By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
The tone does feel hard to put into words, I think, because Shapeless is so experiential…. Eating disorders can seduce, seeping in subtly, promising relief. You fall for it, just one time. And then another….”
“Lived experience” is increasingly becoming one of those descriptors that overuse is rendering sadly less reflective of just what it means when often profound real life traumas inform art. Starring and co-written by Kelly Murtagh, Shapeless is a timely reminder then of just how much artists put themselves out there when autobiographical aspects for the basis of a given work. Murtagh plays Ivy, an ambitious singer in New Orleans who works in a laundry to pay the bills, but puts her heart and her soul into her band. She also has bulimia, but has so normalized disguising it from even those who are very close to her that when it starts impacting her life in ways she can no longer hide, she spirals into a new nightmare.
This nightmare in the film is rendered visible through the language of body horror, director Samantha Aldana cannily using the genre as a palette to reflect through her collaboration with Murtagh the subjectivity of Ivy’s experience. Along with recent powerhouse films such as Carlos Davis Mirabella’s Swallow and Ruth Paxton’s A Banquet, Shapeless excels as a portrait of women with eating disorders and the complex emotional landscape within which those disorders manifest rather than the typical and broadly patronizing “social issue of the week” approach which have sadly so broadly dominated the representation of things like bulimia in films.
An honest, revealing and moving film, Kelly Murtagh’s reflections in this interview on Shapeless and the place of her own experience are a fascinating insight into how real life and the creative process intersect.
—
I genuinely struggle to think of an area in screen culture more haphazardly represented than eating disorders. Do you have any recollections on how those representations figured in your mind growing up and on your own journey, and what part they played in helping you decide what direction to take with Shapeless?
Likewise! I think that eating disorders are not only haphazardly, but dangerously represented on the screen. One specific experience springs to mind. I believe I was a junior or senior in high school and was already deep in a secret struggle with bulimia. I remember catching a part of a TV show (of which I don’t remember the name) where a character commented on another character’s weight loss by making a cheap shot “well…she eats finger sandwiches for lunch and dinner” as he pantomimed induced vomiting by sticking his finger down his throat. He then burst into laughter, amused by his own joke, as the plot quickly moved on to whatever the feeble storyline was.
Meanwhile, I felt as if I’d been chewed up and spit out. Exposed, dumfounded, immobilized; my stomach sank in shame, anger, and confusion. I tried to make sense of what I’d just witnessed. Up until that point, I had never experienced bulimia discussed on screen. And from what I could gather in my first experience of it, bulimia equaled a form of extreme vanity – that it was nothing more than a joke. Although both couldn’t have felt further than the truth, I internalized what that fictional character said. My shame deepened as I submerged into secrecy, terrified I’d be exposed as vain. And if it’s just a joke, if it’s not that serious, why wasn’t I laughing? Why did I hate myself so much? And why couldn’t I stop throwing up?
That experience stuck with me as I used it as a guidepost in how not to approach Shapeless. Respecting the severity and complexity of this illness and those who struggle with it was always central to me in the Shapeless journey. Because addiction and eating disorders can be so hard to talk about, we felt called to bring an accurate, authentic and empathetic portrayal of bulimia to the screen. Where words can fall short in describing the depths of darkness of an eating disorder, I hope Shapeless is a story where someone who struggles can say “THAT. That is what it feels like.”
One of the things that I likes so much about the complex portrait here is how aggressively the sophisticated characterisation of Ivy really rejects a simplistic “fat”/”skinny” binary and instead seeks to explore far more complex, blurry areas in her life such as visibility/invisibility, autonomy/dependency, body/spirit, and, ultimately present/future. How hard was this to bring to life on screen?
The common misconception that eating disorders are only “body/diet issues” relegated to those who identify as women striving for skinniness was something I was painfully aware of from the start. It’s so much more complex and intangible than that and affects all people regardless of weight, age, race, socioeconomic background, cultural background or gender identity.
After writing quite a few solo drafts, this exact complexity is what stumped me the most as I finally realized, Shapeless was something I couldn’t write alone. I have the utmost gratitude for our director Samantha Aldana and co-writer Bryce Parsons-Twesten who are not only both incomparably talented, they have incomparable hearts to match. They themselves had not experienced the exacting grip of an eating disorder but treated me and the subject matter with so much care and curiosity in such a safe and supported way.
We started having very vulnerable, honest and oftentimes uncomfortable conversations about my experience. What it feels like to want to disappear because life feels too hard. What it feels like to be at constant war with your body, mind and spirit. What it feels like to be so consumed by the shame of the past or the anxiety of the future that you’re never in the present. What it feels like to have something inside you, an uncontrollable monster, overtake you.
We always went back to what it feels like as our guide. And as each new collaborator came on board we would have our own uncomfortable yet healing conversation about feelings. And the feelings were always our inspiration. Through visuals, music, score, prosthetics, wardrobe, editing, we tried to capture the balance in the blurriness to create the spectrum of what it feels like to have an eating disorder.
I was lucky enough to work with kind, non-judgmental collaborators. Some of whom had first-hand experiences with E.D. and some who hadn’t. Through those conversations not only did I feel my shame lessen, I began to recognize a universality to my experience. Regardless of how it manifests, shame and self-loathing is something we’ve all experienced. That deep, roiling and (deceitful) feeling in your gut that something is unquestionably wrong with you. I think because we all knew that feeling, everyone could go back to their own experiences as inspiration. The alchemy of mixing insider perspectives with those on the outside is why I think Shapeless works so well. It serves as a window of empathy for those who haven’t experienced an eating disorder while providing a sense of being seen, heard and understood for those who have.
I thought a lot about the old Tracey Gold TV movie For the Love of Nancy from 1994 or Perfect Body in 1997 with Cathy Rigby when I first saw Shapeless – they are of course very very different, but the big deal with that at the time was that Gold and Rigby themselves had quite famously had an eating disorder herself. In terms of bigger current debates about representation I find this quite interesting to revisit – that these women had such a direct connection to the material on a very personal level. Can you tell me more about that ‘connection’ as a performer and how you conceive it in relation to these bigger questions about representation?
There’s something really fascinating about a performer having a personal connection to a project. It can bring a certain level of attention and nuance to a performance that not only draws me in as a viewer, but feels uniquely important. I believe in the normalization of conversations about all the things that are hard to talk about in life and I think there’s nothing more important or powerful than genuine representation in doing that. We need more stories, more voices, more diversity. When we feel personal connections to the stories we see on screen, we’re probably more likely to use them as a gateway to normalize dialogues in our own lives.
I believe one of the most powerful statements in the human language is “I understand you.” And when, for instance, a performer has gone through the same experience their character has in real-life, there is an immediate empathy. An energy of understanding and care in the relationship between the performer and the audience that is brave, beautiful and bold.
That being said, no single person or experience is the same and I believe in an artist’s right to pursue and tell the stories that are in their heart regardless of if they went through it themselves. Perhaps an outsider could collaborate with an insider to help each other tell an honest story, but the more we can see, hear and experience diversity in representation on screen, the more we can all seek to understand each other better and spread empathy. That’s where art can really help connect us all and make the world a better place.
The big difference of course is that you not only star in Shapeless but also co-wrote it – I’m fascinated to hear your thoughts on where the artist in Kelly begins and the autobiographer (for want of a better word!) takes over? Is there a line, or is it more complex?
What a great question – and the answer feels more complex. Something that really helped me during development of Shapeless was to stop thinking in terms of an autobiographer and separate my character Ivy from Kelly. At times, I got in my own way during the writing process as I would get stuck thinking only in the context of what I went through exactly. Sam was integral in freeing me here as she kindly reminded me that we “aren’t making a documentary.”
That perspective helped me free Ivy to stand alone as her own character to do whatever she wanted in my imagination where anything is possible. Ivy could take on her own life, birthed from me but separate from me. She could have her own personality that could serve the story we were trying to tell. Although I brought my own truth and experience to embodying Ivy, I believe creating that line of separation was crucial in being able to serve the character and the story better because it allowed more colors for me to paint with.
Sometimes there isn’t really a line for me in being an artist. I think art is life and life is art and it comes in infinite forms. I believe in truth and vulnerability and what gets birthed from there, however it manifests, is art.
The overlap between bulimia and OCD is so carefully presented here, and OCD is another of those things that I think screen culture has a very nasty way of reducing to a sort of pantomime-like stereotype. Can you talk me through how this angle was approached both in performance and writing stages?
Again, agreed! I think OCD is another thing that is much more complex in nature and has been watered down to misconceptions and stereotypes on screen. Something both bulimia and OCD have in common is the idea of control. You’re trapped in an internal war attempting to control the things you can’t because somehow you’ve believed that control equals safety and love. You contort, conform and perfect in order to keep the peace as you keep an air-tight lid on your emotions. But you’ll always fail, because you can’t control everything. So you feel shame for not controlling everything better. So you try to control more. You control yourself, your appearance, your environment and you (try to) control others; all in an effort to feel safe. Because you believe living in the unknown is too uncomfortable and that your feelings are much too scary to face.
The dichotomy of inner and outer life and how they affect each other was always something I was aware of as a writer and performer. I always asked myself, “what is this about?” and then “what is this really about?” Like how someone can become angry when they’re actually scared. Something Shapeless does effectively is provide an in-depth exploration of inner turmoil so you can see how it manifests outwardly through bulimia and OCD.
Shapeless is really defined by its sense of intimacy, of us as the audience being given the rare privilege of being able to see behind the carefully constructed curtain that Ivy uses to hide behind when it comes to her public image, even amongst friends. Samantha of course brings this to life in ways that are so powerful and unspoken, but you – as both a co-writer and star – are always central to that. How did you work together to decide how to approach this rhythm of revelation, as it were?
I feel so thankful to have gotten to collaborate with such incredible artists who helped encourage the sense of intimacy you’re speaking about. The sense of intimacy was birthed from vulnerability, and I first felt safe being vulnerable with my husband at the time, fellow producer, and co-star Bobby Gilchrist. He was the first person besides me to believe in the story and what it could do. To not be afraid of the subject matter and to support me in the quest of writing the true, authentic story.
When our daughter Fallon was 4 months old, I remember holding her in my arms and not only feeling the immense unconditional love I have for her, but also utter terror. How could I save her from going through what I went through? And the answer was to be honest, to be vulnerable, and to finally write a first draft of Shapeless.
Bobby and I have now since gone through a divorce, but we are very much still dear friends and thoughtful co-parents. I credit that to vulnerability and honesty too. Not only is Bobby such an incredibly talented actor as he brings such a sense of breath and ease to Oscar that is endearing and magnetic, he’s also a fantastic producer and one of the most passionate, focused, and hard-working people I know. I’m incredibly thankful that we get to be Fallon’s parents together.
The safe space Samantha Aldana provided for me was also huge in allowing intimacy. I felt safe enough to explore and talk about the intimacy of what happens when you drop the ruse and you’re alone with your eating disorder. That exact and immense isolation was something Samantha was not afraid to explore. Perhaps another director would have wanted Ivy to go places and engage in hobbies to make things more “interesting”, but that’s not what it was really like in my experience. The places you go are in your head and the time or energy you might have for hobbies, goes directly into trying to control everything around you and feeding the monster within.
Sam would check in with me each step of the way to make sure things felt not only authentic, but safe. Feeling that heard and understood allowed me the space to also listen to myself and ask for the things I needed as an actor in order to feel safe on set, like multiple spit cups for bingeing scenes, for instance. Feeling safe was crucial in trusting and allowing myself to let go further into Ivy and allow the intimacy to be enough. Knowing that Sam had my back and trusted me and that I trusted her was also critical in allowing me to safely dive into a character with a potentially dangerous and triggering mindset.
There was a cut in the editing process where we leaned into and pushed traditional horror elements. What we found is we lost empathy when we did that. It somehow cheapened and sensationalized the real horror, which is living with an eating disorder.”
The question of genre with Shapeless feels really significant; I still find it very hard to put into words, but I absolutely know that feeling where sometimes my body feels like a kind of monstrous shell that I live in rather than part of me (and I know I am not alone in feeling that way). Horror is such an interesting language to use to bring that feeling to life, and I really admire how emphatically Shapeless latches onto that without ever feeling like what a lot of people would define as a traditional “horror film” per se. What do you think is the relationship of the film to genre, and have some people struggled with that relationship more than I have?!
The tone does feel hard to put into words, I think, because Shapeless is so experiential. I love the way you described it “that feeling where sometimes my body feels like a kind of monstrous shell that I live in rather than part of me.” There’s a dread that grows with subtlety and seduction that helps in pushing the authenticity. Eating disorders can seduce, seeping in subtly, promising relief. You fall for it, just one time. And then another. Then little by little, before you know it, you’re trapped.
I’ve always loved film and especially genre films in exploring the things that are hard to talk about in life. Playing in the horror film sandbox provides infinite opportunity to explore surrealism to symbolize the very real horrors in life.
And you’re right, people have very much struggled with tone because we don’t fit into a neat little box. After our world premiere at Tribeca last year, some common feedback we got was, “it’s not horror enough” or “it’s not drama enough.” And for someone recovering from crippling perfectionism, hearing all those “not enoughs” was difficult to process. And you start to doubt and question everything.
There was a cut in the editing process where we leaned into and pushed traditional horror elements. What we found is we lost empathy when we did that. It somehow cheapened and sensationalized the real horror, which is living with an eating disorder. Perhaps some viewers would have liked that cut better, but for us, respecting the authenticity of this illness was always paramount. That focus is what brought us to the final cut we have now. I ultimately trust and believe in the boldness, elegance, and subtlety we brought to Shapeless. It feels like we treated the severity of the illness with respect.
That Ivy is a singer feels really profound – that her presence is marked so clearly by her body and what it is at times both able and unable to do. Was this always a part of the film?
This fact that Ivy is a singer losing her voice to bulimia is actually the most personal connection I have to Shapeless as it happened to me in real life. It was also always a part of the film, as that experience birthed the story I wanted to tell.
Before I was an actor, I was a singer. My ability to sing was the one thing I knew I loved about myself from a young age. Even in high school when I developed depression, anxiety and then ultimately bulimia, I could still always count on my singing as something I could love about myself. Those hours I spent in multiple choirs and voice lessons were some of the only times I felt peace, like I was right where I was supposed to be. Singing was my respite, music was my haven.
Shame kept me struggling with bulimia in silence as I moved into college. It was hard. In an effort to feel better my senior year, I signed up for voice lessons. It didn’t go well.
Warming up, I failed to hold and hit notes and I had almost no breath control. Only five minutes in, the teacher recommended I get my vocal cords checked.
And somehow I went to a doctor, perhaps hoping for some other answer than the truth I was about to face. The doctor showed me footage of my ravaged vocal cords after a laryngoscopy. He asked with gentleness and with a (what I thought to be) knowing look, “Do you struggle with acid reflux?”
And I physically couldn’t speak. Unable to face the truth, I dove deeper into illness. And no matter how I tried, I couldn’t stop throwing up. But I did stop singing.
It wasn’t until many years later, deep in the pre-production process of Shapeless that I had to finally face myself and sing. I had my hands full with being a mom, writing and producing that I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that my character had to sing a lot. When the time finally came to record my vocals it hit me like a ton of bricks. “Well, shit.” I remember saying out loud. I was terrified.
Thankfully, Sam had an idea. She recommended fellow actor and voice therapist, Caroline Fourmy, to me. I had so many limiting beliefs surrounding my singing voice because of the shame I was still carrying about “ruining” it with bulimia. But turns out, I didn’t. Caroline helped guide me to realize that I could still sing. We would lay on the floor and do vocal exercises where we would intentionally sing badly to help get me out of my own way. That way, I could stop worrying about being perfect and I could just allow myself to sing.
And no, it didn’t sound like what it used to, and I needed to breathe a lot, and I couldn’t hit very high notes but I could still sing. The more I sang, the more I healed and accepted my voice for what it is. So, I kept on singing. In the shower, in the car, to my daughter, in my head…I sang. And it felt good. I’ve even started singing duets live, on stage, with real musicians in New Orleans. I am forever thankful to the Shapeless journey for bringing music back into my life. In making a movie about a girl losing her voice, I rediscovered my own.
New Orleans feels so central to Shapeless, and as a critic it’s easy to speculate why that might be but I would love to hear your thoughts on this – it feels so very specific to the story being told here.
New Orleans was such an inspiration for Shapeless. It’s where we wrote it, where we shot it, where we created it. It was born and raised in that magical place.. I grew up not far away from Crescent City and for most of my adult life it’s been home (and feels like forever home in my heart.) The way music is alive there and how it weaves into the heartbeat of the city was inspiring for the immersive sound design of Shapeless. There’s a fantastical element to New Orleans that has always enchanted me. This feeling like you could turn a corner and stumble back in time or fall into some other dimension where anything can happen. There’s also a darkness, a decay to New Orleans that is very raw and authentic and is rarely portrayed in other films that are set in the “Hollywood” version New Orleans.
We wanted the texture of New Orleans to feel real as it also felt like a symbolic juxtaposition of Ivy’s deterioration. Most of our cast and crew were local to the New Orleans film community so each department really understood how to embrace New Orleans as a character in a natural and organic way. Because, well, it’s in our blood.
In fact, Sam and I love New Orleans so much that we actually made a children’s book about it during post-production called Zoo Krewe (I authored, she illustrated). It’s for children of all ages but mainly for 0-5 year olds. Samantha Aldana is also one of the best visual artists I’ve ever experienced and I very much love her illustrations.
Shapeless is such an immersive film, again so much due to your central roles. Where do you go from here as an artist?
The truth is, I don’t know. Bringing Shapeless to life has been the most encompassing project I’ve ever done and I’ve absolutely allowed myself to get sucked into my work because I believe in it so deeply. Surrender is something I am learning in this process, and that we’re all worthy regardless of the work we create.
So I’m going to continue to love and take care of myself so I can show up for my daughter Fallon and try not to put too much pressure on myself because pressure kills creativity. I have a lot of things marinating, but I’m not sure which will rise to the surface yet. In general, though, I hope to act in something again soon, write more scripts and children’s books, and maybe even do something with music. I believe the most important thing in life is to love and take care of yourself so you can live more presently in your own world and the worlds of others. Living presently takes guts, but it is also where you heal, love yourself and others better, and where you can be mindful of opportunities as they arise. So, we’ll see:)
Recovering from an eating disorder is hard, accessing treatment shouldn’t be. But it is. Especially when you’re struggling. If you or someone you know is struggling to access Eating Disorder treatment, head to www.theprojectheal.org for more information and resources on how they are breaking down the systemic, financial and healthcare barriers to eating disorder treatment. Donate or share if you can, thank you!
And please follow me on instagram: @kellymurtagh @shapelessthefilm and twitter @kellymurtagh
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas is a film critic from Melbourne, Australia, who frequently contributes to Fangoria and has published widely on cult, horror and exploitation film including The Giallo Canvas: Art, Excess and Horror Cinema (McFarland, 2021), Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study (McFarland, 2011) and the 2021 updated second edition of the same name, Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality (McFarland, 2015), the single-film focused monographs Suspiria (Auteur, 2016), Ms. 45 (Columbia University Press, 2017) and The Hitcher (Arrow Books, 2018), and two Bram Stoker Award nominated books, Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces (University of Wales Press, 2019) and 1000 Women in Horror (BearManor Media, 2020). She is also the co-editor, with Dean Brandum, of ReFocus: the Films of Elaine May (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), Wonderland (Thames & Hudson, 2018) on Alice in Wonderland in film, co-edited with Emma McRae, and Strickland: The Analogues of Peter Strickland (2020) and Cattet & Forzani: The Strange Films of Cattet & Forzani (2018), both co-edited with John Edmond and published by the Queensland Film Festival. Alexandra is on the advisory board of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, and a member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.
Read also: