by James Mottram
“To me, it’s what we call in the trans community, an ‘egg crack’ movie,” says writer-director Jane Schoenbrun, talking about their beguiling new sci-fi/horror I Saw the TV Glow.
Schoenbrun, the non-binary American filmmaker who goes by the ‘they/them’ pronouns, labels this sophomore film the second part of their ‘Screen’ trilogy. The first, their debut feature, was 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a coming-of-age psychological horror that deals with gender identity.
Schoenbrun realised they were transgender during a mushroom trip whilst writing the script.
“I made We’re All Going to the World’s Fair while coming out,” says Schoenbrun, when we meet at the Berlin Film Festival. “I wrote it while figuring out for myself that I was trans. There was a lot of repression that I was working through. And when I started that film, I didn’t have words for it. I didn’t have the word ‘dysphoria’ to describe this alienation that I had felt as a teenager, from my own body, from my own identity, and the thing that had sent me onto the internet in pursuit of myself through fiction and through the exploration that a screen can give you; that can be safe in a way that the real world isn’t.”
Right after Schoenbrun finished making World’s Fair, the pandemic happened, and the filmmaker began their “physical transition”. They also expanded on the idea for TV Glow, the story of what happens to two Queer teens (Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine) when the sci-fi show they love gets mysteriously cancelled.
“I always knew that this was a film about dysphoria, or a film about feeling that your world or your identity is not your own. But I think it was really after I began the process of transition, which is a wonderful process in many ways… but in its early stages is quite traumatic.”
A rich allegory for transition, in the film, the characters of Owen and Maddy watch a show called ‘The Pink Opaque’, a mid-1990s sci-fi about two teens battling an adversary called Mr. Melancholy. “The movie is so much about my own youth, my misspent youth, staring at a screen watching Are You Afraid of the Dark? Or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The X-Files or videotapes that I was renting from the video store. This was my mythology as a kid; this was where I find a richness and a magic that felt more like real life than the drudgery of the suburbs where I grew up.”
Born in 1987, Schoenbrun was raised in Westchester County, about 40 minutes from New York. As a teen, Schoenbrun worked in a local movie theatre, before eventually heading to Boston University. After graduating from the film programme in 2009, they later became a production assistant for the filmmakers behind Uncut Gems, the Safdie brothers, before working on their own material.
Now they are able to look at their youth – and a devotion to shows like Buffy – with distance. “I think on a personal level, I’m fascinated by the way that those TV shows could be such a place to hide, a place that felt warm to me and a place that gave me a glimpse of something beautiful. But [I was also interested in] the way that that can become almost desperate and habitual and another means of repression if it becomes too much your identity.”
Nor is it confined to those who bury themselves in TV shows. Following this and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Schoenbrun admits that they’re intrigued by the impact that a world of screens has on us now. “It’s always fascinated me that we don’t make more work about it, because it’s the dominant moment; at least in the Western world right now, it’s a moment defined by screens.”
Looking around the hotel room, with its obligatory flatscreens on the walls, they add: “How many screens are in this room right now?”
In I Saw the TV Glow, Owen becomes so obsessed by ‘The Pink Opaque’ that reality and fantasy blend in an increasingly disturbing way, as the screen becomes a “very personal metaphor” for transition. “Even for Owen’s journey in the film, it’s not necessarily linear or straightforward. I do think as the film goes on to this – to me – iconic moment when he smashes his head through the screen… it’s almost a too on-the-nose metaphor for it. He’s desperate for a relationship that isn’t mediated by that glass and that distance. That says it all.”
With this in mind, you might think Schoenbrun is homaging David Cronenberg’s legendary 1983 film Videodrome, when James Woods’ Max becomes something of a human VCR. But in fact, “the most influential is [Cronenberg’s 1999 virtual reality tale] eXistenZ,” says the director. “That movie is really underrated. It’s almost a coy sequel to Videodrome in some ways… the way that that film layers reality until you’ve completely forgotten what layer of reality you’re within, is brilliant and something I strive to do in my own work. I think Cronenberg is a huge influence and I think has become a patron saint of a lot of younger trans filmmakers. His gaze on the body is one that feels both fascinated and horrified by sexuality, which is something that a lot of trans folks can relate to.”
Among the highlights of I Saw the TV Glow is the performance of Justice Smith, the actor known for starring as Franklin Webb in the Jurassic World Series. “I love Justice,” says Schoenbrun. “I think the thing that drew me to Justice is how much of a chameleon he is in every role. I’d seen him in maybe four or five things, and I felt he was a different person each time, which to me is… if you’re watching movies that aren’t necessarily going to be my personal favourite movies, I can recognise when an actor is committing in a way that feels like it’s rigorous. And I think his performances are exactly this.”
As for what’s next, Schoenbrun is now working on a trilogy of books, Public Access Afterworld, a mix of fantasy, sci-fi, horror and coming-of-age that will hopefully be the basis for the third part of their ‘Screen’ trilogy. The first of these is due to be published next year. “I had this idea that just kept growing and growing until part of it took place in World War Two, and part of it took place in space, and part of it took place in another dimension,” they explain. “It’s sort of like my Dune or my Game of Thrones.” An epic tome from an epic mind.
I Saw the TV Glow is in cinemas from 29 August 2024
