Do Australian filmmakers tend to have a limited view of the possibilities of sex and eroticism on screen? But my influences have really been very European Pasolini and particularly Louis Malle and Murmur of the Heart. These are people who have adored and developed the idea of melodrama in film. What is it about melodrama that attracts you as a filmmaker?
Stephen: For me, melodrama is an atmosphere and those two directors are very interested in a mise en scene that showed the theatricality in life. What I was interested in doing in My Mistress was creating an atmosphere of the theatrical in the everyday, and the idea that in moments of high drama, griefβwhatever it isβsometimes we feel like a player in our own life, like an actor. I wanted to do something really personal that was about my relationship with my father, my mother and my sexuality as well.
The film is shot in the Gold Coast hinterland to represent where I grew up, which is The Gap, a Brisbane suburb that buttressed up against mountains and incredible forests and wild terrain. Nature itself plays a big role in the film. Was your intention to criticise the way that modern society patholgizes desire? It is a process of healing. Stephen: We were looking in the States but we also sent [the script] to Emmanuelle because I loved her work, and I thought that she embodied both the incredible visual sexuality of a mistress but also the duality of having that vulnerability and fragility and brittleness that I needed in the character.
It was a Wednesday night and Emmanuelle wanted to meet in Paris on Friday afternoon. So the next morning I flew to Paris She obviously liked the script but when we talked about the artistic vision, I said I really wanted to make a very ironically sweet film.
I wanted it to be more about the tender friendship and loving relationship between this boy and this woman. I said Thumbsucker was a great reference and we also talked about Mama Roma by Pasolini. This article contains content that is not available. Jason: Gerard Lee, who is a filmmaker in his own right and also a long-time Jane Campion collaborator, gets a co-writing credit.
