COMMENTARY: Hey, I'm Fede Alvarez. I'm the director and the writer of this film.
Hello, this is Rodo Sayagues. I'm the writer.
And this is Stephen Lang, and I play the Blind Man in this film.
And we've gathered to a screening of the film...
...with our commentary.
It's a bunch of logos.
But there's definitely something that I think it's...
It's the only interesting part about the logos, is we always...
We start... The movie starts right away... Like the soundtrack...
That eerie soundtrack starts on the first image of the movie, there's no...
That's hopefully when the audience gets hooked...
...and we never really let them go until the end.
Detroit.
And there you are, Slang.
- I know. - Dragging that poor girl...
...down the street for real. Ha, ha.
- That was a... That was a day. - Ha, ha.
She was a...
She's... She's a... You know...
She doesn't look like she's too big...
...but she got real heavy that day, somehow. Heh, heh.
Well, we did this shot I think two or three times.
And... And I demanded you do all the dragging.
There was no help. It was just you, all muscle...
...dragging her like three times down the street.
- Right. - And this one is the third shot.
And I remember at the end of this one you were like, "Okay. Hope you got it."
[COMMENTATORS LAUGHING]
Oh, that's a beauty.
- You got it good. - Yeah.
It works pretty well, like, the whole... You think you're...
You're in just suburban America.
And bit by bit, as you get closer to the characters...
...you realize there's a lot more.
- You know? - Totally.
You see it.
Don't Breathe.
I've come to really like the title of this film.
Cool. It used to be called Man in the Dark.
Well, I was... At the time I was so wedded to that title.
Me, too.
[ALARM BEEPING]
WOMAN: ...17... MONEY: Yo, kill that already.
COMMENTARY: Rodo and I, we loved Man in the Dark...
...because it's the name that we stamped on the script when we finished it.
But we got to love Don't Breathe as well.
Yeah. Actually I think it changed names more than twice.
- Really? - Yeah.
- What were the other titles? - There were a lot of them.
Don't Breathe in the Dark. The Blind Man was something...
...that we actually were very keen to title at some point.
- Just Blind Man. - Uh-huh.
[♪♪♪]
Oh!
I just... I love Danny's character, you know...
- ...just sort of the cavalier nature of it. - Yeah.
He's swag.
So most of the movie was shot in...
We did Detroit, and we did Budapest. And this is actually...
Actually in Budapest, like a house outside a city.
Yeah, I think it's the only location stuff we did in the city.
Then the rest in Budapest was all inside a studio.
Except remember, we did shoot the train station.
True. The train station.
- Which I thought was just great. - I loved that.
Yeah, it used to be an old airport, I think.
But here we're definitely in Detroit. Back flying with the drone around the city.
How many days did we shoot in Detroit?
We spent like a week there. But we shot like a couple days, I guess.
And this was an entire day of just, you know...
Is that ladybug real?
- Yes, it is. Heh, heh. - Did you get...
Did you have like a lady bug wrangler...
- ...when you were doing that? - We did.
We had an animal wrangler that took care of...
From, you know... From everything... From the dogs to the ladybug.
But that's one of the strange things of filmmaking that, of course everybody...
When...
When the page says ladybug, everybody goes for CG ladybug right away.
And I didn't want to use CG, ha, ha, if I could help it...
...because it's a movie that doesn't need it or have it.
So to just have suddenly a CG ladybug could have been a problem.
And we really went for it, and we had a couple of them.
It was very, very hot, so ladybugs don't survive under extreme heat.
So you cannot... You actually can't put the disclaimer that no ladybugs...
- ...were harmed. - None of them were harmed...
...it was just the fact that we couldn't find them...
...and some of them just died before they arrived on set.
But, yeah, we ended up doing it with a real ladybug.
- We laugh now about this. - Heh, heh.
We'll hear about it.
This is Detroit.
The family of Alex.
Actually, you were saying there's no...
There's no CGI in this.
And we never... I don't recall any green screen either.
- Did we? - No. No, no, no.
- That's a rarity these days, my friend. - Yeah.
But I guess... You know, I like when... If you can pull it off...
...I think it's good, make it more classy.
But that was the whole approach of this movie, since day one...
...I was trying to do this, you know, in a very classy way.
Not doing anything that was, you know, top of the line...
...CG or visual effects, because stuff like that gets old.
And a good story, I think, will never get old.
Was this script inspired by any events you read about in the paper?
I think it was life, right?
Rodo and I were actually driving back from San Diego one day and thought...
We kind of created the character of the Blind Man.
And all the story kind of came out of that.
But... Yeah, but there were stories, right?
Yeah, with that case, I remember exactly where it happened.
This guy that kept a girl in a basement...
...for many, many years.
Yeah, there was one in Switzerland, I think ages ago.
Unfortunately, there's been many others.
And probably there's others we don't know about. Those are the scary ones...
- ...the ones that are ongoing. - So we thought what if burglars...
- ...break into that guy's house? - Right.
And find this... This...
Crime going on.
So we thought that would be cool.
Which is kind of the fun of this movie, like, nobody is good.
So you were in the car and you just sort of spun the story out to each other?
- Yeah, I guess so. - Something like that, yeah.
Something like that. I mean, we knew that...
That we wanted to...
Because the whole girl in the cellar thing kind of came later.
I think the first part of the idea was...
...to tell the story from the point of view of robbers.
Because it's something that you don't see often and...
And as far as real life goes...
...like, house robbers, they do have scary and...
And very particular adventures every day. Regardless of the judgment...
...of what they're doing, whether it's a bad thing, at the end of the day...
...they're kids that enter a house, and try to get away with things...
...and they might get shot, and might get killed.
And that happens every day.
And it's kind of a strange world that we don't really see often in movies.
This kind of down and dirty, greedy group of kids...
...that are breaking into peoples' houses and taking stuff.
And the challenge was obviously getting the audience to care about them.
So that's why once we learn more about what's going on in the house...
...it becomes that thing of they might be bad but there's...
Perhaps there's even more evil stuff happening inside the house.
But at that point, I mean, that comes...
We've gone a substantial way in the film...
...at that point and...
Before you turn everything on its ear.
Because to have these kids be the perpetrators...
...and my character essentially be a victim...
...you establish that.
- Yeah. - And it works beautifully, I mean, then...
And then the way you just kind of turn that on its ear...
- ...is pretty fascinating, I think. - Heh, heh.
It's good to see how the audience empathy switches...
...from one side to the other.
And kind of constantly does that throughout the movie.
Which is really fascinating, but it's just... There I am.
I don't know if you spot me there. That was me in that newspaper.
- I was an illegal immigrant. - Your Hitchcock moment.
It said something like, "Illegal immigrant was blamed for two murders."
Something like that. That's my face in there, blurred out.
This scene is all about that, right? The empathy.
- Why she does what she's doing. - Sure.
MOTHER: It's just a few months till he can find a new job.
COMMENTARY: I remember this scene used to be different.
She used to live with his father.
And his father was an abusive father...
- ...a violent guy. - Mm-hm.
But then we thought that it would have been even better...
...if she lived with a mother, just negligent.
And... And then we added that character sitting next to her.
Doing nothing. Just being very menacing.
Well, he's got a swastika on his right hand.
- Yeah. - So if it was not clear enough...
- Yeah. - Right.
And she's such a sweet, you know...
- ...charming little beauty. - Yeah.
She doesn't do a lot in the movie, but does everything she needs to do...
...just by being there, showing someone that really represents innocence.
And in that environment, you know that's not gonna last long.
And so we felt it was a good clock ticking for her life.
Everything is a little bit extreme in this scene...
...but I think it works.
We needed to set this up in like two minutes.
- And I think it worked. - It's...
I don't know... I don't know that I would've called it extreme.
I think everything is on the nose...
- ...but it kind of has to be. - Yeah.
It's a way of delivering exposition quickly.
Yeah, that's the thing with TV, the difference between TV and films.
In TV, you have a lot of time to develop these things.
And in this kind of movie, you have to hit it hard...
...and you need the audience to get it right away and have those few minutes...
- ...to get a point across. - Mm-hm.
I think it helped, I mean...
At least then from that point on, the audience hopefully will understand...
...that it's very unlikely that she's gonna back away from her goal...
...which is take the money from the Blind Man.
And I think it's a really interesting choice that you've made...
...because we're kind of approaching the end of when we're gonna be outside.
And we have not encountered one other person.
- Yeah. It's true. - You know...
...no one on the streets at all.
It was kind of to give that sense of desolation...
...that Detroit might have in places, in particular this kind of neighborhood.
So, yeah, it's true that you don't really see anybody else except for the characters.
Even when they're at the restaurant, nobody's there. It's just that...
That sense of, "They have to get out. They have to go to someplace else."
ALEX: Is that a new tattoo?
Yeah.
I got it last night.
ALEX: Is it a...? - Ladybug.
COMMENTARY: The ladybug again.
Of course, it's the...
I don't know what we thought. But I think it was always representing that idea.
Kind of the freedom that she's looking for...
...and she's desperate to get.
ROCKY: ...my mom started drinking and she told me that...
COMMENTARY: Also, they're...
I've always associated them with luck.
Yeah. In the folklore I think it's...
Ladybug... You see a ladybug, it's always a happy moment.
"Oh, look, a ladybug." So it's good.
And, yeah, I think in Uruguay folklore it's always something...
...that you associate with good fortune. Which is not really coming her way now.
But I think eventually in the movie it comes around...
...when she sees it at the right moment.
I think this back story as well used to be longer in the script, right?
Yeah.
ROCKY: When I reach California, I'll color this tat...
...and that's the last time I will mark my body.
COMMENTARY: Yeah, and this is the last time in the movie...
...they will have a moment of peace.
I think from this point on it's gonna be nonstop.
There used to be actually a shot here, a short insert that...
That you'll find on the extras of the DVD on the deleted scenes. But I...
But I love it. You should check it out. Which is when we get a glimpse...
...of what the Blind Man is doing.
Not right at this moment, but right before this moment.
And we get to know that he's a gard...
- He does gardening. - The gardening scene.
- Yeah, remember? - I enjoyed the gardening scenes.
- Yeah. - I saw the deleted scene.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Oh, that dog.
The dog...
- The dog gets an award. Ha, ha. - Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Particularly for the one day we were on set and we know...
...that he wasn't hitting his marks all the time.
- Yeah. - But in the movie he really, you know...
He does what he has to do.
He's very menacing and it's that extension of the will of the Blind Man.
Yeah, I think the first draft that we wrote didn't have the dog.
- Uh-uh. - And... And I think it was Fede's idea...
...this guy should have a dog. How come he doesn't have a dog?
- Right. - The dog turned out to be one of the...
A really important element in the movie.
That's it. That's it for daytime. Now we go into nighttime.
For good.
[♪♪♪]
- I love this shot here. - Mm.
It almost looks like they're in space. Ha, ha.
There's something very strange about it.
I just read the silhouettes. It looks like three cosmonauts somewhere.
In the middle of nowhere.
Which is what I love about that house, that it's...
Usually in a scary movie...
...every time you wanna portray the house as creepy...
...you have a bunch of nice houses and you have a scary house in the middle.
And the one that is run down and not well-kept, that's the scary one.
- Here it's the other way around. - Kind of the opposite.
It's the house that is in good shape, in a bad neighborhood.
And ends up for that reason being the one that is unsettling.
- Now we're in studio here. - Yeah.
- But... - Just like that.
And the fact that the house is well-maintained...
...that was an important thing for my character.
It says an awful lot about the...
You know, the order that he maintains in his life.
Yeah.
- That was CGI, right? - That was CG.
Yeah. That was the only...
Well, not the only, I think there's a couple of CG moments in the movie.
That's probably the fanciest CG effect in the whole movie, ironically.
The piece of treat, of hot dog, that is thrown to the dog.
It had to fly over the fence and land.
All that was done actually in Uruguay, in our country.
MONEY: Because the money's in there...
...and the paranoid fuck doesn't trust nobody.
ROCKY: Let's check for a side door.
COMMENTARY: All this, like here, I think this is the moment...
...when they cross that gate is when the real tension starts.
And it's really what inspired the whole movie, I guess...
...was that idea that there's something very scary about...
...not just having people...
Seeing scenes about people breaking into someone's house.
But even if you're with them, and you're with the house breaker...
...it's always something very tense...
...because for us, and I think for everybody...
...the private space and the private property...
...is something that we value so much in the idea that, you know...
...we feel safe inside our house and there's a...
There's a common agreement in society...
...that you don't walk into someone else's property.
And so when you see it happen...
...it's fascinating how we all collectively, and in theaters...
...and everybody watching, as soon as they cross that line...
...and they walk into a space that is not theirs...
...it puts everybody in a very, very tense mode.
And that's something that we knew. And actually what started the conversation...
...when we started talking about this movie.
When we were thinking about what to write after Evil Dead.
And... And based on that feeling, we thought:
"Okay. What would be a story that would take place in that space?
And that could have you on that edge all the time."
And that's when we thought about this group of kids...
...and who they were gonna break into...
...and the character of the Blind Man came out.
MONEY: There's a bolt here. I can feel it.
COMMENTARY: And they're all in their own way...
- ...extremely likable kids. - Mm-hm.
I think... I mean you kind of understand...
...where they're coming from...
...their needs and everything.
But when they go... When they go over that fence...
...they kind of...
It's all bets are off, in a way.
They put themselves in a...
A morally indefensible position, it seems to me.
It's, you know, so...
In other words, "Well, you're gonna get what you deserve."
- Even though you like them. - Yeah.
Yeah, that's what is strange and fascinating about the film as well.
And so far, today, we're doing this commentary...
...and the movie hasn't come out yet.
But so far just the reaction of the world based on the trailers...
...and what the concept of the movie is...
...it's very interesting to see how much debate it caused...
...based on what you said. They're gonna get what they deserve.
And a lot of people see the trailer and they go like:
"Well, they get what they deserve." Now people say:
"Well, but the Blind Man was doing his own things as well there."
But that doesn't mean it's legal for him to chase them and kill them.
If you feel threatened, and he definitely does.
Particularly because, as we're gonna see now they...
They brought a gun into the house.
Which the Blind Man's not gonna... Not gonna stop to argue with them...
...and ask them if they plan to shoot him with that gun.
So that's why we think it makes for a...
For a very morally conflictive story to see.
Which is the kind of story that we like.
We don't like to spoon-feed the audience with the answer, the moral answer.
This sequence here is kind of classic...
...almost James Bond stuff.
You know... Ha, ha. You know you have to kind of...
The clock is ticking down before the bomb goes off.
Before the alarm goes off or whatever.
So it's a nice piece of suspense.
And here for me is one of the...
It's the first time that, I think in the movie...
...when Pedro Luque, the DP, starts showing off. Heh, heh.
- He's showing off big time here. Beautiful. - I say that in a good way.
Because it's one of the most beautiful shots. How the light from the street...
...hits her eyes as she's realizing that...
...there's something in this house that's more than what you think.
- This was a really interesting beat. - I love that beat.
- The picture upside down. - Upside down.
It really tells you that, yeah, the guy is really, really blind for sure.
But it's also heartbreaking in its way too.
Because in some weird way, it makes him vulnerable.
- Yeah. - Yeah, you think, "Oh, he did that."
It also tells you that he doesn't have many friends.
Like there's no people coming to the house and telling him:
"You put that picture upside down.
You should fix that."
He's a very lonely man right now.
Right. Right.
Yeah, I found that shot, when I saw the film, to be really moving.
[♪♪♪]
Here, of course, is our long hero shot.
That's gonna... Basically the goal, obviously, is to get from the start...
It's basically a shot that switches points of view in the movie...
...and shows you the story from their point of view.
And it's gonna end up over the shoulder of the Blind Man.
Showing how scary it is for him to be home-invaded without him knowing it.
Obviously, it's showing all the pieces that are gonna play a part in the movie.
But, I mean, you know, it's fascinating...
...because what you just showed there was a tool room.
An orderly tool room.
And there's nothing intrinsically threatening about that.
- Mm-hm. Yeah. - You know?
I mean, it's tools that he's laid out to do jobs around the house.
But the audience knows.
Of course, in context.
The audience can see the hammer. We push into that like we did.
These are all pieces that are gonna come back.
The bell, that is the alarm system that the Blind Man has...
...for what's happening in the cellar.
- We're still in one shot here? - It's one shot that starts at the door...
- Amazing. - ...and ends up upstairs.
Of course, we'll know that the money is right somewhere there. Closet.
And the door to the cellar.
It's all the pieces.
Remember that we always talked about this movie being...
...kind of a chess game between these two parts.
So this is a moment where we show kind of the rules...
...and who are the players.
What door is locked, what door is not.
- Right. - Before the game starts.
Right. Stake out the terrain a little bit.
Also, here you start...
I think also this is the first time that you start feeling Roque Baños.
A magnificent soundtrack which is, like he said...
...the whole music was actually done through...
...not classical instruments...
...but mostly pipes and weird instruments that he found...
...made by a guy in Tucson that created his own instruments in his back yard...
...and called it an orchestra.
And in this whole shot, we really get to enjoy that soundtrack.
And like Roque said, "It's like if the house was singing this unsettling song."
Right.
And you get a glimpse of the daughter.
Which is curious. Of course the TV's there, but he doesn't watch the TV.
So I thought it was interesting to have it pointed in a strange way.
Not towards the bed.
But he uses it just to fall asleep to the sound of his daughter.
Sure, it provides the soundtrack for his life, I think.
Yeah.
And it's like a lullaby for him.
Here we are.
Just like that, we switch point of view and now we're with him.
As he's the main character of his movie, right?
He's the hero of his movie.
He's just sleeping, not bothering anybody...
...and there's a guy walking into his room.
WOMAN [ON TV]: What does a tree need to grow?
GIRL: Water, seeds...
COMMENTARY: A very cocky guy, by the way.
- Very. Yeah. - Ha-ha-ha.
I love what Danny does there.
He just stops and enjoys his moment of bravery, right?
[BLIND MAN GASPS]
COMMENTARY: That was an interesting and cool cut you did there.
Not even seeing the rise up, you know?
I think this moment is kind of setting the tone...
...and the dynamics of the whole movie.
Yeah, the idea that he really can hear anything.
He has a well-trained ear.
[BLIND MAN GROANS]
COMMENTARY: And the detail of the cross on the wall...
...which is again an amazing job of Naaman Marshall...
...the production designer.
Had so many little details there.
And you see the cross. It used to be a cross on the wall...
...if you take a look above the bed.
You see the shape of the cross, but it's not there anymore.
So it tells a little bit of the faith loss of this guy.
MONEY: Done!
[GASPS]
ALEX: What the fuck, dude?
MONEY: The guy's gassed out.
He's out.
COMMENTARY: I think the fact that the dog went down...
- ...the same way, got neutralized... - Mm-hm.
...I think it makes the guy getting neutralized...
...almost a complete, immediate buy as well.
Yeah.
If you think about it, you know he's gonna wake up.
But somehow it's very helpful.
First the dog, and then him.
Yeah.
It supplies them with the feeling of confidence...
...that they can make noise.
Yeah, I think...
Looking at the movie now, we realize all the little details...
...that we draw that we had to do research on.
You know, experts on how to do all these crimes, right?
How do you put someone to sleep?
The gas thing, the gas bottle, actually...
...we never got to the bottom of it...
- ...if it was a myth or reality. - Mm-hm.
But there's a lot of that myth running around in Europe.
People say that if you take a night train in certain parts...
...of Europe, people walk into the train...
Robbers may go into your wagon...
...and basically smoke you while you're sleeping...
- ...and you just fall into a deeper sleep. - Hm.
And they will rob whatever you have with you.
Then we read that it was actually a myth.
That nothing can actually do that to you.
But we preferred to believe that it works.
It doesn't matter. Urban myth is powerful.
But the cool thing is that we may think that maybe they thought it was true.
But it clearly didn't work.
- Yeah. - Right.
And this is another one, like, the silencer...
...made with a bottle, which again, I never saw in a movie.
We just... We read about it and heard from a lot of people.
And the gun expert in this movie actually told us about it.
There's a way to do a homemade silencer which is just with a bottle.
And then of course, like YouTube...
...you have a lot of videos of people...
...shooting guns in bottles to show it works.
- And it definitely works. - Mm.
It muffles the gunfire.
But obviously, it didn't muffle it enough.
Because here we are.
BLIND MAN: Who's there?
COMMENTARY: This is definitely one of those moments...
...that when we were writing the script...
...you knew it was gonna be an intense scene, right?
Yeah, this was always my favorite scene.
This is the first time that Stephen Lang's character speaks.
And he sounds like a normal, harmless man.
- He's scared, right? - He's scared, yeah.
We talked about this a lot, remember, when we were shooting this.
And did it quite a number of times...
...trying to modulate...
...you know...
...the amount of fear with strength.
That's what I love about your work in the scene.
I can see how, knowing what I know...
...about the character, knowing all his secrets...
...right there, I can see how at first his reaction, of course...
...he doesn't know how much they know.
Maybe they took her away already.
Maybe she's gone. Maybe she's...
Maybe that precious cargo he has in the cellar...
Maybe she's not there.
By this point, I can see how you start realizing...
...that they haven't opened the door yet.
Well, they did, but they're not down there yet.
They don't sound like they know what's going on.
And how you go from...
...being startled and scared to suddenly, "I can see.
I can hear your thoughts as you go. Okay, I gotta do this.
- I have to." - Yeah, it's interesting...
...to see how he made a choice in a second.
Like, "I have to take care of this guy.
- There's no way around it." - Yeah.
[♪♪♪]
[MONEY GRUNTING]
COMMENTARY: Whoo! - Yeah.
There was a point that we actually...
We never really seriously thought about doing it...
...but I fantasized about the idea of making this movie black and white...
...because there's something so classic film noir of Hollywood.
You have a section coming up that is total noir.
Yeah.
- Right? I mean, you did it. - Heh, heh.
And the colors are so rich, I think, that it's...
It makes it a pleasure to watch...
...even when what you're watching is not all that pleasurable in a way.
This is a very important moment for Money's character...
...because at the end, he redeems himself, right?
In saying that it's just him...
...in the house...
...when the Blind Man asks, "How many of you are there?"
Before he dies he's doing something...
- At least something good. - Yeah, he's doing good for her.
He might have cowered up and asked for help...
...or told him there's a witness there as well...
...and maybe that perhaps...
...he might have thought that was gonna save him.
I don't think it would have, but...
[♪♪♪]
Poor Danny. You really rough him up there.
[COMMENTATOR CHUCKLES]
I think I told you about the story when...
...the first kind of really rough encounter that we shot...
...was actually later in the movie. It was you against...
Against Alex, right?
- Played by Dylan Minnette. - Mm-hm.
And after that day, Dylan was like, "Oh, man."
He went to Danny Zovatto, who plays Money...
...and warned him about that. He warned him like, "Look.
If you ask Slang to bring it, he'll bring it.
You better be ready because it's gonna be a tough scene.
Your body is gonna be in pain for the rest of the week."
You know, I've heard that.
And the thing is, I take slight exception to it because we were pretty careful.
- Of course it's safe. - It's rugged stuff.
- You know what I mean? - There's no way to fake that.
There's no way to fake that.
As a director, the last thing I want is to see...
...that thing being faked too much.
And remember that Danny always tells the story...
...that he actually asked you, "You've got to bring it. Just bring it.
I'll take it."
But then at the end of that day, I remember him coming back to me.
Like, "Oh, man." He was terrified. But that's a great thing.
I think that's something you really brought to the film and the set...
...that every time you walk on set, I could feel these kids.
Because a lot of them, they're just making their second, third movie.
Except for Dylan over there, who made like 20 movies.
[COMMENTATORS LAUGHING]
He's been working since he was 5.
But there was a sense of respect and fear that I enjoyed so much watching.
- And you can see it. - I think a lot of that fear...
Because as a rule, I was just pretty quiet in between takes.
- Just sitting there quietly. - Yeah.
I think that it was them doing their work.
That they were projecting an awful lot of intimidation from me.
And I was just sitting there. They were doing my work for me.
They were just wonderful, I thought. So game.
- Yeah. - So canny.
Each one of them, they really brought it.
The physicality in the way that you guys play those scenes...
...is very important.
One of the things that we were kind of nervous about...
...when we came up with the idea is that...
...if this guy is a blind guy...
...and there's three kids, people will think, "Why don't they take on him?
Why don't they fight him?"
Why don't they just jump on him and that's it?
But in that scene where you fight Money...
- ...and start punching the wall... - Mm-hm.
...then it's clear that it's not an easy task.
So that makes the whole premise work.
Otherwise, I think it would have collapsed.
There's not a single moment of this movie when you feel...
When you think as an audience, "Oh, they should just jump on him."
Heh. There's no way.
Like, this kind of shot, it establishes dominance.
Even though he doesn't know he's here, he's dominating the house in a way.
And they're just cowering in corners.
I was gonna say, look at that...
- ...how small he is right there. - That's a great shot.
[PHONE BUZZING]
COMMENTARY: And also, let's not forget that part of the thing...
...that makes your presence so menacing and makes all this so real...
...were the contact lenses that you were wearing.
How much could you see? You couldn't see a lot, right?
So remember that somebody would bring you to the set?
And you were really becoming that character on so many levels.
Just the fact that you got to know that house pretty well.
I don't remember seeing you bumping against anything...
...during the whole making of the movie.
- And you could barely see with those. - Right. Right.
The lenses were extremely helpful...
...because they're a constant obstacle...
...and a constant reminder.
Because it cuts your vision down by 70 percent.
And the rest of it, that other 30 percent, you kind of just let go.
- You just sort of glaze out, I think. - Yeah.
So it was extremely helpful.
But so much of the blindness, when I watch the film...
...is really sold by the direction that you would give me...
...when you would say, "Slang, just tilt your head that way more."
And it all had to do with how the camera was perceiving me...
...and perceiving my relationship with whoever was in the room...
...or what I was listening to.
So that was a good duet, I thought, between actor and director.
Or trio really, between actor, director, and the camera itself.
One of the things that I loved that you brought...
...is the idea of those marks in the wall.
That was not on the script, obviously.
The fact that the guy...
...he gets around the house touching the wall.
- Touching the wall all the time. - There should be stains on the wall.
Those marks that have been happening for a long, long time.
That's the production designer.
Naaman Marshall had so many details like that...
...that you can really believe...
...that this house is a place that he has lived for a long time.
ALEX: Rocky, hey, are you okay?
Are you okay?
Maybe... Maybe we should call the cops before he does.
COMMENTARY: I like this moment. It's the last...
...moment of Alex trying to do the right thing.
He believes they should call the cops.
And if they do that, perhaps, they might hear their...
They might go to jail perhaps, but at least they're not gonna die.
And Alex is really trying to get her alive out of here.
But she has different plans.
She's the boss. She really is the boss.
And it's really cool how things went south.
- Money got shot. - Ha, ha.
But at the same time, they find the money.
And it's even a lot more money than they thought it would be.
- So that raises the stakes. - It's good we never show it.
Watching I realize the camera...
...never shows you like, "Look, money."
It never pushes inside the box.
It never shows you the bag. You just see the blocks of money.
And they're even blurry in most of the shots.
Because the story was never really about the cash.
But you know they have something that they want.
Well, her movie is about the money.
- Ha-ha-ha. - Yeah, of course.
But the way it's played over there...
...it's so much more about...
...what she wants to do against what he wants to do at some point.
That was... Why did you go outside there? Why were we on that door?
Oh, because he said... I love this moment.
He said out loud that that's the way out.
And he says the storm door cellar.
It was a brief reminder to the audience, what was that door?
And I think it really helps the audience to know where we're going...
...and what they're trying to achieve.
I don't like when in stories like this the audience gets confused...
...about where they're heading. Where they're going. What's their plan?
I wanted be very clear and precise about, what's the plan here for these kids?
That makes a lot of sense.
I think this scene is kind of like the spirit of the whole movie.
This is where we wanted to get with the idea of...
- This is one of my favorite moments. - ...the guy being blind.
It's when we start thinking about the movie and the idea of the movie.
Thinking about these moments is when we thought:
"Oh, it's gonna be special.
This is worth making.
I've never seen this scene before."
And right here, it's almost like a ghost story.
It's almost like for you, right, the Blind Man, it's a ghost story.
There is a presence in his house...
...that even though he can't see it...
...he suspects it might be there.
But it's such a strange thing. And it works so well.
It's ghosts that you can shoot.
That's right.
[COMMENTATORS CHUCKLING]
Here's when the title really comes back to you.
I'm really waiting for the end.
The breathing you hear is the Blind Man's.
Heavier than anybody else. It's great.
I can see that he's worried.
And he suspects there might be someone.
[COMMENTATOR LAUGHING]
This is the best.
And also, this moment is very important.
That already happened before.
Something we want to get out of the way is...
...we want to make sure the audience doesn't suspect the twist...
...of this movie was gonna be he can actually see.
That would be terrible.
So, with scenes like this one...
...is when you know that we're not hiding anything from the audience.
And also how dangerous he is.
He hears the cell phone and reacts...
...in a fraction of a second and shoots spot on.
Yeah, this is a time...
By this moment, the movie has introduced, like...
...this is them against him.
And this is how good they are, and this is how good he is.
So we'll see if they manage to get away with the money, right?
That could happen right now.
- Yeah. - From our point of view.
Yeah.
I guess, yeah, I'm curious...
I don't know if the audience expected it, if they know what's coming.
I'm sure they know there's something more to it.
I think at least the first screenings that we had of this movie...
...because people were coming in without seeing any trailers...
...they didn't know about it.
And the moment that's coming right now...
...is such a huge surprise for everybody.
[DRILL WHIRRING]
COMMENTARY: This is a great moment as well.
We're exploring all his senses.
We already explored how he can hear anything.
Now we can explore how he can smell anything.
[COMMENTATOR CHUCKLES]
Again, I think people tend to believe...
- ...blind people have better smell. - Mm-hm.
But it's not really that. It's just that they pay more attention to it.
They have developed that more just by using it more than we do.
But it's not a super sense. We never went too far in that aspect.
I mean, anybody can smell a pair of smelly shoes, heh, heh, in a room.
And Money's shoes are the first ones he found. I'm sure they're quite smelly.
[♪♪♪]
Yeah, things are gonna turn upside down pretty fast.
[BEEPS]
[DOOR CREAKS]
COMMENTARY: That money's gone.
Yeah, I love how vulnerable you are there.
How the audience will feel, "Oh, man, they fooled him.
They made a fool out of him...
...by looking over his shoulder and seeing the code."
That's what's going through his mind.
He's so frustrated. At the same time...
...that's the moment that, in the whole movie I think...
...it's that moment there when the Blind Man realizes he's been...
You know, he's just been fooled by these kids...
...is when your empathy is really with him.
It's so strongly with him. I think most of the audience...
...at this point is like, "Why'd they do that to him?
- Right. - And at that moment...
...we change everything around by showing this girl.
[BLIND MAN GASPS]
COMMENTARY: That was the piano moment there.
- Remember the sitting on the piano? - Yeah.
[COMMENTATORS LAUGHING]
I loved that.
You actually can hear some of that.
But also it's a great job of Gardner Gould...
...the editor, when he would basically decide...
...let's not show her right away.
We see a jump, we see that someone shows up.
But instead of staying and showing the audience...
...we just cut back upstairs to the Blind Man and stay with him.
And basically get the audience to be desperate to go back in there...
...and find out what that was...
...and who was that girl?
ROCKY: What?
[CINDY SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
Rocky? Rocky.
Rocky, listen. Hey, that's our exit.
COMMENTARY: He did a good job.
The Blind Man did a great job taking care of her.
With the cushions and the plants, to have oxygen.
Yeah. It kind of gives new meaning to the term man cave, doesn't it?
- Completely. - Ha-ha-ha.
ROCKY: We have to get her out of here. - No, no, no.
COMMENTARY: So that first short glimpse of the newspaper...
...is basically when they find out...
...that she was absolved of the crime.
That she actually did something terrible.
But she was found innocent.
But that doesn't mean she was innocent. I believe she was very, very guilty.
But the law found her innocent.
And we'll find out more eventually when the Blind Man talks about it.
But this is actually the first...
Yeah, probably the first or second shot...
...you did in character as the Blind Man.
- Really? - This is the first day on set, I believe.
- I hang off the thing and look down. - Yeah.
Mislead the audience to believe that you're going after them.
ROCKY: 2-9-7-8. 7-8, 7-8. 2-9-7-8. ALEX: 2-9-7-8.
COMMENTARY: It's something that during the writing...
...and not just the writing but the making...
...we were always trying to keep close attention to those details...
...and make sure that every movement they make made sense.
And here it wasn't just for the value of the shock...
...of what's gonna happen next.
But I think... I don't know if you agree, Slang.
I think it made complete sense that if he went after them...
...that might have gone wrong. He was expect...
That's how smart he is.
He knows that if they took the money out of his safe upstairs...
...they know the code. If they know the code...
...he knows it's the same as downstairs...
...which means they might have the keys already.
Which means if he decides to go after them...
...and maybe he doesn't manage to get to them and block a door or something...
...they will get to this door before he does and they will be out.
And that's not good for him.
So that's why I think he very quickly put all that together.
Turns around and decides to wait for them on the other side.
Absolutely.
Since they've gone down the rabbit hole...
...he knows they're coming out.
There's only one way to come out.
And he's doing more than that.
By this point he already... We'll find out later.
But at this point, he already took the dog.
He put him inside the house.
And he went after them probably.
Because now he's gonna go after them.
But we'll see that the dog is already inside the house.
So he's done all that very quickly.
He ran out, took the dog inside, closed the door...
...and went after them. So it's incredible.
I would love to see this movie over again...
...from his point of view.
And realizing the clever things he's doing...
...one after the other.
I think this is an interesting twist.
We just introduced this girl, and she's dying already.
Yeah. Everybody thinks it'll be about... Now it's all gonna be about:
"Okay, are they gonna be able to save the girl?"
But very quickly, she's gone.
Well, you've already established your credentials as somewhat merciless.
You know, heh, heh, and I mean that in a very good way.
Because the dispatching of Money is quick, and it's early.
Yeah.
And he's a substantial character. He cuts a wide swath while he's there.
If you kill him off...
...well, then you dudes are capable of anything.
And that was one of the first ideas that we got.
Like, these guys break into this Blind Man's house.
- And one of them dies right away. - Mm-hm.
That will make you nervous and tense throughout the whole movie.
You will know that he doesn't hesitate.
The Blind Man didn't even...
He asked one question.
The only relevant question was "How many people in the house?"
And hoping that he might or might not be honest.
Or maybe he might have caught him lying.
BLIND MAN: No!
COMMENTARY: I love this scene too.
This raises a lot of questions as well.
Like, why is he feeling this so much?
Yeah.
You did an amazing job here, Slang.
It's one of those that... When you're shooting...
...it's hard to get into the scene.
For the director, it's hard to get into the emotion of the movie.
There's so much you pay attention to.
This one was one of those that while I was watching the shot...
...I felt like I was in the theater watching the movie.
I was so excited.
Just an emotional transformation from being in hunter mode...
...and realize what they just did, and, oh, man, now it's personal.
Before it wasn't. It was like, I don't care who you are.
You're just gonna die because you know my secret...
...and I cannot let you go.
- Now I think it's personal. - Right.
I mean, the thing that... The prevailing thing that goes on...
...when he knows who it is...
...is this feeling of being bereft immediately, you know?
But there's no time for that. There's no time for grief at all.
Because he's in a war zone here. You know?
Yeah. Because his feelings about that girl are rather complex.
- Yeah. - They are.
Because mostly... I mean, he definitely has... I'm sure he has feelings.
And he's not a guy that is taken by hate.
I don't think he's in that place right now.
He's past that probably.
But he definitely...
You know, we'll find out later she was pregnant.
So that scene there is his daughter dying again.
- Right. - That's why it's so powerful.
Because he's been through that already...
...when he found out about his daughter dying.
And we always imagine that he was actually on that day...
...when his daughter got run over...
...he was right there in his house and ran to her body.
So I think that for him, it's just going through that pain again.
So that's why he makes it so determined.
Because from this point on there's no hesitation.
There's no fear whatsoever from the point of view of the Blind Man.
He's completely, full-on in hunter mode.
But you know if he had the moment to think about it...
- ...he wouldn't have been surprised. - Yeah.
Because everything that life's given him has just been a kick in the ass.
I love that fan thing, by the way.
[COMMENTATORS LAUGHING]
He knows every detail.
And this scene, it's one of my favorites in the movie.
But it's sort of whimsical in a way because he could just touch the fan...
- ...but he gives it a little spin. Heh, heh. - Heh-heh-heh.
This scene was also one of the earliest ideas that we got.
We knew that we were gonna kill one of them pretty quick.
We knew that we were gonna have this full dark scene.
This took so much preparing and thinking.
Just in the early stages of preproduction with Pedro, the DP.
We were like, "There are many things we need to solve here.
But the main one is how are we gonna do the darkness scene?"
On the page it says, "Well, he flips a switch...
- ...and everything goes completely dark." - Mm-hm.
Which of course gives us moments like this one we're looking at now.
Which are unique.
But look at the way she's...
She's just selling it beautifully there, isn't she?
Totally. You really believe what she's doing.
You see? I don't know if you notice...
...but every time you shoot the gun, there's color pumped into the shot.
Of course, the logic is, if there's no light, there's no color. Right?
And so that's why I think the audience buys it so well.
Black and white and no shadows...
...that indicates that there's no light.
But every time we shoot the gun, there's a muzzle flash.
By the way, for anybody that's thinking, "Conveniently he ran out of bullets."
We actually counted them.
It's precisely how many bullets there are in that gun.
The ones that he shot are exactly the gun's...
The bullets that you have in that gun.
- I remember that discussion as well. - Ha-ha-ha.
We counted all of them, particularly when we were editing...
...because you might have shot more shots like in the shooting itself.
But then when we cut the movie, we made sure...
...that we had the exact amount in that gun.
ALEX: This way. This way, come on. This way, come on, come on, come on.
Oh, come on. Where am I?
COMMENTARY: This was a combination...
...of the light from the camera and the whole treatment.
But as well they had contact lenses making their eyes look dilated.
Their pupils dilated.
But of course, Jane Levy and Dylan Minnette did an amazing job...
...selling the full darkness.
They did. And it's not just the eyes.
Also it's the open mouth.
- Yeah. - You know, in a way.
Ha-ha-ha, that is a great shot. Ha-ha-ha.
When you think it's over, it's just beginning.
That's what happens constantly in this movie.
ALEX: Try the blue key. Do it.
COMMENTARY: Ha, ha, that dog.
There are three dogs in this movie. Three different dogs that you see.
I'm trying to remember names.
Oh, gosh.
- Athos, that's one of them. - Athos.
Athos. There was... What was the other one?
- Porthos and Aramis. I don't think it was. - Ha-ha-ha. Exactly.
I love this twist when suddenly, he decides to sit down...
...which obviously wasn't in the script.
We were shooting the moment.
When the dog was supposed to be looking fierce...
...he decided to sit down.
But I ended up keeping it.
I thought it was a really good twist that he talks to him.
Maybe he'll talk him down.
Some dogs, if you talk to them calmly, they might respond to that.
He's also a little hungover.
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
[DOG BARKING]
And the dog was actually chasing them.
- So there was no faking there as well. - Ha-ha-ha.
Yeah.
We were guaranteeing them that the dog wasn't gonna attack.
But they weren't counting on the promise. They were just running...
...like maniacs, trying to get in the room before the dog got to his mark.
You're back.
They felt the same way about the dog that they did about me.
That we're both just sort of slavering maniacs.
And the dog was a sweetheart, just like me.
[COMMENTATORS LAUGHING]
See, that's the thing here.
It's one of those stories where...
ROCKY: What are you doing?
COMMENTARY: Regardless of what the Blind Man does...
...there's no question at any moment.
Everything he's doing, if you were him, you would do the same thing.
There's nothing to talk about with them, there's nothing to...
There's no conversation. The Blind Man has to get rid of them.
Because there's no way he can let them go...
...and trust that they're not gonna tell his secret or anything like that.
There's no way around that.
I remember we talked about this.
His goal is not to make them suffer.
He really doesn't want to punish them or make them suffer.
It's not about that. He has to kill them.
But, you know, there's this...
To me, there's this sense of outrage in this film.
That this outrage was perpetrated against him, against his life.
You know, he's gonna talk about it a little bit, in terms of God and everything.
But, um...
- Whoot! Eh... - Whoa.
And it's just, um...
He just will not allow that.
He needs... He becomes proactive. It's almost... It's everything he's doing.
Yeah, it's against these kids, but it's really against the world.
It's against the cosmos. It's against God.
It's against this everything that has just destroyed his being.
I think that what you're saying is really spot on.
And that is a common thing for all the characters in the movie.
Rocky's character kind of feels the same way.
She feels like life hasn't given her anything.
In fact, she's been very unlucky with the life that she got.
And she's, in a way, trying to bring justice on her own terms.
And she feels entitled to do this, to go get that money.
She feels like she deserves that.
I think all the characters are trying to bring justice...
- ...in their own way. - Mm.
That's the moral of the story, I think.
It's like if all of us just decide to violate all the rules...
...and just go and get whatever we want and feel that we deserve...
...like, you get these scenarios, right?
Like, because she will find out... She basically finds someone that thinks...
...ironically, just like her. The Blind Man and Rocky have a lot in common.
Just the Blind Man's been through a lot more than she did.
But they both believe that they have the right...
...to break the rules just to get what they feel...
...they deserve and...
We'll leave to the audience to believe if that's right or not.
But that was definitely the... Thematically was the strong, you know...
Just the way... I just wanna cut in and say the way that the dog, Athos...
...the way he has to crouch his way through there...
...and everything like that, it just...
That in and of itself, it's in two shots, is just so alarming.
He sort of looks like a gigantic rat in a way.
- Yeah. Heh, heh. - You know?
I remember we were writing the script, we had this experience on Evil Dead...
...with the dog that we used in that movie.
And it was so hard to get that dog to do anything.
Like, the smallest things, like, "Hey, come here," he wouldn't do it.
And then we wrote all the scenes with the dog.
And we were like, "We're never gonna find a dog that's gonna do that."
- Ha-ha-ha. - And fortunately this amazing dog...
- Oh, the Hungarian dogs are very, very... - Yeah.
- They're the best. - Yeah, the best.
That's a great twist as well.
How you think the Blind Man's gone...
...actually went upstairs and fools him again.
He's always showing up in places that you don't think he will.
It's great because you're just exploiting the geography of this house...
...you know, to... Almost to the max.
But about what you were saying...
...you know, both for Jane and the Blind Man...
...um...
...they're taking responsibility for their lives as well. I mean, it's kind of...
They're making the existential choice that they're not gonna, you know...
They're not gonna go quietly into the dark.
They're not just gonna let life, like...
They're not gonna accept that... "Well, that was just bad luck."
And it's the life they got.
- It's like they're gonna... - Right.
They're gonna take matters in their own hand...
...and change fate. It's almost like they know they...
They're going... They might take a path that is just gonna be constant darkness.
And they're just trying to find a way to break out of there...
...right, by all means necessary.
That's what they're all doing.
There's, again, a beautiful moment of mixing a lot of...
...beautiful techniques of cinema.
It's just the silence, the camera work, the light...
...everything worked so well for me in this montage here.
And the title comes in right... Heh.
Comes to you again, like, don't breathe. It, like, makes it in that...
He made a mistake breathing.
[ALEX GASPS]
[GROANS]
[FLOOR CREAKS]
COMMENTARY: Here we fool the audience with a montage a little.
They don't know it but it's been a time jump there.
[BONE CRUNCHES THEN BLIND MAN SCREAMS]
COMMENTARY: That was fun to shoot.
This was a rugged set to be on right here.
Because it's all... This was all real.
Not like there was a lot of rubber stuff going on here.
- Aah. That hurt, I remember that. - That hurt.
Because I think he missed the countdown or something...
...and he surprised you with it, like, ahead of time.
[WASHER WHIRRING LOUDLY]
COMMENTARY: I like that this is the first hint that we give that if there's a sound...
...a loud sound in the place, then his powers disappear.
Heh. Like, that's his weakness, too much... Too much noise.
And eventually it'll be some sort of demise for him.
[ALEX GASPING]
COMMENTARY: But even...
Like, when you're watching the movie, like, I get this...
Do I want him to grab the gun and shoot the Blind Man in the head?
I don't really know if I want that. I don't think the audience wants that.
They want them to live but that, that's what makes it...
I think that's what make the movie effective...
...is that you understand that...
...even though he's doing something terrible, he's in his house.
And a lot of things he's doing, he has the right to do them.
And that makes it so complicated and so complex...
...on that level, like, you don't... If Alex would have reached that gun...
...and shoot the Blind Man in the head, and leave, I don't think...
...the audience would've been satisfied. They would be like... Like he just...
They break into this guy's house, they murder him...
...take his money away. Like, it would be a terrible ending.
That's why it puts the audience in a place that they want them to leave...
...but they don't want them to shoot the Blind Man.
It makes it so complex and puts the audience...
...in a great place to be.
Because they want to know how it's gonna end up.
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the Blind Man, from my point of view has...
...at this point earned...
He's earned a lot of points. I mean, there's reasons for his sickness...
...and his, you know, his pathology.
But there's a lot about him that... You know, he's got his own integrity.
Seems to me, and I think people respond to that...
...to an extent.
Yeah, well, and obviously, just the fact that he's...
He's a blind character that at first we all see...
Kind of almost...
...the audience look at the movie and when they...
When he gets introduced, kind of look down on him.
Like, "Oh, poor guy." We kind of feel pity for him.
And you realize now that... You know, that you should feel pity for the kids...
...and not for him. So it's such a, it's...
And I think that's a quality that's in the...
Regardless of what he's doing, and the terrible things he's doing...
...like, the audience admires that.
The fact that a character that was introduced...
...in a way that make them feel pity for him...
...because he was blind, and living by himself...
...and all this tragedy. Like, not really how capable he is.
And how he doesn't let something like blindness, like, stop him.
- No, there's a... - Be fully functional.
No, I mean, the first time you see him, he's walking the dog.
He's doing, like, you know, kind of an all-American activity.
Here again. I think as soon as she's hitting that...
...the audience knows she shouldn't be making that sound.
- That's a CG hand. - Heh.
That's actually the only CG hand.
One of the biggest CG elements and that's something I personally did...
...on my computer when I realized I didn't get the shot because you...
Originally, you grab her hair. But it wasn't on the shot...
...and it wasn't so effective.
And I remember cutting the movie, I just opened my laptop and, like...
...let me put something together and I did the shot.
And I thought it was gonna be a mock-up...
...and it end up in the movie. It ended up being that shot over there.
[BOTH GRUNTING]
COMMENTARY: I love this moment.
Something that I stole from Hitchcock...
...who said that he shot...
He shot love scenes like death scenes...
...and death scenes like love scenes.
And this definitely looks more like a love scene...
...on the setting and there's no cuts. It's just like this long agony, right?
And I particularly like what...
Using those short punches.
You know, there's nothing...
Many times in movies, you have these long loping punches.
I mean, these are just... Those are little... Three short punches.
Yeah, they look so painful.
What's interesting about that moment is that I'm not exactly sure when...
...he realized that this... That there was a girl...
...in this pack of thieves.
And he made the choice, "Okay, this is...
- This is actually good." - Mm-hm.
- I might need that girl. - Well, yeah...
I don't know when exactly it happens but it could have happened...
...also when he found the shoes.
When he smelled her shoes, I think he knows.
We were joking, he knows there's a girl.
And he knows that. He maybe even knows...
...that she's having her period, ha, ha, like, stuff like that. Like, "Hm..."
I don't think she has her period. That would have save her, actually.
Yeah, but I mean, the idea that he can use her...
...because the other girl is dead...
- When does that happen? - Yeah.
I mean, I think if you wanna project it into that...
...into the kind of weird love scene upstairs...
...that we just saw, you can do that. You know, but that's for...
ROCKY: Please, let me go!
COMMENTARY: I think dialogue's come back here, which is, uh...
- The funny and interesting thing... - Nobody's said anything for 40 minutes.
ROCKY: You wanted her to pay.
I understand that.
I won't tell anyone.
You understand nothing.
COMMENTARY: And the audience...
...doesn't understand. It's one of those moments...
...that you'll find out the truth about who he is.
BLIND MAN: ...between a father and his child.
COMMENTARY: Yeah, I love this speech. It used to be longer.
And we ended up cutting a bit out of it.
I think on the deleted scenes you hear more about it.
Which it was, of course, not because it wasn't great...
...I think it was amazing, but it was one of the things...
...that less was more.
The more mystery we could keep around him...
And we'd never wanna do the villain...
...that just over-explains his life and his plans.
So I think we do have the exact amount that we needed there, I guess, for...
That's what I thought when I saw it. I couldn't remember exactly...
...what was not there, but I knew there was something.
But it didn't seem that it was missing anything.
- Yeah. - And then I saw the deleted scene.
And I went, "Oh, yeah, that stuff. That was good too."
It was great. But at the end of the day...
...it's like that thing. He doesn't have...
He doesn't need to talk with her. He's past all that...
...like, he explains himself or like...
I think part of him wants to feel human and less evil about what he's doing.
That deep inside he knows that it's a bad thing.
But he's trying to be...
He's just, of course, turning a blind eye on what he's doing.
That's why I think he explains himself a bit:
"Hey, I'm not a monster.
If you could see the things that happened to me...
...like, you'll understand, right?"
I love Jane's reaction, her acting here...
...where she kind of, like, starts putting the pieces together...
...and realizing what's coming.
It's really good.
I like this reveal as well.
That's almost kind of silly but it kind of makes sense, right?
He was laying right on top of the body, and the Blind Man just struck down and...
And actually if he...
There was a longer version of the shot where you could see that the...
The blade actually scratch his cheek and his ear and so he missed by nothing.
Here's the moment of, obviously, Alex...
...starting to turn into, you know...
...the different person, like really... He started doubting himself so much...
...and being so scared of everything. And now he's, like...
He's been through so much that... Again, like, moral of this character...
...is he's, like, ready to do something about it...
...and not just be cowering behind shelves.
He takes a hammer and he's gonna do something about it.
- Ah, yes... - Oh, the tar.
- This famous scene. - Heh, heh.
Franciska, the girl that played that character...
...she really took it. She had to stay there still.
It was really a black thick paint to the...
It was harmless but still, it was terrible.
And had to just stay there and let the paint go up...
...and not breathe and...
Because if she blew it...
...doing the whole thing again was impossible.
- Yeah, no, she did a yeoman job. - Yeah.
I love that the Blind Man has everything kind of planned ahead of...
Like, he knew that if she died, he wasn't gonna go...
...and bury her in the backyard.
And risking someone seeing him do that.
So he had this plan to bury her in the cellar.
Or maybe you could even think that once the...
She gave birth to the child...
- He'd get rid of the body. - That's what I thought...
Yeah.
...it was gonna be because he really couldn't release her.
But you never know what would happen by then...
...you know? I mean...
Probably he didn't know. I think that...
In that aspect, I think, because he's such a...
Emotion is so complex for him, I think he was trying, you know...
...on the plan to do with her, trying to figure out...
...he will cross that bridge when he gets there.
BLIND MAN: It's a joke.
It's a bad joke.
You tell me what God would allow...
COMMENTARY: Once again, that...
The audience thinks they know what's gonna happen.
They think it's gonna be a rape scene or some sort of...
Just gonna be there.
And the whole motivation behind everything...
...all the weirdness, is that this is gonna follow.
It was that it was all for the sake of the character.
Like, we knew that the Blind Man being who he was...
...and having the codes that he had... Like he says now...
...I love the line that, "I'm not a rapist."
Like, that really put things...
Gets you thinking about what he's gonna do now.
[ROCKY GASPING]
Aah. No. No, no.
COMMENTARY: Like I said, what follows that...
...really was for the sake of not just being perverted...
...or doing something super twisty.
It was just that being who he was...
...we needed to protect him, and we didn't wanna have a scene...
...where he puts his pants down. He's gonna be an animal.
He would still have his morals.
And he was gonna do it in a way that didn't require that.
Right.
And, again, for people that are thinking this is some twisted movie thing...
...that we came up with, turkey baster in the...
And the sperm. It's actually the way you do it.
It's actually medically accurate.
If a single mom wants to have kids at home...
...they don't wanna go through the sperm bank and...
It's still pretty twisted.
It is, but at home insemination is the way you do it. It's not...
I mean, to be honest...
You take a turkey baster and that's the way you do it.
It was a twisted idea.
But it happened to be that then it was something that occurs.
That may be the single most disgusting moment...
...in the film right there.
[COMMENTATORS LAUGHING]
It's so weird. At the end of the day...
...like, it's what we thought is fascinating about it.
If that was blood and that was a knife...
...nobody will even flinch.
- Right. - They go like, "Ah, whatever."
"Oh, but it's sperm in a turkey baster?"
And everybody loses their minds. Heh, heh.
- And that I don't get. - I believe there was a hair in...
- Heh-heh-heh. - Yeah, there was a hair.
I remember seeing it with the audience.
The audience covered their mouth...
...and getting all grossed out and I was like:
"If it was guts and blood, nobody cares."
It is sperm and everybody freaks out.
I think that's fascinating and it tells a lot about who we are as a society.
There's something strange about that.
And nothing actually happened. Like it's...
We leave everything for the audience's imagination.
Really nothing gets to happen there. He doesn't really get to do anything.
You know, I saw it with a room full of journalists.
And they were reacting just like a normal audience.
They were reacting the way you described.
I love this beat. I remember, this was not in the script.
And Fede called me...
...during the shooting and said, "Hey, I added this small beat."
- Oh, the upcoming one? - Where she... Yeah.
Where she grabs the turkey baster and stick it in his mouth.
- Yeah, see, I'll tell you what, baby... - And this is all... This is all you, Slang.
Just because I was... I don't even know how I dared to ask you to do that and...
But I did and I was... I was 100 percent...
I had so many answers prepared for when you were gonna say no to me.
I was like, "I know he's gonna say, 'No way.
I'm not gonna do that because it's not in the script."'
Then suddenly out of nowhere...
...when I'm about to roll out my list of answers...
...why you should do it, as soon as I told you, you go:
"Yeah, bring it, let's do it." Heh, heh. Which I thought it was funny.
- Well, you know... - You did it...
It's like that old saying, you know, "Suck one turkey baster," you know?
But I guess it is her revenge, and she deserves it. I think...
And it's like watching it with a female audience is...
They definitely, after suffering that moment of just pain...
And what they thought was gonna happen didn't happen...
...I think, it's a great payback, and deserved payback on her side.
To give it to him and see him doing that...
...as much as it's hilarious and weird and funny it is...
...I think it's a deserved moment...
...for the audience, just to get that payback, so...
It's totally earned is what it is, I think. And that makes it just fine.
ROCKY: Okay. ALEX: This one.
Let's get out of here.
COMMENTARY: I think here, again, one moment...
...you suspect that it may be over but the music is not giving you anything...
...the audience knows that this is not over.
If the music was playing a refreshing, you know, conclusive tune...
...you might think it's gone. But it's not. You know, something's gonna...
It's just amazing that you take him out.
Yes, the audience think it's gonna be her, ironically. I think a lot of people...
They know someone's gonna die because the music is not playing.
And they're just at the door just looking over their shoulder.
And there has been enough time with the movie...
...to know that something's gonna happen.
But they don't know who is gonna die, who is gonna come out.
[ROCKY PANTING]
COMMENTARY: Here's one of those moments that you...
You're begging for her to run as fast as she can.
And this is... You can see it in her eyes, this is really the end of the shooting.
And this is probably the last two days of shooting.
And she's exhausted, and she's been through so much.
And it really reflects what's going on in the story.
- And here comes the dog. - Heh.
[DOG SNARLING AND ROCKY PANTING]
[GROWLING]
Shit.
COMMENTARY: Again, this is another nice transition between Detroit...
...and this is Budapest, actually.
- Is it? - Yeah, we changed countries...
...just like that. That's the beginning of the shooting.
That's Detroit. That's Budapest, sorry.
- Of course. - So, yeah. She goes over the fence.
We have the same fence in one country and the other.
And we managed to do that stitch.
[DOG SNARLING]
COMMENTARY: That was completely different, right?
Originally in the script.
This wasn't like this. This came out later.
I think this might have been my first...
Actually this is... You're completely right.
This is actually the first moment you showed up on set.
This scene must...
It was definitely the most complex scene for me to shoot in the whole movie.
And we actually... It was an ongoing thing.
It was... I think there wasn't...
Basically there was... Every week almost...
...of the shooting of this movie, out of the 45 days of shooting...
...like, there was every five days, something like that...
...we were coming back to this car to pick something up.
Because it was so complex and so tricky to get it to move around the car.
And most importantly, it was so tricky to get the dog to do things he had to do.
Because Jane was doing her job fantastically as you can see right here.
But the dog was so...
It was so demanding for the dog, and so we were constantly coming back.
And during the making of the movie, there was always a second unit...
...like adding shots to this sequence...
...which I think makes it complete at the end.
- It works so well for me. - Yeah.
But it was very, very demanding. It was actually two cars.
One of the cars was cut in half.
And in order to get the camera in there.
This is actually the half car.
[♪♪♪]
My God. You know the Blind Man's coming.
Like, the audience knows the Blind Man's coming.
Whatever she's gonna do, she better be fast.
- Yeah, but she's so intrepid, you know? - Yeah.
The dog is around, so there's no way to come out.
One of those tricky puzzles.
And this is actually, um...
We were trying to figure out how she was gonna come out of the car.
And what was the thing she was going to do.
And because we changed this from originally what was in the script...
...and in pre-production and...
And I remember it was Mathew Hart, the line producer on this movie...
...looking at the car, and all of us scratching our heads...
...looking at the car and trying to figure out how to come out of this situation...
...if we were Rocky. And he said...
And Mathew came out with the idea of, "What about this cord?"
Basically the whole idea of like, at the end...
...using the cord to trap the dog inside the house, inside the car.
- This was... - This is where the scene gets gnarly.
Yeah.
Because that was all real, like that was real, like...
But it was so tricky to do, the punching the face, the click...
Did the dog actually get that close to her?
No, no, I think the... The side shot is a composition of shots.
But, yes, there was a stunt double, which was the owner of the dog.
And it was this woman in some of those shots.
There's a combination of many things.
And actually if you take a close look...
Oh, there you go. That's your first moment he has in the movie.
I think this one here's actually, the punch.
And the cut to this moment here.
And, uh...
- And back at the beginning. - Back at the beginning of the film.
Which is one of those strange things where, you know...
...even though you start there...
...the audience tends to forget about those openings.
But they've been through so much, the ones that are overthinking it...
...maybe they remember, but a lot forget.
Then suddenly, you're back there. And you go, "Yeah.
- Right, exactly. - They told me about it.
I should have known better. She was gonna get caught."
It's elegant.
And this, this is definitely one of those...
...moments that we got so lucky on the shooting.
Like, again, very hot day.
The wrangler showed up, and he had just one ladybug.
Just literally one ladybug and I...
And completely determined to not do a CG ladybug...
...because I didn't do it at the beginning, I wasn't gonna do it now.
And he puts the ladybug on her hand, and does the perfect thing...
...that spread the wings...
...and flies away like right in front of us.
But the first time he did it...
...the ladybug did it, we weren't rolling.
Did it so fast, and we didn't roll on it, and we lost the ladybug.
And then it was everybody in the room trying to find the ladybug.
And someone finds it on the drapes...
...takes it, put it back in the hand, and it happens.
And we managed to get that beautiful shot.
[ALARM BLARING]
BLIND MAN: No! Aah!
Don't!
[GROANING]
COMMENTARY: Again, I can't help but feel pity for the Blind Man now.
Like, it's one of those, you know he's done.
If he cannot hear anything, like, that'd be very hard for him...
...to get her.
And Roque music, Roque Banos' score like starts...
Now this is all... This was all pretty freewheeling here.
This was all...
Remember the camera. We didn't have a...
Yeah.
We had a blueprint, but, uh, kind of making it up...
- Yeah. - ...as we went into shooting.
- Here she comes. - Yeah.
There was again, I think in the script, there was many versions of this ending.
Because it was hard for us morally to understand what was...
To really find an answer to what was the right thing to do...
...and how the movie should end.
Because we thought that if he died, the audience might feel bad about it...
...like strangely being such a... You know...
...being a guy that did something so terrible. Still, just dying like that...
...in his house was something that felt wrong.
But most importantly what was the thing that we really changed...
...in the script many times, and it was...
- ...if she was gonna get away with it or not. - Mm.
I don't know if you notice that, but I love how you can see the glare in his eyes.
You can see a couple spots of light that kind of tells you he might not be dead.
It's gorgeous.
- Little pin pricks of light. - Yeah.
And here in this moment, there used to be...
One of the endings that I still like was that she...
That was in the script that we never shot that she heard...
...the sirens of the cars, of the cops, but they were gonna be closer.
You're gonna see lights coming through the windows.
I mean, not the lights. You will notice the cars outside.
And what she would do is she will take the money, and put it back in the safe.
And that was the only way to get saved. She wasn't taking the money.
There was no way to prove that she was trying to steal anything.
And she was trying to get away with that.
But it was one of those that we felt it wasn't realistic...
...or even if that happened, it would have been very complicated.
So at the end, we said, like, "Okay, she's gonna...
We're not gonna do a Hollywood ending where she gives back the money."
Which was in the script. There was a version where she went to the police...
...and gave back the money. Yeah.
I think at the end, we decided that this was gonna be some sort of pact...
...between criminals...
...when she learns that the guy is... The Blind Man is still alive.
And the Blind Man is not saying anything about the money.
And she got away with the money, it's like a pact between them.
They're gonna be...
They're gonna keep that secret, and they're gonna be safe.
Well, it would be a huge disappointment if she didn't keep the money.
Heh. Yeah, of course.
I mean, for everyone.
- I mean, including the viewer, I think. - Yeah.
You know. I... Yeah, the money.
I mean, everything would have been completely meaningless...
...if she didn't have the money, because it becomes about her sister.
It becomes about the dream of California.
- Yeah. - And it becomes...
Now becomes about the possibility of the sequel.
Yeah, but here I love this moment. They're like so eerie.
Like, you don't... Even though it looks like a happy ending...
...like, story-wise. It definitely doesn't look like a happy ending.
- We thought that... - She's leaving with the money.
And with her sister. Everything seems well.
But, oh, you know she's never gonna sleep well anymore.
Yeah, she knows she's a criminal from now on.
Remember when we shot the, um...
- The Blind Man in the train station? - Yeah, yeah.
Actually that shot, if that continued...
...you were gonna show up in there, you'd see the Blind Man behind her.
You were never gonna see the face. It was one of the things...
...you might think it was him or not.
But I'm happy with the end the way it is that you know there...
There's a price she's gonna pay that she's never gonna be at peace.
And she knows that that guy is alive, and who knows?
He might go after her someday.
This is the title sequence I personally designed.
- I love it. - I did it, I just...
I didn't wanna have black titles against... You know, white titles against black.
- And I created this sequence. - No, it's totally cool.
Just to revisit the places in the house that we spent so much time in.
Well, and that concludes this commentary.
- Thanks so much, guys. - Thanks for watching.
[♪♪♪]