Maria Isabel Lopez

Movie Silip

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0292236/

How was Elwood’s directorial style? From what I can tell, he was creating a psychodrama which everyone was reacting to.

Well, Elwood is a lot of surprises. He would put situations to the actors and actresses that he didn’t want us to act. We had a scene where Sarsi and I were going to be killed by some people, and we were dying. He just wanted us to look real, because we’re actors and actresses we could always make a scene real by just believing. Stanislavsky Method – see, believe. In one scene we were tied and in a tent, and there were a group of men who were going to gang rape us. And I cannot imagine why they really tied us so hard. So I said, “This is too much, this is too painful!” And I realized that they wanted us to struggle – like he (Elwood) motivated the actors to attempt to really touch us, and that we would be angry, he wanted to show that anger. So I actually resented Elwood for a while after that scene. But of course I also got over it. I finally understood the director’s intentions. But he could be a lot of surprises, and he could also be deceitful in a way, he could also be manipulative. I had always thought a director would really motivate the stars. In the case of Elwood I do believe in him as a director, I have high praises for this guy, but at some point he could also be manipulative to the actors and actresses.

He always has the finished film in his mind, so it’s a case of “by any means necessary”, even if it means trampling over the actors.

How do you remember reacting to the film?

Well I was also under so much pressure, because news came out that my director tried to manipulate us into doing this gang rape scene we were really tied and we were angry, me and Sarsi