Choosing a cult as the topic tackled in one's first feature-length film may sound strange but, as Sean Durkin – writer/director of “Martha Marcy May Marlene” - explains, the subject is symbolic of something universally significant.
“I have always been interested in why humans gravitate toward groups and the desire to be part of something larger than yourself,” says Durkin, citing things like work, friends, sports and church as examples. “It is very natural and healthy. I wanted to explore it in a cinematic and extreme way and to try and understand where someone manipulates that need.”
In “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” Elizabeth Olsen stars as a young woman who, after escaping from a cult, is haunted by her experiences there and fears that its vicious leader (John Hawkes) may be trying to find her. Durkin prepared for the project by doing a lot of reading about cults and meeting people with ties to them.
“As a writer, I could have infiltrated a cult – and I know people who would have done that,” says Durkin, noting that such an approach is not in his character, though, so he respected and accepted himself and conducted research in ways he believes honored that. “I felt like one in five people that I talked to knew someone who had been in a cult or were in a cult themselves.”
Meanwhile, Olsen attempted to pinpoint precisely what need her character was unable to get met by her family and friends and therefore prompted her to become an easy target for the cult. The actress says that she essentially sought justification of her character's actions thereby making it easier to reflect the effect the loss of the cult had on her.
“On top of that, when she is at the lake house, there is a sense of paranoia that I focused on,” says Olsen, noting that her experience working on “Martha Marcy May Marlene” was quite draining. “I latched onto the paranoia as something I could grasp a little better. I had to figure out at what point it would be safe to talk about it and what was going on in her mind – without much dialogue.”
Olsen adds that the environment Durkin facilitated on the set was a particularly supportive one and that she hopes to continue to surround herself with filmmakers who adopt similar approaches. As for “Martha Marcy May Marlene's” ambiguous ending, Durkin does not think that there is necessarily a right or wrong answer with respect to what happens next.
“The goal is to create Martha’s experiences on what those two weeks would be like and understanding what it would be like to get out of something like this,” Durkin explains.“You don’t recover from things like this. It takes years and some people never recover. If you have questions, hopefully they are the same questions Martha has. I wanted it to be fully about her experiences.”
“Martha Marcy May Marlene” (R – 101 minutes) is now playing exclusively at Harkins Camelview 5. Visit FirstLook.com for specific showtimes.
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