Director Bret Wood - Psychopathia Sexualis

After recently reviewing Psychopathia Sexualis, I had come across a wide variety of negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes - most of which seemed to ignoranly miss the point of what the filmmaker was presenting to the keener eye.  In an age of breast implants and plastic surgery, many were expecting titilating tits and ass and were disappointed upon being turned off by hairy, carnival quality frontal male nudity, and the like.  I got in touch with the director Bret Wood and probed the mental poetic licensing behind Psychopathia Sexualis and ended up in a deep conversation about the golden age of early cinema and the qualities of it that fans like ourselves tend to often overlook...

HoH:  Today we are here with Bret Wood - the director of Psychopathia Sexualis - a bizarre adaptation of a sexual dysfunction psychology book written by Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing in the 1880's.  It was released on DVD January 9th, 2007, and according to several reviews that Ive come across, it has been widely misunderstood.  So we're here to talk with Bret about the film - get an inside look as to exactly what it was all about - and also look into the method behind his old-school madness...  Bret, thanks for joining us today.

BRET WOOD:  Thanks for the opportunity to talk about the film.

HoH:  No problem...  Psychopathia Sexualis - the book - not exactly a piece of fiction.  Some would say not even a "story".  What made you go with the idea of adapting a psychology textbook into a film?

BRET WOOD:  Well I was reading it, at first, for research on another script I was writing at the time.  Trying to get into the mind of people's secret, sexually deviant lives.  And as Im reading it, Im thinking, "Wow - that would make a great scene for a movie.  That would make a great scene for a movie..."  But you couldn't possibly tie all these things together.  So that's when I figured, "Well, why not just drop the idea of a conventional, single narrative..."  And if you're going to adapt a medical textbook, present it as a medical text - so its just chapter by chapter.  Case history by case history.  Which...  Im proud of that - I like the way that that happened - but a lot of mainstream critics and viewers, they didn't know how to watch a movie like that.  They're used to seeing that simple story, from beginning to end, that they can really get emotionally involved in, but you dont get emotionally involved in a psychological textbook.  So that was the root of one of its main problems connecting with an audience.

HoH:  Right - now when I came across some views of Psychopathia Sexualis - it seemed that a lot of people misinterpreted the effort.  Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times puts it in harsh terms. She says "... there is not one moment of fun. Whether in the whorehouse or the sanitarium, Psychopathia Sexualis is an exercise in unrelenting dullness."  Personally, I feel that she and a lot of others missed the point.  When Dr. Krafft-Ebing wrote the book he purposefully presented it in a form that was unappealing to the thrill-seeking eye, so as to be more regarded as professional and of use to doctors and lawyers.  What I took away from your adaptation of Psychopathia was that you were being true to the spirit of Dr. Krafft-Ebing's material, by not casting attractive models and by not exploiting the sexy, T&A aspect of the subject matter...  Is that something that you were conscious of going in?

BRET WOOD:  Absolutely.  Just like his original book - even though he tried to thwart people who would read it for entertainment - there's like a small subculture that still really loves to read this book.  Its just a fascinating thing to kinda page through.  Even though he didnt want people to look at it as entertainment, there's always that group of us that still look at it that way, and I think the film is going to wind up being the same way.  Its going to go over the heads of most people, but there's gonna be like this core audience that appreciates what it is, and doesn't mind that its a medical textbook - you know - and can kind of come back to it and page through it at their leisure. 

HoH:  Did you ever toy with the possibility of taking this a more sexier, more expolitative route?

BRET WOOD:  Uh - not really.  Just because what really interests me in it is the whole creepy, medical aspect of it.  I never intended for it to be "fun" - and I know that frustrated a lot of people.  That review you talked about - at the end she said something like, "If Sharon Stone did this kind of movie she'd be out of business."  If you're comparing this to a Sharon Stone movie, you have no idea what this film's intention was, or - you know - thats just such an absurd point of reference, in my mind. 

HoH:  Right.  Now - Bram Stoker's Dracula.  It kind of occured to me - as you researched the presence that Dr. Krafft-Ebing's book had in the late 1800's - how much of an influence do you think Psychopathia Sexualis had on the origin of the vampire legacy as written by Stoker?

BRET WOOD:  You know its amazing how much blood...  And I didn't mean for so much blood to be in this movie - but I realized that in so many of Krafft-Ebing's case histories, blood was like this sexual fluid that we dont think about today.  You think of other fluids.  But its amazing how much vampirism and a variety of other forms of this - its amazing how blood just isnt thought of as a sexual fluid anymore.  At the time, maybe it was some kind of substitute?  Because...  there was this "Victorian" moral code at the time, that sort of prohibited people from engaging in free sexual behavior, so they had to find these other ways.  So maybe it was, that blood was this bodily fluid that was technically not sexual, so they could indulge in it.  So they'd prick someone's finger with a needle and suck the blood out of it - without feeling like they violated this strict, Victorian moral code - but yet still getting this sexual satisfaction from this unbelievable intimacy with another person.  Drinking their blood.  We could write a masters dissertation on this, there's so much rich material there to think about.

HoH:  When I had spoken with one of the producers of the film - Tracy Martin - she had mentioned she was also the actress in the "golden shower" scene.   She had said that you used apple juice, and that she was cracking up between takes.  Were there any other memorable awkward or funny moments that you can share with us, from when the cast was filming some of these scenes?

BRET WOOD:  ...(long pause)...  Uhhh...   (we both laugh)...  Im trying to think of any people that wouldn't mind sharing...  I guess one of the more fun but challenging scenes to shoot - which actually didnt make it into the film, but is on the DVD as a deleted scene - was when the two women are stabbing the man to death.  They begin wearing these white linen gowns and by the end theyre totally saturated in blood.  It takes place on a big, white floor - and at the end that floor is just stained and splattered with blood.  You know - it took hours to shoot that.  It was freezing cold, and we were doing it in this warehouse...  But everyone's kinda scratching their heads goin, "How's this gonna fit into the movie?"  Ultimately it wouldn't fit into the movie.  It still made a great scene, but it was out of place as far as the context of Psychopathia.  So - that was a fun thing to shoot, but so much of it wound up on the cutting room floor.  Not just that scene, but other full days of shooting.  Like in the cemetery.  But all thats on the DVD so at least we have something to show for the time and the work.

HoH:  The art direction and costumes in general were fantastic.  The way it came together, its shocking to think of this film being filmed in Atlanta, 2006.  Was it very difficult recreating the 1800's on a limited budget - for instance on the train at the end of the film?

BRET WOOD:  Well, you know - we had to use every ounce of resourcefulness we had.  We were lucky - at least in the costumes.  We started out with Pamela Tripp who did the makeup in the film and she starred as one of the maids.  Umm...  Im trying to think of how you'd know which maid she is (laughs)...  But she started out doing the costumes but it was too much for her to be doing both costumes and makeup, so then a fellow named Sean Patton got involved.  He was amazing - he had connections at a local costume warehouse, and so he was able to pull everything we needed.  And not just pull what we needed but say, "Oh no no no no.  You dont want that - you want to use this kind of corset.  These shoes - you need to have these kind of underwear - this kind of jacket - he wouldn't wear that kind of hat."  So thats totally all due to him.  As far as the sets go, that was a total nightmare because...  At first I thought, "We'll just have everything really dark, so you wont see the set."  Get some antique chairs and that'll be it.  But its not that simple.  We had locations fall through so we had to build sets, and try to track down some locations that didnt take too much work to turn into turn of the century Europe or America.  The train was kind of a lucky break.  There was a railroad museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee and they let us film there for several hours - let us have our own train car for a couple of hours for like $500 which, in like, movie location terms is chicken feed.  But they were really great.  They even gave us some extra services, like blasting the steam when the woman is walking up the train platform.  Stuff like that, that was sort of above and beyond the call of duty.  They were excited about working on a film and being involved so we traded on that as much as we could. 

HoH:  It came out great...  Off the subject a bit and back to one of your earlier films.  You did a film back in 1998 called Kingdom of Shadows.  Could you share with some who may not have seen it, what that film was about?

BRET WOOD:  Yeah - its sort of a brief history of the origins of horror.  Mostly in silent film - European film - those films especially.  It was made for Kino International, which is a company that I work for as a producer of DVDs.  I hope it comes out on DVD - we're trying to figure out something to release it with.  Right now its only available on VHS.  Yeah - Im suprised you knew about that.

HoH:  Good old International Movie Database...  (we laugh)  Now - Psychopathia and Kingdom of Shadows are both rooted in early "horror" - both cinema and literature.  Is there something in particular about that time period that fuels your passion for filmmaking?

BRET WOOD:  There is, but I dont know what it is.  I have no interest in making a "modern day" movie.  I have no interest in making a comedy or anything like that.  This is just the type of book that I read - the kind of movie that I like.  Um - its something about the mystery that enshrouds everything.  Im sure that if it were our time it wouldnt seem that mysterious - the fact that its so far away and inaccessable.  I think a lot of it is because so many great filmmakers sort of just captured that period so well - like the German Expressionist filmmaker.  So that, thats now how we think about Europe in the 1910's or 1920's.  Its through the films of early German filmmakers like Robert Weine - in films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. 

HoH:  What do you think, personally, are some of the attractive qualities of early cinema that the films of today totally miss or overlook as an asset to telling a motion picture story?

BRET WOOD:  Um...  For one thing, just an unbelievable eye for composition that noone today has.  Well, maybe a few people have it.  The ability to tell a story without dialogue - without pop music.  It kills me to hear people make movies with nothing but a top 40 soundtrack.  Fast cutting is great in certain contexts.  I think there's a grace to silent films that we dont have anymore.  It takes a little getting used to, if you haven't seen a lot of silent films - to really get into that frame of mind.  But when you are there - when you can really lose yourself in a film like that - the characters just become larger than life in a way that just doesnt happen today.  And I think a lot of it is because they dont talk.   With Psychopathia, for example.  A lot of it is pretty much silent.  Theres not a lot of dialogue.  Some of the scenes had dialogue in it, but as soon as someone opens their mouth and started talking - BOOM - we're in Atlanta 2007.  And not just because of southern accents, but because speech just sort of demystifies people and just makes them regular.  Then you have these silent movies that are so mysterious.  Im sure if you heard Valentino talk, you'd say, "Oh yeah, he's just a regular guy..."  But there's something about them being silent that makes them more iconic.  Theyre just larger than life.  And maybe it also has to do with acting without dialogue.  It relies more on physical grace, where its almost like youre watching a dance as opposed to watching someone just mimicking real life. 

HoH:  It incorporated a lot more of the viewer's imagination.

BRET WOOD:  Yeah, yeah.  But it required patience.  I have taught film history, and can not get students to watch a silent movie.  Occasionally they'll hold onto something sort of long enough for it to break through to them, but so many people are just so resistant to it.  Because, it is difficult to get into...  you have to be really patient.  You have to turn off your cellphone and everything and just let yourself be absorbed into the movie.  But its worth it.

HoH:  That can be tough, in an age of instant gratification.

BRET WOOD:  Yeah - well, you can't watch a silent movie while on your computer, while youre checking your emails.  You cant talk on the phone while youre watching a silent movie.  You absolutely will not see it.  Its not an art form for short attention spans.  Maybe I naively thought, "Well, they'll slow down their attentions to watch Psychopathia..."  But...  (we laugh)  ...some have!   Some people have really liked it - have given it a good response.  I think its developing a following, and I think people who like the film are really enthusiastic about it - really avidly support it because it is so different.  And I think other people maybe didnt take the time to look into it and give it a chance, or think about what it actually was that I was trying to do.

HoH:  Do you have any idea what your next project is going to be?  Will it center around the early age of cinema?

BRET WOOD:  You know, I thought it was gonna be...  Everyone said, "Make something more contemporary.  Make something more fun."  So I struggled with a script set in the 60's, about a shriner in the south who opens his own adult book store, and all the craziness that ensues.  Its a good idea, and it had some good stuff in it, but its not me and I couldn't get it to work, so now Im back.  Back at the turn of the century with a script called The Seventh Daughter - www.seventhdaughter.com .  Im going to sort of post the progress of trying to get this thing made into a movie.  Its about a washed up, carnival magician who is reunited with his daughter and is training her to be a psychic - so that he can sort of get revenge on people...  you know, and it goes on from there.

HoH:  That sounds interesting... 

BRET WOOD:  Hopefully its going to be steeped in the same kind of, you know, dense atmosphere and heavy music that Psychopathia was - but I will bow to convention in that it will be a more conventional narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. 

HoH:  Ill tell ya what.  It is refreshing to see somebody be true to an era of work, or a (long pause)... how would you put it - a system of filmmaking that isnt present anymore nowadays - because it still has its attractive qualities if youre, as you said, able to sit and indulge yourself with the story and take the time to watch the entire thing work itself out.

BRET WOOD:  Yeah.  I appreciate the fact that people are making films like Grindhouse, and Black Snake Moon - you know - referencing the film styles of the 1970's - but, can we also look a little further back?   It seems that has sort of become the cutoff point of people's awareness of films.  You know?  To any filmmaker who is currently searching for a style, I strongly encourage them to look much further back.  You dont have to mimic a silent film - you dont have to make a movie without dialogue - but just when you see the command of the medium that some of these filmmakers had, its just awe inspiring.  There's still a whole lot to learn from these early films that people are ignoring today. 

HoH:  Bret its been great talking with someone who has such a great respect and insight for the films that spawned this genre and many others.  Hopefully now people will have a better insight into what Psychopathia was all about, and where it was coming from.  I personally thought it was a very artistic and overachieving film in the respect that it stayed very much true to what the literature was about.  You presented it in a form that was very true to how Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing presented his work, for instance, by not casting typical supermodel actors and actresses across the board which was very refreshing to see.  So - I wish you continued success in your work.  We'll be keeping an eye on The Seventh Daughter so good luck with that, and thanks for taking the time to speak with us all here at House of Horrors.

BRET WOOD:  No problem, thanks for having me.

Psychopathia Sexualis

Review
Trailer
Official Website 
Clips:
- The Curious Passions of Sergeant Bertrand 
- The Sadist and the Masochist
The Seventh Daughter website
CLICK HERE to purchase Psychopathia Sexualis from Amazon.com