STATE

Courtney Sturm

Myles Macvane

Patrick Cragin

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

State started with an article about one of the darkest, most decisive moments in American history. It grew into a story about two characters: one, poisoned by their involvement succumbs to the burden of their guilt decades later; the other, about a young man struggling to come to grips with PTSD and maniacally seeking out his estranged girlfriend. Anguish and despair can reveal themselves in the most unexpected ways.

The script was developed with the idea that our personal and shared histories are not always distinguishable. While the allusions to the old man’s past and his struggles with his lost family life added to the tragedy of the story, the manifestations of the young man’s trauma and his attempt to find his girlfriend added to the intrigue with the hope that it will create a sense of raw emotional suspense, elevated by the parallel montage sequences that bind these characters to a larger shared traumatic history. 

The basic action is like two trains colliding: the old man preparing to end his life; the young man hanging onto reality and obsessed with reaching his girlfriend. The young man’s story is a psychological thriller, the obstacles are both external and internal: murder, war, trauma, and reality. The old man’s story is a brooding suspense, the obstacles are internal: memory, guilt, suicide, and death. To the old man, shame and the feeling of abandonment are unbearable. Ultimately, their journeys lead to a violent reckoning. 

The experience I’m most trying to communicate with State is the feeling of descending into a cave and finding twilight at the edge of an opening. While this film has trauma, violence, and death, it’s about transformation and misunderstanding. It’s about how absurd the world can seem when we expect it to be a certain way, and how surreal it can when we don’t.

While the story is intimate, I did not approach it as a “small” film, or even an “indie” film. I wanted it to take risks, experiment, be uncompromising and innovative, to try and connect deeply with each audience member - through their own psychotropic narrative. 

This quote: “And so time becomes the very foundation of cinema: as sound is in music, colour in painting, character in drama.” (Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time) guided me through the entire post-production process. I first read it just after starting the edit and it was as if a light had gone off in my head.

Doing all the post-production myself has been the most challenging experience of my life - the highest highs and the lowest lows. I feel like I swam through the nebulous recesses of my subconscious: submerged in a battle between the mythical gods, demons and doppelgängers of my imagination, confronted with and by the vengeful spirit of my own soul; often paralyzed by the uncertainty of knowing whose side I was on. I wish I could put it more simply, or less insanely, but it is the best description I can give at the moment. There were times when I wanted to destroy the film and others when I felt that it was the most beautiful thing I could imagine. I hope that you get to see a bit of both when you watch. 

Alain Nouvel

04/2019