Mirrors opens on center-stage where Crimson, a troubled dancer whose life's desire is to gain affection from anyone outside of herself, is performing a dance before a discerning crowd. On this particular night, Crimson’s inner critic has cleverly suggested that her audience has turned on her, setting off a spiraling panic attack. Crimson retreats inward and soon, the theater walls fall away. She begins a journey outside the realms of reality and into the memories that created her neurosis.
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Produced by Park Meadow Films.

FILMMAKER Interview: MARY MARXEN

​Interview by Melissa Ramos recorded between Sydney, Australia & New York, USA.

ABOUT MARY MARXEN

Mary Marxen is a filmmaker, art director, and visual artist living in New York. Mary's work intersects the visual and dramatic arts, contributing unique and expansive ideas across mediums. Mirrors was made in collaboration with Choreographer, Meredith Webster, master ballerina at Alonzo King LINES Ballet and recipient of the Princess Grace Award. Marxen has completed five short films this year with her New York-based production collective. She is currently working on her second dance film with Meredith Webster.

FULL IntervieW Transcript

Melissa Ramos: How did the idea for the visual narrative come about in MIRRORS?

Mary Marxen: MIRRORS came out of poems that I wrote about a particular traumatic experience in my life, and these experiences created stories that I would tell myself on repeat in order to hold myself back. You know, those bad things that you tell yourself to hold yourself back. I would use these as ammo, particularly against myself in my acting and art career, to hold myself down. And I would tell myself that I was unworthy of the success that I wanted because of my shame around my past and traumatic events in my past. And this caused me really adverse and maladaptive ways of being in the world.
So MIRRORS came out of these particular experiences I had.
I was in a play in San Francisco and it was my dream role and my favourite play, my favourite playwright of all time. And I was on stage and I think I was backstage when I first started feeling these out of body, really awful feelings. And I noted them and I just felt like, "why am I here?" This isn't any fun. And I was completely miserable doing the one thing I loved in my life, which was acting onstage because my background is acting. And I realised the critic had taken control over me, my own worst critic inside of me, and I wasn't allowing myself to live my life fully and it was keeping me very out of body and very unhappy. And so MIRRORS is that story.

I chose to tell that story through dance because I wanted to do a silent narrative. And I wanted to use movement because movement is the art form of the body. And I thought, what better way to express, the feeling of being 'out of body' then the art form of the body. So I chose to use dance to express this pain in myself.
​It was a very cathartic and a beautiful process for me to examine returning to my body through creating MIRRORS.

Melissa Ramos: Its very interesting how you chose to process your trauma through this silent narrative framework, stating that the process of requiting best suited through the lens of a dance narrative film. Because of your trauma's ramifications of being out of body experience. Can you talk more about how it felt when you attended your trauma through the language of movement storytelling? And what was the most crucial part of the process for you?

Mary Marxen: When I was in rehearsals with Meredith Webster, the choreographer and dancer of the film. We were dancing together, actually, we would explore movement together in rehearsal. But because movement is not natural for me,  I was getting over that hump of just trying to feel comfortable. The hump of feeling comfortable dancing. But eventually I would get to a place where I would try my hardest to remember the words of the script and the words of my poetry, which made up the script and let those run through my body and let the feelings of the trauma run through my body.
I've done a lot of work. Breath work therapy, talk therapy. And going through acting school. So I can access those parts of myself. I feel pretty comfortable. So we were able to really go there. But even that. Even more surprising part of this was witnessing Meredith. Taking these words and the feelings I was feeling and embody them. It was incredible, she's so brilliant. She was able to translate this into her own form. And so watching her do that and watching my trauma on it, being worn on someone else. It's such a universal thing. Trauma. But she was also wearing her own story. I guess the universal reality of trauma was becoming very apparent to me. And because of that, I felt more connected to people and more connected to myself through this process. And more willing to accept what I've come from.
I feel it's hard to know how much you change when you're doing something. That is the most crucial thing, is really, really feeling those feelings and really trying to get them across.

Melissa Ramos: Yeah. I love that. And I love that you also let through the texts in your own body as well. When you were communicating with Meredith and her distilling it with her own also personal trauma body narrative. Did you do some dancing with her?

Mary Marxen: Yeah. There is video footage to prove it. (laughs)

Melissa Ramos: Not in the film right?

Mary Marxen: No, we just kind of. I mean, wow, it's going back some time now. But I think I even think I wish Meredith was here to correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel we even use some of my movement, in her movement. She adapted it and then made it, of course, amazing.

Melissa Ramos: Oh, wow.

Melissa Ramos: Your work tells stories that are laden with subtext. You draw the viewer into densely visceral, fragmented worlds where there are encounters and sudden detours of psychological trauma. These worlds attest to the parallel realities inside your character's minds and are often against the backdrop of intimate and public locations. What particular rhythm did you intend to carry for the protagonists Crimson and her relationships?

Mary Marxen: I love that you are seeing it as fragments, because when we first made the film, it was in a very linear order and then we decided during the editing process to chop up the scenes. It was at first, she went through the whole dance on stage and then she floated back into these memories where now we chop them up, the memories and then put them in the dance to see where she's at in her own mind while she's tripping out during this dance, with the flashback scenes. And I guess this makes up the rhythm of the film as a whole. The way we edit it has something to do with that. So we decided to insert these flashback scenes within the dance because that's how trauma works, right? It pops up unexpectedly out of order, fragmented and it takes over. So rhythm in that sense had a huge role in MIRRORS, and rhythm during preproduction I could hear the rhythm of each scene just as much as I could see them.
​So this is another crucial part of the film I wanted to get across. I really, really wanted to stay true to the way I heard the rhythm. And this is one benefit, I think, to being so intimately involved with the material you're making, because you can see it. You can taste it. You can hear it. You can touch it. And I directed it with this rhythm and mind on all accounts. With Meredith this is the way I worked with her while choreographing the dances and with the notes to our composer, Rollie Porter, with a rhythm. I gave him, you know, this is how the club needed to be, hedonistic and very staccato, which is that club vibe in order to give you that thrilling, hedonistic feeling, scary sort of feeling that clubs gives you. And we knew we wanted to speed that area up.
We knew that we wanted to keep that clay scene between the relationship between her and her partner. Very slow to pay homage to the delicacy of... I'd say, the clay itself and the complexity and the softness and the hardness and the, you know, all the nuances of a relationship ending. And we knew that as these stories had to take over Crimson dancing, we wanted to start speeding things up. As the anxiety was growing, we wanted to speed up everything to editing the dance itself. So to bring it to that climactic moment and then bring it down again. Soften it again at the end when she overcomes all these large obstacles in her life.

Melissa Ramos: The clay scene is really uniquely striking to me. It extracts the pain and emotions so rhythmically and poetically, the clay material and how it's used and expressed in the scene, I've never seen before. Is it usual for you to manipulate matter or use props or costumes to convey your stories?

Mary Marxen: I don't know. I mean, now I'm a production designer. That's my main job at this point. And I am currently feeling; I put a lot of limits to myself in that way. If I want to be more expansive in the way I use props to be more specific. I can sometimes be a little negative and say no if it's not rooted in reality. For example, the clay scene, I thought it was too weird. I thought it was. And I thought it was hard to use. I thought the material itself was daunting. I didn't know much. I knew that we couldn't use... I don't know. I knew that the clay, the thick clay can be toxic and not healthy for your face. And so I knew I would have to investigate, cleaner forms. And I was like, that's too much. I'm overwhelmed. And I was about to give up on it because that's what I mean. I had this, 'naysayer' that might still be a byproduct of this credit in my head saying it's too much. And Meredith was the one that was like, "we got to keep it. We got to use that clay". Im so glad we did.
Melissa Ramos: It was good that you listened to Meredith..
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​(Mutual laughs)

Mary Marxen: Clay is interesting in that way. It's really visceral. And I learned that through studying some films that Meredith sent me. She just came across some clay work as we were investigating the clay scenes.  I can't remember the particular artist, but he had a layer of clay on top of his belly like a pregnant belly. And he was digging into it with his own hands. And you can just peel away, peel it. And they had somewhere in there, red paint. So blood started coming out. And he was just, I mean, wow, you know, it really worked.
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"​I really, really wanted to stay true to the way I heard the rhythm. And this is one benefit, I think, to being so intimately involved with the material you're making, because you can see it. You can taste it. You can hear it. You can touch it. And I directed it with this rhythm and mind on all accounts. ​"

​Melissa Ramos: Because it's such a visceral and also tactile material. You just want to get into it; as a the viewer.

Mary Marxen: And it's not as gross as skin because, we know it's not skin, but it's just one degree; a separation. Or able to keep watching and not be so scared. It's really interesting. And the more we're talking about it, I should keep exploring the clay? (laughs)

Melissa Ramos: The visceral experience between the viewer and your work, occurs so fluidly the memory of the experience endures as a powerful fragment of the real thing. Why is it important for you to heighten the fluid nature of the human psyche?

Mary Marxen: I think the heightened sensitivity is a woman superpower, and I was trying to use that sensitivity, my instinct as the unwavering guide through this entire making of this film. And if there was ever a moment during this filmmaking process that I didn't feel attached to that place, in myself, I knew something was wrong.

And it happened a couple of times on the film. And I got really sick, actually. It was bizarre. I mean, of course, you know how filmmaking goes. I just got so exhausted. I think the second day into shooting, after many, many days around the clock prepping. It was the scene I haven't even quite figured it out yet. So many layers are involved with what happened to me... The scene with the therapist is my actual therapist's office in San Francisco, because I used to live there before I moved here to New York and my old therapist let me use her office for that scene. But the therapist herself is my mom. She is played by my mom.

Melissa Ramos: Oh, wow.

Mary Marxen: So it's my mom and my mom on the day, was so nervous and couldn't deliver her lines. And she was, I mean, she could but very robotically. And we'd give her direction. And, you know, something had just shut down a place in herself. So much so that she was just by rote, just couldn't change the way she was speaking the lines. And my producer was in my mind, imagining how disappointed. I felt I let the team down because we had this huge professional crew. We had hired amazing actors and then I just had to cut this one little quick corner and had my mom, you know, and to not pay one of the actors, because she volunteered and its my mom. My mom used to act when she was young and... "Sure, I threw her in." And then I just felt so disappointed.
And we had to just spend so much of the day working with her.
She called me after and she had felt disappointed. She was crying and crying and told me, "I was driving home and I knew I was repeating my lines to myself and I just relaxed and I did great. Mary, I did great?" And I knew what I had done wrong. I was like, Mom, that's exactly how your defence mechanism works. It doesn't fire when you're tense, you know? I mean, I'm sorry your defence mechanism does fire. It's keeping you from being.

It was as if I was living this film with my mom and I was coming up to a really blocked place in her. You know, it was butting heads with her ability to perform. And that's what this movie was about.
And then to see my mom stuck. And then to witness my own growth beyond my mom, because I have done so much work on myself. And because I went to acting school, all those nerves. I've been through that. And it was so weird to see, in certain ways. I'm moving our lineage to a healthier place. And it was really sad to see my mom so vulnerable and so sad. And then I was in my therapist's office where I was processing ancestral, past trauma. And it was all coming so full circle that night I had a horrible panic attack and had to go to the hospital.

Melissa Ramos: Oh, my gosh.

Mary Marxen: Crazy.

​Melissa Ramos: What? Wow, this is such an important work for you. It's like every thing had to go through that door. It's not just you, the whole universe around you and everything. Wow. Oh, no.​

Mary Marxen: Major shift. And yeah. Since then, I can name an anxiety attack, I know what they feel like now. And that happens since, you know, I had never had one before. But that terrified me.
I have been taking better care of myself because of that. Yeah, you're right. This movie just means so much to me.

Melissa Ramos:  It's so good and very transformative. I think it's such a beautiful process, healing and moving into a really good space. It's a big shift in that area of your life and yourself and your family shift and as well that you can really know when it's happening.

Mary Marxen: Yeah, and I learned that you can't really, you know... You got to keep yourself really healthy through artistic process. They're very strenuous these long, long days.


Melissa Ramos: When I watch MIRRORS, what interests me is how the film opens up spaces as I would be watching a live performance. You let the space and the motion around speak for itself. How has dance influenced your decisions in composing scenes for your films?

Mary Marxen: Meredith and I had a ton of talks about rhythm, and she took this idea and she understood it completely and threw her whole being, she's a genius. I love her.

Melissa Ramos: Could you describe how you collaborate with Meredith Webster, the choreographer?

Mary Marxen: So this is the first time we did dance together. We went to acting school together. So that's how we met. This process felt very organic. And when we would first begin to meet for rehearsals, we'd read each scene. I think we broke it down scene by scene for every rehearsal. And back then, the script had a ton of dialogue which was made up of my poetry. And she would choose key words that spoke to her from that script and choose to embody them, find movement for every word. I think she found multiple movements in them, we would put them sort of together and explore different iterations of those sequences. And then eventually, as we kept working, we erased all the words. I think in the film there are a few words, and those are sort of the words that felt essential, like we couldn't really say the story without it. And looking back now, I wish we'd found a way to have no words. Yeah, but we didn't. That's ok. And she came up with all the scenes, this is how we did all the scenes, all the choreography. We use this process except for the scene. The dance on the stage. She had made this choreography already for a student of hers at Alonzo King Lines Ballet, where she's a master ballerina. She's extremely professional and skilled person. And I felt like working with her, her body mind connection felt so finely tuned that she was able to convert everything I wanted to say, along with, we wanted to say, as we explored the script together and including rhythmically, she understood things so easily.

Melissa Ramos: I find your process so fascinating because my script writers would just, you know, write. OK. Character. And then in brackets (dances) And that's it. But in this case, you asked the choreographer to interpret your texts and poetry and then conveyed it through her body narrative. And I think that's quite unique. Was there any times where you were surprised about the outcome or what were you looking for when she was trying to interpret the poetry?

Mary Marxen: To answer the first part. I was always surprised. This is a big experiment for me. And I was constantly... I don't even know its just magical. Just remember watching it and thinking, yeah, that's it. That's the movement. That's the words. And I remember being particularly afraid of work, starting to work with the clay scene because Adam, who played that partner, is a non dancer and a really good actor. And I was just always in awe of him as an actor. And I was so happy he worked with us. And I thought to myself, 'will he think this is so weird that we're so rubbing clay on our faces?' And, 'no, not at all' is the answer. He was more game than Meredith or myself. He just began playing with the clay and adding these extensions of clay onto his nose. And he just was trying to see how malleable it is and was super playful. And then their conversation with the clay, we kind of came up with some dialogue, a back and forth, using words, using text from what we wanted them to say back and forth. And then I think I was speaking that dialogue as they found that movement. And that's how we found that. And it worked out. I just yeah. I guess that scene was incredible how that worked out. They just knew when to do this. And the way they knew that is because that's how an argument works. And it was really rooted in the truth of an argument. You know how it one action leads to the next. It elevates to the next moment. I was always surprised to answer that. And that's all I was looking for.
Melissa Ramos: The silent language of movement. Do you think it's more powerful than text?​

Mary Marxen: Yeah, I really, really like it. Yeah, I mean. I even think that narrative filmmakers really like it. Right? I think you don't have your characters say. We're always told this. Your character doesn't say the thing. Your character's actions are exposed, who that character is. I think my favourite is the movement, and I'm very much a character actor and expression.
This is the audience feeling the same feeling that the dancer's feeling.

Melissa Ramos: Do you think that happens? I'm curious about that, too.

Mary Marxen: I think that's something I was really interested in. And I think that's. I have so much to say with this question.
I don't really know where to start.
​I wanted to have this film, by the way, on a GoPro the whole time from her point of view, from Crimson's point of view. So we never really saw her. We just see her limbs because that's all she can see of herself, right?  So that's the reason why it's called MIRRORS is because I base it off of Lacan, who's a French psycho-analyst I believe who developed the MIRRORS stage, which is a developmental period in infants lives where we first, as humans begin to first identify ourselves in MIRRORS and understand, oh, that's me. But you have to rely on the MIRRORS and to see yourself wholly; fully. Because we're in our own bodies. All we experience of ourselves as our limbs, our legs, our hands, our torso, maybe our hair; if it's on our face.
But it's fragmented. So I was exploring the idea that maybe that's why we feel so disconnected from ourselves. Like in art forms. And maybe that's why we had admire people dancing because as a viewer, you can see them as a whole. And it gives you as a viewer experiences only yourself fragmented, purpose or understanding. And it creates a reliance on watching another person in order to understand yourself. You have to rely on the other person to understand yourself or whatever. 

Mary Marxen: That feels related to your question in some way. Do we feel what they feel? I believe we do more than we trust. I believe we can experience and feel other people and transmitted.

Melissa Ramos: Absolutely. I totally agree with that one and particularly in art. 
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Melissa Ramos: How important is music in your work?

Mary Marxen: Well, I love music so much. I love all music. My favourite thing out of everything. So, yeah, with this film, I was listening to a lot of soundtracks composed by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. He collaborated with Atticus Ross on a lot of film soundtracks. And so I was listening to him a lot and was trying or them a lot and was channeling this sort of mellow, cool flowing soundtrack when we were making MIRRORS. And we came across Rolly Porter's music because Meredith found these fashion films by the fashion designer Gareth Pugh and Rolly had done their soundtrack. And we just loved it. And it had this edgy electronic metal music sounding cool vibe. And we reach out to him. And I was like, there's no way he's going to do this. And he did. And he was lovely. His music is a little rough. It's a little more abrasive than what he made for MIRRORS. And I was like, "it's got to be a little more feminine, you know, that's what we're looking for." Or just softer in some things and and harder harsher for the club scene and gave him a lot of references to work from. And it really worked. But yes, music is a big part of filmmaking as well as dance, right?

Melissa Ramos: Yes. I think there's something about music, film and dance that there's a really big link. And it's the fact that the art form, is a form through time, they're all ephemeral and it's all about that energy and the sense of rhythm and type of rhythm to this. An essence about it.
"...we decided to insert these flashback scenes within the dance because that's how trauma works, right? It pops up unexpectedly out of order, fragmented in and takes over. So rhythm in that sense had a huge role in MIRRORS, and rhythm during preproduction I could hear the rhythm of each scene just as much as I could see them."

Melissa Ramos: Besides the arts, what other areas in your personal experiences do you look to as reference point?

Mary Marxen: I would say psychology for sure. And humans. Human relationships. Loss. I would say joy in being a nature. Going for hikes and just being, you know, on different rhythms and daydreaming.

Melissa Ramos: So what's something you believed earlier in your filmmaking career? But think differently now?
Mary Marxen: I think I have a lot more confidence and faith in myself and others around me and confidence in my ideas and that we all have something important to say, you know? And I think, yes, this is becoming more and more clear to me that I have to choose projects wisely and only give so much to things, energy out to things, you know, give out as much as I am willing to and contain and save my energy for my own work and for those I love and things I care about. And to be able to surround myself on film sets with people I truly love and trust. And therefore, my creativity flows better. All of our creativity flows better. And I want to add also, a major important thing to me is kindness onset.

Melissa Ramos: I totally agree.

Melissa Ramos: Who had the most influence on you growing up?

Mary Marxen: Well, my dad's a painter. So we spent a lot of time together and painting together and his dedication, I think, to his painting and just the way he is. He's a big daydreamer. And quiet. He's alone a lot. There's that side of me. I feel really kindred to at least that side of him, that we all need that space. I think watching how much space he needed for himself and allowing himself what space really influenced me. And then my mother, she is an actress. And she's just a really big character. She's very theatrical. So she was kind of the opposite side of the coin and performed a lot. So we would dance and sing and put on plays at our house and always have music playing. And I was also always attracted to rebellious women as a kid. I really wish my mom, picked up on that and gave me more books on crazy cool cat, cat witchy women. (laughs) She did an amazing job. Of course, she's a wonderful mother. But I grew up in a really small town where everybody's very much like each other. And I always knew I was different or I felt different and I didn't fit. And that would have been awesome to have even more. Even more. You know, these rebel woman. But I found them. I found them in books and I found them... But they were a little hard to come by, I'd say. But I loved Annie Oakley, who was a sharpshooter in the South.

Melissa Ramos: Oh wow.

Mary Marxen: Yeah, she was travelling with Wild West sharp shooting shows, very cool.
"I think the heightened sensitivity is a woman’s super power, and I was trying to use my sensitivity instinct as an unwavering guide through the entire process of this film." 

MIRRORS CREDITS:
A Park Meadow Films Production

Starring Meredith Webster & Adam Elder
Produced by Ward Sorrick
Executive Produced by Carol Highton, Jeremey Ozen, and James David
Production Designer Jamie Mayne
Director of Photography Evan Edward Weidenkeller
Screenplay by Ian Boisvert & Mary Marxen
Choreographed by Meredith Webster
Directed by Mary Marxen
Release date August 21 2019
Dance Films, Movement, Cine Dance, Dance, Dance Videos, Dance Film Festival, Movement thinking, Art, Artist Interview