- [Narrator] From the literary works of William Faulkner
and Flannery O'Connor,
to the dark gritty world of true detective.
The Southern Gothic genre captures a sinister atmosphere
of despair and decay in the American South.
Southern Gothic stories commonly include,
decayed or derelict settings, grotesque situations,
darkened religious symbols, deeply flawed, disturbing,
or eccentric characters, and sinister events stemming
from poverty, alienation, crime or violence.
The novel, "The Devil All The Time" by Donald Ray Pollock,
takes place in West Virginia and Southern Ohio.
And could be described as a midwestern gothic.
When director Antonio Campos
and his brother Paulo Campos adopted the novel
into a feature film,
they were tasked with translating this literary genre,
into a cinematic expression.
- I've said Midwestern Gothic to some people.
And then they're like,"I don't even, what does that mean?"
It means exactly whatever you feel it means.
You know what Southern Gothic feels like,
you know what the Midwest feels like, and that's it.
It's this weird intersection of those two feelings.
- [Narrator] So how did Campos capture
this Midwestern Gothic feeling?
To find out let's take a look at the opening 15 minutes
of "The Devil All The Time."
To examine how the very first moments
of the film establish a clear tone and genre.
To explore how Campos uses a darkened religious symbol,
to introduce the central character of Willard.
And to see how the sequence teases a sprawling cast
of deeply flawed eccentric characters,
whose pleasant facades, hide sinister realities.
Let's sit down with Co-Writer and Director Antonio Campos,
to dissect The Opening Sequence of "The Devil All The Time."
Antonio Campos was originally drawn
to "The Devil All The Time,"
because it lies at the intersection
of two of his favorite literary genres.
Southern Gothic, and hard-boiled noir.
- I had a feeling that it would be something
that I'd have fun adapting with Paulo, my brother.
We both love the same kind of Southern Gothic
and hard-boiled literature.
It almost feels like the film starts off more
in a Southern Gothic universe,
and then finds the hard-boiled fiction as it progresses.
- [Narrator] So from the very first moments of the film,
the opening titles, Campos thought about how
to set expectations for the tone and genre of the story.
- The titles are also part of the design of the movie.
We spent a lot of time trying to find the right font.
Sometimes we go in a font that felt Gothic,
Southern Gothic quality.
Then we went and sort of in a bolder kind of noir style.
Then that didn't feel quite right either,
because the film doesn't start off there, it gets there.
So what we found was the combination of the two
in a way the first sort of titles
in the movie are more delicate.
"The Devil All The Time,"
the title that we landed on that is big bold noir.
That felt like the way of introducing the two genres.
- [Narrator] The first image we see
after the opening titles is an old roadmap.
Focusing on the story's two central locations,
Coal Creek, West Virginia, and Knockemstiff, Ohio.
Campos put the same care into crafting this opening image,
as he did designing the titles.
- The colors are important.
Like the map has this kind of very striking red
that I think immediately kind
of implies some sort of danger,
and also felt more like web like.
So that right away the image of the map, isn't just a map,
but almost feels like a web
that you're getting trapped into.
- [Narrator] An omniscient to narrator,
voiced by the author of the novel Donald Ray Pollock,
sets the stage for the story.
- I heard an interview with Don,
and I had that voice in my head.
And I knew that the only person
that could be the narrator was Don.
I just hoped that when I asked him he would say yes.
- [Don] How and why so many people
from those two peddling places on
that map could end up connected,
has a lot to do with our story.
- He set up these two places
on that map that are important.
Subtly try introduce this idea that the movie is
about a lot of people connected over a long period of time.
- [Don] In 1957,
it takes someone approximately 10 hours
to drive from Coal Creek to a paper mill town
in Southern Ohio called Meade.
Once you got to Meade,
Knockemstiff was only a short drive away.
- [Narrator] This narration combines with brief slice
of life scenes from Knockemstiff,
depicting a decaying derelict setting.
- I'd like for you to feel like you're sort
of seeing a slice of life.
So a lot of those opening shots are remove fixed camera,
allowing the action to play.
Watching the customers at that dive bar,
just shoot the shit, and Hank
just waiting for somebody to come by,
and then Willard this random guy show up
and greet his son and wife after a long day at work.
- [Narrator] After establishing a sense of place,
the opening sequence narrows in on one family,
the Russell's, and one man in particular.
- There's a lot of characters in this movie,
but it starts with Willard.
- [Narrator] A man haunted by religion.
- I've always been fascinated by religion.
I grew up Catholic and I had a mother who was very religious
and a father who was not.
Living with those two extremes, created a struggle in me.
The thing that has resonated with me
in Southern Gothic literature is the way
that it deals with spirituality and religion.
Religion almost haunts the characters.
And so that aspect of "The Devil All The Time" is very sort
of reminiscent of Southern Gothic literature.
- [Narrator] The first time we meet Willard,
he's kneeling with his son Arvin,
in front of a crucifix in the forest.
- And the prayer log is the first religious symbol
in the movie, and it's very humble, it's homemade,
it's in a clearing out behind his house.
But there's something very serene
and peaceful about that space.
And that's what we wanted you to feel in the beginning.
- [Don] When he prayed,
his mind would often drift back to the war
in the South Pacific.
And the day that he and a couple of other soldiers came
across the body of Gunnery Sergeant Miller Jones.
- And then we wanted to transport you back 12 years
to the Solomon Islands,
where you realize the cross that Willard has planted
in the back has more to do with what he saw there,
then with the pictures of Jesus on the cross
that he grew up looking at.
Just by juxtaposing the scene of him praying in 1957,
in the back of his house with his son,
to the shot of the man crucified on top of the Hill,
we wanted to link those two places
and spaces in Willard's mind.
And you understood that this guy is haunted
by that event in his life.
- [Narrator] The cross becomes a darkened religious symbol
in "The Devil All The Time."
One that haunts Willard, when he returns home from the war.
- He comes back with a different relationship
to his religion, to Christianity,
and then it goes into something that actually steps away
from the church and becomes almost pagan.
It's religion in the woods.
All of that is being set up
in the first 10 minutes of the movie.
- [Narrator] Later in the film,
Willard's haunted relationship with religion,
will take a gruesome turn.
- It devolves into something extreme and disturbing,
which is also not only pagan,
but what you find in the Bible.
- [Narrator] This gothic turn
toward the grotesque is foreshadowed in a church sermon
at the end of the opening sequence.
When we're introduced to Roy,
one of the many religious figures in this film,
who's pious exterior's mask a disturbing reality underneath.
- William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor are two
of my favorite writers.
Flannery O'Connor explores characters that are highest,
but have ulterior motives.
And they're using the frock, they're using their position
to satisfy other needs.
And I think the genre is interested
in exploring that side of faith.
The abuse of faith, and the abuse of that power.
They are all believers,
but they've created their own rules in their head
to justify the things that they do.
- [Narrator] Roy, a traveling preacher is one such example
of a seemingly righteous character with a dark side.
- See that one in the wheelchair drank too much strychnine
or antifreeze or something is why he can't walk.
Testing their faith they call it.
That's going too far the way I see it.
- Now that's what hell is brothers and sisters.
- [congregation] That's right.
I got no rest from them devils.
- [congregation] Amen.
Not until the Lord gave me strength.
- [Congregation] Amen.
- Brothers and sisters
- [Narrator] Roy drops to his knees and jiggles the jar.
He unscrewed the lid.
- Behold!
The lord looks out for me now.
- [Narrator] Roy takes a breath and turns the jar over.
A mass of spiders, brown, black, orange, small,
and large, pour onto his head, shoulders, and the floor.
Roy caps off the opening sequence with this Gothic image
of religion turned grotesque.
This moment also foreshadows the twisted path ahead,
for Roy and his future wife Helen.
When he decides to take testing their faith, to the extreme.
But in "the Devil All The Time,"
it's not just religious figures
who hide menacing realities beneath respectable facades.
As we follow young Willard returning home from the war,
we also get a brief introduction to two other characters
in the story's tangled web, Carl, and Sandy.
Sandy walks around the counter and up to Carl,
sitting by the window, fiddling with his camera.
- So what'll you be having?
- Ham and cheese.
- [Narrator] She tries to find a pen in her apron.
- You're a bit green on the job.
- That obvious, huh?
My brother just got me the jobs so...
- [Narrator] What might look like an innocent meeting,
is quickly subverted with an interjection from the narrator.
- You take pictures?
- [Don] In the years to come,
Carl would call Sandy "the bait,"
and she'd him "the shooter."
- Only want to find a smile pretty enough
to photograph, that is.
- [Don] And they both called the victims "the models."
- I'll have to think about it.
- [Narrator] In the world of Midwestern Gothic,
a terrible reality is always hiding right
below the charming veneer of small town America.
- The other aspect of noir that I like
that is very common in noir fiction and movies,
is just like that small town America
that just has this other side to it.
The random bar that's like off main street,
that everyone goes to.
But there's something ominous,
and something dangerous going on in the back.
Even in this kind of idyllic Americana,
there's this other thing going on.
- [Narrator] By the end of the opening sequence,
several of the films eccentric, flawed
and dangerous characters have been introduced.
And the stage is set for their tragic paths, to collide.
The opening sequence of "The Devil All The Time "
is a great example of how
to express a literary genre in cinematic terms.
- I hope more
and more people start using the term Midwestern Gothic.
But hopefully now
that will be like a subcategory on Netflix.
(upbeat music)