2004 Movie Titles
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2004 Movie Titles
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The Secret Window
Starring: Johnny Depp, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton, Charles S. Dutton, John Turturro
Directed by: David Koepp
Screenplay by: David Koepp
Release Date: March 12th, 2004
Running Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence / terror, sexual content and language.
Box Office: $48,022,900 (US total)
Studio: Columbia Pictures
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Tagline: Some windows should never be opened.
Based on Stephen King's novella "Four Past Midnight: Secret Window, Secret Garden", "Secret Window" is about a writer (Depp) going through a painful divorce, who is stalked by a psychotic stranger (Turturro) who claims the writer stole his story. To force the writer to make amends, the stranger will go to any lengths, including murder.
Though he knows he should be at his computer writing another book, or at least walking his dog along the sparkling lake outside his dingy cabin, successful author Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) is sleeping on his favorite sofa for up to 16 hours a day. He is in the midst of a painful divorce and everything about the breakup has turned messy and unpleasant. It has sapped his energy and siphoned away his creativity, leaving him with a monumental case of writer's block that renders him incapable of even stringing a simple sentence together.
Then, when it seems as if things can't possibly get worse, a psychotic stranger named John Shooter (John Turturro) shows up at his doorstep, accuses Rainey of plagiarizing his story and demands satisfaction. Despite Rainey's efforts to placate him, Shooter becomes increasingly insistent and hostile, intimating a twisted sort of justice that could include cold-blooded murder.
Forced into a mind-bending game of cat and mouse, Rainey discovers that he has more cunningness and gritty determination than he ever imagined. In the end, he realizes that elusive Shooter may know him better than he knows himself.
Voyage to the Screen
Secret Window began its voyage to the screen when Columbia Pictures' executives became intrigued by Stephen King's suspense stunner Secret Window, Secret Garden part of the Four Past Midnight collection, which prompted one reviewer to write: "Four spell-binding tales of evil. These are can't-tear-your-eyes away stories that burn your imagination."
The studio approached writer/director David Koepp to adapt the novella to the screen, according to the film's producer Gavin Polone. Columbia Pictures has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Koepp that included his masterful screenplays for the recent hit films Spider-Man and Panic Room.
"King's novella was reminiscent of Stir of Echoes (one of Koepp's previous writing/directing efforts) because it's about a guy who seems to lose touch with reality," Polone says. "There were also similarities to the claustrophobic atmosphere of Panic Room, a thriller that essentially played out in one tiny room."
"I like 'guy-in-a-house-going-crazy' movies," laughs Koepp. "I enjoy the challenge of working out a story that takes place in a confined space. Even though there are some outdoor scenes, the story is really about Mort Rainey's (Johnny Depp) living space.
It's about somebody who's in a really bad place in his life where he is just spending way too much time alone at home. I wanted to explore the confinement and paranoia themes, which have always interested me. Confinement can be really scary, and having bad things happen in your living space can be truly unsettling."
King's tautly written novella also investigated the twin disasters of a prolific author undergoing a painful divorce and suffering from writer's block. Koepp, a successful, well-respected screenwriter, was able to bring an insider's perspective to the sometimes torturous process of writing. "I identify with Mort on some level because I'm familiar with his lifestyle," says Koepp. "Like many writers, he has a vivid internal life that he often has trouble expressing outwardly.
For instance, when I write, I'm usually in a room by myself, so I'm not used to interacting with many people. It can be difficult to make that change when you're so accustomed to living inside your own head. Then, John Shooter (John Turturro) shows up and Mort has somebody literally bursting through the door and that can be tough, especially because he is at a real emotional low point in his life."
Mort's affliction with writer's block only adds to his misery. "The process of writing is completely self-motivated," Koepp continues. "So if you're depressed, it's very hard to get up and work. The couch always looks so inviting.
We were careful to cast just the right couch for Mort. I tested all of them and personally napped on the one we ended up using because I don't know any writer who doesn't have a good nap couch."
Having input from a real writer, who was also the director, was a boon for Depp, who plays the tormented Mort. "David was very inspirational," Depp notes, adding that, from the start, he felt a kinship with Koepp, with whom he coincidentally shares the same birthday. Depp was further impressed that Koepp traveled all the way to the Caribbean - where Depp was playing the memorable rogue Captain Jack in The Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl - in order to woo him for the role of Mort Rainey.
What sold Depp on the part, however, was the quality of Koepp's writing.
"What I remember most was reading the screenplay, getting 10-15 pages into it and thinking, wow, this is incredibly well-written. The dialogue is real and not forced, with an interesting train-of-thought quality to it. The situations felt true. As I kept reading, I got to the point where I was totally invested emotionally in Mort and his dilemma. And then, when I got to the ingenious plot twist, I was completely shocked. I really didn't see it coming, which is very satisfying for a reader and I knew it would be for audiences as well."
Depp says he has an affinity for writers. He befriended legendary journalist and raconteur Hunter S. Thompson while preparing to play him in Terry Gilliam's adaptation of Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Depp will portray another legendary scribe, J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, in the upcoming film Neverland.
"I think for anyone in the creative arts, but especially for a writer, your imagination is your best friend. It can also be your worst enemy if you are plagued by too much thought, an overload of information in your head. That's Morty's problem. He's definitely a recluse. He's uncomfortable around people and just wants to be left alone.
Unfortunately, he can't leave himself alone."
Koepp sensed that an actor like Depp would innately understand the character and wrote it specifically with him in mind. Before voyaging to the Caribbean, Koepp sat down and composed a letter to Depp. "I wrote that I was hoping to cast him in Secret Window, that he was the guy I thought about when creating this character. He's one of our great actors, so inventive and so different every time. I've found him totally accessible as an actor throughout his career.
There is an old saying that if you aim for the general, you hit nothing, but if you aim for the specific, you might hit the universal. That sums up the body of Johnny's work. He is very meticulous and he draws us in by finding little moments of truth and behavior that people recognize and identify with. Therefore, they ultimately identify with the character. His choices are spontaneous and often unconventional, but they always work.
He is also a completely fearless actor. In terms of this character in particular, it's rare to find a movie star who is as unafraid as Johnny is to play fear. Needless to say, I was thrilled when he agreed to take the part."
Koepp's good fortune continued throughout the casting process, he contends. "I feel incredibly lucky. We got everyone we wanted, and that rarely happens. Once all the actors had fallen into place, it was a great relief. It was like having a great car and all I had to do was drive it and try not to crash it into a tree."
Prominent among his casting coups was snaring John Turturro for the role of the insidious John Shooter. "I really wanted John because he's one of those actors who really becomes the part, who creates a fully realized, credible person. And that was especially important in the case of Shooter. Because John is such a chameleon, audiences can't always quite put their finger on him, which is great for Shooter - a man who shows up out of nowhere and has an intangible, mysterious quality about him," Koepp says.
Koepp harbors a kind of guilty admiration for Turturro's character, someone with an apparent penchant for violence that comes from an untainted - if twisted - artistic conviction.
"I like to think of Shooter as an expression of pure art. There is no compromise about him. He writes for himself because he enjoys writing, not for any reward. He doesn't care if it's published or not and I think that's a manifestation of true art. Conversely, Mort is a commercially minded writer who hopes other people will like his work. That creates a wonderful conflict between the two of them. Shooter comes from a very different place - literally and figuratively. He is a dairy farmer from Mississippi who feels he has been wronged, and the movie tries, in part, to find out whether Mort plagiarized Shooter or not.
We never know exactly who is telling the truth, though we tend to believe Mort because Shooter is such a wacko and does scary things. But there is always that element of doubt."
Interestingly, Koepp notes, there is a certain creative kinship between the original story's author Stephen King and the character of Shooter. "When I was in the process of adapting the novella, I attended an event where Stephen King was speaking. He talked about retiring from writing and someone in the audience asked, 'You mean, you won't write at all?'
And he said, 'Oh, no, I'll write every day, I just won't publish it.' I think that's what a real artist does. He works and if there is a venue for it, great, but if not, he'll continue writing regardless."
While Turturro was familiar with King's work, the biggest Stephen King advocate in Turturro's family was his son, who was thrilled that his father would be in a movie based on one of the author's tales. "I've read a few of (King's) books and liked several (movie) adaptations, but my 13-year-old is his biggest fan," says Turturro. "My son is also the resident brain in our family and he reads all my scripts and he told me I definitely had to do this one.
The Characters' Unique Bond
Turturro, like Depp, has played writers in the past, notably as the eponymous hero in the Coen brothers' Barton Fink (who also suffered from writer's block). And he also has great respect for the process. "A writer is the initial creator," he says. "He starts with a blank scrap of paper and invents an entire world. There is something magical about that and it's the hardest thing to do. It requires an intense amount of mental work."
Whether or not Shooter is actually a writer, a delusional wannabe or perhaps something even more malevolent, is up to the audience to decide, Turturro contends. But it was the psychological twists and turns of the character's journey that intrigued him as an actor. "It's a different kind of film for me. I haven't really ever been in a psychological thriller. This one was different from anything I'd ever been in before. I thought it would be challenging and tricky. I didn't know how my performance would work itself out until I actually did it."
Another attraction was the opportunity to work with Depp. The characters share a unique bond in the film, tied to Shooter's fanatical insistence that Mort has plagiarized his story and Mort's equally zealous attempts to prove him wrong. This close, even symbiotic relationship led to several intense, mind-twisting scenes between the two actors which, says Turturro, required a special connection between them. "Johnny is very easy to work with and very generous. There is a real ease to his performance style. David gave us a lot of room to do our thing, and anything you throw at Johnny, he quickly catches and tosses back at you. He's very intuitive and inventive. As a performer, it's a big advantage to enjoy a common comfort zone with a fellow actor. And we definitely had that. Johnny also has a great sense of humor. We enjoy some common interests and we've worked with directors with similar sensibilities. I've always enjoyed his performances and was happy to have to chance to finally work with him."
One of the story's pivotal characters is Amy, Mort's estranged wife, played by Maria Bello. "I've wanted to work with Maria for a while now," Koepp says. "She is a wonderful actress who is able to convey a number of complex feelings at the same time. The audience should not be entirely sure how it feels about her character.
Like all good actors, she's complex and our empathy runs deeper than just liking her or not liking her. Maria's character veers back and forth between sympathetic and unsympathetic, so I wanted an actress who could handle that kind of depth."
Like Depp, Bello (known to TV audiences for her role as Dr. Anna Del Amico on "E.R.," and more recently as the sexy waitress who fortuitously falls in love with a gambler (William H. Macy) in The Cooler (for which she received Golden Globe and SAG award nominations as Best Supporting Actress), was intrigued by the intricacies of Koepp's screenplay. "First of all, I am a huge fan of thrillers and, in particular, of Stephen King. When I read the script, I was riveted by it. It's a real page-turner, and I truly didn't know how it would end. When I met with David, I walked into his office and just blurted out, 'I love your script!'
We talked and found we had similar ideas about the character and how she served the story."
The character of Amy, Bello observes, is the polar opposite of Mort - in style, attitude and temperament. "Amy is a woman whose world with Mort was falling apart and she tried to keep it together. I thought it would be an interesting dichotomy to play her as someone who is really in control of her life, just trying to get things done as best she can, trying to persevere even though her marriage has unraveled and her divorce has become increasingly difficult. I also made a physical choice to reflect that -- I decided to wear hair extensions, à la Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. Her long hair, how she stood and the elegant, simple way she dressed, always reminded me of a thoroughbred. It's a strong contrast to Mort's 'shlumpy' attitude."
As Amy is drawn into the increasingly unpredictable and violent vortex of Mort's life, Bello was required to perform several stunts.
She relished the opportunity. "I was really taken by how much she loved the physical demands of the role," Koepp comments. "She wanted to do a lot of it herself and was really great at rolling around in the dirt and slugging it out."
As it happens, Bello began her career as a self-described "action heroine" and was happy to return to the more physical aspects of her craft. "I did a television show a long time ago called "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," in which I performed many of my own stunts like kickboxing and fighting, and I really enjoyed it. So, it was a treat to have stunts to do in Secret Window."
Her physical activities, Bello notes, bolstered the increasing psychological intensity of her scenes. "There was a four-day sequence that was particularly demanding.
I remember just before one particular take, I jumped off a stair a few times to get my energy up and was wondering how I would maintain my energy. But then my adrenalin took over. In life, there is no preparing for threatening or surprising situations and, after a certain point, my heart and my body just took over. I stopped thinking so much, which was perfect for the scene and helped keep me real and spontaneous.
In addition to working opposite Depp, Bello shared several scenes with actor Timothy Hutton, who portrayed her new lover Ted. "I've always loved Johnny's choices as an actor. And this film was no exception. The layers he brought to Mort, the levels he achieved, were fascinating and inspiring. I've also been a huge fan of Timothy Hutton. So, it was a real treat to be working with both of them," Bello continues. "A strong degree of trust developed between us.
It was a truly wonderful collaborative atmosphere, and we all learned something new every day."
Such a productive environment enabled Hutton to capture the edge of his character, a morally ambiguous figure who, at various points, can be construed as a nice guy caught in a bad situation, or as someone who is much more sinister.
He credits the nuance of Koepp's script for giving him the tools to flesh out the character. "The characters he wrote are full, rich and multi-dimensional," says Hutton. "I love that they start out one way and they take these unexpected turns that surprised the hell out of me."
"From the first time I read the screenplay, I saw an opportunity to play the character of Ted in a way that the audience would never really know where he was coming from. It was great to take him right to the edge and yet leave his motives ambiguous. It's never quite clear whether Ted is a good guy or a stinker."
A Civilized Façade
"Mort is a guy whose life, work and even his wife, have been taken from him, and to a certain extent he feels that everyone around him is responsible," Hutton continues. "As the story progresses the characters' lives and emotions become increasingly interwoven, and you're not quite sure who is interfering with whom. It could be Ted. It could be Shooter. It could even be Amy. It's a wonderfully paranoid thriller with the suspense playing out until the very end."
Charles S. Dutton assumed the role of Ken Karsch, the urbane New York detective who is a friend of Mort's and is hired to make sense of the increasingly disturbing and perilous events that ensue after Shooter first appears. With his sleek, tailor-made suits and strategic jewelry, coupled with the understated yet undeniable grit, cleverness and street smarts of an ex-cop, Karsch is a unique and indomitable force - who, ironically, proves to be as vulnerable as Mort.
"Charles is an extremely authoritative actor," says Koepp. "His voice, his bearing, his whole presence, convey a strength and a sort of effortless certainty," Koepp says. "I liked that Ken was exactly the kind of person Mort would turn to in this situation. Mort is frightened and feels unsafe, so he reaches out to someone he thinks can protect him the best."
Interestingly, the man Mort hires Karsch to trail is someone Dutton has known in real life for quite some time. "I've known John for 20 years," he says. "We went to school together, but we've never had the opportunity to work together in a film.
Even though we didn't have any scenes together, at least we're in the same film," Dutton laughs.
Secret Window marks the second time Dutton has worked with Depp. "It's always a gas working with Johnny. He's an old pro and has a certain kind of automatic coolness he brings to all of his roles. The mystery of the story was great.
It taps into that little dark side in all of us."
Dutton was particularly impressed by Koepp's abilities as a director. "David is not an intrusive director. He's been doing this long enough to know that casting is 80% of the job. He basically let us do what we do, though he was fast, witty, intelligent and knew what he wanted - which is extremely helpful in a movie like this. To give you an example, I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to play Ken, but David was good at offering the little nuances. After a couple of notes, the tendency as an actor is to do the obvious unless you have a good director who can say, "No back off here and there.' My first instinct was to act the tough guy, but after a few discussions with David we decided to hold the tough guy stuff for later in the performance."
Dutton adds that, contrary to popular belief, it was a boon to have the writer on the set at all times. "I imagined it might be a headache to have a director who is also the writer.
It could have been, 'Hey, listen, I wrote this. I know exactly what I want, and you're not doing it the way I envisioned it.' But it was the exact opposite with David.
He'd let you change the dialogue if it was appropriate.
He would ask, 'What do you think?
Is this too wordy?
Is there too much there? Is it too corny?'
So, in that regard, it was very pleasant, because he was so open to new ideas."
"During the course of shooting a movie, the days become long and we all become a little anesthetized," Koepp explains. "So, anytime you can do something unexpected, I think it helps the actors. There is a scene at the beginning of the movie where Mort bursts into a motel room and finds Amy and Ted in bed together and realizes she's been cheating on him. I wanted Maria and Tim to really be startled.
Since we shot the scene at night, we rigged the lights so that they would all be out until the moment Johnny opened the door and then we hit Maria and Tim with a huge amount of light. We also hid some huge stereo speakers behind various objects, and I cranked up some really nasty acid rock. It produced quite a nice reaction. They had literally been in the dark while we were setting up the shot, so they had no idea what was coming."
Bello recalls that the tactic was extremely effective. "Tim and I had no idea what was going on outside our little motel room set. We must have been in that bed for 20 minutes in the dark. We didn't even hear David call action and we weren't sure when Johnny was going to come through the door.
So, when the door burst open and this crazy loud music came on, we freaked. It was so real we couldn't help but react. Most directors would have said, 'OK, sit here with the camera, pretend he is coming through the door, ready, go.'
But David gave us so much to work with. He has this amazing sense of humor, and he's incredibly smart. He really let us play and explore. I'm so impressed with him as a director. He and Johnny really set such a nice tone on the set. They're both very easygoing."
Sometimes, Koepp admits, his surprises didn't always work according to plan. There was another scene with Bello that required her to be terrified the entire day, while Koepp shot her from a variety of angles. About midway through, Koepp attempted to shake things up a bit by rigging another shock. "I asked the prop guy for a gun because I wanted to shoot a starter pistol on the third or fourth take, when Maria had become complacent. I was all excited about it and passed the word to the crew to wear earplugs. When I fired it, it turned out to be a cap gun, only slightly louder than my 6-year-old's toy gun. It actually made her laugh. The good news is that the actors are all so good that they didn't really need that sort of thing."
For Koepp, Secret Window is very much in keeping with his body of work. He has considerable experience in the thriller genre. All the films he has directed fall into this category, as have several of the scripts he's written. 'I don't know why I am drawn to thrillers. I'm from Wisconsin and we're very nice people.
But, you know, everyone has some sort of nasty impulse inside them and it has to come out somewhere. Fortunately, I work in a field where I can express that in a legal manner," Koepp deadpans.
Beyond that, Koepp admits that he is fascinated by exploring the surface people present and what's below it. "Everyone has their pleasant, civilized façade, but what are the instincts and impulses that lurk below that? Who acts on them and who doesn't? Those are the kind of questions I'm drawn to. In terms of the movie-going experience of a thriller, I think that it's quite compelling, especially when we watch it as a group in a theater. There is a communal pull that both suspense movies and comedies have in common."
A Nod to Kubrick
With a nod to Stanley Kubrick's great, dark comedic "thriller" Dr. Strangelove, Koepp and his crew kept themselves on track with what was affectionately known as 'The Big Board' - an oversized rectangular cardboard panel revealing the day's shot list in a series of detailed storyboards. Koepp delighted in crossing off the storyboards as he completed the scenes.
Through 'The Big Board,' Koepp also displayed his theory of shooting suspense thrillers. "Suspense sequences are really all about pieces. What is the character looking at? You need to see his face. You need to see what he saw - and maybe what he didn't see. It all comes together in pieces, as opposed to something you shoot in blanket coverage and try to put together later. Any suspenseful sequence needs to be very carefully designed. Coverage is no substitute for style.
You have to develop an approach, an attitude. The only way to do that is to figure it all out ahead of time. I had the luxury of a lot of prep time during which we created some detailed animatics - basically animated storyboards that take you through the entire sequence. In some cases, I had people read dialogue over them to give me a sense of the timing. It's a great technique. It helps you realize when you're missing something or if you have too many shots."
This kind of detailed preparation made the actual shoot much smoother, yet not so rigid that it short-circuited the spontaneity of the creative process. "There is nothing worse than being on a sound stage or on location and realizing that things are not well thought out," says Koepp. "Storyboards and careful preparation help avoid that. But there are times when a different inventive way to cover a scene presents itself, and I always want to have the freedom to try it. Other times you just have to get the hell out of the way and let the actors act. It's a balance. I see some sequences where I need to take over a little more and others where my job is to notice what the actors do naturally and make sure the camera is in the right place to record it."
Often, Koepp is able to do both by skipping the traditional establishing shot in favor of a whip pan shot from the actor to the next position. "I like the whip pan, because it adds movement, takes you from one place to another quickly and is easy to cut into," Koepp explains.
Koepp worked closely with his cinematographer Fred Murphy, with whom he'd previously worked on Stir of Echoes. In preparation for production, Koepp and Murphy watched several notable suspense films, including Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant and John Boorman's Deliverance. Taking a cue from the latter film, Murphy opted to shoot Secret Window in the wide screen Super 35 format, an interesting choice for a movie that, on some levels, is about confined spaces and the intimate, inner workings of the protagonist's mind.
"I like the wide screen for close-ups, because it allows you to add more to the background," says Murphy. "It also opens things up more, so the movie doesn't feel so claustrophobic.
We had several scenes at the lake near Mort's cabin, and the wide screen allowed us to take advantage of the great scenery."
The danger with shooting in wide screen, however, is that it's hard to conceal any mistakes, and there were plenty of opportunities for error since Koepp was interested in employing a recurrent theme of reflections. "Much of the movie is about a guy in his house by himself. That's very interior. But Fred opened it up by including multiple reflections. This is really a mirror movie. At one point Fred said he's never had as many mirrors in a film as in this one.
Because it is about reflection -- looking at yourself and seeing things you may not like -- mirrors are a major element, particularly the large one over Mort's fireplace. A mirror also makes the set look bigger, providing for some interesting shots. But you have to be so careful because the actors aren't the only thing that's reflected. The crew and the equipment can show up too. It was hard to work with, but the film definitely looked better and was more visually compelling."
The mirror images that had been scripted were challenging enough, but as the movie progressed, other reflections organically manifested themselves, and Murphy and his crew had to accommodate for them. For instance, a shot where Mort comes upon Karsch sleeping like a dead man in his car at night became a "mirror shot" when Koepp and Murphy saw that they could capture Mort's reflection in the car window.
"One of the difficulties about filming reflections, especially in mirrors, is that they tend to go darker so we always have to equalize the light," Murphy explains. "For the shots involving the mirror in the living room, we could plan ahead in terms of lighting. Other possibilities for reflections, like the one of Karsch in the car at night, just appeared. But in order for us to realize the effect of Mort's face reflected in the car window, we had to rig a special light so it shined brightly into his face. Fortunately, it worked out very nicely."
Koepp and Murphy also exercised a wide variety of cinematic devices to slowly reveal the truth about Mort's demons. They included several carefully choreographed crane and dolly moves, including an elaborate series that opened the film and a special 'Technocrane' shot that pierced the living room mirror, snaked through Mort's cabin and ended up outside in the driveway. That shot also required the use of a Super-8 camera and cross processing, a special manipulation of the Ektachrome film developed through a color negative process that results in higher contrast and increased graininess.
Another approach was to bathe Mort's memories of his previous life with Amy in a sunshiny glow with brighter, more cheerful colors in bold contrast to the drab hues that pervade his life after their break-up.
That palette is echoed in Odette Gadoury's costumes and, as Gadoury notes, took its cues from Mort's dispirited and confused personality. "We tried to keep Mort's colors mid-tone, the kind of range that was very strong at some point, but faded down as if it had been exposed to the sun. We took colors like burgundy, brown and blue and aged the wardrobe to make them appear almost smoky.
For me, Mort is lost -- he's a kind of shadow.
He's in a kind of 'Twilight Zone' and we wanted his wardrobe to reflect that. Everything he wears is loose and wrinkled and washed out - not too bright, not too dark. By comparison, his character in flashback is dressed in more colorful, brighter apparel. The overall effect is to make him seem even more vulnerable in the present.
Mort's vulnerability is underlined when his appearance is contrasted with that of Shooter, whose wardrobe featured stronger, darker and sharper lines. "Some of Shooter's wardrobe was scripted already," says Gadoury. "But I thought that by always wearing the same thing, he would be more consistently menacing. I wanted a strong silhouette for Shooter, especially compared to Mort."
Gadoury notes that Turturro is not a "hat person,' which posed a predicament, since Shooter's trademark topper is a major plot point. In the end, she had to specially construct Shooter's signature broad-brimmed hat to work with Turturro's features. A bigger challenge, she contends, was coming up with Depp's wardrobe, since Mort has given up on everything in his life, including any sartorial interests, which limited her options.
"It's harder when characters only wear one or two costumes in a movie and that's what Mort and Shooter do. In this film, it all had to be right from the start. And we had to make a lot of doubles!"
Gadoury has previously worked on such thrillers as the upcoming Wicker Park and Brian de Palma's Snake Eyes (for which Koepp wrote the screenplay). Secret Window, she says, was a particularly character-driven project with little room for error in the costumes. So Gadoury collaborated closely with the film's two lead actors. "I enjoyed working with Johnny and John (Turturro) because they were both very concerned with their costumes. For me, it's important for them to feel like their clothes are a second skin.
So, before I did anything, I discussed it with them. They had a lot to say about their wardrobe and we tried out many different outfits before we hit on the right ones."
Her conversations with Depp resulted in Mort's signature costume: A tattered, striped bathrobe. "That was Johnny's idea. I had long talks with both David and Johnny about it. At the first fitting in New York, I had a real one from a costume shop that Johnny fell in love with. We couldn't use that exact one, because it was unique and we needed to have duplicates, so I bought a new one and we aged it and dyed it, so that it was as comfy and soft as a baby blanket. I thought it was an interesting idea that a guy who doesn't care anymore and naps all the time always wears this same bathrobe."
The Magritte Shot
In the final sequence, in which Mort's life has been completely inverted, the filmmakers planned an appropriate costume switch - something much more presentable than the careworn bathrobe. "We decided to have some fun with David, and Johnny came out in a smoking jacket that was basically a more refined version of the bathrobe.
David just shook his head and said, 'No, no, please, not another bathrobe!'" Gadoury laughs.
The only character Gadoury dressed in vivid colors was Amy, and then only in the happier times of her life.
Like Mort, Amy had a uniform of sorts, designed, in part, for the scenes depicting her unpredictable meetings with her soon to-be-ex-husband - a jean jacket, a black camisole, cropped khaki pants and black flat Prada shoes. The outfit was simple, sexy and hip, just like Amy, but more importantly, it allowed Bello freedom of motion so she could run, jump and dive, depending on the action the sequence required.
The cast and crew spent three weeks shooting interior and exterior scenes at a tranquil, rustic resort in Quebec known as Sacacomie, where Mort's cabin is situated on the banks of the fictitious Tashmore Lake. Nestled amidst a rambling forest of pine and maple trees, abutting the majestic Lake Sacacomie, the resort offered the appropriate topography for Mort's lakeside retreat and a pastoral lodge in which to house the crew and the ad-hoc production office.
What it lacked, however, was Mort's cabin, which was designed and constructed by production designer Howard Cummings and his team. The long wooden cabin contained a screened-in porch and a shallow second floor that housed Mort's office and the small "secret window" overlooking Amy's garden.
"We wanted the cabin to be close to the water, and it ended up being about 20 feet from the lake," says Cummings. "But the ground there was bedrock so we ultimately had to lift it up nine feet.
Since we only had three weeks to work at Sacacomie, we built the cabin for several exterior scenes and interior scenes as well - in case we ran into bad weather. We rebuilt the interior on stage later, which we also had to raise nine feet off the ground."
While a raised set is never popular with crew technicians because they have to hoist up the equipment, they realized Cummings had no choice. The cabin set that was built on stage was slightly oversized, so it was easier to work in and included walls that could be removed or changed to accommodate the camera moves. Because of the perspective of the original cabin, which was juxtaposed against the real Lake Sacacomie, Cummings had to also elevate the stage-built cabin to overlook the two-dimensional 'translight' version of the lake. Cummings said that what read as a "simple story about a guy at a lake in a cabin" ended up being one of the most complicated sets he's ever had to construct. But he derived great satisfaction with how it turned out and how well it suited the story.
"The first time we saw the location, it was covered in snow, so we couldn't get a true sense of it, yet it seemed to have all the things we needed.
It was isolated and had a place for us to put the cabin so it would be right next to the lake, which we wanted. The irony is that Mort never actually goes to the lake.
He always stays inside the cabin, which is dark and gloomy but also strangely comforting and reassuring - at least to Mort," Cummings notes.
Throughout the story, the audience gets a glimpse of the lake, which provides a pristine, sparkling contrast to Mort's dank and morose interior life. During the ominous nighttime sequences, when Mort is stalked by the malevolent Shooter, the lake, which was lit with Fred Murphy's strategically placed lamps, was further enhanced by a layer of ghostly smoke, giving it an eerie portentousness.
In addition to creating the same set twice, Cummings also had to design one set just to be burned down. In a series of bizarre and sinister events in the film, the house that Amy and Mort had shared as man and wife is mysteriously torched. Amy, Mort, Ted and a cadre of investigators survey the charred aftermath.
"Their house had to be in a neighborhood, since we see it in flashback, but, clearly, we couldn't actually burn someone's house down," Cummings explains. "We found a house we liked in another part of town where we shot the scenes of Amy and Mort in their happy days together. Then we went online and researched a bunch of burnt down houses until we found one that looked similar to the one we'd used and we built a set to look like it on a vacant lot in the middle of an upscale Canadian suburb. It had all the proper plastering, brick and lattice work. We took all the burnt pieces and 'rebuilt' them into a partial façade, matching its position to the original 'flashback' house, and adding additional burnt wood and fake ash," Cummings says.
The production also filmed in several Quebec locations, including the town of North Hatley, which provided a view of Lake Massawippi from the small police station set that Cummings sandwiched in between the town's quaint restaurant, gift shop and clapboard drugstore. Lake Massawippi, along with Lake Sacacomie and Lake Gale - a green lagoon full of frogs in the village of Bromont -- were merged for the production to become Stephen King's Tashmore Lake.
On the stage-built version of Mort's cabin, the crew filmed not only the interior cabin scenes but several elaborate motion control and green screen sequences. These painstaking shots primarily revolved around Mort's slow recognition of his true inner self. Depp played both Mort and "the inner Mort," which meant that he had to separately film both parts, essentially acting opposite himself. In one of the green screen sequences, a wall of green enveloped the entire set and the camera, serving as Mort's inner voice, circled Depp as he reacted to "himself."
Later, Depp replaced the camera, taking on the part of Mort's secret self.
In another version, Mort's inner voice bedevils him from various points around the cabin. Those points were earmarked by orange circles placed at the edge of poles. Depp anthropomorphized his marks by drawing smiley faces on them. "There was nothing to react off of except this little orange, round thing," notes Depp, "so I drew a face on it. In those kinds of situations, the level of absurdity is so high that it becomes a challenge -- a grown man standing in the middle of a circle screaming at a c-stand with an orange face on it. It doesn't get much weirder than that.
It's bizarre but also a fun sort of obstacle. You just put yourself in his situation and go with it."
It sounds as if Depp was both in the moment and outside it, too -- a rather appropriate manifestation of his character's increasingly peculiar and dangerous psychological state. His affliction is known as dissociation, the state in which part of a person's life becomes separated from the rest of his personality and acts independently. Often, this occurs as a result of trauma - in Mort's case, the shock of his wife's infidelity and the subsequent disintegration of his marriage.
"The idea is that this pushes Mort to a place where a light goes out for him and that part of him is completely in the dark," Depp sums up. "When he blacks out, though, another light comes on somewhere else.
Koepp depicted the extent of Mort's dissociation in what came to be known as 'The Magritte Shot,' because it resembled a painting by the famous Surrealist artist.
In the painting, the viewer sees a man looking into a mirror. But instead of his facial reflection, we see the back of the man's head. Executing the shot with Depp required the intricate timing of two cameras filming him in front of the mirror -- with the glass replaced by green screen. Visual effects supervisor Gray Marshall worked in tandem with Murphy to realize the effect. Murphy approached with one camera looking at Depp and one behind him. One camera was devoted to Depp and the other served as the "reflection camera." The latter had to be bigger and faster to compensate for movement and perspective, since objects appear larger in mirrors than in reality.
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