< The Latest 2025-01-20T18:55:52+0000
The Pasadena Star-News | Mon 01/20 10:55am PST | Stuart Miller
David Koepp is one of Hollywood’s most successful screenwriters ever, his box office tally measures in the billions: “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World,” “Mission Impossible,” “Spider-Man,” “Panic Room,” “War of the Worlds,” and the last two Indiana Jones films.
Beyond the blockbusters, Koepp often takes time out for smaller movies and has shown a penchant for ghost stories, including “Stir of Echoes,” “Ghost Town” and “You Should Have Left.”
He is venturing into that realm with Steven Soderbergh for the film “Presence” (in theaters January 24 th ), a ghost story with a twist: The entire film is shot from the point-of-view of the ghost; the camera is its stand-in, traveling around this haunted house and letting the audience only see what the ghost sees.
The entrancing and unnerving result builds plenty of tension but it’s ultimately less about scares and gore than about the family that moves into the house. (“Presence” stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang and Eddy Maday.)
Koepp, who also wrote a flashy action flick for Soderbergh – “Black Bag,” starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, which comes out in March – spoke recently by video about the appeal of ghost stories and about how his writing has evolved.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Q. Was this a stirring of echoes of your own ghost stories?
“Stir of Echoes” is definitely in there — it’s people in a house with a ghost and more important than the scares is the family drama.
But ghost stories are beloved and have been around for as long as storytelling has been around.
Q. You’ve said ghosts are hopeful in their very essence.
No matter how terrifying it is if a horrible ghost is haunting your house, driving everyone crazy and forcing you to kill each other, well, it’s also hopeful because it means there’s an afterlife. It’s unfortunate this ghost is so mean, but we all either do believe firmly or want to believe or wish we could believe there’s something after. A brush with the supernatural makes people open to other ideas and other kinds of people and other experiences.
Q. How did this one develop?
The original idea was Steven’s. He wanted to tell a story all from the point of view of a ghost. He’d written some pages of how one might express that we’re seeing everything from the point of view of this ghost. I love a limitation: a film that takes place over exactly 24 hours or in a lifeboat or, with this one, where you can never leave the house.
I knew not to write anything that he can’t shoot this way, so I viewed the presence as a character while writing, a character that was going to be played by Steven Soderbergh and the camera strapped to his chest.
The idea was that the presence is quite reticent and confused was important – it’s scared, it’s trying to figure things out as much as that family is. So it’s always moving forward trying to figure out what’s going on but then it retreats to that closet.
There were five characters in that film: the family of four and the presence. I used “We” in the script, writing things like “this frightens us and we don’t like it. We pull back into the closet and hide.”
And Steven also said it should be about a family that’s really messed up. So I said, “OK, let me run with that.”
Q. Which restrictions freed you up and which were truly limiting?
The fact that I could never crosscut was frustrating since we’re seeing everything from the ghost’s perspective. So I had to build suspense or tension within each scene. But I also really like people in rooms talking, even if it doesn’t always make the most cinematic experience —but with the ghost in this case, it did.
Q. Did you take any lessons from this for a different movie like “Black Bag” or the next “Jurassic” film?
With “Black Bag,” I then went a little overboard with the people in rooms talking. I wanted to see if I could start a movie with a 14-page dinner table sequence. I think it works.
I’ve been thinking about my characters more deeply lately. I’m not getting any younger. So you have more complex thoughts about characters and while I love visual expression, having them talk to each other is how they express their character. That said, “Jurassic” is a great big adventure movie so if you don’t crosscut, you’re nuts.
Q. You’ve also written two novels in recent years. Is that to give you more of a chance to explore characters more deeply?
The first one started as a movie but I hate writing treatments and I was getting depressed so I thought I’d write a little about the character. It was meant to be five or six pages but it was fun so I kept going. Then it was a short story and I kept going and it became a novel. Writing those books was great because I am not bound by only what a character says or does. I can talk about what they’re thinking or feeling. Going inside a character’s head was really intoxicating.
Q. Any other film genres you want to try writing?
I would like to write and direct a drama. That’s what I’m working on now, just a straight-up drama where I have no genre conceits to fall back on. It’s hard. But you do get to have a lot of scenes of people talking. I’m trying to find the rhythms and the suspense – all stories have suspense, crescendos and the climax, but in this one they’re not running from someone with a gun. That’s much easier to write.
Q. My son thought you really captured the way high schoolers think and act in “Presence.” Were you eavesdropping on your kids?
Well, I would never admit that when my 17- and 13-year-old talk, I am making mental notes. That would be legally actionable. But yes, I picked up a lot from them and their friends. I would like to stress in print that my children are not at all the kids in this movie. Although in the movie they’re good kids, they’re just confused and sad.
I’m dying to see what a mass audience makes of this one. Horror is a popular drama and that’s synonymous with scary but this is not a scary movie; it’s a deeply unsettling one. I find it hard to watch because I have four kids and the experience of ushering young people through their teenage years is harrowing. So this movie is distressing and unsettling, which is a more powerful experience than gross or startling.