Drew God­dard: ​‘In dark times I find myself falling back on art’

Drew Goddard’s Bad Times at the El Royale is a vivid neo-noir set in 1969 at a fic­tion­al hotel split by the state line between Neva­da and Cal­i­for­nia. Sev­en strangers includ­ing British actor Cyn­thia Eri­vo (on siz­zling form as a down-on-her-luck soul singer), Jeff Bridges and Chris Hemsworth share a wild night in the epony­mous accom­mo­da­tion where no one is quite what they seem.

Hav­ing writ­ten for Buffy the Vam­pire Slay­er and Lost ear­ly in his career, God­dard went on to cre­ate the Dare­dev­il TV series and pen the screen­plays for Clover­field and The Mar­t­ian. He’s direct­ed episodes of The Good Place and his acclaimed fea­ture debut The Cab­in in the Woods. Here God­dard explains how he jour­neyed to the heart of ​’60s dark­ness and reveals the events and music that helped him get there.

LWLies: The­mat­i­cal­ly and tonal­ly, Bad Times at the El Royale is about the death of the ​’60s. What attract­ed you to the era and sub­ject matter?

God­dard: I’ve always had a fas­ci­na­tion with the ​’60s. I think it start­ed with a love of the art that came out of that time peri­od. As I start­ed study­ing that art in a real way I start­ed real­is­ing that the art came as a reac­tion to the times. The tur­bu­lence of the ​’60s gave birth to this extra­or­di­nary out­put in cin­e­ma and in music and that led me to think, ​‘What caused it?’.

I set the movie in 1969 because it was a real piv­ot point. The coun­try just watched John F Kennedy, Mar­tin Luther King and Bob­by Kennedy all get shot with­in a five-year peri­od. Think about that right now. In five years they watched three of their top lead­ers get assas­si­nat­ed. On tele­vi­sion, live, right before their eyes. That has such a pro­found effect on a people’s psy­che and I want­ed to explore that. I want­ed to let that be the back­ground to this movie because that change from watch­ing those guys get killed to Nixon tak­ing over – and every­thing that brought with it – has always been a fas­ci­nat­ing time period.

Can you give any specifics about art you loved from the ​’60s?

It sounds clichéd but the rev­o­lu­tion start­ed with the Bea­t­les, it start­ed with the Stones. This movie, at its core, is about a love for music and about my love of music as a weapon. I feel like this movie is a movie that deals with vio­lence and reac­tions to vio­lence and one of the ways that char­ac­ters in this movie deal with vio­lence is through art. They try to cre­ate art in the midst of the vio­lence and so for me the songs in the movie sort of reflect my favourite songs of the time peri­od. That’s the best part of being a direc­tor. You can just pick songs that are your favourite and every­one has to lis­ten to you.

Was there a par­tic­u­lar rea­son why the clas­sic soul music was used so prominently?

I think because of the vio­lence in the film I need­ed a light in the mid­dle of the dark­ness to teth­er myself to. In dark times I find myself falling back on art. This is a movie with love for the artist, that val­ues the artist and val­ues the act of mak­ing art even when art is not nec­es­sar­i­ly want­ed in those par­tic­u­lar times – even if it is very much need­ed. Darlene’s strug­gle as an artist is very much at the core of this film.

Were there any cin­e­mat­ic influ­ences from the ​’60s that helped you on your way?

From the ​’60s, specif­i­cal­ly? Blow-Up. All direc­tors, soon­er or lat­er, seem to come back to Blow-Up, don’t they? It’s an extra­or­di­nary film. There’s a rea­son that it res­onates so much with film­mak­ers in par­tic­u­lar. I think there’s a rev­o­lu­tion­ary qual­i­ty to it. This idea of the voyeur, the dark­ness set among the bright colours and the seduc­tive­ness of the ​’60s. That is def­i­nite­ly a film that I come back to time and time again. It is a film that evolves and you get to evolve with it as you watch it.

Voyeurism, sur­veil­lance and para­noia are strong themes in both this film and in The Cab­in in the Woods. Is there any rea­son why?

There must be, right? But it’s not like I set out to inten­tion­al­ly to explore those things, they just sort of hap­pen organ­i­cal­ly and I dive in. I see it in The Mar­t­ian as well. It’s a voyeuris­tic film. There must be a rea­son I come back to it time and time again. I think there’s some­thing inher­ent­ly cin­e­mat­ic about it. I think there’s some­thing when we, as an audi­ence, are watch­ing a film, we are voyeurs. We are get­ting a chance to watch these peo­ple when they do not know they are being watched and I think there’s some­thing very pow­er­ful about it.

I think at its core, it is about empa­thy. I think I became a writer because I enjoy­ing empathis­ing with oth­er peo­ple. I enjoy try­ing on oth­er people’s clothes and see­ing where it takes me. I think those things all go togeth­er the voyeurism and the empa­thy they’re two sides of the same coin.

How does the film relate to cur­rent times?

That’s more a ques­tion for the audi­ence. For me, I cer­tain­ly write about the times I’m in. That’s been true of every film I’ve made. When we were mak­ing Clover­field it was not long after ⁹⁄₁₁. The Cab­in in the Woods and The Mar­t­ian were made at the height of the Oba­ma years. And now Bad Times is very much about 2016 – 2018. That was when I was mak­ing the movie and that always seeps into my work, the peri­od I’m liv­ing in. I sup­pose I’ll leave it to the audi­ence how it applies but it was cer­tain­ly on my mind while I was mak­ing it.

Bad Times at the El Royale is released 12 Octo­ber. Read the LWLies Rec­om­mends review.