“I’m Not Really a Witch. But I Became a Witch for a While and Did Some Spells and Magic”
A conversation with Anna Biller, the director of the new horror film ‘The Love Witch’
Director Anna Biller is a study in contrast. Her films radiate with the Technicolor glamour of old studio films while tackling seriously modern issues — primarily what it means to be a woman in Western culture. She’s also the rare woman among a terrifying group of men — i.e., horror filmmakers, most of whom are male.
Her latest film, The Love Witch, is about a woman named Elaine who attempts to escape an abusive past by re-creating herself as the living embodiment of male fantasy. Embracing witchcraft to find control in her life, Elaine would “rather see a man dead than to see him alive and not loving her.” MEL Radio recently spoke to Biller about her own experiences practicing witchcraft, why the male gaze is misunderstood and her belief that the worst kind of man is the one who puts duty and honor above love. An edited transcript of the interview is below.
How would you describe Love Witch to someone who knows nothing about it?
It’s a movie about a beautiful, seductive witch who’s trying to get her man. It’s meant to be tragic irony, but it has elements of horror, thriller, mystery and even romance. What people have most responded to is the film’s visual style, which is very stylized and meant to remind them of the 1960s — in a good way. They also like how odd it is because I’m mixing all these things together.
When I was researching the movie, I was looking for other movies like it and couldn’t find any. The closest thing I’ve seen is George Romero’s Season of the Witch — just in that it has a similar story about a woman who’s a feminist who becomes a witch in order to empower herself against men and her husband. As a movie, though, it’s not similar at all. Love Witch goes into all sorts of cinematic fantasies that incorporate Jacques Demy and other types of French cinema, references to Hitchcock and rear projection.
What I like to do is make a cinema world on the screen, but one that feels psychologically realistic, which is what a lot of people are doing the opposite of today. Movies now have this incredibly realistic documentary look, but a plot that’s totally outlandish. I’m trying to make what happens not very outlandish, but what you see on the screen cinema fantasy. I like that combination.
Given the film’s subject matter, do you have a personal interest in the occult?
I do, but I’m not really a witch. I did so much study on witchcraft for this film that I became a witch for a while and did some spells and magic — mainly to see how it felt. I can tell you it’s quite scary. You’re channeling your own personal stuff so that’s going to come out when you’re doing a spell. For example, let’s say you do a love spell: You want this person to love you, but you actually hate men and want all men to die. The last part is what comes across in the spell — your truest feelings. That at least was the idea behind the love spells Elaine casts in the movie. She’s been abused by men her whole life so her love spells are really hate spells. She, of course, is unconscious of it, but that’s the danger of doing spells and magic — you conjure up things that are better left undisturbed.
When I went to actual rituals, it was the darkest energy I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m very susceptible to energy so I felt like people were sucking out my positive energy and giving me black energy in return. There was one ritual where I got extremely ill for a long time afterward; I think people were dumping their wicked black energy onto me. We did this thing where we all held hands and passed the energy around the room. Everybody else was saying how energized they felt, but I thought they took my big, bright white energy. Because I was sick for a week, and they were all refreshed.
Is this where a lot of Love Witch came from?
And my own life. In fact, I would say most of the script came from heartbreaks I’ve experienced as well as examining men and how they behave, examining myself and how I behave and examining the mess that comes from people trying to get what they want despite having very different needs.
That’s how I came up with the character Elaine. If you’ve been around men enough and you want to have a good, smooth relationship with a man, you put two and two together and say, “Give him anything he wants, anytime he wants it — be his sexual fantasy, be a great cook, don’t argue and make him feel like he’s the boss. Be so agreeable, so sexy and so passive at all times that you’ll get along with him.” The thing is, I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work either. The reason it doesn’t work is because you become a creepy dishonest person and not yourself. And a man doesn’t really want you to not be yourself.
How does that factor into the male characters you created for the film?
It’s certainly different than how they would play in a film made by a man. Take the end of The Maltese Falcon as an example — when he’s like, “I’m sorry angel, but I’m gonna send you up because duty comes before love.” That’s considered to be a great trait — to put the law and his duty and honor above the love of a woman. But to my mind, that’s the ultimate transgression: He’s not going to love her! So in Love Witch, that’s it for [Elaine’s love interest]. I don’t want to give away the ending, but when the audience realizes he’s not going to love her back, they’re like, “Oh, shit! It’s not going to turn out so well for him.”
And yet, the film also has a bit of a soft spot for men.
Yeah, there’s a moment when Elaine wonders if the man she loves has become hysterical as a result of being confused about how she’s thrown herself at him and having seen her naked. In my experience, a man seeing a woman’s naked body — especially a “perfect woman” — is like a religious experience that can reduce him to tears. A lot of other women will never accept that. They’ll never understand how that experience can be so emotional and powerful for a man. They just discredit it and debunk it as if men are shallow or that it means men are only interested in one thing. But from knowing and talking to a lot of men, it’s actually very deep, and we need to take it seriously.
The other reason women won’t accept it is because they have such a different experience: There’s no woman on this planet who has a religious experience looking at a man’s naked body. I mean, women laugh when they see naked pictures of men and the sight of a man’s genitals in particular reduces them to hysterical laughter. The things women care about are so different. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be important to men. I like to have a lot of empathy for the men in my life and in my work so I think it’s something primal and part of the tragedy of gender.
How so?
To say men and women are born different with different types of brains is considered by many people as backward. Because everything is believed to be socially constructed, including your gender. Therefore, a lot of feminists think that the idea that men and women might naturally have different ways of thinking and being in the world has been debunked. I’m only willing to go halfway there, though. I think men and women do have different brains. I don’t think men have to be uncouth and sexist about the desire they have for women. I think to project evil things onto women because of your own experience — that stuff’s learned. But I don’t think the type and level of desire and sexuality one has is learned.
There’s just differences. The biggest being that boys are born with penises and have certain hormones. Most radical feminists would find what I’m saying absolutely offensive, but I’m actually a radical feminist up to the point of disregarding that there is such a thing as gender. I also don’t think that men are the only ones who create desire. That’s really important for me too because a lot of radical feminists will look down on burlesque dancers and say that those women are selling out and that they’re only catering to male fantasy. But by doing so radical feminists are denying there’s such a thing as female fantasy and female pleasure in one’s body and being looked at. That seems very backward to me.
Along those lines, in another interview, you mentioned it was important to you to be termed a “female director” as opposed to “just a director.” Why?
I like being referred to as a female director because my work is about the experience of being a woman. That’s not true of all female directors. A lot of female directors want their femaleness to not be part of their work or how they’re considered. And that’s valid. But I’m specifically trying to make films from a place of female consciousness. It’s frustrating to me when people disregard that — like I’m a man making a film in the ’70s or something. It’s not true, and it’s not where I’m coming from!
Is that tied to being considered one of the few female directors in the horror genre?
I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve noticed a contingency of female directors at every horror festival, and some of the festivals have been women’s horror festivals with all female horror directors. I will say being a female director is hard in the sense of doing anything as a woman is harder than people realize. There are a lot of great men out there, but there’s maybe like 10 percent who are trying to block you. And when you’re working with a lot of people, that 10 percent is in key positions and can be formidable in terms of making it harder for you to get by. They also undermine your self-confidence and self-esteem. I know every woman who reads this will relate to what I’m saying. You don’t want to seem like you’re complaining and weak, but you have to be 10 times as organized and strong on set to get the same amount of respect back that a man would get who does nothing.
