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SHOW NOTES / LINKS
Two Types Of Art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dBKe7sOxto
Mark Korven Improvises On “The Apprehension Engine”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbtuaIJKMI4
JJ Abrams: The Mystery Box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpjVgF5JDq8
Wouldst thou like to LIVE DELICIOUSLY? Wouldst thou like to experience a masterpiece of Type 2 art? Wouldst thou like to invest 4 Million Dollars in a first-time filmmaker and lead actress and make 40 Million Dollars back?
In this episode, we’ll analyze Robert Eggers’s The Witch, a supernatural horror film from 2015 — and I’ll attempt to answer those questions.
Understanding is useful, so here we go.
CARL KING THE HUMAN UPDATE
Very Good Friends of Carl King, this is a brand new season of the show. I’m considering it Season 3, and I intend to focus it on HORROR films. Because that’s where a lot of Type 2 art is being made.
Speaking of horror—or at least spooky stuff—I recently recorded a cover of The Munsters TV show theme in a more metal-ish style. Here it is.
If you like the idea of me making music, I’m recording TWO new albums right now. You can find out more about those inside my Patreon.
And now, let’s move on to This Week’s Analytical Filmmaking Analysis of the Week!
THE WITCH
This Week’s Analytical Filmmaking Analysis of the Week is THE WITCH, a horror film writted and directored by Robert Eggers in 2015. And he is, in my totally subjective opinion, a master of cinematic language and what I call Type 2 Filmmaking. Later on in this episode, I’ll break down a handful of scenes and explain why.
First, some trivia. I was shocked to find this out: THE WITCH was Robert Eggers’s feature-directing debut. And at the same time, it was Anya Taylor-Joy’s feature ACTING debut. That’s right, neither of them had ever made a REAL movie before. But because of their incredible talent and skill, it was NOT a disaster. It actually turned out to be a massive success.
According to Wikipedia, the budget was 4 MILLION DOLLARS, and it made over 40 MILLION DOLLARS. And that’s crazy because, from an investor’s standpoint, it’s not easy to find an investment that will return 900% profit.
In comparison, money invested in the S&P 500 will make somewhere around 7-8% per year after inflation. And consider how many films, even classics, actually lost money.
So some executive out there made a good decision, and let Robert Eggers make The Lighthouse and The Northman. Each of those films made less profit than the previous, and I recommend them both.
And GOOD NEWS for the Vegan Goth Girls out there: Robert Eggers is releasing a new film on Christmas Day this year, 2024, about a guy named Nosferatu who’s low on Vitamin D.
All of Robert Eggers’s films, including The Witch, are Type 2 Works of Art, and that means they rank high in the dimensions of:
1 – Surprise
2 – Abstraction
3 – Ambiguity
4 – Subtlety
5 – Non-Linearity
6 – Ironic Counterpoint / Juxtaposition
7 – Dimension 7
And NUMBER 8, a new one I just added:
DISSONANCE. This one should have been obvious to me earlier. Dissonance refers to things that are broken or out-of-balance — and our minds might want to “fix” them.
Those can be visual, like a bizarre camera angle, or a jarring cut… or auditory, like a sound or music that feels wrong or uncomfortable.
In Episode 57 of this show, I explain the other 7 dimensions and define the 2 Types of Art, and I’ll put a link to it in the show notes.
Two Types Of Art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dBKe7sOxto
And as we go, We’ll keep a tally on the screen. Those dimensions are ways of “breaking the rules creatively, and often taken to an extreme.” And that doesn’t come naturally to most filmmakers. It’s easy, by default, to do things according to norms: making films just like the films we saw before, and to not question that process.
When watching a Type 2 film, an inexperienced viewer might interpret a brave artistic choice as a person simply not knowing what he was doing. They might see a Dutch Angle and wonder, “Why is the camera cockeyed?” Well, a filmmaker like Robert Eggers is “doing it all wrong on purpose.” And on an expert level. And that’s what makes his films so powerful — to those who enjoy Type 2 Art.
SPELLING: THE VVITCH
So here we go. First up, the most obvious question: what’s going on with the SPELLING of The Witch? Because it’s got TWO Vs, and it looks like The Vuh-Vitch. Why would WITCH be spelled with two Vs?
Well, this story is set in New England in the 1630s. It follows some Puritans/Calvinists, or what we call Pilgrims. They were Ultra-Religious European people.
And if I understand the Internet correctly, the letter “W” WAS invented by the 1630s, but it was not commonly used back then. It seems they did have crude printing presses by that time, and if they were short on Ws, they’d just stick two Vs together. Or, in the case of THIS book from the 1690s, they’d spell Witches with two “U”s.
If they did that more often with other letters, imagine how many more letters in the alphabet we might have today. Like a double-Q. How would that be pronounced? Let me know in the comments, or don’t.
Anyway… using TWO Vs in the title of The Witch was an artsy, period-appropriate move, and I have to wonder if there was any debate about it. Because officially, if you type “The Witch” into a search engine or IMDB, it’s spelled with a W. Not TWO Vs. Even though it IS spelled with TWO Vs on the movie poster and my copy of the Blu-Ray.
I’d be curious to know: for historical vibe and authenticity, did Robert Eggers WANT The Witch to be officially spelled with two Vs? If so, it’s likely the studio would have pushed back because it would confuse their customers.
Unusual spellings are a commercial speed bump. If it WERE spelled VVITCH, it would be difficult to look up show times at the theater or find the Blu-Ray on Amazon, for example.
If most people will intuitively type your product’s name wrong, you’re taking a big risk. And if you DO have a name with an unusual spelling, you know what a hassle it is to constantly correct people—every day of your life.
Also: if you think about it, “The Witch” is a SUPER generic name. Imagine pitching that to a development executive. Not too clever, is it? And there were already several films called The Witch.
To avoid that problem, when I’m coming up with names for projects, I go to the opposite extreme and complicate it. That is, aside from That Monster Show. Here are three examples of my overly complicated album titles:
How To Sell The Whole F#@!ing Universe To Everybody Once And For All!, Hero’s Ship or Minimum of One Planet Must Explode In First Act, and 50 Intellectually Stimulating Themes From A Cheap Amusement Park For Robots & Aliens, Vol. 1,
So this film’s very generic two-word title — along with Star Wars, which I’ve always thought is not a very good name – proves that the name doesn’t matter as much as we think it does.
But if this film had been a Type 1 work of art, it would have NEVER been spelled with Two Vs, even on the poster. So, I think it was a strong stylistic choice.
And one last thing about that title: we assume “The Witch” refers to the villain of the story — a scary witch who lives in the woods and terrorizes the family.
But it turns out it’s the protagonist, played by Anya Taylor Joy. Who, at the end of the film, signs a deal with Satan and BECOMES A WITCH herself. That’s Surprise #1. Spoiler alert! That’s how that works, right?
TIME PERIOD
Now let’s reflect more on the TIME PERIOD in which this film is based. This film is subtitled: “A New England Folk Tale.” IMDB describes it like this: “A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic, and possession. A chilling portrait of a family unraveling within their own sins.”
So think about this: the 1630s is actually not too long after the MIDDLE AGES. And that’s important to remember because people didn’t have very much SCIENCE back then.
Basically, these characters’ fear of Witches is normal. They EXPECT witches to be out there in the woods, stealing babies, as much as modern campers expect bears to steal sandwiches. Of course, here we are, nearly 400 years later, and plenty of people still believe in things that are far CRAZIER.
We project our fears onto the unknown, and that’s exactly what these characters do with THE WOODS near their farm. As in, don’t go into the woods, because OBVIOUSLY there are witches in there. That’s just a fact of daily life for them. But they’re not just superstitious crazy people — because, as it turns out, they are correct. There ARE witches in there.
HOWEVER, Robert Eggers leaves open to interpretation that the family might be hallucinating these mystical events due to malnutrition, social isolation, and their food being contaminated with a fungus called ERGOT. That’s Ambiguity #1.
THE QUOTE
“Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? A pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”
Now, let’s talk about the creepy QUOTE that fans of The Witch like me wear on their black T-shirts.
Black Philip, the family’s GOAT, who lives on the farm (and is kind of a jerk), seems to represent Evil. It’s kind of an “earthly or pagan power of animals” thing, which reminds me of “The Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity” by Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. So that’s Abstraction #1.
At the end of the film, he turns out to be SATAN himself. And that’s Surprise #2. Dang, all this time, it wasn’t The WITCH they needed to fear. After killing the rest of the family off, Black Philip tempts Anya Taylor Joy to join the dark side and whispers to her: “Wouldst thou like the taste of butter?”
Now, why is Satan talking about BUTTER? What’s going on there? It’s not random. It’s because, in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Catholic Church declared that eating butter was a bigger sin than lying, blasphemy, or impurity. Why? We don’t know yet.
But obviously, she’s gone a long time not eating butter, which to me is a dating green flag.
According to Robert Eggers, during the Salem Witch Trials, Satan allegedly tempted Puritans with — what seems to us — trivial earthly pleasures like a pair of shoes or an offer to do their chores.
So Black Philip continues tempting her with more than butter…: “A pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to LIVE DELICIOUSLY?”
I don’t know what the term “Live deliciously” comes from exactly, but it sure sounds Satanic. At the end of the film, before the credits, there’s a notice that says:
“This film was inspired by many folktales, fairytales, and written accounts of historical witchcraft, including journal entries, diaries, and court records. Much of the dialogue comes directly from period sources.”
Based on that, it’s possible Robert Eggers FOUND the two words “Live Deliciously” written somewhere on an old witchcraft pamphlet and included them in the film.
But I don’t think he realized how much that tagline would catch on in the horror film community. In the same way that “I have to return some videotapes” from American Psycho did.
It’s socially useful when a cult film has a memorable line. Because if you see someone wearing it on a shirt, you know: “That person GETS IT.”
MUSIC SCORE
Let’s touch on the Musical Score, composed by Mark Korven, who also scored Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse. But NOT The Northman. Why not? We don’t know yet. He also scored another film, CUBE, from 1997, which Modiak has been trying to get me to watch.
Well, hello Dissonance #1! The music is minimalist, textural, noisy… and EARTHY. A lot of it consists of sounds humans can make without electronic instruments. There are ancient stringed instruments, including something called a Nyckelharpa, which is kinda medieval. And creepy percussion, like sticks clicking together and spooky chanting. It’s very Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.
In fact, I stumbled on a video of Mr. Korven playing a homemade device known as The Apprehension Engine. And the sounds coming out of it are totally unbelievable.
It’s a creepy wooden Ted Kaczynski box with guitar necks and doodads sticking out of it, he plays it with violin bows, an ebow… taps it with his hands, and even massages it with a rubber lollypop, and somehow it’s entirely improvised. It looks like something Dan Rathbun of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum would build.
Anyway, go watch it, because I’m putting a link in the show notes.
Mark Korven Improvises On “The Apprehension Engine”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbtuaIJKMI4
OPENING
Now, FINALLY, let’s break down a few of the scenes. At the beginning of the film, there’s the A24 logo and a bunch of black & white production company logos, with no sound at all. Not even hiss.
What follows is nearly TEN SECONDS of silence and blackness. We hear some sad strings, and it’s a full 20 SECONDS of solid black before we see the film’s title, “THE WITCH. A New England Folktale.”
Now, WHY DOES THIS MATTER? Because this is Dimension 7 #1. It’s a deliberate and self-aware stretching of our attention and patience. It’s verrrrrrrry low energy.
If this were Type 1, like a movie made by Marvel, they would COLD OPEN with as big and explosive of a spectacle as they can — probably two men fighting over something stupid, like which one should be at the top of the social dominance hierarchy. Robert Eggers gives us a full minute of THE OPPOSITE.
And since films are a visual medium, our eyes expect to see something… not just NOTHING. Think back to when you saw a film that used extended shots of NOTHING. Next time you see a cut to black, pay attention to how long it is. It’s often only a couple of seconds.
If you’ve watched the TV series called FARGO, you might notice that Noah Hawley intentionally EXTENDS those gaps. It creates a lot of tension, so I always worry that the episode is over. But back to The Witch: at least, in this case, sound is happening.
There’s another SEVEN seconds of sad string music with the solid black. And then SCENE 1 begins.
SCENE 1
Scene 1 is an exposition scene, which means it gives us the information we need to know to understand the story. But it’s not delivered in an obvious way. The first shot is a closeup on Anya Taylor Joy, her hypnotic eyes staring. Dissonance #2.
While we hold on that same striking shot of Anya Taylor Joy, for 23 SECONDS, other characters in the room speak. She looks a bit concerned but doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. I tried staring for that long without blinking, but I couldn’t do it.
Now, it’s important to notice that this same concept occurs later in the film, in the second-to-last scene, when another deal is made, which we will get to.
So, in this scene, a courtroom TRIAL is taking place. A father, his wife, and four children are getting BANISHED from the town. Turns out their religious fundamentalism is too extreme even for other Puritans to put up with.
If we were to grab our phone and record a video of something happening, our first intuitive move would be to point it at the person who is taking the main action or speaking. And that would be very Type 1. But we could instead get creative with our shots like Robert Eggers did here.
Throughout most of this nearly 3-minute scene, the camera is NOT pointed at the characters who are speaking. We get shots like the backs of the speaker’s heads. Or shots that are blurry, very far away, or partially occluded. Dissonance #3.
Instead of giving it to us directly, Robert Eggers creates mystery. He creates CURIOSITY. When a filmmaker overtly hides something from the audience, like, “I’m not showing you the person that’s speaking,” it makes us WANT TO KNOW MORE. And that’s the necessary forward momentum in storytelling of any kind.
It’s similar to the Mystery Box concept, talked about by JJ Abrams in his TED Talk. And if you don’t know what that is, I’ll put a link in the show notes.
JJ Abrams: The Mystery Box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpjVgF5JDq8
Another bit of trivia: the father in this film is played by an actor named Ralph Ineson. And you might know him as THE GREEN KNIGHT! Which happened to be the film I used as the example in Episode 57 when defining Type 2 art.
Coincidentally, that film has a very similar fairy-tale or folk-tale vibe.
And one last thing to consider: Anya Taylor Joy plays the character as if she is observing the situation… but from an outsider’s perspective. She’s smarter than those around her or aware that she doesn’t belong in it – so she’s dissociating, which she does throughout the film.
The rest of the family members are stressed in one way or another because getting EXILED from society is a big deal. But she is showing signs of being kind of… disconnected… or in another world and wanting a different life. That pays off later.
When the verdict is reached, her family walks away from the courtroom, but she stays standing there, still looking at the judges. So, in that last shot, she’s defiant, as if she feels nothing or doesn’t relate.
As the person who is removed, she serves as the Audience Proxy. And that’s the purpose of the main character: for the viewer to merge with them and to experience the story from their Point of View.
SCENE 2
Moving on to Scene 2. The family is riding away, leaving town, with all their stuff on a rickety wagon. The first shot is partially occluded. And occluded means BLOCKED or CONCEALED. The camera looks out the back of the wagon as they ride away from town. A gate shuts them out.
Notice there are two objects, people, in the extreme foreground. A Type 1 approach would be making sure everything is OUT OF THE WAY of the shot, so it would be cleaner, with less information for the viewer to process and decode. Hey, get out of the way of the camera, dumbass!
But Type 2 cinematography, like this, tends to have a more conspicuous depth of field, and more self-aware movement (or lack of movement). It’s Dissonance #4.
When the town’s gate closes, we cut to the reverse, a medium shot as the wagon rides away from the camera, all loaded up Beverly Hillbillies style. And if you look closely, you can see Black Philip is there! Check out his horns sticking out of the junk.
Notice there’s no dialogue in this scene. If this were a Type 1, one of the kids would have said OUT LOUD: “It sure sucks that we’re getting banished from the town.” And another kid would say, “Yeah, now our family is riding this wagon with all our junk out into the wilderness. How will we survive out there?”
And the mom would say, “Now you two get some sleep. We have a long and dangerous journey ahead of us.” Type 1 dialogue OVER-EXPLAINS the plot, as if we’re out in the kitchen getting a beer and can’t SEE what’s happening. But Robert “Type 2” Eggers goes the opposite direction: “Why SAY IT when you can SHOW IT?” That’s Subtlety #1.
The family sure doesn’t look happy. They look bored. As the wagon hobbles away slowly into the distance, struggling to get over the uneven ground, the camera drifts up to the sky as eerie droning music comes in. Dissonance #5.
The music swells, and we get a creepy wide B-roll shot of them huddled around a campfire at night. A little bit of technical trivia: I read that Robert Eggers did his best to shoot this entire film with available, period-appropriate light.
So when the characters were inside the house at night, he lit the scene with candles. This campfire shot is a great example.
If this were a Type 1, that would be a big no-no. The campfire shot would have flat, 2-dimensional lighting, like a Disney+ Star Wars show. And it would probably not be in the film anyway.
It then transitions into:
SCENE 3
It then transitions into SCENE 3. The horrific musical crescendo drops out, and there’s a BIG wide shot of clouds in the sky. It’s abrupt, and there’s very little ground at the bottom of the frame.
If you asked a hundred people to frame that shot and plot the results on a bell curve, most would aim parallel to the horizon, including a reasonable amount of ground and sky.
But you’d have a few incompetent people on the left side and a few geniuses on the right side, who would frame it so imbalanced like Robert Eggers did. It’s Visually Dissonant. Our brain might want to pull the camera angle back down, so we’ll call it Dissonance #6.
In the language of filmmaking, this would serve as an establishing shot — to show where the characters have arrived. But it gives us very little information aside from… it’s daytime? So, if this were Type 1, we’d see more of the geography, not the sky.
It then CUTS in a JARRING manner, to a close-up shot of the dad’s face pressed into the ground. I thought to myself, what the heck is he doing? Sleeping? How unusual. We’ll call that Dissonance #7.
These shots have all been disorienting, but that’s what you get with Type 2. Viewing it is an active puzzle for the viewer. Or at least, it is for me.
It wasn’t until the dad stood up and the camera followed him that the previous framing made any sense. I realized: Oh, he’s PRAYING. The whole family is praying. Okay, then.
And there’s no dialogue. The dad doesn’t say the prayers out loud. No one is narrating because it’s all conveyed visually. They raise their hands, thankful to their deity for this land where they will settle and build a glorious homestead.
That’s subtlety #2.
Had this been a Type 1, there would be constant spoken exposition to guarantee the viewer understands EXACTLY what’s happening. It’s as if Type 1 art only requires us to half pay attention, or be half-awake, and still get it. No creative thought needed. Type 2 films let the viewer figure things out on their own.
But wait… there’s something in the background, too. This isn’t just about the FAMILY. There is another crescendo of creepy chords with choir as the camera pushes in and zooms in on THE WOODS.
And cut to black. And there are about EIGHT SECONDS of black this time. That’s certainly unusual because that’s a LONG TIME. Dissonance #8, bordering on Dimension 7.
If this were Type 1, that wouldn’t be allowed. The audience would get confused. Why is the movie over?
So those first three scenes of The Witch are very Type 2. There are many conspicuous camera shots, tense music, and minimal dialogue. In fact, Scenes 2 and 3 added up to over 3 minutes with NO dialogue at all.
SCENE 5
We’re jumping ahead to Scene 5. This is the scene with the baby and the woods. It begins light-heartedly. Anya Taylor Joy is playing peekaboo with the baby. And that sets us up for a POWERFUL tonal shift.
Sam, the baby, simply… DISAPPEARS. Surprise #3.
And this is the first surreal moment of the film.
There’s no possible way an infant RAN into the woods. But Anya Taylor Joy screams and runs after him.
Had it been a Type 1, the kid wouldn’t have just vanished. Instead, a cackling green witch would have come down on a broom and swiped him up and flown away with him. The dad would have been there, pulled out a musket, and we’d have an action scene. He’d yell a very Type 1, “Come back here with my child, you witch!”
But instead, we get Ambiguity #2. Because what really DID happen? Something supernatural?
SCENE 6
In Scene 6, after all those slow, tension-building scenes, we get some HORRIFIC GORE. Turns out The Witch stole that baby to make… broom-flying ointment. Yep, The Witch does some bad things in her cottage. And we’re not even ten minutes into the film.
Robert Eggers WENT there, EXPLICITLY. And man, this scene was SUPER uncomfortable to watch. Definitely Dimension 7 #2 for me. I don’t think anything else in the film compares to this scene’s gross-out factor.
Had it been Type 1, it would have been a long monologue scene — probably with the child locked in a cage as the villain explained her evil plans.
SECOND TO LAST SCENE
So now we’re jumping WAY ahead to the Second-to-Last Scene, the Black Philip “Live Deliciously” scene. This is the famous scene, spoiler alert, where Black Philip reveals his true identity to be… SATAN. As I already mentioned, that was Surprise #2.
Not sure why Satan would go through all the trouble to pick on this one destitute family of farmers in the middle of nowhere, but also, why not?
Just like the OPENING scene in this film, we hear a voice, but again, we do not see Black Philip speaking. Only Anya Taylor Joy reacting to his voice. It no doubt cut down on production costs — because good luck getting a goat to talk.
But it’s actually a powerful technique, like scenes in 80s movies — when the scary stuff is OFF-SCREEN. Because it CAN sometimes be more powerful only to show a character’s reaction, leaving some things to the audience’s imagination.
Here are some examples of that trick from other films:
1 – Han Solo tortured and screaming on Cloud City in Empire Strikes Back
2 – The little kid looking at the aliens in Close Encounters
3 – The “What’s in the box” scene from Seven
This is also Ambiguity #3: is her GOAT really talking to her? Or is she losing her mind and imagining it?
What also works well is this: Black Philip WHISPERS. He speaks so quietly that it’s nearly impossible to understand him without subtitles. You’d think Satan would have a powerful voice, but this is a perfect example of Ironic Counterpoint. So there’s Ironic Counterpoint #1.
After he whispers: “Dost thou see a book before thee?” we can just barely see a brief shot of the goat’s foot stepping into the frame, but the OTHER foot is a man’s BOOT. So, maybe she’s not imagining all of this. Still, we don’t know. But he polymorphs into human form.
And in his human form, Black Philip, or Satan, is barely visible in the dark behind her. It’s this theme of occlusion again, things being hidden from the viewer. These shots are so DARK, it’s Dissonance #9.
Had it been a Type 1, Satan would show up BIG and LOUD, maybe even roaring, and then speaking in a clear and deep voice. There would be fire, and He’d probably even announce who he was and give a Satan speech. But no, Robert Eggers went for the exact opposite.
I don’t know why, but when Satan asks her to sign the deal in his evil book, she says, “I cannot write my name.” Is she claiming she is illiterate? Is this intentional ambiguity? If you know why she says, “I cannot write my name,” leave a comment and let me know.
He responds: “I will guide thy hand,” and BANG it hard-cuts to the next shot even before the word “hand” is totally finished. It was a striking Type 2 editing choice, and we’ll call it Dissonance #10. And it reminds me of a comedic stylistic technique Adam McKay used all over The Big Short and Vice.
The next shot is Anya Taylor Joy walking naked through the field and into the woods at night. Black Philip follows her. I’d say that’s unexpected, and possibly Surprise #4.
And once again, since this is a Type 2… there is no dialogue in the final scene, just Anya Taylor Joy laughing and floating up into the air. If this were Type 1, another witch would have welcomed her in a typical witch voice: “You are now ready to join our coven! Feel the power of evil within you… yes, you are now… a WITCH!”
Then they’d all put on pointy hats and do some loud cackling as they flew away in front of the full moon on brooms. Subtlety #3.
Now, about the symbolism in this scene: I *think* the witchcraft represents her repressed sexuality — she was at the age of becoming a woman. So, by joining the witches, she gained autonomy and power. She broke free from an oppressive religion and her miserable, controlling family. That’s Abstraction #2.
In the end, we don’t know: was this simply the story of a young woman who went insane and murdered her family? Did she imagine the supernatural elements due to the hallucinogenic fungus? Did she simply run off naked into the woods with a goat at the end, and there WERE NO WITCHES? Still part of that big ol’ Ambiguity #1.
In my own totally subjective opinion, The Witch is my second favorite horror film of all time, knocking Barbarian down one spot. So I gave it 5 out of 5 stars… and a little heart… on Letterboxd.