Magazine Copy
(This draft is ongoing and unfinished.)
It’s not
unusual for a director’s life experiences to shape their creative outputs. But,
as Sam Crowley tells me as we sit in the comfortable living room of her Ealing
flat, the life that led her up to this point, with a prime-time ITV drama set
to blow up ratings in the pipeline, is inextricably linked with her work.
“'Life imitates art', that’s the old saying,” she tells me as she nurses her coffee, and I would be inclined to agree, but one look even at the poster of her new project Torn makes me wonder what this could possibly mean. Three dead girls, a town haunted by a sinister mental health epidemic, and a hardboiled cop whose past problems make The Maltese Falcon’s Sam Spade look like an angel, and all this before the opening credits even roll. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as Crowley notices my clear confusion, and she rushes to clarify: “I mean, it’s not like I’ve lived a horrible life or experienced anything like what’s in this show. I mean, God forbid.” So what is it then, I ask. “It’s more about the idea of… mystery. That’s the key element here, what I was really trying to go crazy with. Scott’s not even sure if he’s in the real world or not at times, and that’s the important thing. I love mysteries and enigma, and in my life when I don’t know something, I cherish that feeling, because it means that in the future I’ll be able to find it out."
Indeed, Torn is very mysterious. The character that Crowley mentioned, Scott Skinner, is the show’s protagonist, and is about as hard boiled as they get. “It feels familiar when a show has a character type or a setting that you’re used to, so having a lead detective that’s haunted by his past and tormented by his own inner demons... people respond to that.”
Familiar though Skinner may seem at first glance, that’s where any and all comfort seems to end, as right from the get-go, Torn serves to confuse, disorientate and generally mess with its viewer’s heads. This was not an accident. “It’s all about creating a sense of unease with this show,” Crowley tells me, “and it was nice to have something – a mood or a feeling – to aim for with this project. You don’t always get that, particularly when it’s someone else’s script you’re working with. But this time, it was just all about… dread.”
Dread. Not a pleasant feeling. But a very marketable one in the world of TV. From small British indie In the Flesh through to US sensation The Walking Dead, horror in various incarnations has saturated our screens for years. “Escapism at its best, that’s what horror is. It’s the chance to be afraid without being in danger,” Crowley says on the matter, a succinct summary of what makes her own show so good if ever there was one. With Torn, you really feel as though you’re trapped in the head of the protagonist, following and experiencing his struggle right along with him.
This is largely helped by the show’s tendency to arbitrarily drop you directly into the dreams – well, nightmares is far more accurate – of our haunted hero as its gradually revealed that it’s not ghosts but guilt that’s haunting Skinner. This is a staple of Torn: a distinct and purposeful lack of understanding with regard to the status of reality, and it is slowly becoming a staple of Crowley’s work too. Her first show, the (vastly underrated and quite absurd) cult sci-fi Retractor, explored the concept of multiple parallel universes blending, merging, and crossing over into each other, with the central rift being a disused refrigerator in a rubbish dump. When put to text, it’s hard to argue against the show’s early cancellation after just 8 short episodes, but the fact remains that right from the start, Crowley’s work and reality never really got along. This description provokes another corner-tugging smile from her. “I mean, you are right,” she tells me, amused concession tinting her words, “I have always preferred working on scripts where there are less… restrictions. The less grounded the concept you’re working with, the more experimenting you can do with the camera, the lights, the sound, everything. I never want my work to be boring; that’s what’s always motivated me to find the projects that I have.”
HERE
These are not empty words. Few directors working today have explored such variety in genre as Crowley has, working on everything from a 2006 feature adaptation of David Foster-Wallace’s mundane epic, Infinite Jest, which was a quiet, slow-burn indie masterpiece, to an HBO limited series over in the US about the life and controversies of actress Hedy Lamarr. Crowley is about as big league as they come, but when I commend her on being such an esteemed female director, I’m greeted with what can only be described as a controlled grimace. “I’m not really a fan of how female directors are viewed as outliers in the industry,” she tells me, “It would be much better if we were just looked at as directors, if our productions didn’t have to be marketed as a woman’s film or show, but as a film or show that happened to be directed by a woman.” It’s a valid point; perhaps the push for women directors should not be purely based on directors being women, but on the directors being good at their jobs. So, no to affirmative action, then? Crowley laughs. “Oh, I’m absolutely for more women leading TV and film. The tide’s been turning for a while now, and I’ve met so many amazing women with amazing stories to tell, it’d be hard to keep them quiet. But I want to see the incredible women succeed; I don’t want to see any old director make it because of how she helps to ‘diversify’ the network.” Any old director. I think it’s safe to say that Sam Crowley is not any old director. And she is most certainly a success. The future looks bright for women directors; the tide is turning. But maybe Crowley’s right. Maybe there should only be room for the exceptional ones. Herself included, of course.
“'Life imitates art', that’s the old saying,” she tells me as she nurses her coffee, and I would be inclined to agree, but one look even at the poster of her new project Torn makes me wonder what this could possibly mean. Three dead girls, a town haunted by a sinister mental health epidemic, and a hardboiled cop whose past problems make The Maltese Falcon’s Sam Spade look like an angel, and all this before the opening credits even roll. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as Crowley notices my clear confusion, and she rushes to clarify: “I mean, it’s not like I’ve lived a horrible life or experienced anything like what’s in this show. I mean, God forbid.” So what is it then, I ask. “It’s more about the idea of… mystery. That’s the key element here, what I was really trying to go crazy with. Scott’s not even sure if he’s in the real world or not at times, and that’s the important thing. I love mysteries and enigma, and in my life when I don’t know something, I cherish that feeling, because it means that in the future I’ll be able to find it out."
Indeed, Torn is very mysterious. The character that Crowley mentioned, Scott Skinner, is the show’s protagonist, and is about as hard boiled as they get. “It feels familiar when a show has a character type or a setting that you’re used to, so having a lead detective that’s haunted by his past and tormented by his own inner demons... people respond to that.”
Familiar though Skinner may seem at first glance, that’s where any and all comfort seems to end, as right from the get-go, Torn serves to confuse, disorientate and generally mess with its viewer’s heads. This was not an accident. “It’s all about creating a sense of unease with this show,” Crowley tells me, “and it was nice to have something – a mood or a feeling – to aim for with this project. You don’t always get that, particularly when it’s someone else’s script you’re working with. But this time, it was just all about… dread.”
Dread. Not a pleasant feeling. But a very marketable one in the world of TV. From small British indie In the Flesh through to US sensation The Walking Dead, horror in various incarnations has saturated our screens for years. “Escapism at its best, that’s what horror is. It’s the chance to be afraid without being in danger,” Crowley says on the matter, a succinct summary of what makes her own show so good if ever there was one. With Torn, you really feel as though you’re trapped in the head of the protagonist, following and experiencing his struggle right along with him.
This is largely helped by the show’s tendency to arbitrarily drop you directly into the dreams – well, nightmares is far more accurate – of our haunted hero as its gradually revealed that it’s not ghosts but guilt that’s haunting Skinner. This is a staple of Torn: a distinct and purposeful lack of understanding with regard to the status of reality, and it is slowly becoming a staple of Crowley’s work too. Her first show, the (vastly underrated and quite absurd) cult sci-fi Retractor, explored the concept of multiple parallel universes blending, merging, and crossing over into each other, with the central rift being a disused refrigerator in a rubbish dump. When put to text, it’s hard to argue against the show’s early cancellation after just 8 short episodes, but the fact remains that right from the start, Crowley’s work and reality never really got along. This description provokes another corner-tugging smile from her. “I mean, you are right,” she tells me, amused concession tinting her words, “I have always preferred working on scripts where there are less… restrictions. The less grounded the concept you’re working with, the more experimenting you can do with the camera, the lights, the sound, everything. I never want my work to be boring; that’s what’s always motivated me to find the projects that I have.”
HERE
These are not empty words. Few directors working today have explored such variety in genre as Crowley has, working on everything from a 2006 feature adaptation of David Foster-Wallace’s mundane epic, Infinite Jest, which was a quiet, slow-burn indie masterpiece, to an HBO limited series over in the US about the life and controversies of actress Hedy Lamarr. Crowley is about as big league as they come, but when I commend her on being such an esteemed female director, I’m greeted with what can only be described as a controlled grimace. “I’m not really a fan of how female directors are viewed as outliers in the industry,” she tells me, “It would be much better if we were just looked at as directors, if our productions didn’t have to be marketed as a woman’s film or show, but as a film or show that happened to be directed by a woman.” It’s a valid point; perhaps the push for women directors should not be purely based on directors being women, but on the directors being good at their jobs. So, no to affirmative action, then? Crowley laughs. “Oh, I’m absolutely for more women leading TV and film. The tide’s been turning for a while now, and I’ve met so many amazing women with amazing stories to tell, it’d be hard to keep them quiet. But I want to see the incredible women succeed; I don’t want to see any old director make it because of how she helps to ‘diversify’ the network.” Any old director. I think it’s safe to say that Sam Crowley is not any old director. And she is most certainly a success. The future looks bright for women directors; the tide is turning. But maybe Crowley’s right. Maybe there should only be room for the exceptional ones. Herself included, of course.
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