Guy Maddin

“My producer approached me and said he had this script by Kazuo Ishiguro,” says Maddin, “and he said there was no reason this couldn’t reach a lot more people if my script were more accessible. And I wouldn’t let him say anything else because I couldn’t agree more. I had been saying the same thing to myself for years. I finally figured out how to tell a story and not lose 80 percent of the people.”

It helps that the movie stars Rossellini (who was cast in a ten-minute phone call) and Mark McKinney (of Kids in the Hall fame). Audiences are more willing to follow an unusual narrative if they can identify with the primary characters, and familiarity is always an advantage. Furthermore, Maddin was aided by his old friend Ross McMillan. “He helped me direct the movie,” Maddin says. “He’s not credited, but he was unofficially a dramaturge. He ran rehearsals for me in my absence. He met with McKinney and Rossellini to rehearse in her apartment about a week before the movie. It felt nice to have them arrive camera-ready, not the usual arrangement where actors arrive and are woefully unprepared. Everyone was really keen, too, to give the project their all.”

That enthusiasm was critical as the movie was filmed in an unheated steel factory in the middle of one of the coldest winters in Winnipeg history. “Seasonal affective disorder was rampant during the shooting. It was literally 40 below, sometimes 45 below, indoors on this cold concrete and steel floor and without sunshine. Every once in a while, a pigeon would freeze to death and drop from the rafters. One landed on Isabella’s lap once during a scene. And we’d have love scenes at 40 below. We brought in flame throwers, but they made no difference.”

Maddin has shot all of his films in Winnipeg, though he’s somewhat ambivalent about being called a Canadian filmmaker. “I’ll tell you what kind of filmmaker I am. I’m one that’s watched a lot of American films and a lot of American television my whole life. And I’ve watched films from all decades. I love the charisma and forward propulsion of most American movies. But I have one foot in the old world as well. Jim Hoberman of the Village Voice recently called me—and I’ll take it as a great compliment because it’s the position I want to be in—the most experimental mainstream filmmaker or the most mainstream experimental film-maker. To be halfway between the two fields feels good to me, because that acknowledges that I’m accessible if people can find me.”

With the success of The Saddest Music in the World, Maddin now has even more opportunities to reach a larger audience. “I’m thinking of making a contemporary horror film. I want to come up with something that’s really atmospheric but doesn’t necessarily have my DNA in it. If that works, I can go on doing that. But if not, people can say I should go back to what I do best, which I’d be happy to do.

“I have a great opportunity to build on a lot of good will and trust, but people love to yank that away from you if you make the wrong move. If film were just an art form, I’d be happy to do movies along personal lines and what interests me. But I have to consider whether I’d be allowed to continue making films if I did that. I’d love to have a three-pronged career, like a fork. One prong would be to make movies with bigger and bigger budgets, one would be to make personal films with ever smaller budgets, and the third would be to make short films, which I love doing.”