Upstream Color: Interview Shane Carruth

Ever since his film Primer awed audiences at Sundance in 2004, Shane Carruth has been a name about the town. The film was made for $7K and proved Carruth not only as a director, writer and actor but also as a filmmaker who could balance complete control over his projects.

After nine years, he’s returned with the equally buzzed-about Upstream Color. Premiering to praise at Sundance and SXSW, the film centers on a couple that has been infected by a mysterious parasite. Kris (Amy Seimetz) and Jeff (Carruth) struggle to maintain psychological coherence as the repercussions of the infestation corrode their lives. It’s an exploration of man, nature, and when the mind falls victim to the latter. 

I could have talked to Shane for hours, days, but I only had a fleeting moment to pick the incredible filmmaker’s brain. We discussed his struggle with creating an entirely new screenwriting format, the film with Fincher that he’d never make now, and his next project “Modern Ocean.”

ATW: You studied mathematics and engineering in school. When did you decide to teach yourself filmmaking? Was it something you always wanted to do?

C: I was studying math, but I was writing a lot. That’s where my passion was. I got out of school, and I didn’t know what to do with that. I did a software job to pay rent, but I tried writing short stories and did half of a novel and then landed at screenwriting. I naively started thinking I would shoot a film and then I just did.

ATW: Where did the seed of the story begin for Upstream Color? Was it the characters, the concepts, or the themes?

C: I was thinking a lot about personal identity and narrative and everything that could define a person, their subjective and political beliefs, their worldview and all that; when and where that gets cemented. What can be done to change it? I wanted to strip that from the characters and have them rebuild it and potentially build it wrong.

ATW: With this film you’re sort of forming a new language of storytelling. Because of this, I’m curious what the script actually looked like. Was it based more in imagery, text or more storyboard since you were also directing?

C: [Laughs] It’s a big mess, but there’s a script there that you could read. I don’t know how much of the story it would have communicated. I started doing my chicken scrap storyboard on the back. There’s also music for specific scenes. It’s one big un-wieldy mess. I’m trying to figure out How do you organize this network of thoughts. The format for screenwriting is so ancient.

ATW: The worm that Jeff and Kris digest is a very unique parasite. How did you go about building the specificity of what this drug is and how it affects its victims?

C: There are a lot of things I’ve read in my life about these hidden biological mechanisms that we still struggle to figure out. The way that bees communicate, even if we sever them, a scout can come back and report where there’s a good bit of pollen for them, just based on the wall of their hive. There are parasites that burrow into the head of insects that are detrimental to the host, these sorts of things informed the idea. But I wasn’t trying to take one and mimic it. There could be a hidden thing in the environment without us knowing, such that’s outside of our control.

ATW: This definitely ties into the use of Thoreau’s “Walden” in the film. For you, what was the intention? Was it to explore man vs. nature?

C: Once the mechanics of this life cycle were embedded in nature and satisfied my criteria, I needed to satisfy one other thing. I thought here’s a book made up of language from the natural world, but it’s also a pretty passive piece. It’s so meditative that it seemed appropriate for the characters. When the [thief] taps on the front cover, my intention was that’s his tool.

ATW: Particularly the ending is extremely fragmented. You’ve described it as “everything deteriorates into the ether.” Was the structure of the film established more in the script or once in the editing room?

C: Definitely not in the editing room. This is something I’m really struggling with because there seems to be two schools of thought and both of them are wrong. One is a film that’s so obedient to the script that it’s rigid, another is everything is improvisational and all fun and games. [For Upstream Color] The music is being written when the script is, the visual language forms closer and closer to production and then that goes back and says the music is wrong. They can’t fight each other, so let’s figure it out. There’s this network conversation taking place. I don’t know how to talk about it other than that. I don’t know what of that script made sense to anybody; so much is connected by match cuts and a language of camera work.

ATW: That leads me to my question about A Topiary. It’s been a hot topic since you came out about the film and it’s potential to be made with Fincher and Soderbergh. Would you make the film now if you had the chance? Even if it meant sacrificing the complete creative control that you have now?

C: I won’t ever do that. I won’t ever make A Topiary.

ATW: I thought that might be your answer! You’ve decided to even self-distribute Upstream. Why and what’s the process been like?

C: The film has a different ambition about it. I want to be clear with the people that we’re telling about it what it is. I don’t want it to be like we’re selling one thing and delivering another. I wanted to craft the trailer and the poster, better than something that was trying to get every last dollar. I wanted to contextualize the film in a way that’s appropriate.

ATW: When you’ve spoken about your relationship with Amy, you describe her as a kindred spirit. How did you find her?

C: I didn’t know who she was or anything, but getting closer and closer to production, I was calling any actress who’s name was given to me. I called her up, and she was editing her own film [Sun Don’t Shine] that she also directed.  I saw it, and more or less that’s what I was keen to. She completely got narrative, and it seemed like we were going to be able to communicate better than typical. She read the script and knew what it needed to be. That was such a gift!

ATW: Tell me about your next project “Modern Ocean?”

C: It’s a continuation of the language inUpstream, but there’s no otherworldly elements taking place. It’s more characters than I’ve cemented so far! It’s set in shipping routes and there are pirates! But it’s got to have a bigger budget!

Pirates? I’m sold. Upstream Color opens theatrically on April 5^th!