Ted Geoghegan is one of those filmmakers where normally pretentious words like ‘oeuvre’ actually apply, and not because he’s haughty himself. No, Geoghegan has the kind of consistency and commitment (or obsession) with certain themes which results in a unifying body of work; think Buñuel, Bergman, Argento, Schrader. In a very small way, they all make the same film over and over again, just in different contexts, and these variations on a theme nonetheless end up being diverse, unique, and masterful.
Geoghegan’s theme? American history as a tapestry of paranoia, a lineage of trauma, a chronology of scapegoats. His three films so far take place during different time periods and reflect different eras of American history, with different suspicions and unique tribalism. His new film Brooklyn 45 is a bit lighter than Mohawk and We Are Still Here, but pertains to paranoia perhaps more than ever before.
The film follows a group of military veterans just after the first Christmas post-World War II. They gather together at the home of Colonel Hockstatter (a great Larry Fessenden) for drinks and melancholic recollections, but don’t expect that the Colonel would be in emotional tatters, a dangerous wreck who locks them into the room and begs them to perform a séance with him. His wife has taken her own life, initially believed to be insane (she thought the neighbors were Nazi spies), but now Hockstatter doesn’t know what to think. He’s in the midst of an existential crisis, and he is desperately reaching out to the spirit world for knowledge and help. He and his friends get more than they bargained for.
Every time audiences expect Brooklyn 45 to drive straight through the plot, it swerves and introduces interesting new dimensions. Part historical chamber drama, part supernatural horror film, part murder mystery, Brooklyn 45 is one of the most unique and enjoyable films of the year so far, and one most audiences should seek out (it’s streaming on Shudder and AMC+). Geoghegan spoke with MovieWeb about the themes and style of the film.
Trapped in the Stage-Like Brooklyn 45
Brooklyn 45 has an intentionally stagey feel to it — the characters arrive, there are some introductions, an epic monologue and shocking moment signals a big narrative shift, and the remaining time is spent with these characters reacting to it in increasingly tribal and desperate ways. In a sense, the entrapped and stagey form and content of Brooklyn 45 seem to mirror each other. It feels like a 1945 play, an Agatha Christie production directed by a horror fan with a group of great character actors. There’s a method to that madness.
“It was always conceived of as a real time chamber peace. I thought of it like an escape room, like you enter it, and 80 minutes later the buzzer’s gonna go off, and you are in there on this ride,” explained Geoghegan. “It was very important to me that the audience was trapped in this room along with the characters. So the moment the characters enter the room, so does the camera, and it never leaves that room until the characters leave that room. It was so important that the audience felt as trapped as the characters, because I feel that adds a new sense of urgency to the viewer, of them going, ‘I want to get out of this room. I’m scared to be in here.'”
“I have had several people say, ‘Well, why don’t we see some flashbacks? Why don’t we show what happened during the war?’ And I said, it gets the audience out of the room. The characters are still in the room, but the audience will have escaped, even if it’s just for a split second, they left the room, and I never want that to happen,” continued Geoghegan. “I never wanted to shoot through the windows even. The camera is in the room with them the whole time. We are trapped there. It definitely comes off as like a filmed take of a stage drama.”
Brooklyn 45 has that nostalgic feel of a stage play, and Geoghegan would even want to expand its existence into that realm. “I mean, God willing, one day maybe we can even do it as a stage drama. I would love to adapt it to the stage,” said the filmmaker, “there’s literally nothing that needs to be changed in order for it to be adapted to the stage. It was very important that every single beat that happens in it could have happened in the theater, right down to the spectral manifestations and everything like that. It’s all practical.”
Larry Fessenden, Monologue Slayer
Adding to the stage-like vibe are some excellent monologues, including an epic one from Larry Fessenden as Colonel Hockstatter. Essentially begging his war buddies to join him for a séance, Hockstatter is unhinged and extremely emotional, but empathetic and still self-aware. Fessenden, known as the director of such indie horror classics as Habit, Wendigo, and Depraved, gives an incredible performance here in one of the film’s best scenes.
“I did write the role of Clive for Larry specifically, he’s a dear friend of mine,” said Geoghegan. “He’s a mentor, he’s someone I’ve known for almost 20 years, and I’ve always been a fan and a champion of his. He’s an incredible filmmaker and an incredible actor. I’ve always just felt like Larry is underutilized in cinema. And I know that sounds silly because he’s in like six to 10 movies a year, but he has these like little sequences. He just pops up for a moment and then like, that’s it. And I’m always ike, ‘God, he’s so good. Let him anchor a film.’ He’s a phenomenal actor, and I put him in We Are Still Here for just that reason, and he just slayed it […] and I was just like, I want to do it again. I want to bring Larry back, and I want him to just anchor this film.”
Geoghegan continued:
The monologue that you were referring to, it’s a really intense moment very early in the film and kind of is what sets off everything. It’s seven pages in the script, and we shot it over the course of one day. I think we shot it eight times. And by the time Larry gets to the end of it, every time he’s just broken. Like as an actor, it’s so much to go through, talking about your wife’s suicide, talking about your failures as a human, and to finish that sequence and then say, ‘Alright, let’s do it again,’ and to go back to one, is such a testament to what a powerhouse of a performer he is.
“I think that is absolutely one of the film’s real crowning moments,” added Geoghegan. “But like any true ensemble, you’re only as strong as your weakest link. And I’m so fortunate that I was blessed with six amazing actors for this movie. So they were all able to play off each other’s strengths.”
Ted Geoghegan Chronicles American Paranoia
Geoghegan’s great cast is tight and efficient; in addition to Fessenden, there’s also Anne Ramsay, Ezra Buzzington, Jeremy Holm, Ron E. Rains, and eventually Kristina Klebe, the German-American neighbor accused of being a Nazi spy. While every character is an American veteran of World War II (except the neighbor), they exist on an ideological spectrum of American values. It’s not quite Animal Farm, but each character does work toward Geoghegan’s aforementioned thematic purposes, and continues his trajectory as the Howard Zinn of horror-thrillers. He explained this with a remarkable degree of clarity.
“I am a very thematic filmmaker. I have directed three movies. I’ve been a writer and producer for almost 20 years, I’ve got a lot of films under my belt as a writer and producer, but I’ve only got three under my belt as a director.”
We Are Still Here is a film set in the 1970s. That’s about a family dealing with the sins of the fathers, and how it haunts them and how it ultimately destroys them and redeems them. Mohawk is a film about the fathers. It is a movie about the sh*tty white people who tried to make America great the first time by getting rid of all the people of color and people of different sexual orientations and religions and beliefs, and how we can see ourselves in so much of this today. And Brooklyn 45 is a continuation of that, and it’s the sins of our grandfathers.
“You know, it’s a film about a generation only once or twice removed from us, and how the choices they made — both good and bad — are not only haunting us today, but are mirrored today,” continued Geoghegan. “The fact that these men and women laid down their lives to try to trounce fascism, Nazism, hatred — and we now find ourselves in a world where these beliefs are returning and are gaining footholds not just socially but politically. And you know, there but for the grace of God go us.”:
The Ethics of War and Hell
“I think thematically, the film is about paranoia. It’s about blind patriotism. It’s about blind hatred, and why we as a species do this, like, what drives us toward this hatred, what drives us toward just all of this messiness that we have in our lives,” continued Geoghegan. “I am a very liberal, anti-war pacifist. But I was making a film about veterans and what they’ve done in order for me to have the freedoms that I have. My father is a veteran of the US Air Force, my grandfather and namesake fought in World War Two, and I wanted to make a film that not only would speak to people like me, but also people like them.”
“The film does not condone or hate what anyone in it does. It leaves it up to the audience to make up their own decisions about these people. Are these good people? Are these bad people? Are they just people? Because I truly believe that, just like wars when people say war exists in shades of gray, I think all of humanity exists in shades of gray; there is no black and white. And that’s really what this movie is about. If you come away from this film, loving certain characters and hating certain characters, and you find yourself butting heads with someone who thinks differently, that’s great, because it opens up a dialogue as to why you feel the way you do about these people.”
Geoghegan elaborated:
I like to believe that a liberal and a conservative, while they might not agree on many things, one thing that I’d like to believe most of them agree on is that war is hell. That it destroys people, whether you’ve served or whether you are as anti-war as you can possibly be. I think you can both meet in the middle and say, whatever war is, and whatever functions it serves, it destroys people. And that’s really what this movie is about — the ghosts that people carry with them long after war is over. And the fact that for some people, the war never ends. There’s a line that’s repeated a half dozen times in the film where the character says the war is over. And the response from a different character every time is, ‘Says who?’
Just like the war, Brooklyn 45 lingers long after it’s over, like the ghost of an uneasy memory, silent but saying plenty.
From Shudder and produced by Divide/Conquer, Raven Banner Entertainment, Hangar 18 Media, and The Line Film Company, Brooklyn 45 is streaming on Shudder and AMC+.
Stay connected with us on social media platform for instant update click here to join our Twitter, & Facebook
We are now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TechiUpdate) and stay updated with the latest Technology headlines.
For all the latest Education News Click Here
