Exclusive Interview with Nicholas Winding Refn on The Neon Demon
Set in the cutthroat world of high fashion, The Neon Demon follows an innocent small-town runaway named Jesse (Elle Fanning) through the seedy City of Angels as she rises to short-lived fame. The sexy 16-year-old is swooped up quickly by demons in high heels – from Jan (Christina Hendricks) the top agent who signs her, makeup artist and new BFF Ruby (Jena Malone), to frenemy fellow models Gigi and Sarah (Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee). The Neon Demon is gushing with gory glam and oozing beautiful baroque sleaze from its every pore.
However, the limited-theatrical film wasn’t a movie for everyone… So when we got the opportunity to interview director Nicolas Winding Refn for the impending home video release, our first question was what kinds of reactions he got from fans and foes.
Nicolas Winding Refn: Well, everything from beautiful praises, like yourself, which means a lot to me, to people wanting me to never make movies again. But there is something very interesting about polarizing because it’s actually very difficult and it’s not simple to do something correct. Filmmaking, like any creative medium, besides all the money, it has a reactionary system. You’re meant to react to it so I can be overwhelmed sometimes, but I enjoy all kinds of experiences that people have when watching my films.
Dread Central: Have you found that North American moviegoers react to the film differently than European or Asian ones?
NWR: It’s not so much their different, they just have different sensibilities. Certain countries have been much more vocal in defending it while other places have been much more vocal in literally trying to kill me. It got very personal which is very interesting but you know, I love seeing the poster image everywhere, from the U.S. to Lebanon to all of Europe to Southeast Asia, I love to see how it travels, the different interpretations, and I love all the fan art, I find it very inspiring. It helps me in a way, it’s a very creative medium and so seeing all the people around the world making their own interpretations of it is very exciting.
DC: The horror community has embraced the film – would you say it is in the horror genre, or no?
NWR: I think that Neon Demon is a horror movie as much as Drive was an action movie. But I also think that Neon Demon is a very melodramatic movie and it has a lot of beautiful, funny camp, I find the movie very funny. Part of it is also science fiction and someone sent me a report that someone had been writing about how it was one long witchcraft ritual, which was very interesting so I think Neon Demon is a combination of so many things and that’s why I so enjoyed making it.
DC: This is a movie directed by a man, but it’s very much about women. Did having a female cowriter and a female DP help you tell this story?
NWR: You’re right. It’s a movie about women, all women, all-consuming women and I felt that if I was going to make a movie about women I needed to surround myself with as many women as possible in the process. It all started with this idea that I had, I had written this kind of treatment, and then I worked with one female writer in London and then I worked with another female writer in the U.S. at different stages. Then I hired a woman DP, I cast all women and I have a wife who is very dominating in my life… so I surround myself with as much feminine power as I possibly can. And it was very interesting to see, when you really start the conversation purely from a woman’s point of view with women, it’s very interesting. I find women so much more fascinating then men.
DC: Neon Demon is so breathtakingly visual and cinematic – and the music is meant to be heard in a theater with great acoustics. But now that it’s on disc, and soon to be streaming, people might be watching it on their phones. How does that make you feel?
NWR: I actually watch a lot of entertainment on my phone and I find that experience very interesting. Of course, I was brought up with the cinema, I do think that the act of buying your movie ticket and going into the auditorium and seeing the movie in a wonderful movie house, it doesn’t get any better. But because of the future, it’s no longer the only way to see a movie and of course I find that very interesting and that you can see movies on your cell phones and I think I’m very excited about the technical evolution and I’m equally excited by both avenues and in a way and in a way I designed Neon Demon like a YouTube movie, I could actually chop it up into seven pieces and then you can put it together. I was watching how my kids were watching movies and they don’t watch movies, they watch pieces of a movie.
DC: What can fans expect to see on the Blu-ray release?
NWR: Well, the first wave of release will be with an audio commentary of myself and Elle, and something regarding the music, but there are different versions around the world. I know that the Italians are doing their version, I know that the UK is doing something, their doing their own special additions. In the US, the movie is being released as it is but in the future all the secrets will eventually be revealed.
From the Press Release:
Amazon Studio’s The Neon Demon, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, is a sumptuous horror-thriller set in the highly competitive and often vicious world of fashion modeling, where the term “eat their own” takes on a decidedly new meaning. When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will use any means necessary to get what she has.
The film is co-written by Refn (Bronson, Drive, Only God Forgives, Valhalla Rising), Mary Laws (”Preacher”), and Polly Stenham; and it stars Elle Fanning (Maleficent, Super 8), Karl Glusman (Love, Stonewall), Jena Malone (Inherent Vice, The Hunger Games series), Bella Heathcote (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Dark Shadows), and Abbey Lee (Gods of Egypt, Max Max: Fury Road), with Christina Hendricks (“Mad Men,” Drive) and Keanu Reeves (John Wick, The Matrix series).
The film will be released on Digital HD and VOD on August 30 and on Blu-ray and DVD on September 27. Special features on the Blu-ray and DVD release include audio commentary with director Nicolas Winding Refn and Elle Fanning and two featurettes – “Behind the Soundtrack of The Neon Demon” and “About The Neon Demon.”
Shot in Los Angeles, the “city of dreams,” The Neon Demon, features a driving electronic soundtrack by Cliff Martinez, who previously composed the celebrated scores for Refn’s films Drive and Only God Forgives, and stunning high fashion by costume designer and past Refn collaborator Erin Benach (Drive).
The film is produced by Lene Børglum (Dogville, Only God Forgives), Sidonie Dumas, and Vincent Maraval. Executive producers are Christophe Riandee, Brahim Chioua, Christopher Woodrow (Birdman, Killer Joe), Michael Bassick (Bernie, The Ten), Steven Marshall, Michel Litvak (Whiplash, Drive), Gary Michael Walters (Whiplash, Drive), Jeffrey Stott (2 Guns, Drive), Rachel Dik (Old Fashioned), Victor Ho (The World Made Straight, Fast Food Nation), Manuel Chiche, Matthew Read, and Thor Sigurjonsson. Co-producers are K. Blaine Johnston and Elexa Ruth.
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