For “White God” director Kornél Mundruczó and his wife, screenwriter Kata Wéber, their latest collaboration, “Pieces of a Woman,” has been more dramatic than your typical cinematic endeavor. Inspired by the couple’s own miscarriage, the story of a woman attempting to deal with her loss went from a play to a screenplay to a movie set in the United States starring Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn, Benny Safdie, Sarah Snook, and Molly Parker. It screened at one of the only in-person film festivals of 2020, the Venice Film Festival, saw Kirby take the Best Actress prize before Netflix picked it up for worldwide distribution. There is Oscar buzz around Kirby’s performance and for a film that some members of the media have labeled as “controversial,” it has positive user ratings on a number of platforms. And then, only a few weeks before its release, LaBeouf’s problems reared their ugly head.
To be frank, when Mundruczó and Wéber jumped on the phone earlier this month to discuss “Pieces,” LaBeouf was the last thing on this writer’s mind. The film made my top 10 list of 2020 (we judge on the year we screen it) and I was thrilled to discuss the Hungarians’ experience making their first English-language, North American production. LaBeouf, who has been accused of sexual battery and sued by his former girlfriend and “Honey Boy” co-star FKA twigs, coming up in the conversation in that context was not on the agenda.
“As a character, Sean [LaBeouf] is deeply troubled and struggling with addiction, is a kind of a misfit that Martha’s mother would disprove of. So that’s what somehow why I choose him,” Mundruczó says. “But later, to read those serious allegations that were really hard to read. So, my heart was full of sorrow and sadness to read all of the accounts, and I believe all humans should feel like they can come forward and then tell their truth, so I stand with them. So, we are very proud that the film centers on the complexity and the beauty of a female journey, and all focus is to keep the same during the shooting and the release, just shining the light on our performances and our deeply personal story.”
Happily, the pair were able to spend time discussing the incredible 22-minute one-shot scene in the film, Kirby’s passion for the role, their dream casing of Burstyn as Kirby’s on-screen mother, and much more.
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The Playlist: I don’t know the exact story, but I believe the movie in inspired by something personal that had happened to both of you. What made you want to express what had occurred in this very public form?
Kata Wéber: Actually, I didn’t. I never wanted to. So it’s really Kornél’s encouragement because he found a couple of my notes when we were collecting the material for an invitation for Polish theater. So he found those notes and that was a dialogue between the mother and the daughter, which now made it to the dinner scene in the movie. So, basically, he told me that I could really dig deeper, but that was exactly the moment when we realized that because we share an experience of a miscarriage, which is not comparable at all to what’s in the movie, but still it was something we never talked about. So it was also the point where we were like, “O.K. shall we break the silence or what to do with this?” I was very much afraid to deal with this. So, I actually had to travel away to Berlin and sit down and try to face it somehow. While I was writing, I realized this also works as a therapy somehow, not just because I’m expressing something tragic or a loss, but I’m also feeling that I can talk about the love and the belonging and the grace. So, it was a healing process, I would say.
The Playlist: You were doing it as a play first, correct?
Kata Wéber: Yes. Kornél encouraged me to do the play, which is basically two scenes, and then it was like an evolution of something. From a couple of notes, it became a play and then it became a script.
The Playlist: After your film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Chrissy Tiegen shared her miscarriage on social media with the world. And even with everything going on in the world, it hit a nerve because so many women and couples had felt they had to keep this quiet. Do you think this is just a natural evolution of just finally people are talking about this?
Kata Wéber: Yeah. For many reasons in the last decade, there were a lot of questions about who owns the female body, and all these questions of how to deal with abortions, what to do, shall we talk about miscarriages? These kinds of questions are all in the realm of this, I think, and by telling this story, we realize how common it is.
Kornél Mundruczó: Yes.
Kata Wéber: The statistics are every fourth pregnancy end up being miscarried. So this is something very important, but I think also Kornél can talk about how people reacted to the topic and on the story.
Kornél Mundruczó: Yes, but also it’s a real taboo, and when I’m watching myself back in time, I was silent as well and I was really thinking that why am I not talking about that? And I’m creating the taboo as well. But it’s really difficult to talk about it because it’s so much a dance, the circle of life, and it’s not easy to find somehow your [courage to] became a stronger person somehow to talk about it, and we are stupid not to talk about it. And then the premiere of the play, and later the movie in Venice, that was amazing when the people are coming and started to tell their true stories. They told, “O.K. this is a fantastic movie, but you know what’s happened with my sister? What’s happened with me or with my mother?” So many stories are pop up and it was surprising and encouraging in the same time. So. I read also the Megan miscarriage as well. It’s pretty common. It’s just such a taboo, and as much as we break our silence, as much we can break the silence about the taboo, that’s the maximum what is a movie experience can give.
The Playlist: Yeah. I think the more people that see it, the more it just gets out in conversation.
Kornél Mundruczó: I think so.
The Playlist: Let’s talk more about the movie itself. So I’m assuming that when the play was staged in Berlin it was not set in Boston.
Kornél Mundruczó: No, not at all.
The Playlist: How did you end up placing the film in an American context?
Kornél Mundruczó: We sent the script, it was not even a script, we sent the play to a couple of [American-based] producers and our team really loved it. And we really started to discuss how we can do an American version. As we [needed] a city where you have a clash between liberals and conservatives, where you can find kind of not religious Jewish, liberal community, but in the same time, a little bit of a lag to Europe, and then you believe there is this historical connection through the figure of the mother, and then we ended at Boston. I’m so happy that everybody said that it’s completely believable. Also, we shoot the movie in Montreal. It’s just in another layer. So we shoot in Montreal, Boston, and everybody believes it’s about [a] Boston story. As a European filmmaker, I really feel I’m European, I need an American team, the producers, the experts to make an American movie because so many times [a] European director just sinks into the Atlantic ocean somewhere [trying to make an American movie]. That was the main danger for me. I’m so grateful to our team that helps us to create a real American movie.
The Playlist: Listen, it goes both ways. There’s a lot of American and North American directors who sing trying to make a movie in Europe. I learned that after she read the script Vanessa insisted on flying to Budapest to talk to you. Were you surprised she was willing to do that as opposed to just a Skype or a phone? And what were your thoughts of her playing Martha when it was first pitched?
Kornél Mundruczó: I was surprised, but not just that she’s flying, it really expressed that she really wants to do it, but also to find someone who wants to do it, because this role is scary. It really needs to go into dark places, even in those dark places you find not just darkness and pain, but a lot of life and love and grace. You need a fearless actress, a brave one. So. that urge that she flew to Budapest, I find that she’s brave. She takes the risk.
The Playlist: And how did you come to the idea of having Shia play Martha’s husband? Was that just you’d seen him in something you really liked, in “Honey Boy” or something?
Kornél Mundruczó: He appreciates my movies in the past and he expressed interest in working with me and I was very happy to hear that. I was not deep into his biography at all before, but what I knew a little bit, that is a bit like a mystery, and he has the experience with addictions and what I’m really looking for, that’s someone who is very different than Vanessa as Martha and [his character] is not part of the family. So my main focus was not the supporting character, but Vanessa’s story. As a character, Sean is deeply troubled and struggling with addiction, is a kind of a misfit that Martha’s mother would disprove of. So that’s what somehow why I choose him. But later, to read those serious allegations that were really hard to read. So, my heart was full of sorrow and sadness to read all of the accounts, and I believe all humans should feel like they can come forward and then tell their truth, so I stand with them. So, we are very proud that the film centers on the complexity and the beauty of a female journey, and all focus is to keep the same during the shooting and the release, just shining the light on our performances and our deeply personal story.
The Playlist: Ellen Burstyn, I think was 86 years old when she shot this and first of all, she’s amazing and so good, but how did she come about in terms of the casting?
Kata Wéber: The agents asked us who we would dream of for Elizabeth’s role and we just told her. With exactly the knowledge that you would never get her. So. the next week we just learned that she read the script and she would be happy to take the part. It’s just when your dream comes true, it’s nothing else to say about it. She is a legend. We so much appreciate her, but more than that, she’s like an icon for us. We love her and all her presence and every moment of her was just amazing and heartbreaking for us. And about the age, she was 86, but I tell you she’s a genius. She can play 20 or 25 if she wants to. She is a genius, no question.
The Playlist: Ellen and Vanessa have such a fantastic exchange during the dinner scene. I was surprised it was just rehearsed that day. Is that how you traditionally work? Do you not prefer to just explore the scene on set?
Kornél Mundruczó: It’s both. There are situations when actors need more attention with the rehearsals, but sometimes you feel you really kill the spirit with rehearsal. Mostly I’m not really doing too many rehearsals. I really talking through the characters and the situations, and I really do separately. I really like that to really discuss the one-by-one conversations, and when the two actors are meet, this is kind of a first meeting situation, which is literally creating a strand of the present. The present time of the set. To be frank, a film set is a spiritual place. A film set is if you are really targeting to creating alive material there, so you are not shooting dead material, then it’s become like a highly spiritual place. That’s what I always want to create an understanding, and that’s why I always try to do 360-degree possibility for the actors and give that kind of freedom. For that particular scene, what comes out from Ellen Burstyn it was so honest from both sides. It was exactly what you are expected from a scene like that, which has to be as important as the birth, because that’s the most first moment of the healing, because even if it’s a fight, they start to talk, and that was really important for me.
The Playlist: I have to ask about the rest of the casting. I’m assuming you watch “Succession” and are fans of Sarah Snook, who’s amazing, but where did Benny Safdie come from? Had you met at a film festival or something or was he just suggested?
Kornél Mundruczó: I’m a fan of his movies, the Safdie brothers movies, and I really like him as an actor, and then I saw him in “Good Time,” it was an unbelievable performance. Again, we know each other in a way, not as close friends, but when we started to discuss who would be good, I [said] I needed someone real. I found that it’s very tricky because if you put together a team with very, very heavyweight leads, and if the surrounding [cast] is not that strong, then you are in trouble because then you started to feel the hierarchy, and because you feel the hierarchy, you lose empathy, and because you lose empathy, you are not part of the family, and that’s very tricky. So that’s why I really go for Benny and I so much appreciate that he’s coming and he’s really give everything he can and also he told that he never shot as long-shot ever as the dinner scene. Also, Iliza Shlesinger, coming from the standup world, is a world-class actress, amazing as much as Molly Parker.
The Playlist: When I talked to Vanessa, she said that originally it didn’t seem as though the birth scene was a one-shot part of the film. At what point did you make that decision and did you have trepidation about it?
Kornél Mundruczó: Even if it was not written in the script as a long take. When I read the script, even the theater play, I decided immediately that cannot be anything else but like that. Because if you are really playing with the idea that how you can shoot something which is an experience, which is running for 10, 16, 20 hours, then you have this kind of time jumpy style, which I was so much against for, because it’s factual, and because it’s factual, that is far from the truth. I really [wanted] to shoot something which is more like memory or poetic-like, even if it’s kind of fake. So to extend the film time to 25-ish minutes, it doesn’t mean it’s long, it means there is no time, and because there is no time, that’s why you able to compress such a tremendous amount of hours into it. So it was pretty clear I would like to shoot on this way as almost like a manifesto, but I communicate to her in a very early stage. For her to feel a scene and to be there psychologically and physically it is really important.
The Playlist: How many times did you actually shoot it? Many films have one-shot takes, but most of the time they’re on soundstages and even then there’s always something that can go wrong. Someone can trip or whatever. I guess the moment in it that always pops to me is Shia’s character running out without his shoes on into the street in front of the ambulance.
Kornél Mundruczó: We did it six-times. Somehow the first two were stopped [over some issues] and we use the fourth one from the first day. We are all very proud because there is no [digital editing] stitch in it, so it’s a real one long take. What you see, it’s a real experience for the actors.
The Playlist: Did you know that was the perfect take at the time?
Kornél Mundruczó: I can’t say that I knew immediately that’s the one, but after that shot, Vanessa starts to cry tremendously, and we are really hugging each other and I really felt lots of miracles that it’s really happening with her. Later on, in the editing room, I just recognize that yes, that was the true one and that was the best. You just felt that even after that shot, we were not able to continue shooting, because that was a real crash somehow for her, and we continued the next day. The next day shots [were] better technically, but the spirit was a little bit gone. So, that’s why I used that one, which was the most strong and real.
The Playlist: You’ve done similar one-take shots in your films before. I’m assuming you, therefore, went in very confident this time around. You weren’t stressed or freaked out that it might not work out.
Kornél Mundruczó: I freaked out every day. [Laughs.] It’s such an emotional thing. Especially again, if you want to do real material on a movie set, it’s always hard. It’s always to discover and find something. It’s always a little bit like a battle. Of course, you stress, but then you get it. That’s the most beautiful, really, if you can get it from a day.
The Playlist: I know it’s been such a strange year and I’m sure you were both very focused on getting “Pieces of a Woman” across the finish line, but have either of you been working on anything else in the months since?
Kornél Mundruczó: Yeah. Working on several projects also for TV, also for our next feature. We do want to make English language material, but we also working on Hungarian projects. So we will see what comes next.
“Pieces of a Woman” is available on Netflix worldwide.