Quarterly Review of Film and Video

ISSN: 1050-9208 (Print) 1543-5326 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gqrf20

Confronting Uncertainty: Jennifer Kent Discusses

The Babadook

Paul Risker

To cite this article: Paul Risker (2017) Confronting Uncertainty: Jennifer Kent
Discusses The Babadook, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 34:1, 13-17, DOI:
10.1080/10509208.2016.1222568

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2016.1222568

Published online: 09 Sep 2016.

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Download by: [Gothenburg University Library] Date: 21 November 2016, At: 02:37
QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO
2017, VOL. 34, NO. 1, 13–17
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2016.1222568

Confronting Uncertainty: Jennifer Kent Discusses

The Babadook
Paul Risker

Reflecting on the experience of her feature directorial debut The Babadook (2014),
Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent explains: “The process of completing Baba-
dook has really given me the confidence that yes, I can actually make a film, and
that my ideas can reach people.” Is this an authentic first impression of the film-
maker or did the film’s enthusiastic reception drown out the name and recognition
of its writer for the audience? How many filmmakers connect with an audience
through their work, only for their names to go unknown? Outside of the popular
artists, a great many. Whether Kent will transcend her work is a question for the
future, but as of yet the film has only forged a first impression with the critical
establishment, singling her out as an emerging talent.
The horror film revolves around the need to evoke a visceral reaction, and for
Kent this approach came through creating a terrifying claustrophobic experience for
her audience. “I wanted an audience to feel like they had a pair of hands around
their neck from the beginning,” she explains. “And that these hands were getting
tighter and tighter until the feeling of claustrophobia was almost unbearable.” Yet
Kent also seeks to contextualize the angst within a psychological terrain of repres-
sion and the confrontation with memory and past experiences. Therein the film-
maker’s exercise in suspense and terror is the meeting point between the emotional
and psychological, the impulsive and rational intellect, while stylistically she finds
time to pay a tribute to German Expressionism, and the birth of horror cinema with
an affectionate nod to Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).
In conversation with The Quarterly Review of Film & Video, Kent offered a short
history of her journey to the director’s chair and the genesis of The Babadook,
while reflecting on the intricacies of the filmmaking process, the reputation of hor-
ror as cinema’s tawdry genre and our cultural addiction to fear.

Why a career in filmmaking? Was there that one inspirational moment?

Well, it is something for me that has come full circle. Without going too far back I
actually started writing my own plays as a kid: directing and acting in them. So it
was something that was very organic for me. Then as I finished school I decided to

Paul Risker is an independent scholar and film critic who contributes regularly to Film International. He is an Editor for
Mise-en-scene: The Journal of Film and Visual Narration (MSJ), the official film studies journal of Kwantlen Polytechnic
University.
© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
14 P. RISKER

become an actor. I never really knew at that point that girls could make films
[laughs]: it wasn’t the age of the Handycam and Internet with YouTube videos. So it
was really about acting for me, and I grew bored with that fairly quickly. I decided; it
wasn’t a strong decision really, but rather writing and directing was just something I
kept gravitating back to. I didn’t want to go to film school. I had studied acting for
five years full time, but I’m quite subversive and so schools are not actually the best
place for me. So I approached Lars von Trier for a director’s attachment, and I ended
up on Dogville (2003). I learned a lot about directing watching him at work, and after
that it was really a process of just working towards making my own films, which I
have been doing ever since. So yeah, that’s my journey in a nutshell.

Listening to your “journey in a nutshell”, I recall Raymond Chandler’s senti-

ment that you cannot teach a writer to be a writer. To paraphrase his point that
I think most pertains to your journey: a writer must learn from themselves and
learn from other writers. What are your thoughts on Chandler’s advice?

I am not convinced that you can be taught how to write. I mean, of course you can
be taught how to write in terms of grammar as well as making sense of things and
structure. But beyond that I think it is something that you have to have a natural
level of talent for, and then you have to work hard to develop that. And I would
argue as well that you can’t teach writing or you can’t teach someone to be a good
writer—put it that way. So for me it was very much about learning as I went along
and doing it every day. I think you can become better that way. And of course you
can’t be a better writer without reading all of the time, and that’s how I learned.
It’s how I learned to make films too by watching other films, and watching other
filmmakers at work, but mostly from watching other films.

What was the genesis of The Babadook?

I tend to work, or I have to date anyway, with an idea. I feel that is very important
as a person to face the difficulties in oneself and in one’s own life—to face the
shadow side. I am always fascinated by people who don’t do that, and who manage
to suppress everything. So that was the entry point for me. I thought: what would
it be like to follow a character who really suppresses some of the terrible events in
her life, and then has to face them. Then it just made sense to me that the best way
to explore that would be in the realm of a horror film. The feelings and emotions
that Amelia experienced were all quite horrific, and so it didn’t make sense to put
it in the arena of a straight kitchen sink drama. It needed to be heightened, and it
needed to explore those heightened emotions.

On the subject of the horror film being the perfect “realm” to tell this story,
how do you view the way in which horror influences you as a writer-director; as
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 15

a storyteller? Does it force you down or open up specific creative avenues to

evolve the story when you are sat writing the screenplay or on set directing?

Well, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the horror genre and I don’t look
down on it. I don’t see it as a country cousin to drama or any other genre. I think
there are brilliant examples of horror throughout the canon that prove that it has
real worth in exploring deep human issues. But for me I really didn’t approach this
as a horror film: first and foremost I looked at that woman’s journey. I wanted her
to be real; I wanted people to follow her story, and because that felt like a frighten-
ing experience for her it needed to be frightening for us. So, of course I was aware I
was in the horror world, but I wasn’t particularly bound by it or ruled by it. So it
wasn’t a matter of, “Oh, genre first, and then story after” [laughs]. It was the other
way around for me.

At its heart, while it looks to terrify, it also looks to create suspense through a
disquieting sense of feeling. What are the challenges to creating that disquieting
sense of feeling that allows you to hook and then draw the audience in? Is it a
case of understanding or discovering the language of the genre through image
and sound, and then using it to your desired effect?

I have watched horror since I was far too young; since I was seven or eight years
old. It was much to my parents’ chagrin that I was drawn to watch this stuff, but I
was, and so I understand how it works. Some people go to a horror film and they
want a roller coaster ride; they want a central nervous system assault, and that’s
fine because that works on some level. But I really wanted a deeper story, and I
wanted an audience to feel like they had a pair of hands around their neck from
the beginning, and these hands were getting tighter and tighter until the feeling of
claustrophobia was almost unbearable. Then it explodes. This for me was always
the rhythm of the film, and it was always something that I was aware of. So every
choice that I made from the direction of performance to placement of the camera
was about developing that sense of claustrophobia. So you know that for some the
film will not be their cup of tea because it is too slow. But for me that buildup is
more horrific, because it is almost to the point that it is unbearable. It is a different
energy and a different kind of scary film.

Babadook’s drama is anchored by the personal angst of its lead character. The
most successful horrors or chilling tales are those where the supernatural ten-
sion is offset by the personal or collective angst of its human characters.

It is a film that could be played out without that monster; without that energy. But
for me it is integral; I couldn’t have made one without the other. I couldn’t have
made a straight creature feature and I couldn’t have made a straight drama. This
story demanded to be told in this form, and it was never a consideration. I’m very
16 P. RISKER

happy that I chose this genre. If it was just a straight kitchen drama, it could have
been melodramatic, and it would have been a shame.

As you allude to, there is a habitual tendency to dismiss the horror genre.
Alongside science fiction it is one of the most liberating genres, creatively
speaking, as it affords you a broader scope to explore a story in comparison to
other genres. One could say that within the realms of horror and science fiction
the narrative opportunities are limitless for the storyteller.

Yeah, I agree. I think for me with Babadook, the thing that horror can do is very
close to dreams in structure. You can be slippery with time and space; you can
play with psychology, and film is a visual medium. It allows you to play in that
way, and so I think horror is extremely underrated. Sometimes when I’d say I was
directing a horror, people would look at me as though I was directing a porno
[laughs]. Their faces would drop. But especially as a woman, it is something that
doesn’t happen very often.

While film is a visual medium, the horror film is rooted in the language of
music or sound. One only needs to consider the theory of the number of arbi-
trary beats that countdown to a jump. Not even referring exclusively to the
music, but the raw sound within horror, it is an intriguing marriage is created
between the image and sound. The music and sound in Babadook is crucial to
the creation of the film’s claustrophobic and foreboding atmosphere.

I am particularly obsessed with sound, and so we ran way over schedule on sound.
But for me it is as important as vision. I know that maybe other directors say that,
but I really mean it [laughs]. I think it is equal, and the film was a very different
beast when it had no sound to when it had a temp sound attached.
I think a lot of modern horror films tend to just think a loud sound is an assault,
and that’s a way to scare people. Well, you might make people jump, and they
might be scared momentarily, but I feel it is a bit of a cheap shot. So we worked
very hard with the Babadook soundtrack to make something that was truly unset-
tling, and you know you don’t have to use loud sounds to do that. Sometimes it is
about being quieter, and sometimes it is about taking sound out altogether. So
again in terms of the sound I went back to my instincts, and I’m particularly proud
of the sound design. We had a brilliant sound designer: Frank Lipson who we
worked very closely with to arrive at that, and just lastly with the music, it was for
us when it could no longer be sound that it turned into music. I wanted that to be
a very blurred line and so there is not much music there, but when it is there it is
pretty strong.

An interesting parallel exists between The Babadook and Scott Derrickson’s

Sinister (2012) whereby the absorption of film or literature is an assault on the
 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM AND VIDEO 17

senses of the character. Of course it is also an assault on our spectatorial senses

because in both films respectively, we watch the video or read the pages of the
book that is the catalyst for the terror that is to come.

Yeah I think it is, and the thing that horror can do really well is to put us in the
shoes of the lead character. My aim was for us to experience everything as Amelia
was experiencing it. So initially the book comes in and it is a little bit weird, but it
is still able to be controlled. Then as the film progresses the book changes. I think
it was the perfect entry for The Babadook, and it is a perfect tool to effect the audi-
ence. Without giving too much away, especially when it comes back the second
time, we start to see what could happen.

As one watches The Babadook one can’t help but ask pointed questions about
human culture, specifically as it relates to the dark stories that are written for
children. But more broadly, it is interesting to contemplate the stories we create
not only to terrorize, but to be terrorized by, and starting from such a young
age. As a civilization it seems that we almost gravitate towards fear.

It is true that we are attracted to it from a very early age. I think all of us have a
need to face our fears, and maybe horror films and scary books and stories illumi-
nate us. They kind of illuminate this idea that the world isn’t perfect; that it is not
a happy ever after and that it is important to face the dark side. And I think even
as kids we hear these stories that can teach us that: can give us courage and help us
to face our fears. I definitely agree that it is something primal and it is something
that we come into the world with or when we are very young we want to be scared,
and we want to think that we can face it. I remember speaking to someone recently,
I think it was a psychologist who said: “People who like horror films are usually
quite well balanced.” [Laughs.] I don’t know if that’s true because they are able to
face the darker parts of themselves, but I like to think that it is true.

From before to after, how do you perceive the challenge of creating suspense,
and how has The Babadook impacted your evolution as a filmmaker?

I think I am a very instinctive person and an instinctive filmmaker. My rule is that

if it affects me then hopefully it will affect others. I guess I went in hoping that I
would be able to pull it off, but I was not sure. You never know until you’ve done
something whether you could do it. So I guess the process of completing Babadook
has really given me the confidence that yes, I can actually make a film, and that my
ideas can reach people. But I am also aware that every story has its own challenges.
Just because this one has had some success doesn’t mean the next one will. So I
remain ever humble, and I am just trying to connect with the core of a story and
make sure I am very clear on what it is I want to say with each film.