Cannes Film Fest
Sean Baker had just watched Coppola present George Lucas with an honorary Palme d’Or, something that threw Baker for a loop because those two filmmakers loomed large in his youth. But as he’s listening to Lucas, he’s also processing the fact that, by process of elimination, his movie might have just won the festival. Which it did.
Baker is pulling out a speech that he scratched out on a piece of paper an hour before the ceremony, something he put together hastily–he calls it his “junior high speech.”
“Lucas was on my right watching me deliver it, which was more than a little nerve-racking,” Baker says. “And then we were taking photos, and I’m standing next to him, and I thought, ‘OK. I have to tell him something. What am I going to say?’ And I told him I made ‘Space Wars’ in 1978 when I was 7 years old, and I hope he doesn’t sue me.”
Mikey Madison, who plays “Anora’s” title character, a Brooklyn stripper who meets and marries the feckless son of a Russian oligarch, has never heard this story.
“Do you think the tape still exists?” she asks of Baker’s Super 8 film. “Because I need to see this.” “I’m sure it’s just ‘Star Wars’ toys flying around against the star field,” Baker says. “I’m probably playing Luke Skywalker, and I think my sister was probably Princess Leia.”
The tone of Anora changes with the arrival of Toros (Karren Karagulian), an Armenian priest who doubles as Ivan’s fixer; his burly sidekick Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan); and a brooding yet sympathetic Russian, Igor (Yura Borisov), intending to annul the marriage at all costs.
“I forget who said this quote, ‘Comedy is in a wide shot; tragedy is in a close-up,'” Baker says. “For that sequence, we are seeing the absurdity of their argument and seeing that Ani is holding her own against these guys. I hope that the audience feels just as threatened as Ani. But soon after you realize that they’re not that dangerous, and one of them is even a teddy bear.
Madison concurs: “You’re challenging people, not just handing them things. I love that Sean flips it on its head and makes it something completely different.”
Asking Dad to Buy a Pole to Train as a Stripper
Madison was shooting a limited series in Baltimore at the time, where she found a great stripper-owned dance studio, and started taking classes. She was told to install a pole in her house for training.
She decided to call her father: “Hey, Dad, can you please help me with something? Can you pick something and then just install it at my house? There will be instructions.’ And he said, ‘Sure.’ And he did it.”
“The good news,” Baker says, “is that her father has seen the film several times and really likes it.” “Yes, he brings all my family members to see it,” Madison says, laughing.
And what are the reactions?
“Either I will hear nothing, or people will reach out and send some very nice text messages,” Madison says.
The Movie’s Ending
One thing that Baker and Madison have consistently encountered is eagerness to talk about the movie’s ending. Interpretations range from hope to despair to a middle ground that contains a little bit of both. There’s no dialogue, just Ani and Igor inside a car as snow falls outside and the windshield wipers rhythmically break the silence. Igor has returned her expensive wedding ring; Ani thanks him the only way she knows how. He pushes her boundaries, and tries to kiss her, and she collapses in his arms, sobbing.
“Originally, there was some dialogue, but on the day of shooting we decided that it was best to keep all the communication nonverbal,” Baker says. “It was very stressful. Endings, to me, are the most important part of cinematic storytelling.”
“I did write an epilogue that I gave to the actors, just to put it in their heads,” Baker says. “They could agree with me or not, but at least they knew what I was thinking.”
“I remember reading that ending, thinking, ‘There’s no way we’re gonna shoot this,'” Madison tells Baker. “It was very heartwarming. There was something about it that wrapped things up in too perfect of a bow. I read it and thought, ‘This is not going to be the end of the movie.'”
Baker’s favorite ambivalent ending is in the French Connection: “You don’t know what happens with Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) at the end of the movie. He runs into the distance, disappears and then you hear a shot.
“That’s my favorite kind of ending,” he says, “one that allows you to write it again and again. And maybe it’s different each time you see it.”
