‘Materialists’ | Anatomy of a Scene

“Hi, My name is Celine Song and I’m the writer-director of “Materialists.” I wanted to choose this scene as the Anatomy of a Scene because it’s the first scene that I wrote. And this shot is, it’s a very long take, and it begins with Harry, played by Pedro, extreme wide, which then becomes an extreme close up of his name card and the camera turns into a two-shot. And this really reflects how incredible my actors are. Dakota and Pedro, because we’re really treating them like they’re theater actors, having to have a whole conversation while sitting in this two-shot. “You’re the matchmaker.” “You’re the brother.” “What are you doing at the singles table?” “My mother wants me to marry.” And this is such a key scene in the film because this kind of lays out all of the ideological, philosophical themes in the whole film. And there is a secret in the scene where in the middle of this conversation, Pedro does this amazing monologue about why Lucy is amazing at her job and what he saw. “Instead you’re saying you could do this on your own, but if you’re lucky enough to be able to afford me, why not?” “You’re a luxury good.” And then if you see behind them, you’re going to get to see Chris’s character, John, walk right by and you’re going to see the way that he’s going to check them out as well. There he is. I feel like I really did want the sound design and the way that he walks by to be something that is maybe not easy to spot in the first watch, but it’s a bit of a secret. Right? And it was so fun to work with my sound designers to decide how loud we wanted the footsteps to be. And the entire film, something that we were talking about so much was their footsteps: Lucy’s heels and the men’s shoes, because so much storytelling is happening in the way that they walk. And of course, in this scene, we get to really meet Lucy. I think that it’s over 10 minutes after the film began, but this is where we get to see that everything she believes as a matchmaker. “…and pain.” “Love is easy.” “Is it?” “I find it to be the most difficult thing in the world.” “That’s because we can’t help it.” “It just walks into our lives sometimes.” And I mean, their performance is so amazing because it’s a kind of a flirting but kind of a recruitment conversation. She’s trying to recruit him as a client. And I always knew that the surprise of her strange drink order, which is Coke and beer, which is something that I really liked because there’s two things you can get at a gas station, and it kind of reflects her childhood and in the way she grew up, which is working class. “Do you want a drink?” “Sure.” “What do you want?” “Coke and beer.” And this shot of a disembodied arm coming in to put the drinks in front of them. That was something that me and my DP were talking about as the way that we’re going to introduce John, he’s a disembodied arm that brings the correct drink order. And of course, this shot, now it’s a three shot. And in this, everything has changed in a way, just because John has entered the scene.