By GRACE DETWILER
Soon to be known as the most exhilarating and subversive thriller of 2024, STRANGE DARLING has more to boast than its creative concept and stacked cast. Among the likes of Magnolia, Harold And Maude, and The Graduate, STRANGE DARLING also features a single-artist soundtrack, from the indie rock Laura Palmer, Z BERG. An enigmatic and singular musician, Berg was generous enough to share her experience writing the music for STRANGE DARLING with RUE MORGUE.
Z Berg photographed by Michael Leviton
“It’s honestly one of the weirdest sort of chance meetings of my lifetime,” said Z Berg of her collaboration with STRANGE DARLING director, JT Mollner. “He did approach me about the movie, but we met two years before that on a hike…which is the sort of thing I usually say no to…sunlight and strangers. But I just said yes. And I did not know a soul there. JT and I just started talking…and we had an off-the-cuff conversation about film and music and the relationship between the two. Sort of started talking about single-artist soundtracks.”
“We didn’t really speak for like two years because this was right before COVID…then the world ended. Literally, two years later he texted me and said ‘I hope this isn’t crazy but I want you to read this script; I wrote a movie for us.’ I read the script that night, and I called him at like three o’clock in the morning and was just like ‘Are you kidding?’ It’s one of the craziest scripts I’ve ever read…The whole movie is written into the script; the lenses are written into the script; the songs are written into it. I had never really seen something that was so fleshed out and realized.”
“What started out as licensing a few songs from my solo album and maybe writing one or two turned into me writing eleven songs for [STRANGE DARLING] because…I’m insane.”
What Z Berg loves most about STRANGE DARLING, is its ambiguity. “The big thing artistically speaking is I am like a diehard modernist. I have been a Nabakovian disciple since I learned how to read. My real kink is art that is about art, and stories that are about storytelling. I don’t think we get a whole lot of that these days, and we don’t get to make a whole lot of movies these days.”
“[The film industry] has fallen into a funny kind of trap of gritty neo-realism because there’s this push to have a strong and clear message – like we’re talking to people like children. [STRANGE DARLING] is a movie that asks a lot of you, as an audience and as a participant. [It asks] you to come to your own conclusion without anything being spoon-fed to you and that’s something that really appeals to me. Also, I’m a sick sick person and it’s a sick sick movie, so it’s my dream.”
Z Berg was particularly enthused to try her hand at writing a soundtrack to a film, especially after struggling to write about real-world experiences, particularly following the pandemic. “I think increasingly I’ve found it really hard to know how to write about how bad all this is. It’s actually so catastrophically bad that I’ve found my mind kind of goes blank, like how do you summarize this, and what is even worthwhile to write about? Having a different world, to be able to write within that reality and those constructs, allowed me to be able to find some truth and existence with the real world around us but within the constructs of the world of STRANGE DARLING.”
She was also intrigued by the idea of having a captive movie theater audience for her music. “It’s weird that most people don’t have a great pair of speakers. So the fact that I will be forcing anyone who comes to see this movie to listen to my songs in 5.1 surround sound as loud as possible – it’s truly like the great [moment] of my life. It’s crazy. Honestly, this is one of those things that I can’t believe happened. No matter what happens from here on out, [STRANGE DARLING] is the ultimate dream project.”
When asked about the gentle yet haunting music she crafted for such a thrilling film, Z Berg was delighted to explain. “It’s such a cool choice, and like everything from start to finish in this movie, JT had a vision. I thought a lot about the Rosemary’s Baby theme – it’s so haunting because it’s so beautiful and there’s something so disturbing about sweetness in the context of dread.”
“Between the two characters, I sort of sing in the world of ‘her,’ and the score exists in the world of ‘him.’ When I read the script, and when I read her character, I already had songs that were just perfect for it. The oldest song is one I wrote ten years ago long before the idea for this movie even existed.”
Said Berg of her working relationship with Mollner, “I’ve never really had the experience of working in a situation like this where it was artistically so sympatico as to feel psychic.” She recalls thinking, “Is this a simulation, or am I dying? Is this an elaborate delusion?”
Even before STRANGE DARLING was a twinkle in JT Mollner’s eye, Z Berg has always been a horror enthusiast. When asked what draws her to the genre, she said “I have a strange relationship with living, in that I have a very close relationship with the concept of death. Almost everybody’s weird neuroses come from…pretending that we’re not going to die. For me, even when I’m engaging with fiction…I really like to know how things end – suspense is very difficult and very stressful for me. Knowing that life ends the same way for everybody, I find very comforting.”
“In my sort of worldview, there’s a bit of an intensely positive nihilism, accepting that death is the shadow that is attached to you and following behind you. Instead of making that scary, [in horror] we made that kind of romantic, or just accepted it – that is the sort of radical shift in my worldview that makes this genre appropriate for me. A lot of [horror] is about delving into that fear, and how satisfying and important it is to engage with the darker aspects of life – to engage with the end we all know is coming. An esoteric answer to your question! [Laughs]”
The musician has also been blown away by the positive early reception of STRANGE DARLING. “I think a common thread in a lot of my work is that people don’t like it [Laughs] so it’s amazing to be involved with something that people are responding to so positively.”
Will she tour the STRANGE DARLING soundtrack? “I will definitely play some shows, hopefully not just in LA.” More than anything though, Z Berg cannot wait for audiences to get the chance to see the film.“And when you see this movie, you’ll just be like ‘I cannot believe’…I can’t believe I didn’t write it! it is so deeply from the place like ‘if I could manifest my dream movie,’ this is it. It’s fucked up!”
See STRANGE DARLING in theaters on August 23rd. Music from the motion picture STRANGE DARLING to be released by Warner Records the same day.
