot till March. The look is different, the light’s different. You just prepare, and then you get there and you completely forget what you prepared but it’s ingrained within you.

AB: I noticed in trying to only watch MOTHMAN from a visual sense, just how much voyeurism is informing every angle. Whether it’s from above, behind a tree, or from this huge distance, outside the window or even BEHIND John’s mirror!

MP: That was all a combination of design and improvisation. Hopefully on the same page when you’re in there, and used organically, you’re framing stuff in a certain way. By that point, everybody gets it, know what I mean? I find that the biggest challenge in anything, is training the camera operators.

AB: Something like the finale’s bridge collapse, that prep would be pretty rigid, right? Needing to draw it all out.

MP: The bridge was storyboarded, every frame. And then they go through the budget trying to cut shots so they look at the boards, “We don’t need this one or this one.” We had a visual effects supervisor named Robert Grasmere, really great guy doing physical effects and VFX.

The bridge was three parts: There was what we shot on a real bridge, practical; what we shot on a fake bridge, like a 50 x 50 piece on these harnesses, that second unit did; set pieces I shot of like Gere approaching the end, a few green screen shots, and plates, at that level.

The sound on that was a big part of it too. We got this guy, Glenn Branca who’s a guitarist; I wanted to hear guitars and noise and Tomanandy’s score, I’ve never seen a Hollywood movie score a disaster scene with fucking guitars, that would be rad! I just wanted it to be uncomfortable and horrific, just unbearable angst.

AB: You brought in your sound designer Claude Letessier way ahead of time, was he already creating soundscapes before you even filmed?

MP: He started making stuff before we were shooting, and the music supervisor was sending me CDs of tones, bands, just these weird European or British noise, ambient bands. A lot of that, we pulled many of those pieces from the stuff she gave me. Early on in the hospital there’s this low bass loop we got from them; between Claude’s stuff, her stuff, Tomandandy’s stuff, it was all blended together.

AB: Did you give very specific direction to Claude for the soundscapes? I catch all sorts of interesting levels and elements, going back and just playing the film to hear the soundtrack.

MP: Claude’s all experimentation. I just go by feeling, I’m good at reacting and mixing and matching, but he goes on a whole other level of generating his interpretation of the film.

The sound designer was in one room next to the editor, Tom and Andy were down the hall; and everyone was kind of working in sync. I hired the sound designer before the DP; sound was equal to picture (in this film). And I chose the editor because of his sonic expertise; there was an equal back and forth between those three.

AB: Watching and listening to the bridge scene again, I was like “I feel like I’m building up to my own heart attack.” (laughs) And it doesn’t feel dated to me, since it’s all real. I felt if this was done right now, it would just be CG painted in.

MP: Yeah! But it wasn’t. We had the stunt bridge, the model bridge, there’s this guy Gene Warren out in the valley, old school. He does it for real! 1/6 scale size. Which was phenomenal.

I see some spectacle movies, but some stuff these guys are doing now is so impressive; I think audiences have gotten jaded. I think our movie was more a cousin of the original POSEIDON ADVENTURE; it was an analog movie. Our movie’s closer to THE EXORCIST than SAN ANDREAS. And you feel that! You feel that in the storytelling, certainly in the effects, certainly in the rendering of the creature which was so cheesy; so it all really comes down to point of view and branding. The posters were kind of hypnotic, the Rorschach design… What do you see? It’s about perception.

The words MOTHERMAN PROPHECIES would be spoken hushed, with that kind of branding; I remember we got to Pittsburgh and there were articles about “Mothman’s here!” And there would be a picture of a big, bug-eyed creature. “Mothman Prophecies!” And you’re like “God, this sounds stupid now.”

Then they wanted to change the title to something like THE MAN IN THE DARK, thinking MOTHMAN sounds silly. I said “No, it’s just how you position it.” It’s what it looks like, what it feels like. So we said let’s just shoot it, and let marketing decide.

AB: It’s such an odd title that it works for me, you pay attention. But I get that some people might think it’s goofy based on those words. But I also came from knowing the book AND knew a bit how the movie would be different than the book.

MP: Yeah and it had a built-in interest factor in that title, from the book. If you call it THE MAN IN THE DARK, that just sounds like a generic movie. Nothing original about it.

AB: And “Mothman” is a way for you to describe something that doesn’t make any sense. “What did you see?”

Join us tomorrow for PART TWO of this interview!