Joss on The Body
The Body obviously was quite an experiment. I thought people were going to hate it. I thought they were going to go glassy eyed and just wish it was over.
It wasn’t supposed to be cathartic, or fun or helpful or anything like that, it was just supposed to be what it’s like in that situation for the first four hours [after a bereavement].
The deadness, the lack of music, the no cutting, every act being in one scene, it was all supposed to be relentless, almost a kind of boredom to create what I wanted to capture.
People ended up having a very different response to it though. They ended up really being able to break through those feelings for themselves by seeing it. That surprised me very much so I was very moved by that - I think it means that we captured that experience.
What were your directorial influences when shooting The Body?
With The Body, it’s embarrassing how much you can tell [I'd] been watching a lot of PT Anderson before I shot it.
It was really just about trying to do the long sustained take, not to let people out, not to give them any kind of release. There were some scenes that were very cutty because we had a lot of people in them, but as much as possible it has a physical sense of 'I have to go from here to here. I can’t cut to Buffy reaching for the phone and calling 911, I have to walk there and walk back'.
Even if a scene is pointless and strange, I have to be with the person throughout the entire experience.
The surprises that come in that show come from people’s attitudes. Anya unexpectedly being not just annoying, and Tara, revealing what she’s gone through, making the connection with Buffy, those were the plot twists.
The vampire was this intrusive thing, the climax that was just that thing of being very physical. Dawn having a naked man attacking her, the physicality of everything. The throwing up, the kiss. Everything being more visceral than we're used to.
