Related Images invites readers behind the scenes and into the sketchbooks of working filmmakers to learn more about their creative processes.
Ernst De Geer’s The Hypnosis is now showing exclusively on MUBI in many countries.
We shot two scenes from the film three years before we did the actual feature, as part of the Wild Card initiative by the Swedish Film Institute and SVT. This was before we had even written the screenplay. The scenes were not to use in the final film, just to inform us in our process. We cast Herbert Nordrum and Asta Kamma August for it, so we got to work together for a lot longer than usual for a film.
I wanted the process of making The Hypnosis to be more loose than was usual for me. I had made a lot of works in film school that were planned out and controlled, and thought something more organic would better suit the story of the film. Me and Jonathan Bjerstedt, the cinematographer, decided early that this battle between control and freedom would be the backbone of our camera work.
Since we are who we are, we still planned a lot of it. We ended up living in the same hotel we shot the film in. This gave us the possibility to spend a ton of time on location before the shoot, which made it possible for us to pretty much pre-photograph every image in the film with an iPhone. The film was made walking and sitting around the hotel, trying to find the right shots. We ended up with a lot of photos of me.
Here are some references we put together, these are for framing. We didn't use it very actively, but put it together to find a common language.
Left to right, from top: Cold War (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2018), La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961), A Sudden Gust of Wind (Jeff Wall, 1993), The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt, 2015), The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012), Beginners (Mike Mills, 2011), Yarden (Måns Månsson, 2016), Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017), 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963), La Notte, La Notte, Le Bonheur (Agnès Varda, 1965), Cold War, La Notte, Le Bonheur, Le Bonheur, La Notte, The American Friend (Wim Wenders, 1977).