SPOILER WARNING: The following article reveals some important moments of The substance. So if you haven’t seen the movie but can’t SCAM. TROL. HIS. BE! and you want to continue reading, proceed with caution.
I highly recommend to any fan of The substance – easily my pick for best film of 2024 – check out the making of Mubi video recently posted online. It made me appreciate the instant classic horror movie even more, about a fading Hollywood star (played by 2025 Golden Globe winner Demi Moore) who creates a younger version of herself (played by Margaret Qualley) with a unholy black market drug, and especially made me a bigger fan of writer-director Coralie Fargeat.
Excluding my recent rant about Hundreds of beavers‘Golden Globes snub, I rarely try to make a big deal out of awards season. However, I would be very angry if AMPAS did not award at least one Oscar nomination for best director to the French filmmaker after seeing how she came to realize her vision of The substance. Let me point out just a few moments from the behind-the-scenes video, which is available at YouTubeThat firmly convinced me that Fargeat absolutely deserves this honor.
Coralie Fargeat talks about designing the appearance of the substance
Coralie Fargeat made her film debut with another great 2018 female-directed horror film called Revengewhich I especially admired for its striking aesthetics. The filmmaker also uses a different perspective to The substancewhich, as he explains in the short film, he put together well in advance by meticulously writing out exactly how he wanted to film a scene, almost frame by frame, in the script. I think a vision like this is the sign of a master filmmaker.
Coralie Fargeat Champions Practical Effects
Like many moviegoers these days, I prefer practical special effects to CGI, and I was delighted to see in the featurette that Fargeat agrees. She says she made a conscious decision to use as many practical effects as possible to make the body horror film look authentic and came up with economically thought-out tricks to create some of the scariest sequences, such as taking body parts into account. that they would need. on camera while building a fake body double. I’m not sure if a conscious budget is used as a criterion for Academy voters, but attention should be paid to details like this.
Coralie Fargeat’s bold, hands-on approach to production
While a director’s job typically doesn’t require much physically active participation in the production, Fargeat seemed to say “Fuck it, I’m going in headfirst” for The substance. The video sees her completing tasks that team members would normally perform (such as making prosthetics), performing stunts (having her face smashed with a fake vase and bending Sue’s arm when she injects the Activator serum), and helping guide the hose that makes blood flow. for the New Year’s Eve nightmare sequence. He seems to really enjoy his interactive methods, which I think any filmmaker should be inspired by.
Coralie Fargeat puts on a camera helmet
Fargeat goes even further with his interactive methods in a way that I imagine must have been quite uncomfortable but ultimately necessary. For scenes like when Sue discovers her ear has fallen off in an elevator, the director would use a helmet with a camera attached to film the most realistic first-person shots possible. What a clever way to make sure the camera seizes exactly what your vision demands!
While the Academy has rarely been kind to the horror genre (save for some Oscar-winning performances in horror films and awarding the Best Picture Oscar to The silence of the lambs), I firmly hope that Coralie Fargeat becomes the next woman nominated for the Best Director Oscar. If you’re an Academy voter, check out the behind-the-scenes featurette to see The substance and even if horror movies like this don’t usually impress you, you might root for Fargeat too.
