Despite some reluctance, Wes Craven is a name-brand filmmaker. The phrase "Wes Craven Presents" comes with certain expectations thanks to the financial success of the Scream franchise and The Hills Have Eyes series before that. But what cemented Craven's reputation is A Nightmare on Elm Street, a deathless cycle of films that he only directed and scripted two installments of. In time for the release of commemorative documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, we talked to Craven about how star Robert Englund's performance is like Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, which porno films Craven worked on, and why Her is actually a horror film.
In Never Sleep Again, one of Nightmare on Elm Street's cast members says that on set, she would ask you questions about what's going on in the film, and you told her, "I can't explain it; it's just a dream." You've also said that the process of making a horror film brings you, your cast, and crew together because it's a controlled environment where you express otherwise terrifying experiences. Is not knowing how to neatly process what's happening in the moment part of that bonding experience, or, in your words, that "catharsis"?
That's strange. Sometimes I hear a free-floater say something that I said on the set, but that wasn't a real saying! [laughs] I usually have very pithy explanations for everything on the set. But [Nightmare on Elm Street] was the first film in which I dealt with the dream state. Some of it was based on knowledge -- the dreams I've had -- and some of it was based on intuition. So most of that is too lengthy to explain to an actor or actress on the set. I tried to tell the actors everything they need to know about what's going in their teenage lives at that moment. It was its own reality.
Can you think of an example of when your cast brought something of their own experiences to their roles that you hadn't anticipated?
As a director you're always trying to do that. For instance, with Robert Englund, I always encouraged him to make [Freddy] his own. In fact, from casting on, I realized the power of that man. He was ready, and enthusiastic about exploring that persona in a way that came from his own imagination, as well as mine. The physicality of the character, for instance, was not necessarily on the page; much of it was was Robert experimenting and improvising based on a theme. It's a little bit like Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. The melody lines for that album's songs were very simple, and they had these great players go into the recording studio -- John Coltrane and Gil Evans and so forth -- and they came out with something that's based on the melody lines, but everybody brought their own genius to it through improvisation. That was the secret of that film in Robert's case; he was able to take the ball and run with it.
When they're criticized, horror films and porn are often conflated. You've directed both kinds of film: Do you think people watch both types of films in the same way?
In the overall history of porn, it's about satisfying the physical urge. With horror, people call certain subgenres of horror films "torture porn" because they seem to indulge in grotesqueness, or exploitation of characters, or scenes of torture. I think people want to be taken into a different world that is unique and exciting because it's different. But on some level -- and this is something I've always felt -- it has to be related to something very real to the audience, both consciously and subconsciously: for instance, the world of dreams. The power of the nightmare is that it addresses something that is universally recognized. In that sense, it's very real, but not something that's normally treated as reality. That's a profoundly important world, it's just not easily explained or mapped out by the rational mind of human beings.
Continue reading "Wes Craven: I Always Encouraged Robert Englund to Make Freddy Krueger His Own."
--Simon Abrams
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