IU Cinema hosted actor and director Michael Shannon and playwright Brett Neveu on Friday for a screening and Q&A of their 2023 film “Eric LaRue.”
“Eric LaRue” is a drama exploring the aftermath of a school shooting through the perspective of the perpetrator’s mother (Judy Greer). It also stars Paul Sparks and Alexander Skarsgård.
The event featured an onstage conversation with Neveu, writer of the 2002 play of the same name, and Shannon, who directed the film. Shannon has appeared in films like “Revolutionary Road,” “Nocturnal Animals” and “The Shape of Water.” He also was at IU Cinema on Thursday for a screening of “Take Shelter,” which he stars in.
About 100 people attended the event. Jenny Christie, a user experience designer for IU Libraries, said she is a fan of Shannon and was excited to see “Eric LaRue,” his directorial debut. She described him as a unique actor whose performances and physicality make him especially interesting to watch.
During the onstage conversation before the screening, IU Cinema Director Alicia Kozma and Neveu discussed where he drew inspiration from the play, which premiered in 2002 at A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago.
“A lot of what you’ll see in this movie comes from things that actually happened, stories, characters and details from my own life, combined with some things that didn’t,” Neveu said. “But a lot of those details are real.”
Shannon also described what drew him to adapt a play centered on such a sensitive subject as his directorial debut.
“A movie isn’t going to fix everything,” Shannon said. “Sometimes you’re reminding people of things they’re already well aware of and perhaps don’t want to think about. That’s why, I suppose, escapism and things like that exist. My feelings about that are irrelevant, it doesn’t matter. But regardless of what people want to see, I know that what I want to work on is something that feels somehow connected to what’s happening in the world.”
Immediately after the screening, Kozma, Neveu and Shannon answered audience questions.
When asked by an audience member about adapting the play into a feature film and its style of cinematography, Shannon said he worked with Andrew Wheeler, the film’s cinematographer, to make the movie feel subtly psychedelic through its lenses and framing.
“It’s a movie about confusion, about how confusing it is to live here in this country,” Shannon said. “I wanted that feeling in the visual component too. I also wanted a kind of rigid sense of certainty, but the kind of certainty that is actually incorrect, incorrect certainty, because I feel like that’s the American way. I wanted to translate that into a visual feeling, and I think Andrew and I pulled that off.”
Several audience members described the movie to the Indiana Daily Student as emotionally intense, citing its cinematography and Greer’s performance. They also said the comedy added levity and made the film feel more realistic.
“It was a roller coaster, but it was amazing,” attendee Emily Mauer said.
Maurer said that while she did not find the film’s dark, satirical humor to be funny overall, a few moments made her laugh, and she described the film as “horribly truthful and uncomfortable.”
