Shiva Baby

Shiva Baby is an expansion of writer-director Emma Seligman's 2018 short film of the same title, which she had made as her thesis project while studying film at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.[2][3] The title of the film refers both to Danielle and to Rose, Max and Kim's unhappy baby.[4] Seligman said that it was "pretty early on that [she] thought that it had the potential to expand",[5] though she "didn't feel motivated until [she] talked to [lead actress Rachel Sennott] about it".[1] The feature film entered production just before the short premiered at the 2018 South by Southwest.[6] While developing the feature, Seligman re-watched Gia Coppola's film Palo Alto, her favorite female-directed film, saying that she has "never seen a film so accurately portray the suffocating and debilitating nature of young female insecurities" like it.[7] Other inspiration came from the Coen brothers, Joey Soloway's Transparent, John Cassavetes, and Mike Nichols;[5] Seligman also took writing inspiration from Jewish romantic comedies.[1]

The producers and Seligman sought funding for the feature for a year with little interest, including asking people outside of the film industry to be investors, before filmmaker Amanda Kramer, a friend of Seligman, put them in contact with Rhianon Jones of Neon Heart Productions, who became an executive producer; more producers became interested with Jones attached.[7] The producers, who knew each other from film school, had been made some offers from companies that had requested more creative control over the film in return, which Seligman said was the prospective financiers "not really feeling like they could trust [her] and [her] filmmaking abilities to pick the team that [she] wanted and whatnot".[8] Most of the financing came from outside funding and independent funding from people the production team knew. Seligman told Women and Hollywood that using primarily one location was also a financial decision. The film's budget came in under $250,000.[7] Producer Kieran Altmann said that the competitive filmmaking market in New York helped with budget, as "vendors probably gave [them] a 90% discount on regular gear rental rate"; the crew were also all friends of the producers, and most took a cut in their usual rate.[6] Seligman said that the transition from a short thesis film to a successful feature "feels like a dream [and] almost sounds seamless, like the kind of thing that most students or first-time filmmakers would hope for".[5]

The short film had been based on a fictional scenario combining Seligman's "uncomfortable and funny" experience of shivas and the community of women she knew who were sugar babies at NYU. When it came to expanding the story to a feature, she chose to also draw on her own sexuality (Seligman is bisexual and Jewish);[10] the desire to showcase more of the character of Danielle and her bisexuality is a reason Seligman chose to make the feature.[11] She has said that "if no one [watched] this movie except for some young bisexual women who feel seen, then [she would] feel like [she had] done [her] job",[12] and explained that she wanted to expand on this aspect of the main character "to show that Danielle's queerness and bisexuality is another thing that sort of isolates her within the community" while also enabling the creation of the ex-girlfriend character to serve as a foil[8] and to give the film "some redeeming silver lining". She was also interested in exploring Max and Kim's relationship,[5] and Debbie and Danielle's mother-daughter relationship, further, and in expanding on the central theme of Danielle finding her self-worth through sexual autonomy but "realizing that's not as powerful as she thinks it is".[9] Variety compared the presentation of an empowered young woman to other screenplays in the same season and their focus on strong female characters. Features editor Malina Saval wrote that the film shows through Danielle how a "pressure to be perfect manifests itself in women long before marriage and kids come into focus" and explores how the power of sex is only limited.[13]

Karina Solórzano for the Los Cabos International Film Festival wrote that Shiva Baby has "the same elements as some of Woody Allen's most popular films – including the Jewish family and multiple lovers – but Seligman has her own vision and offers something different", and that it "follows the contrarian path promoted by [...] Disobedience, directed by Sebastián Lelio [but] this is not the central point of the plot; Seligman does not treat the [queer] protagonists as exceptional or disobedient".[14] Solórzano also compared the themes of youth to those of Booksmart, and the tension to that of Uncut Gems, and discussed the relevance of other themes in the film, including Danielle's insecurities; the oppressive nature of a familiar house; the cultural and religious conflicts surrounding Danielle's sexuality; complex female relationships; and the honesty that comes with family gatherings.[14]

Seligman said that casting posed a challenge; the film focuses on both queer and Jewish culture, so she wanted to find actors who would "feel authentic to the material". She added that "it did matter that there were Jewish people in this film, but it didn't feel necessary that everyone was Jewish [...] if there was someone who was perfect for the role but they weren't Jewish, I wanted myself to be open to that".[15] Casting director Kate Geller "turned to the New York Jewish theatre community" for most of the cast.[16] Due to the low budget, they looked to only cast actors based in New York City,[17] with the exception of Fred Melamed, whom the production flew out from Los Angeles. Melamed had accepted the role based on reading the script alone.[18] Without Seligman knowing, several of the cast already knew each other, such as Melamed and Polly Draper being friends from Yale School of Drama, which she used as an advantage on set,[17] though Draper had originally been intended to play a different role in the film.[18]

Interviewed by NOW, Seligman said that to create the characters she "worked with the actors to round them out and create some three-dimensionality, and they were all very willing to do so".[16] Draper improvised on-set for her character a lot, as well as adding elements through discussions with Seligman. Draper played the protagonist's mother as someone who intuitively knew that there was more going on in her daughter's life; Seligman was reluctant to let Draper include this, but said she is glad she allowed Draper to play that part of the character because it brings a mother's perspective she does not have herself.[18] Melamed, who "[stuck] to the script word for word", was the only principal actor to not ad lib during filming, though the production did not have time for full improvisation.[9] The characters in the film are all seen through the relatable eyes of Danielle, who is the movie's "way in".[16]

After she played the role in the short, Rachel Sennott was kept on as main character Danielle. Altmann said that after Seligman formed a collaborative bond with Sennott working on the short, Seligman "never even thought about casting someone else".[6] Seligman said that she found it important to keep Sennott, but knew that she "was not a star" and so the production needed to "stack up the rest of the cast" with bigger names;[17] Altmann similarly noted that some people looking to finance the film asked the producers to consider replacing Sennott with a bigger name, but that they "really stuck to [their] guns and found collaborators and investors and filmmakers that believed in Rachel [Sennott] and Emma [Seligman] and the vision as a whole".[6] Sennott, playing the bisexual Jewish leading role, is neither queer nor Jewish, but Seligman found she fit the part; comparatively, Dianna Agron is a Jewish actress playing the only character in the film who is not Jewish.[15][19] Joshua Arispe for Loud and Clear affirmed that Agron "finds no challenge in departing from [her] roots and culture to play the outsider".[19] The question of Jewish characters being portrayed by Jewish actors had become more prominent in 2018 with the success of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,[15] and a response at the time cited Agron and her ironic past roles as overtly shiksa and Christian characters as a reason why more representation of Jewish performers is not needed.[20] Discussing the additions of Agron and Molly Gordon to the cast, Seligman said: "I just want to see more queer Jews, especially queer female Jews, on screen, and I want to see them leading genres that we don't often get to see led by women in general".[10]

Gordon was cast without a chemistry read with Sennott, and they only met the day before filming began; Seligman said that for Gordon's part as Maya she was looking for someone who could bounce off Sennott and work with her to portray the long and complex history their characters share, despite not knowing each other.[21] She also discussed exploring the character of Danielle with Sennott in preparation for the feature, saying that Sennott "was really interested in exploring in each scene where her power lies. [They] were interested to see what happens when she acts on that power or when she loses it."[9]

Filming took place in a suburban area of New York City's Flatbush neighborhood.

Shiva Baby was filmed in August 2019[6] in Flatbush, Brooklyn.[1] Director of photography Maria Rusche used an Arri Alexa XT camera to shoot the film in fullscreen 2K resolution and Apple ProRes 4444 format, with Kowa anamorphic lenses as well as a 10:1 Cooke Cinetal zoom lens. About half of the film was shot handheld. Rusche discussed her choices with IndieWire's Chris O'Falt, explaining that to capture the anxiety in the film from the cast playing off each other she wanted an anamorphic lens so that multiple characters can remain in shot together, through the wider field of view, while still being distinguished from background characters thanks to the lens' depth. They also wanted to utilize natural image distortion to emphasize Danielle's anxiety, and tested different anamorphic lenses before shooting; Rusche said the effect of the Kowa lenses "helped make it feel like the walls could literally cave in on her" and had "a good balance of edge distortion without falling apart or losing too much sharpness at the edges".[22]

To create the feeling of claustrophobia for the audience, Seligman worked with Rusche and took inspiration from films including Krisha, Black Swan, and Opening Night. To not allow the feeling to become stale or repetitive, she directed Sennott to "look like she's suffocating but sort of [...] try to stay chill and try to stay like above it all".[21] Seligman said that she and Rusche had initially considered shooting the film like a romantic comedy, but "the anxiety hook was what [they] found to set the tone for most of the process".[5] Critics Allyson Johnson, Ricardo Gallegos, and Stephen Saito gave positive reviews of the film's cinematography and how it successfully conveys the claustrophobia experienced by Danielle,[23][24][25] while David Nusair for Reel Film instead noted that it "never becomes as claustrophobic as one might've assumed," but explains this is positive, saying it "is undoubtedly due almost entirely to an impressively propulsive narrative".[26]

Filming in one house, there was limited space and only one room for the actors to take breaks in that was accessible; the production filled it with AC units. The cast and crew were close while filming, with Sennott "constantly goofing around with [the] producers" and Agron bringing Jewish snacks for everybody on set.[1] The film takes place in one location during one day,[1] and Seligman said that some of the main struggles related to continuity, particularly working with many actors in a small space and over long periods of time with gaps in filming.[21] She explained that while they were lucky to manage to get the caliber of actors the film features, working around the cast's schedules meant that actors could be performing across from crew members instead of their scene partners on shooting days;[7] the production had sixteen days to shoot and only "two days when [they] had the entire [principal] six-person cast together at the same time".[9] To work around this, the same extras would be scheduled for the same scenes in each room and the cameras would be angled to avoid seeing into other spaces, Seligman described it as "like a game of Tetris".[9]

Another struggle was the baby playing Rose, who would not stop crying, making it difficult to film. Seligman said this was a "learning experience" that caused her to rework some scenes to fit in a crying baby,[21] referring to one scene as a "Simba baby" moment that had to be rewritten as a "monster baby" moment.[27] She explained that the crying could only be resolved by the actress playing the infant's mother: "Queen Dianna Agron really just was a baby whisperer. I don't know how she did it." This proved necessary for some scenes where the baby needed to be silent for the tone of important moments to be appropriate.[21]

In a Q&A for Frameline Film Festival, Seligman and Agron discussed the music in the film. Seligman said that she was uncertain if she wanted to use a score for the film when going into production, but decided to do so when she realized that she really wanted to "highlight Danielle's anxiety" and push the limits of the comedy genre.[27] A Frameline programmer described the score as a "repetitive stringed attack"; the style was Seligman's choice, and she wanted it to have strings to reflect Klezmer music.[27] Ariel Marx came on as composer and took on the challenge of making a horror score for a comedy movie, with Seligman saying they went through trial and error to get the right sound. She added that it was difficult to make music that was Klezmer-like and not just Klezmer, and that Marx "nailed that sweet spot".[27] Marx also suggested adding the score to some parts of the film it had not originally been intended, which Seligman said was successful in making it more stressful.[27]

Music is also used in the story when some characters sing to Danielle. This wasn't planned, but suggested by Draper, who had sung the song to her own children. Seligman explained that she was having an anxious morning when Draper mentioned the idea, but still accepted it so as to break up scenes of Danielle being swarmed by the women at the shiva. Agron, who did some of the singing, said that it was her favorite part of the shoot because it was "the most playful" she got to be in the film and she liked the way Seligman chose to shoot it with different characters coming in and out of focus, comparing it to Rosemary's Baby.[27]

The score received positive reviews. Saito described the score as Marx's version of the Jaws theme, praising it.[24] Jude Dry for IndieWire wrote that the "tense string score ratchets up the tension, though this technique loses its bite after a few too many uses",[28] while Katie Rife also complimented it, calling it "Harry Manfredini-esque".[29] Andrew Parker's praise also touched on the score's horror-like qualities, saying it worked well for its contribution to the claustrophobic storytelling.[30]

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