Tarsem’s The Fall is an anomaly. Since met with polarizing critical reviews and a non-existent box office in 2007, the film has earned a reputation from its lack of accessibility. It’s been one of those rare films not found on streaming, only watched (legally, at least) by a select few with physical copies and theater owners brave enough to put on a screening. The stories around the fantasy film exist as myth and precaution alike, with the Indian director sinking much of his own money into the project, traveling to 28 countries over many years, and filming solely on-location. But as Roger Ebert said in his four-star review, “There will never be another like it.”
Tarsem made his bones in the early 1990s on music videos and commercials, working with large musicians and even-larger brands. Over the last 25 years he’s made six feature films, each distinct in style and form, each undeniable in its aesthetic singularity. The Fall is the peak of that singularity, with each scene painted onto the camera with real-world scale and beauty. His commitment to the project seems absurd in the context of the current Hollywood condition.
The film follows Roy (Lee Pace), a stunt double recovering from a horrific accident, as he tells a fairytale story to Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), a young girl staying in the hospital. The two of them push themselves further into the folds of the fantasy, making their own relationship a through line. While watching the film, I kept thinking how glad I am that it exists. There’s something immense about the production, about the visual splendor, and about the reserved, ultimately sturdy emotional payoff. It feels like a miracle that The Fall continues to persevere despite nearly two decades of cult obscurity, many passes from streamers, and a small, faithful audience that hasn’t had the ability to grow.
Yet Tarsem still talks about the film with unwavering passion and love. To him, it’s personal; it’s special. The Fall is a combination of his talent and his willingness to take risks. With its 4K restoration coming to MUBI this Friday as well as theatrical screenings starting October 15, I talked with Tarsem about the film’s fans, the emotional cut he hopes to release, and why he had Lee Pace spend the entirety of the production in a wheelchair. As in his filmmaking, Tarsem didn’t hold back.
The Film Stage: The Fall has been with you for several decades. Now that you’re releasing it again to a wider audience, do you feel like this closes another chapter for you?
Tarsem: It opens another chapter. You’re a guy with a half-empty glass. I just think it opens another chapter. Who could have thought 20 years ago about VHS, [then] it was this digital thing, and then came Blu-ray; then it’s the fucking cloud. The next one might just be something that’s projected to the back of your eyeballs for all I know. So there’s a whole bunch of different chapters coming. I’m just thinking whatever. This was a story I wanted to make, and it was the only thing that I owned the rights to. I just thought it was very special; it just didn’t get any eyeballs on it. And after 20 years, it found its audience. Then people were tired of paying, like, 300 bucks for Blu-ray. I found this out last year when I was at TIFF, and I just said, “Okay, I’m going to spend the next couple of months and I’m just going to make it available,” since all the rights were mine.
Does that make you nervous, getting more eyeballs on it?
I’m fucking atheist since I was a child, but I experienced something last week in Paris at the Cinémathèque. They screened it, and I was telling them that, just like the U.S., nobody wanted the movie even for free. So I had to work for another two years in the U.S. to get it out into 12 cinemas. Of those few people who saw it out there, they either thought it was shit or thought it was amazing. And the “amazing” guys ended up having more babies than the other guys, which I’m glad. So when I saw it in Paris, I was quite stunned by the reactions––because I always thought it would be that, but then forever ago they were just telling me that it doesn’t work. But when I saw it with the audience for whom it works, it was such a visceral experience that I just got, like, “Ah, maybe my baby doesn’t smell that bad.”
That must be incredibly special.
Truly. I made the movie not for anybody. I made the movie so I could fucking breathe. It was stopping me from doing anything else. I’d had the idea for 17 years. I was location-scouting and making dots on it, looking for the child for nine years. Then we ended up shooting in 28 countries, all that particular stuff. And then I was like, “Oh, now I’m ready for other things, but nobody likes your ugly child”. And I’m like, “Oh, fuck. Okay, let’s get him out there a little bit and then teach him to walk.” Then suddenly the child that has just been in a wheelchair just gets up and starts running.
I just saw the film for the first time a few weeks ago since I missed it originally…
Fuck you, too. [Laughs.] When I went to the TIFF thing, they wouldn’t talk about the new movie. They’re saying, “What’s up with The Fall?” And I just went like, “Where were you guys when I was trying to get anybody to take it?” We were very naive. I have no idea.
How do you react to these other films you’ve made having a much larger audience then?
This was a personal film. I was aware of it, but I did think it was a little bit more commercial than everybody was saying. But now I made the second personal film [Dear Jassi], which we won this big award at TIFF [The Platform Award]. It’s the only film ever that I’ve done well with critics but no single person is buying it. So maybe another 20 years, people are going to say, like, “Hey, I just saw this movie. It should have come out, just like the second personal film I made.” The other films were made for finances. The Fall was just like I said: I made it so I could breathe.
People often focus on the visual aspects of The Fall, but I’m curious about the emotional elements. How’d you find those moments?
That’s to be the next release, in 15-20 years from now. When we had shot the hospital scenes, I had literally turned around to the editor and I just said, “You know what: if you want to win awards in every festival, we shouldn’t shoot a single piece of fantasy. Just release the two of them in the bed.” It’s magical, and it was. But at that time my girlfriend had dumped me. I needed to go on a magical history tour, and I just had it. I prepared for that for many many years. I said “Let’s go make it,” so we made it. So I’m thinking years from now, I can actually release it as an alternate.
Right now, I’m still trying to do other things, but when I do sit down I think I will release the version which is just them, and it’s only heart. I was looking for the child for close to a decade, but when I found her I told my brother, “We will make the movie in the next three months.” So she is the special one. I just think, truly, for me, if that story doesn’t work for you, the rest of it is just a visual wank. The visuals are telling you that I’m meandering here a little bit, but there’s a story coming. It’s like talking to a convert––we’re preaching. People who are watching now are aware there must be something off-center about it, and they’ll watch it and then they come onboard. It’s just that when you release it to an unsuspecting audience, they’re wanting it to move at a particular pace.
Did it feel that way on set when you were shooting those hospital scenes?
100% when it was happening. Unfortunately, when we first started editing, I was telling the editor, “Is this it? Should I shoot anything?” I didn’t feel like going home. I just said let’s ride this horse until it stops. And four years later, it stopped and I was bankrupt.
What about the all-black costumes of the henchmen? How’d those come about?
I didn’t come up with the costume stuff. It’s all Eiko Ishioka. She was the greatest costume designer in the last few centuries. The idea is always when you tell people you want them to really be edgy or go out of the way, you have to tell them to think outside the box. With Eiko, it was never that problem; you had to pull her in. She would be so outside she didn’t know what a fucking box was. She would come out with stuff so left- and right-field. We’d have to make this costume to fight and then it’d show up and it’d take four men to lift that coat. And she goes like, “Well, does he have to walk in it?” And I’d say, “It’s a fucking coat!”
She fell in love with my best friend, and we were fans of her since we were in college. All the time, we were together. We would be on page one of the script together, and we would talk. I just thought, “What do the henchmen look like?” We saw these leather aprons that looked so scary. And then she took the chimneys of Gaudi and put that on the helmet and we tweaked it a little bit, and she came up with all of that.
You mentioned the emotional vs. visual elements of the film. How do you find the balance between reality and fantasy with a movie as expansive as this?
Well, the funny thing was, I was finding it forever because I was starting with none of the background. I didn’t have them. For the four years, wherever I was doing shoots, I would fly a guy in. So actually I was finding that balance to a certain extent, a little bit later. So I did it incorrectly. As the critics who hate the stuff always say, I put the cart ahead of the donkey.
Tell me a little about finding Lee Pace and working with him.
I knew it had to be somebody that nobody knew. I was just looking for film students and I saw he had played only one character who was a woman, so I knew nobody would recognize him. So we changed his name on the call sheets, and Lee just said he plays the person in the hospital and the father would play the real person. And I needed that to work, so I couldn’t really go for a celebrity. Only thing was his voice was so amazing. Even in Soldier’s Girl, the film that he had been in, I knew it was the right storyteller.
The little girl had no idea he wasn’t actually in the hospital, right?
She’s only one of them. The cameraman had no idea, and all the actors, none of them. Because I just thought, “If they start acting a certain way around him, she will catch on.” So I didn’t tell any of them; we changed the script. The day we told them, when we finished in South Africa, people were so angry.
How’d people react?
There is a “making of” that doesn’t make it very clear, but you can see that when you tell it to them, some people are really pissed off. Somebody is telling me, “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Now, my cameraman: I would have told him. It’s not against him. It’s just then you start standing on the bed, putting the lights over there and doing that. But if you know a person is handicapped, you move with a particular speed around that person. I wanted the child to move at that speed. And that was the reason; not for any method acting.
But it turned out to be a bit of a method, I think, because it really depressed the hell of Lee Pace. Because all of us were staying together; we were all having a great time. He had to be kept separate. He always came in a wheelchair and took, like, an hour to get him into the bed, and he just hated it. And it worked, but it wasn’t for any particular reason apart from that I wanted the girl to think it was real.
Was it hard to convince him to do that?
That was a prerequisite. When I first met him, I told him this: “There’s only one time that I’ve ever seen a child’s performance work, and that’s what I’m going to go after. It’s a movie called Ponette.” Second thing is, “You will not walk during that particular time.” He said, “Oh, I’m here for the interview.” And I said, “No, no, you had the job before you came in here. You’re the guy.” There’s nobody like Lee. He’s fucking incredible.
What about directing physicality in movies, especially with action? How do you approach that style?
I hate doing what I will call “normal action,” unless you give me a lot of time. You go to these films, there isn’t enough time to do the action so it ends up looking generic. That’s why they all suddenly look identical from one period. Next period will all look identical. It isn’t really an individualistic effort. So for me, when I had to do that, I had done The Cell before. And in that particular one I didn’t want to do any fighting in the last act. In this particular one, the fighting is very stylized because literally there’s only so much you can tell a child before they tune out. When he actually is going to beat the shit out of the bad guy, she goes like, “Don’t. Stop fighting.” She wants to say, “I’m scared.” And she brings that in because she’s one of the characters in it. Action is okay, but when you don’t have enough money to compete with the big boys, it looks lame.
You film The Fall in so many recognizable places around the world. I was hoping to ask about permissions––finding ways to use these cities, buildings, landscapes.
It was sometimes illegal. Sometimes people stormed us out of places, one particular place four times, and then we had a religious riot. Then I had to go into the guy with a gun to get the master plates and finish it, which isn’t the simplest thing. I’ve just never seen anything like that particular location. I’ve chosen these architectural places and it has to be in that style. So a lot of these places, people will just say they’re familiar with, but nobody films there for a very good reason. When you make a film, usually the first place they look for is where we are going to park the trucks, then where the actors are going to sleep. Then you look for the location and they all look the same.
And for me, I remember when, even when we had used part of that Namibia for The Cell because I wanted the opening sequence not to look theatrical, and I remember they were like, “But why do you have to take general offense to Namibia? What about the deserts in America?” I said, “Yes, but do you know what this desert looks like? There’s the Sahara Desert too, and nothing looks like this desert.” And everybody always looks at that and they go, “How did you find that?” There are places like that, but they are a lot harder to access, and especially when you go as top-heavy with that many actors to go. Then you have to find where people sleep and all that becomes cost-prohibitive. But this time, there was just a madman at the helm that just said, “Fuck it.”
The Fall begins streaming on MUBI starting September 27 and opens in theaters on October 15. Learn more here.