“I wanted to make a movie with my best friend, where I could really showcase Macon [Blair], nudge him a bit out of his comfort zone by not doing self-parody or gonzo humor. We were gonna make a real movie that might be interpreted as legitimate art, but we weren’t going to totally shed our love of blood and guts, cars on the road, wind and dust and sand,” “Blue Ruin” director Jeremy Saulnier recently told us. “I wanted to have these elements that were usually too expensive to harness, so I bought my own camera and constructed a whole narrative around Macon.” And the result is a movie with blood, guts and lots of critical acclaim, including at FIPRESCI Prize win at Cannes. And if you haven’t seen it yet, perhaps this will push you in the right direction.
As part of their ongoing “Anatomy Of A Scene” series, this week The New York Times focuses on “Blue Ruin” with Saulnier adding commentary to a scene from the film. The story follows a man on a mission of vengeance who finds things don’t quite go as planned, and he’s forced to protect his estranged family as a result. And in this scene, Saulnier details a sequence following the bloody aftermath of the vengeance mission that goes off remarkably easily… but of course, there’s much more to come.
“Blue Ruin” is now playing—go see it. Watch below.