Plato, Carl Jung and Terrence Malick are what kept the filmmaker inspired while making her jaw-dropping latest, Hamnet.
The career ascent of writer/director Chloé Zhao has been immense, taking in intimate indie dramas (Songs My Brother Taught Me, The Rider), sprawling sagas that cleaned up at the Oscars (Nomadland) and the more thoughtful side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Eternals). She returns with an emotionally tumultuous adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, ‘Hamnet’, about William and Agnes Shakespeare’s devastation at losing their young son to an illness that was sweeping the land.
LWLies: When you are reading something, or finding material for films, and you happen across something that makes you think, ‘This could make that transition,’ what are the thoughts that go through your head?
Zhao: It’s not a linear way of thinking. It’s more spiral-like. I do believe stories exist in the past, present, future – somewhere beyond us. And when the conduit is ready, at a moment in their lives when they have gone through the inner work that is necessary to channel that story, then the story will come with such a clarity and force that you can’t quite understand why, but everything is pushing you towards it and synchronicity will happen around you to make that story happen. And all you have to do is answer the call or not. I truly believe that.
Is it a physical thing?
Very. It’s actually not something we can control. We can, as much as possible, with medicine and stuff. But it’s like childbirth, and the child will choose when it’s the right time to come into the world.
Can it be frustrating to think that you’re looking for something but it’s not the time?
Absolutely. So then I think you either kick and scream and fight against the current that’s designed by someone much bigger than you, or you can just walk towards the fire with dignity. And I kick and scream and I force things, and then what happens when you do that is sometimes you’re still not ready. Something might be coming and you’re just too eager. And what happens is you end up with something that either isn’t channelled through in a way that the culture can handle at that moment, or it just comes through way too uncontrollably, like a massive flood or like a volcano. Sometimes you have to wait for it to cool down and then you can shape it.
Do you think part of being an artist is recognising that moment?
Yes. And I think when we burn our witch, you know, at the stake, because we think she somehow is dangerous, what she really did was search for patterns, watching nature and listening. But that became very scary to the patriarchy, because then they’re now in control, right? Something that existed, pre-existed from that. It’s like nature balances itself out, and the patriarchy comes to thrive on balance. So it’s got to have to strip us away from that. And unfortunately, even before this, I mean, Plato and Aristotle, who we all studied as if they were the answer to everything, but they were responsible for stripping away mysticism and really pointed western civilisation towards logos and reason and rationality. But they actually kept the mysticism to themselves. And so I would say I do feel that collectively where we are right now, there is a desire for the mystery, there’s a desire for the language of ambiguity, of poetry. I can see that just bursting through everywhere. So I’m very happy about that.
There’s this notion in Hollywood that filmmakers are building films for audiences and masses of people. And this film is saying, sometimes the greatest art is made for one person. And I wondered if that idea resonates with you as a creator, and who are you thinking about when you’re making the art?
I think maybe for me there is a bit of a tunnel vision sometimes when you have immense pain in your own life, and your art becomes your own salvation. Really the only thing that you can focus on is your own survival. And so I was not thinking about anybody else. I was barely keeping my own head above water. I was where the character in Hamnet was. But I’m a student of Carl Jung, if you can’t tell already, and he asks: who are you as an actor in the divine drama of life? That’s the question we all have to ask ourselves constantly. Who are we? Quite Shakespearean as well. What role do we play in life? And that is, in Jung’s perspective, the purpose of our existence – to understand that meaning. And if we don’t ask that question, then we’re in great danger of realising we’re empty in the end.
“Stories exist so we can see a pantheon of journeys and explorations and find that meaning.”
How does one find that meaning?
Mythology. Stories exist so we can see a pantheon of journeys and explorations and find that meaning. And then we can see which one makes sense to us. Stories give meaning to the human experience. I would say, on one hand, it is not about anyone, it’s just my own desperate attempt to try to figure out what this all means and to find my own role in this world so I don’t just fall into unconsciousness. And then I think, when you create from there, it’s almost impossible there are some others out there who are going to resonate because you are not that different from everyone else. I’ll say focus on yourself. Don’t think about other people. Does this piece of work transcend something in your own life that otherwise you cannot survive from? And if it does, it will do it for someone else. And sometimes the hardest thing is to look inward and do your own stuff.
You have a grounding in psychoanalysis, in Jung, and I’d love to know if that is something that you find helpful when it comes to building performances and creating dramas on screen?
I mean, Jung is one way in because he and his disciples look at fairy tales, they look at mythologies, they look at religion, and it’s just a more scientific way of talking about that. That’s what psychotherapy is to me. They look at archetypes, they look at symbols. It’s more digestible for me because it’s scientific, it’s modern. But I also play with ancient modalities like, say, Tantra. I’ve done workshops with my actors with Tantric polarity play. How do we play with masculine/feminine energies? I’ve studied the Platonian version of storytelling or understanding the world. I’m spending a lot of time right now and in the past few years trying to go back before that time and see what the mystics did. How did they learn about storytelling? How did they learn about our world in the mystery schools all around the world? Before reason and linear storytelling took over.
You’ve spoken a lot about Terrence Malick as being one of your creative mentors, and I found this film – in its exploration of a family adapting to the loss of a child – to be similar in many ways to his film The Tree of Life.
I think the title of the film is very helpful for me – The Tree of Life. For me, the tree of life has the highest branches that reach to the heavens, and then you’ve got the trunk in the middle and then you’ve got the roots that reach all the way down into the void. And I think watching Terrence’s films is interesting because I can tell that he’s trying to reach up as high as possible to the heavens. You really feel the elevation watching his film. And that’s why they are so spiritual.
Who are your other inspirations?
I have three mentors, Terry, Werner [Herzog] and Ang Lee. And something has evolved in the last few years, which is how deep can we go to descend into the underworld, to the realms of the deluge, because that is also where the scarab beetle is. That is also part of The Tree of Life. I think that’s quite scary for me, probably for Terry as well. I think the religion – the spirituality – it’s always trying to lift us up. But I think we also need to come down. Every breath is up and down and every day we go up and come down. Our entire life is made up of this. And if we just keep going up and up and up and up and up and up, then nature will force us down.
That’s called a depression.
It is! I’m very interested in re-watching Terrence’s work. I think his earlier works descend some more than his recent works. I’m interested in re-watching that because to me it used to be the answer to it all. I’m curious about this latest one coming.
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