While the film Black Bear may at times feel like a dream that’s open to various interpretations, the filmmaker’s artistic inspirations are often at its center. Premiering in theaters and on digital December 4, the movie is made of two parts that are ambiguously connected but each dissect relationships and the creative process in different ways.

The auteur behind this work, Lawrence Michael Levine, sat down with Screen Rant to chat about his personal inspirations behind the story and the collaborative process with star Aubrey Plaza.

Where did the concept of Black Bear come from?

Lawrence Michael Levine: It's interesting that you ask, because it did come from the dream in the first place. You're the third person has told me in the past couple days that they had weird dreams or couldn't sleep after they watched the movie. I don't know if that's a recommendation to people, because probably people want to get a good night's sleep.

But I had a couple things floating around in my mind. One is that I'd been working a lot in Hollywood as a screenwriter for hire, working with studios, networks, and production companies and working in a more commercial and conventional medium. I had a bunch of money saved up, and I felt like, "Now's the time where I can finally do something more creative, more to my personal taste, and with the nobody looking over my shoulder." I knew I wanted to do something fresh and exciting.

I also knew that I wanted to work with Aubrey. I had done a TV show with her in the months before I started writing this, and gotten to know her a little bit. We talked about our lives, and I saw a side of her that I hadn't seen in a previous work that she'd done. I thought it'd be interesting to kind of explore that with her. Then a friend of mine showed me a bunch of cabins that his family owned around a lake in the Adirondacks. He was like, "You should set a movie here."

I was like, "I have these three things." I knew that I wanted it to be something simple, so that it wouldn't cost a lot of money to do and we'd have a good chance of raising the money to make it. I knew I was looking at a small cast, one location, but I didn't really have any ideas of what to do. In fact, I was writing an entirely different script. And then one night, I had this dream. I don't remember exactly what happened in it, but it was similar to what happens in part one of Black Bear. And that was kind of my jumping off point for the film.

The plot wasn't as developed in the dream, and I think some strange stuff happened that I couldn't replicate in the movie. But basically, the vibe of the dream was the inspiration for part one.

Each character is kind of wrestling with their inner demons. Can you talk to me about what each character's struggles might be?

Lawrence Michael Levine: Man, it's going back a while. I wrote this thing in 2017. In terms of inner struggles, I think that all of the characters are lost in their own way. I think that Audrey's character has gone through something traumatic, maybe something like you see in the second part of the movie, at the start of part one. She's lived through some heartbreak, and I think she finds herself with wwith this couple.

The man in the couple, his dreams haven't come true. He thought he was going to be a rock star and make a make a lot of money and have an exciting life touring around, and instead he's found himself with a girlfriend he's knocked up and the financial remuneration aspect of the music world has disappeared. And I think his girlfriend is stuck with this man who she loves and is having his child, but knows that he's unsettled. That's kind of a fertile ground for the trouble that you see in the movie.

Can you talk to me about how you were able to work with the actors to bring those characters and making them three dimensional on screen?

Lawrence Michael Levine: I can't take too much credit for it. Mostly, I try to stay in the way and be there to help if they need it. I met with them the weekend before the movie started, and periodically over the course of the film whenever we add a second, to discuss the script and make sure that we were all on the same page; that they knew what the scenes were about, and that they didn't have any lines to say that they didn't feel comfortable saying. I think it's really important to alter your script and give your cast freedom to say the lines in a manner that would be natural to them, and not rigidly stick to my every period or my exact words, as long as the meanings of the lines are clear and consistent.

Basically, I just tried to stay open to the things that they were bringing, and tried to make them feel encouraged and supported. And that if they were ever confused, that I had the answers that they needed. But I never tried to impose my interpretation of the scenes on them before they started to do them.

With your experience working with crews, where did some of these characters in the crew come from? Can you talk about personal experiences that may have informed some of those characters?

Lawrence Michael Levine: Yeah, certainly. I've written and directed four films, and I've produced and written or acted - some combination of those things - on four of my wife's films. So, we've really done a lot of work together.

What strikes me about film sets, particularly indie film sets, is that comedy and tragedy are constantly mixed together. Because you have this very high stakes situation, you're racing against the clock with no money; the situation always feels really desperate, and your body just doesn't cooperate. The stomach trouble that the AD is suffering from comes from my own life, and my own stomach troubles. I have been known to have irritable bowel syndrome when I'm under stress, and a film set is very stressful.

Just the idea that there's always something funny going on on set, and there's always something stressful going on on set, was what I brought to it. And it's interesting, a lot of the things that happened on set in reality also happened in the movie. There was a mirroring going on, and I don't know if that's because the second part was an accurate depiction of any indie film set. But many of the things you see: people into walk clocking into glass doors, things getting spilled, cups getting left on the table that shouldn't be there. These kinds of things were always happening in real life and in the movie. So, it did get disorienting.

You talked about wanting to explore another side of Aubrey when you when you met her? Can you talk to me about what she brought to the role of Allison that wasn't on the page?

Lawrence Michael Levine: It's interesting, since the role was written with her in mind, what she brought to it before it even started is evident in the movie. I'm not exactly sure how to answer that. I think that what she did was marvelous, but that's always what I thought she would do.

Can you talk to me about the difference in approach between part one and two? What was part two inspired by?

Lawrence Michael Levine: I was looking for two love triangles in which Aubrey in one would play the home wrecker and in the second she would be the person who had her home wrecked. So with that conceit, I knew that I was looking for two of those.

The first part came from a dream, and when I was looking for a different story of a love triangle to pair it with, I remembered this outline that I wrote about 10 years prior to the writing of Black Bear. I remembered this outline that I wrote that came out of me after I had two conversations with members of a couple. There was an actress who was going out with the director, and she complained to me how much she resented the director for never putting her in his films. He in turn privately complained to me that she was always hassling him to put her in his films, and it made him feel like he was being used.

I thought, that's a really interesting dynamic. I wonder what it would be like if he put her in a movie and tortured her. So, he was basically passive aggressively saying, "Okay, fine. I'll put you in a movie, but I'm going to make your life a living hell." There was something funny, both funny and bleak, about that idea. An outline kind of poured out of me in an afternoon, and then I put it in a notebook that sat on a shelf for 10 years. And then I thought, "This is exactly the story that I should pair part one with."

I thought at first that I can make it the backstage drama of the film that we just watched, but then I started to feel that would kind of ruin the dreamlike atmosphere of part one that I had cultivated. So, I decided to work against that and come up with several different interpretations about how the two can be connected. I thought it'd be interesting to leave the viewer with many questions in mind about what the connection between the two was, of which there are many answers - none of which I would say is superior to another.

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