We chat with Surrounded director Anthony Mandler (anthonymandler) about collaborating with Letitia Wright, his love of Westerns, and balancing musical moments with silence:
Surrounded is set roughly five years after the Civil War and follows Moses "Mo" Washington, a freedwoman hiding her identity. Mo, while disguising herself as a man, served as a Buffalo Soldier and bought a claim to a gold mine out West. While traveling out to her land via stagecoach, she and her traveling companions are ambushed by the notorious outlaw Tommy Walsh and his crew. However, the few survivors of the ambush restrain him and leave Mo to stand guard as they go for help.
Anthony Mandler: I think music videos [are] a tool you learn. It's related and unrelated. You learn how to create in the moment. You learn how to create in a short frame of mind, but does it teach you to be a great filmmaker, not usually. Can you learn things and pull things there that help you become a better filmmaker? Absolutely. I think that my commitment to my style, which is really a little less formal. I don't shot list or storyboard like a lot of directors do.
There's moments that the music kind of stops, and there's silence, and it really does make you take in the characters. Can you talk about your use of music versus silence in this film? I'm really proud of the soundscape of this movie. Obviously, we're lucky enough to have Ben Harper compose a couple songs for us. The opening and closing. It was very, very fortunate, the music element of this film.
When she wants you to know how she feels, when that passion is burning, she lets you know. I think if you see the amount of nuance in the performance when Michael K's character comes in, you see how she becomes like a little girl again. That sort of duality is really what we imagined. Once I met her. Once I spent time with her and develop the script with her, I couldn't imagine making the movie anybody else.
You wrote your college thesis around a couple of classic Westerns, which are phenomenal. What surprised you the most about making a Western and making Surrounded?
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