LWLies 86: The Shirley Issue – On Sale Now!

To be frank – the past six months have felt like a hor­ror sto­ry. As much as the British gov­ern­ment has tried to con­vince us we can bat­tle Covid with a pinch of the ol’ Blitz spir­it, liv­ing through a glob­al pan­dem­ic is rough going. Even for those of us who haven’t been sick, grap­pling with this unprece­dent­ed peri­od of con­fine­ment and dis­rup­tion has been hard on our phys­i­cal and men­tal health.

I saw my mum for the first time since March last week and it felt very strange not to be able to give her a hug. As we wan­dered around the (still fair­ly qui­et) streets of Soho, I point­ed out all the cin­e­mas and screen­ing rooms I haven’t set foot in since March. It wasn’t quite the ghost town of the spring, but in the autumn driz­zle, things still looked fair­ly bleak.

But we do, at least, still have the movies. Back when Covid was still some­thing most of us didn’t real­ly know much about, I saw Josephine Decker’s Shirley at Sun­dance (the first and last fes­ti­val of 2020 for me!) and fell under its spell. This beguil­ing psy­chodra­ma, inspired by Susan Scarf Merrell’s nov­el of the same name, takes inspi­ra­tion from the life and work of Amer­i­can nov­el­ist Shirley Jack­son, an uncom­pro­mis­ing cre­ative force who rev­o­lu­tionised the genre of hor­ror and chal­lenged per­cep­tions about the place of female authors in lit­er­a­ture. For my mon­ey: it’s one of the best films you’ll see all year.

The film – which is more fic­tion than fact – sees the incom­pa­ra­ble Elis­a­beth Moss play Jack­son, and Michael Stuhlbarg on won­der­ful­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble form as her hus­band Stan­ley Hyman. The cou­ple wel­come new­ly­weds Fred and Rosie Nemser (Logan Ler­man and Odessa Young) into their home as Fred takes up a teach­ing posi­tion along­side Stan­ley at the near­by Ben­ning­ton Col­lege, but soon the cou­ples’ lives become hope­less­ly entwined, and Shirley and Rosie devel­op a mutu­al fascination.

We’re delight­ed to bring you our trib­ute to this gor­geous beast of a film – but also, we’re delight­ed to be back more gen­er­al­ly. When we pro­duced and released our Food & Film issue, it was a scary time to be a print mag­a­zine ded­i­cat­ed to film (or scari­er than usu­al, anyway).

On the Cover

Isip Xin​’s evoca­tive por­trait of Elis­a­beth Moss as Shirley Jack­son – cre­at­ed with pas­tels, paint, and dig­i­tal ele­ments – cap­tures the witchy vibe of the film. Isip also illus­trat­ed the rather dreamy end­pa­pers, fea­tur­ing the Ver­mont home of Jack­son and Hyman, and the woods that sur­round them.

Things still seem uncer­tain, but movies will be back, even if it takes a lit­tle while, and in putting togeth­er this new issue, we’ve been floored by the wealth of tal­ent 2020 has to offer in spite of every­thing, not to men­tion the gen­eros­i­ty of the folks we inter­viewed for this issue.

Of course, there’s Josephine, Elis­a­beth and Michael, but we’ve also got inter­views with Char­lie Kauf­man, Miran­da July, Nia DaCos­ta, Ben Wheat­ley, Sope Dìrísù, God­frey Chan­ning Peo­ples and Anto­nio Cam­pos. Now that’s a dream din­ner par­ty line-up.

So we hope you enjoy dis­cov­er­ing every­thing that the Shirley issue has to offer – and whether you’re a loy­al sub­scriber or new to LWLies, thanks for sup­port­ing what we do.

In this issue

Unleash
Jour­dain Sear­les pro­files the end­less­ly fas­ci­nat­ing cre­ative force behind Shirley, Josephine Decker.

It’s Com­pli­cat­ed
Han­nah Wood­head speaks to Elis­a­beth Moss about her immense­ly impres­sive body of work, plus the ins and outs of play­ing a lit­er­ary icon.

Pock­et­ful of Irrev­er­ence
Adam Wood­ward meets the remark­able Michael Stuhlbarg, who gives a ster­ling per­for­mance as Shirley’s con­niv­ing hus­band Stan­ley Hyman.

Writer’s Rooms
We asked three artists – Jason Ngai, Miran­da Har­ris and Adri­ana Bel­let – to imag­ine what the stud­ies of three leg­endary female screen­writ­ers might have looked like.

The Sounds of Tamar-Kali
Lil­lian Craw­ford speaks to one of the hottest com­posers around, who’s a reg­u­lar with Dee Rees and now lends her tal­ent to Shirley.

A Shroom of One’s Own
John Sem­ley delves into the on-screen his­to­ry of the hum­ble mushroom.

The 1001^st Woman of Hor­ror
Anton Bitel inter­views Alexan­dra Heller-Nicholas about her lat­est book, ​‘1000 Women in Hor­ror’ which sings the prais­es of icon­ic and over­looked fig­ures in this tra­di­tion­al­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed genre.

In Dreams: A Con­ver­sa­tion with Char­lie Kauf­man
To cel­e­brate the release of both I’m Think­ing of End­ing Things and ​‘Antkind’, David Jenk­ins chats to one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing (and elu­sive) fig­ures in film.

Threads
In her reg­u­lar col­umn on fash­ion and film, Christi­na New­land is on the prowl for one of the chicest acces­sories: cat eye glasses.

Illus­tra­tions in this issue by Lau­rène Boglio, Stéphanie Sergeant, Sophie Mo, Jason Ngai, Adri­ana Bel­let, Miran­da Har­ris, Oliv­er Stafford and Amy Moss.

In the back section…

Sope Dìrísù
David Jenk­ins speaks to the actor at the heart of Remi Weekes’ excel­lent hor­ror His House.

Miran­da July
Han­nah Wood­head has a cosy chat with the cre­ative pow­er­house behind Kajillionaire.

Nia DaCos­ta
Ahead of the release of her night­mar­ish new vision of Can­dy­man, Leila Latif chats to the film­mak­er who’s about to con­quer Hollywood.

God­frey Chan­ning Peo­ples
After her film received a warm wel­come at Sun­dance, the direc­tor of Miss June­teeth explains this fas­ci­nat­ing Amer­i­can tra­di­tion to Rogan Graham.

Ben Wheat­ley
In a change from his usu­al fair, Ben Wheatley’s next project is a glossy adap­ta­tion of Daphne DuMaurier’s sem­i­nal goth­ic nov­el. David Jenk­ins gets the scoop.

Anto­nio Cam­pos
As he gears up to release mid­west­ern night­mare The Dev­il All the Time on Net­flix, the mind behind Simon Killer and Chris­tine tells Ele­na Laz­ic all about his lat­est provoca­tive film.

All illus­tra­tions by Rumbidzai Mar­i­lyn Savanhu.

In review…

Remi Weekes’ His House; Char­lie Kaufman’s I’m Think­ing of End­ing Things; Gar­rett Bradley’s Time; Craig Roberts’ Eter­nal Beau­ty; Miran­da July’s Kajil­lion­aire; Natal­ie Johns’ Max Richter’s Sleep; Albert Serra’s Lib­erté; Christo­pher Nolan’s Tenet; Hali­na Dyrschka’s Beyond the Vis­i­ble: Hilma af Klint; Yeon Sang-ho’s Penin­su­la; Chan­ning God­frey Peo­ples’ Miss June­teenth; Phyl­l­i­da Lloyd’s Her­self; Mał­gorza­ta Szumowska’s The Oth­er Lamb; Natal­ie Eri­ka James’ Rel­ic; Hong Khaou’s Mon­soon; François Ozon’s Sum­mer of ​’85.

LWLies 86 is on sale XX Sep­tem­ber. Order your copy and sub­scribe here.