Interview: 'Antebellum' writers/directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz

After directing stylish commercials for Vogue and Porsche, music videos for Jay-Z and Khalid, and the police brutality PSA “Against the Wall” — featuring Michael B. Jordan, Danny Glover, and Michael K. Williams — the duo of Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz made their stunning feature film debut with 2020’s Antebellum.

The taut social thriller draws a mysterious connection between plantation slave Eden and modern-day bestselling author Veronica, both played by musician/actor Janelle Monáe, and its lush cinematography seems likely to contend for honors from critics associations and perhaps the Independent Spirit Awards.

Via a Zoom video chat from their California home, the life partners and creative partners spoke with Asheville Movies about making the leap to full-length narrative works, the joys of conversing with new people during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unexpected critical reaction to their movie.

Edwin Arnaudin: Thanks for joining me, guys. Are you in L.A. today?

Christopher Renz: Yeah. What about you?

EA: I’m in Asheville, North Carolina. I didn’t know if y’all had any experience with this fine city.

Gerard Bush: No, but we love North Carolina. We love to go anywhere at this point. [Laughs]. It’s just been…we’ve been pretty much trapped in L.A. for the past 10 months.

CR: Love the Outer Banks.

GB: Love the Outer Banks.

EA: Yeah, it’s lovely. Well, cool! I’m glad we could connect today and, just thinking about this film, I think it’s one of the best of the year. I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few months. I guess it was September when I reviewed it and got to see it. So, I guess, first off, reflecting on those last few months, what’s it been like, in retrospect, releasing your first film in a pandemic and now navigating awards season in similar circumstances?

GB: First, thank you for talking to us and I’m so happy to hear that you got something meaningful from the movie. But, I don’t know…it’s really difficult for us to re-contextualize this as anything else because the only experience that we’ve had is releasing our first film in the middle of something that felt so significant and sort of paradigm-shifting that it’s unprecedented. What we’ve felt like is if the movie in any way can move the needle and continue these conversations, then I think we felt like we didn’t have a choice but to do it and put it out. Because we really made the film for a theatrical experience.

EA: For sure.

GB: We made it for the screen. It was one critic from Variety who said he was so thankful to have been among the few that were able to see it in a theater because I think that it strikes a different tenor, even, especially in a group situation. But anyway, the fact that the film, in some small or big…I mean, it’s really difficult to know when you’re strapped into an airplane that is upside down that everyone is trying to correct, while…and you’re like, “Hey! What about my movie?” [Laughs] I mean, it just feels like what’s really important and what’s not so important in these times. But if the movie was wildly entertaining and could in any way shift consciousness in the way people think about issues of race in America, well, then we’ve done what we set out to do.

As far as navigating through awards — again, this is our first time at this rodeo. All we’ve known are Zooms and meeting new friends online and having conversations about movies and life, and we’re so famished for company, to be able to talk, so when we see someone like you on Zoom, it’s like, “Oh, that’s exciting! Let’s talk to someone new. We need to talk!” [Laughs] So, it’s good.

EA: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s definitely opened up things on the journalist side, too, I think, because we’ve been able to connect face-to-face with people that, especially in markets like mine — it’d be pretty rare that I’d get the chance to see you guys and have this kind of talk. So, it’s been…there have been some upsides to it, I’d say. But there is nothing like that group dynamic.

GB: Yeah! And we’ve heard a lot about that — about how the journalists were able to get in front of each other in a much more inclusive way. And I hope that that is one of the remaining vestiges after this is all over. That we can…“Wow! We have Zoom! We don’t have to physically be in the same room to be able to have a conversation.”

And I think it’s important. You know, we see what happens when we neglect so many parts of this country and we think that we understand what’s happening or we think that we understand our fellow citizens. And because we’re not in sort of real contact with each other in any meaningful way — and just having someone like you that’s in Asheville, for instance, that can actually talk to us about our movie and have some perspective of where we’re coming from.

Photo by Matt Kennedy

EA: Definitely. Well, I’m really thankful for it and, like I said, thankful for this film and I’m just so impressed, just in terms of looking at your filmography prior to this and being able to turn out such a fantastic feature debut. I was curious from your side, in terms of upscaling the short film/music video skills to a feature, which do you feel translated most seamlessly and which did you feel like you had to kind of stretch yourselves a little more than maybe you expected?

CR: Well, the feature film, it’s an overwhelming task. I mean, all of the PSAs and commercials and music videos that we’ve done before, it’s all on such a smaller scale. And it’s such a big production and so much goes into it, and there’s so many things that are going on that we had to learn. It was a great experience and will be very helpful for us in the next film as well.

EA: Nice. And then, in thinking about influences on this film, I got vibes, maybe some more obvious vibes of Get Out and The Village, but I’m also a big fan of the BBC series The Prisoner and I didn’t know if that was something that helped inform any part of this film.

CR: You know, we heard about that afterwards.

GB: About The Prisoner?

CR: Yeah.

GB: I’ve gotta watch that.

CR: I know. I need to watch it.

EA: It’s so good.

GB: I’m gonna watch it. Like, yeah, I’ve gotta watch that. Look, we didn’t…the movie…you know, we didn’t set out to make a movie that was in any way paying homage to Get Out or The Village. We really were just out to do our own thing. We have tremendous respect for so many filmmakers, but ultimately I think, for us, it was important. I think if anything, Gone with the Wind was definitely on our mind a lot. And I think if we…if I can remember how I felt when I saw Parasite with Chris, for instance. It wasn’t so much what Parasite was and how it was constructed. It was the fact that it didn’t paint by numbers and [Bong Joon-ho] did what he wanted to do and made the film that he wanted to make.

This is our first feature. We would be naive to think that we have that kind of autonomy and control over the first feature, but the next one we will. [Laughs] And we got as close to, you know, where we wanted to land and we’re really proud of it. But I think that it was important that we could deliver some of the more uncomfortable components or aspects of the film, that we also needed to make sure that it was really beautiful to look at. And that was also a part of what we were trying communicate, is that beauty and tragedy and horror oftentimes trade places in the same space, and if there were films that had communicated that, I think that that definitely would have an influence on us.

Photo by Matt Kennedy

EA: Yeah, a lot of the things that you’re saying about having that vision and seeing it through and the points that you wanted to make, I definitely see that and I think it’s a total success on that front. And it really speaks to the modern social issues — it was like y’all were reading my mind about the personal paranoia I have of, you know, who’s reading my articles and thoughts and what might be done with that.

So, I’m seeing this amazing film — it’s beautiful, it’s got Janelle Monáe, who everyone loves, and I just figured it was going to be a critical hit. And then I find myself in minority on it and I’m still kind of piecing that together. I was just curious what you made of the critical response to it and how you’re kind of using that to move forward with your next film.

CR: I think a lot of it came from the subject matter, and a lot of the reviews kind of don’t get past that. You know, “Another slave film,” when it’s obviously not just another slave film. It’s a little bit frustrating because you never get the reaction, “Oh, another film about the Holocaust.” But I think that drove a lot of it, and I completely understand. It’s difficult to watch, but I think it had maybe less to do with the filmmaking and more to do with the subject.

GB: You know, at the end of the day, for someone to come and really criticize the film based on the subject rather than the craft, and to really…I think that we’re in this place where art, the critique of art, where we’ve gotten to, that a group of people get to decide, “Well, this is what’s acceptable for this moment. And this is what’s not acceptable for this moment.” And I’m an artist and I actually am going to do what I think is acceptable for this moment and what I’m inspired to do.

And so, we will not allow ourselves to be bullied by a gaggle of people that decide, “This is not the kind of fare that we want to see any more.” It’s actually a necessary conversation that we need to have, and we’re really proud of it and we hope that other critics like you that are bold and courageous enough to come out and say, “Look, this is something that I feel strongly about, that I stand by as a film and my critique on it.” And so, we’re encouraged by that, and we think, “Let’s have a conversation in a few years and see how the movie stood the test of time.”

EA: Sounds good. Well, I hope we can reconnect in a few years with your next project. It looks like you have a lot of exciting things lined up. I just want to encourage you to keep doing what you’re doing. I think history will be kind to your art, so thank you very much for all you do.

CR: Thank you very much! We appreciate that.

GB: Thank you!

(Photo: Kyle B. Kaplan)

Photo by Matt Kennedy