Matthew Broderick & Shawn Snyder on the Film “To Dust”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And we move now from that incredible story of friendship and growth to an unlikely partnership in the new film To Dust. Haunted by his wife’s death, a Hasidic Jew wonders what happens to our bodies after we die. So he enlists the help of a biology professor played by the actor Matthew Broderick. Our Hari Sreenivasan dives into that journey with Broderick, who’s star of cult hits like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and the Producers, and also with the film’s director, Shawn Snyder.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

HARI SREENIVASAN: Matthew Broderick, Shawn Snyder, thank you both. Shawn, what’s this movie about?

SHAWN SNYDER, TO DUST DIRECTOR: To Dust is about a Hasidic character whose wife passes away and he struggles to find comfort in the very rigid mourning rituals and he’s striving for spiritual solace, but his grief is spilling outside the boundaries and it’s manifesting itself as these nightmares about his wife’s decomposing corpse and this gnawing need to understand what’s happening to her body. That obsession with death and that inquiry into what might actually be science is very taboo in his community, so he has to tiptoe outside of his community. And that search lands him at a community college where he meets Albert played by Matthew Broderick, a bit of a bewildered community college biology professor, and the two embark on this bizarre, homespun world of forensic research and essentially try to find peace and grieve in a way that feels holy personal.

SREENIVASAN: Now, you’re sitting with him in a cafe and he’s describing this to you. And what leaps out? Like I wan to play a biology teacher that is going to look at what?

MATTHEW BRODERICK, TO DUST ACTOR: Dead bodies I guess. It’s an unusual story, but it’s very human. The dialogue was really funny and good I thought, and the story was fascinating and I wanted to work with Geza and then I met with Shawn and I just liked the script from the time I read it.

SREENIVASAN: There is a buddy comedy that’s evolving. And I think as the audience starts to figure this out, you know, like, “Wait a minute. There’s this other storyline happening here.”

BRODERICK: Definitely.

SREENIVASAN: There’s – you guys have a reference to Hardy Boys. It is a bit like that you (inaudible) Hardy Boys.

BRODERICK: Yes. Well, we – yes, we kind of – we’re solving a mystery; that’s true, you know.

SYNDER: There’s moments where I’ve called it a Hasidic scientific Borscht Belt B-horror buddy dramady about grief.

BRODERICK: One of, you know, of that –

(CROSSTALK)

SREENIVASAN: I mean, is there an Oscar category for that, because –

SYNDER: They – they put it out, but then they canceled it because of backlash.

SREENIVASAN: Right. Right, right.

BRODERICK: They had it in the silent-era, but they got rid of it when sound came in (ph), consolidated.

SREENIVASAN: Let’s take a look at a clip, a little bit of that sort of buddy comedy here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERT: Listen, I’m a professor, and you are a rabbi. And I think that you have seriously crossed the stated boundaries of the professor-rabbi relationship.

SHMUEL: I’m not the rabbi.

ABLERT: I don’t – SHMUEL: (Foreign Language).

ALBERT: I don’t know what that is.

SHMUEL: Decanter (ph).

ALBERT: I don’t care.

SHMUEL: I’m a Jew, Albert.

ALBERT: Oh, no (expletive).

SHMUEL: And I just can’t. I can’t.

ALBERT: What?

SHMUEL: I stole the pig. It’s only fair if you kill it.

ALBERT: What? What?

SHMUEL: We have to kill the pig.

ALBERT: I am not hearing this. No, no, no. Here’s what going to happen. You and me, we’re going to – we’re going to pick up this pig, and we’re going to carry it into your Jew wagon, and you are going to take it home. And then we’re never going to talk about this or about anything ever again.

OK? Killing a pig is not going to bring back your wife, Shmuel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SREENIVASAN: It is just a strange relationship that develops, because they’re both kind of in search for something. I mean, it’s much more explicit what the individual whose wife is deceased is looking for But there’s a curiosity that’s been sparked in this teacher’s –

BRODERICK: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: – life.

BRODERICK: You know, he says he needs a scientist because, I guess, his faith is reaching some limits, or he wants to know science, about what’s happening. And he doesn’t, I guess, realize that I’m barely I’m a – I just teach, you know. But I guess I was, you can infer, you know, I probably originally did want to do more science than just teaching people. And so, it’s an opportunity for Albert, the man I play, to kind of get in the field and solve a mystery.

SREENIVASAN: There’s a lot of material in here that I think, when the first time – if somebody’s introduced to it, they would find very gory or icky or like, “Oh, my god. Am I really watching this happen?” I think there’s almost a certain universal absurdity to it all, and maybe you’re pointing that out. How do we deal with this topic? We don’t really talk about, as you mentioned.

SYNDER: Yes. Well, I think that the human condition is absurd, that we love, only to lose, and that we live, only to die. And I think that as a culture – as a society as our respective cultures therein, we don’t have very healthy relationships with – with death. The funeral industry, it does so much, and our – our faith do so much to poeticize, or for stall or embalm or say this casket is going to preserve this body forever. And it’s all about shying away from the harsh existential reality and biological reality of what happened to our bodies. And I’m incredibly squeamish, and I think you’re incredibly squeamish too. And this movie comes from my own grief; I lost my mom 10 years ago. I had these thoughts, I believe as we all have. And I think that’s the universal that we all share these thoughts and we all think we’re weird or strange or morbid or macabre, that we shouldn’t be thinking about these things, especially in a time of heightened grief.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

SYNDER: And then we feel embarrassed and ashamed. And if you can air these thoughts, and if you can air them by – by casting them through – through some lens of humor as well, it’s the sugar that helps swallow the medicine, that not only do we – should one have permission to look at these things without feeling ostracized, but that if one were to – to engage it, that there’s actually a spiral beauty to the way the a body returns to the earth, unencumbered.

SREENIVASAN: Have you thought much about what happens after? I mean, you’ve got kids that are old enough; you must’ve had some conversations with them about –

BRODERICK: You mean like what to do with me? No, unlike Shawn, I – like most people, I kind of avoid it, I guess. I had been working in New Mexico, and there’s an ad on the freeway that says “Death is coming, plan for us. Dial 1-800,” you know, for a funeral parlor. (Inaudible).

SYNDER: It could be a funeral ad or it could be a church.

BRODERICK: You’re right, you know. I know what it is, but it says – it says death is coming. So you know, I don’t why we’re talking about this, but in – but like, you know, an Irish wake, you spend some time with the actual body.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

BRODERICK: You know. And a lot of religions and cultures have that, because it’s – it’s the way you kind know that it’s what’s happened. So if somebody is just – a body is just whisked away as if it just floated off –

SREENIVASAN: Or there’s almost a sterilization, right –

BRODERICK: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: – like it’s embalmed –

BRODERICK: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: – perfectly dressed –

BRODERICK: Right.

SREENIVASAN: – in this hermetically sealed thing –

BRODERICK: I know, which is scary, too.

SREENIVASAN: – and it’s just a very strange –

BRDOERICK: I know, and I think the family and loved ones, they miss an important step in a way. Painful as it might be, there is probably something good about really sort of facing what’s happened.

SREENIVASAN: I know in the Hindu tradition there’s a very physical connection, and in this movie, the Jewish tradition, this tradition bathing that body and just touching that person. And your costar actually is what part of a team people that have done this or do this.

SNYDER: So Geza Rohrig for at least 15 years has been and continues to be a member of the Chevra kadisha, which I believe is holy brotherhood, but it’s a Jewish burial society. And there’s men who bathe and ritually prepare male bodies and a group of females who prepare female bodies, and they do this for their community. And Geza describes it as not morbid but a spiritually uplifting act so much so that even while he’s become an actor he continues to do this and he –

SREENIVASAN: Wow.

SNYDER: – likens it to prayer.

SREENIVASAN: Did that come up while you guys are adjacent trailers to one another?

BRODERICK: He doesn’t love to, you know, just blab on about it, but it’s clearly a serious matter.

SNYDER: You would assume with Geza that this would come up the first time that we spoke about this film and this specific topic –

BRODERICK: He didn’t mention it though  –

SNYDER: – and I had to have a friend point me to a New Yorker article –

BRODERICK: I read it in the paper. Me, too. I was like –

SNYDER: – about it.

BRODERICK: – what the? He knows everything about this subject –

SNYDER: Months after we –

BRODERICK: – and acting like he’s learning. Yes.

SREENIVASAN: So did this create an opportunity for you to not avoid this topic with your – in your life?

BRODERICK: It made me think about it, but, you know, as much as we’re talking about it, the movie is really a human story about these – this guy trying to get over his nightmares.

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

SNYDER: And at the same time, we try not to shy away from it. What we –

BRODERICK: No, we don’t shy away from it, but it’s not – it’s not – I can’t think of the word.

SNYDER: (inaudible)

BRODERICK: Yes, kinky or something. It’s not like cool dead body stuff, you know?

SREENIVASAN: There’s even a scene outside of the body farm that’s – you know, it’s just kind of is that comic relief almost where –

BRODERICK: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: – you’re talking to the security guard. You’re trying to explain there’s nothing weird going on here.

BRODERICK: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: It’s not what you think.

BRODERICK: Yes, it’s a lovely little scene, yes. She’s going to arrest us for looking – peeking over the fence. They have these – it’s a real thing, a body farm where they put a body in a car or in a lake and so they can see how long it takes for what to happen so that the police can figure out – it’s a cheerful – cheerful idea.

SNYDER: This amazing field of –

BRODERICK: I know. (inaudible)

SNYDER: – science for anthropology.

BRODERICK: But they – they naturally don’t let people come gawk at it, you know, because they’re very respectful –

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

BRODERICK: – because they are, you know, human beings. They don’t like to make light of that. So they have – they guard it carefully, and the guard who catches us, though, finds out the pain that Geza is in and she’s lost her – I forgot.

SNYDER: Her son, her husband.

BRODERICK: Her son, that’s right. Yes.

SNYDER: She’s a Washington (ph) –

BRODERICK: To cancer, yes. So she immediately identifies with him and let’s us go basically.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well how did she die?

BRODERICK: Huh?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His wife?

BRODERICK: Oh, she died of cancer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (CENSOR) cancer.

BRODERICK: Yes. Yes, it’s a terrible, terrible disease.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Took my momma, my husband, and my youngest Duvell.

BRODERICK: Oh, that’s (CENSOR). That’s horrible.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (CENSOR) cancer.

BRODERICK: (CENSOR) cancer. So that’s what this is. He’s in bad shape and I was trying to help him out – trying to help a friend out. We’ve been traveling a very, very long way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I can’t let you into the grounds.

BRODERICK: No, no. Absolutely, that would be a mistake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But if you gentlemen can hightail it the (CENSOR) out of here, I think I can turn a blind eye.

BRODERICK: Thank you. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But what’s your friend’s name?

BRODERICK: Shmuel – Shmuel.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jesus loves you, Shmuel Shmuel.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

SREENIVASAN: Talking about your body of work, it’s also cross generational, right, where people are going to – shall we play a game is what comes to mind first?

BRODERICK: Right.

SREENIVASAN: Right, when aging myself –

BRODERICK: Yes, and me.

SREENIVASAN: And you, and Ferris Bueller obviously, but you go through glory, you go to the producers.

BRODERICK: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: You have these sort of different cross cuts.

BRODERICK: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: What do you look for now when you get a script?

BRODERICK: You know, I’ve never known really what to look for except something that I like reading. You know, it starts with that. I mean, hopefully a little bit it stretches me in some way. I like to try to think I’m doing something not totally comfortable. Then you meet Shawn or whoever is — wrote it or is directing it and then you see how you connect to each other and .

SREENIVASAN: Because these are going to be the people that you’re going to be around for weeks and weeks at a time.

BRODERICK: Yes. Yes. Because .

SREENIVASAN: You’re opting into this.

BRODERICK: Right. And I just kind of go with my gut. I liked Shawn when I met him and I liked the script when I read it. And I thought it was interesting story. I wanted to work with Geza (inaudible), which was the magnificent (ph). And so I thought it would be a good thing to do.

SREENIVASAN: What are you going to remember? Is there a scene — how do you have memories of all things that you’ve worked overtime? Right. Is there a specific moment or a shoot day or a person or a line; what do you think is going to be one of those memories from this film for you?

BRODERICK: I remember of shooting all night on a little lake in Staunton Island with a row boat for some reason. That was a very kind of beautiful yet, uncomfortable night.

SREENIVASAN: The boat, was it going to be facing forwards or backwards, were you going to be rowing the right way. How are you (inaudible) .

BRODERICK: Yes. They had rehearsed it to be rowing the boat backwards and I got there and I was like Shawn, like you can’t row with the flat part going — I know I’m not a big yachts man but I know from — from Central Park that you don’t row that way.

SNYDER: But there were decisions made . (CROSSTALK) The aesthetics of the direction of the boat and the positions and I’m sitting — I’m sitting here, you know, we’re one and a half weeks into production saying who’s respect do I lose here. Like what decision do I have to make or call, you know, and it related to the intensity of the performances and everybody had a different — different need but I think we created a beautiful scene.

BRODERICK: We were inside a grave pit, Geza and I at a graveyard.

SNYDER: At Jewish cemetery .

BRODERICK: Just on the edge. There was a guy there .

(CROSSTALK)

SNYDER: Relocations all on Staunton Island. There was a guy there protecting this .

BRODERICK: He was there to make sure we didn’t do anything, you know, non kosher or whatever word one should use. And — but there we were in a ..

SREENIVASAN: You were grave digging for this .

BRODERICK: Grave digging. As close to grave digging as I’ve ever been and that was an odd — odd — and it was a fake rain pouring us.

SNYDER: Fake rain pouring on you.

BRODERICK: So it was in a Frankenstein movie and an Independent film at the same time.

SNYDER: And — and the — the insane thing about it is that we — you know again, this film was made on .

SREENIVASAN: Yes, which — which insane thing about this?

SNYDER: But the — but the film was that we were doing these things. They tell you, you know, a film at this budget level should be shot in a house with two actors and we were under — under funded and under staffed and under scheduled and there was no day — you know I think about the luxury of people talking about — so we were five days into that scene. And I’m more like we were like we were five scenes into that day, you know when we were shooting. And there was no day where there wasn’t at minimum one key set piece. And so much of it was, you know, you had 80 percent of the dialogue and you’re speaking these long.

BRODERICK: (Inaudible)

SNYDER: Yes, these long .

BRODERICK: Blah, blah, blah, blah.

SREENIVASAN: Are you thinking at that point first time rookie director?

BRODERICK: No, I never thought that except sometimes. The only thing was sometimes the time crush is hard but I’ve done that before. And it also brings an energy to the stuff in a way that’s hard to explain that’s sometimes good. I mean you don’t have time to get every piece of coverage that you might want. You have to be a little more flexible and improvisational in a way. And — and that’s not a bad thing.

SNYDER: This old idea about creativity thrives when it’s given limits.

BRODERICK: Yes.

SNYDER: And it was very humbling. But that’s the beauty about — about — I mean all art forms. But film in particular goes through so many phases and has so many practical limitations.

BRODERICK: Yes.

SNYDER: So it’s made, you know, in — in the fire and with gut instinct and love and miracles and — and — and certainly happy accidents.

BRODERICK: Good accidents. Yes, absolutely. That’s what even Sidney Lumet always said that was — you know that’s why he didn’t like too much, you know, digital or if you have too much control over the — the frame, nothing great will happen. If you’re not on the location he used to say where a siren or an ambulance goes by and then actors hear it that might be a really good accident that won’t happen if you’re — if everything’s in a room with a green screen and perfect.

SREENIVASAN: All right. Shawn Snyder, Matthew Broderick; thank you both.

BRODERICK: Great. Nice to talk to you.

SNYDER: Thank you.