In their previous collaboration, the 2011 Sundance hit, Another Earth, director, Mike Cahill and his writing partner turned leading lady, Brit Marling, explored spirituality, responsibility, and human identity through the eyes of an MIT bound- astronomer (Marling) whose one tragic mistake leads her on an extraterrestrial quest for resolution. This time, the friends and former Georgetown coeds remain decidedly Earthbound, yet nonetheless still focused on the metaphysical with their latest film, I Origins.
“I was seeking to explain that feeling you have when you look into someone’s eyes for the first time”, says Cahill, describing the inspiration behind his thought-provoking, often mesmerizing new movie starring Marling and Michael Pitt as two molecular biologists investigating a link between the soul and our most distinctive pair of organs. “Every single person – even identical twins – has their own unique pair of eyes… It’s the biggest cliché – the eyes are the windows to the soul, and yet it’s kind of interesting to look at it and say why has that statement persisted for so long?”
For Pitt, a gifted actor who’s worked with some of the best in the business including Bernardo Bertolucci (The Dreamers), Gus Van Sant (Last Days), and Martin Scorsese (Boardwalk Empire), and who also served as a producer on I Origins, the film presented a unique opportunity to explore his intimate if never quite verbalized interest in the subject. “I’ve experienced this more in an instinctual way, he says quite candidly, “I’ve fallen in love at first sight, and some of my greatest friends, I remember the first time I saw them… It was always a look in the eye – like, oh we’re gonna be friends for along time… Even with enemies you get the sense right away (from looking in their eyes) that something isn’t quite right.”
Yet it also offered the handsome star, famous for his own striking baby blues, the chance to collaborate with a team whose work he was already a huge fan of… “Working with (Mike and Brit) was a dream. Mike possesses a very clear understanding of where he is, where cinema is, where it’s going. Both he and Brit are really technical – maybe you could say academic – but (they’re) also interested in love and relationships and experiences, an usually you only have one or the other.”
Marling, who did not co-write the script with Cahill this time, but who was no less involved in the production, also has nothing but praise for the trio’s harmonious working relationship. “We had an amazing time together, the three of us”, she recalls. “(It was this) awesome process of rehearsal and research and letting it fold back into the story, and getting to know one another and getting to trust one another and when you get that with a small group of people, making a film is real fun.”
She proudly describes Pitt as “a really serious actor who only takes stuff that moves him”, and not surprisingly considers Cahill family (“I was 17 when I met him and so every time we go to make something together it has all of that history”) but for Marling, the greatest triumph of making the movie was getting to depict a marriage very different from the ones we usually see in TV and film: “What’s amazing about Karen and Ian (Marling’s and Pitt’s characters respectively) is that they give each other the space and the inspiration to grow in directions that are parallel but different. You just don’t see it very often, a woman who is very self-possessed – who knows that her husband loves her. Who loves her husband… There’s a belief there, in the relationship because she believes in herself.”
It‘s certainly a case of art imitating life for the gorgeous and talented actress, though even her refreshing self-confidence is dwarfed by Cahill’s unwavering affection for his actors. “Someone asked me recently what was the greatest joy of making the film, he explains, “and it has to be watching Michael, Brit, Astrid (Bergès-Frisbey), who plays the spirited but tragic, Sofi) do their craft because that craft is something that is so impossible to do: to be vulnerable and authentic.”
And imagine how much harder it would be without our precious ‘windows to the soul’… The amiable auteur sums it up best: ”There’s a reason (that) the eye has held civilizations from the beginning enthralled religiously, spiritually, scientifically, and poetically. It is just so beautifully complex.”
CLICK HERE for Fox Searchlight Pictures’ I Origins official webpage.
CLICK HERE to watch a scene from I Origins.