The majestic Californian coast of Big Sur is not the first position that comes to mind for the stage of a dreadful display in the abdomen of an asylum, but for the co-creator and “Ratched” Evan Romansky, the paths worthy of a postcard not as serene as they seem.
“Big Sur’s landscape lends itself so much to the aesthetics of our show,” Romansky says. “It was wonderful to be able to announce plot twists, as well as the winding and winding roads of Big Sur. smashing roads, on each and every corner there is a potential danger, like the spectacle. “
“Ratched,” which rose to number one on Netflix on the weekend of its release, creates a new story for Mildred Ratched, the axe of an intellectual fitness employee who ruled asylum in the e-book and the upcoming film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “”In the original material, the only biographical detail Romansky had to convey was his story as a Nurse. A character’s blank whiteboard made it a passionate challenge for Romansky, who originally wrote the specific script while in graduate school to get an agent.
“I enjoyed the fact that we knew nothing about her, unless she was an army nurse. As a writer, it was exciting, because I wasn’t going to tell anything, I could just create a background story,” he said. Says.
The Netflix series features Ratched, played by Sarah Paulson, as an imposter expelled from the army. After a dishonorable discharge, he discovers his way into a task at an intellectual hospital to lose his brother, who has been locked in the basement as a result of a sadistic multiple homicide. Many more homicides follow, be they barbaric medical procedures and outdated murderous weapons.
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The wonder of California herbs plays an important role in the series. “It’s such a lovely component of the country that we’re looking to take advantage of this good looks and literally show it,” Romansky says. It provides the best backdrop for the hyper-stylized view of postwar aesthetics captured through director Ryan Murphy (“American Horror Story”). There’s a couture feel in “Mad Men”: the nurses are dressed in bespoke blue-green suits and the asylum itself looks more like an old Hollywood celebrity retreat than a hospital. Filmed at the Arrowhead Springs Hotel in San Bernadino, the décor served as Elizabeth Taylor’s honeymoon spot with Conrad Hilton Jr. in 1950.
Outside the hospital, the characters spend much of their time in the Big Sur facility, Lucia Lodge, a picturesque collection of ten cabins built in the 1930s, perched a few meters from the sea, although the interiors have been renovated, the facades remain. In the show, violent and tense sex scenes take place inside the booths, and the picturesque atmosphere makes them feel like a grim fairy tale (the dressing room itself would be delighted).
“It’s crazy. It looks fake in the series, as if it didn’t look like a genuine motel,” Romansky says. “It’s definitely lovely, it’s probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. It’s the best and best find.
Lucia Lodge in Big Sur has never hosted a television crew, as its rustic cabins are reserved and the deal took months of coordination. the real owners.
“They opposed a hundred percent the smart old Louise in the series,” Romansky said. “They were the warmest and most welcoming of all time. They were great. I hope other people see them.
Filming, which took place for 3 or 4 days in 2019, caught the attention of Big Sur’s small network. A fleet of old cars parked at the front attracted local youths to the property. snacks from the producer’s catering car.
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“It was a little exciting for the kids. We have a great community of kids and there’s not much to do here,” says Jessie McKnight, manager of Lucia Lodge, who lives there.
The hostel itself has had some difficult years: between wildfires, landslides and coronavirus, it has been forced to close several times and has just reopened after the most recent fires.
“For a general year, sometimes we are full. But the last 4 years have not been general to us,” Mcknight said. Currently, there is an unexpected amount of cabin availability, whose diversity from around $200 to $450, however, the screen has in fact created an increase in email requests.
McKevening he he hem didn’t really look at “Ratched” (“it’s too disturbing for me”), but recounts the elaborate distances the team took to traverse the entire landscape, adding the use of a giant lamp to simulate a full moon night.
Although she never gave the impression on the show, San Francisco’s reputation for sexual liberation depends on the dates between Nurse Ratched and her love, Gwendolyn Briggs, played by Emmy Award-winning co-star Cynthia Nixon (“Sex and the City”). the romance parallels several hospitalized patients who have obtained a terrible remedy for homosexual impulses, with Ratched’s evolution as a result of some of his few moments of empathy towards his patients.
Under the goal of 2020, the remedy of intellectual aptitude through characters is barbaric and harder to see than more classic slasher scenes. The experimental intellectual procedures that take place in the facility, adding lobotomies and hydrotherapy (mainly boiling patients), were accurate in rooting those remedies in truth makes them even more terrible, especially when contrasted with colorful costumes, such as dr. Richard Hanover’s immaculate tailor-made costumes, played by Jon Jon Briones (“The Murder of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”).
The mix of sublime and sinister old Hollywood contrasted through old-school torture, recalls an ancient California that is as beautiful and problematic as it is today. The display can be appalling to watch, and while some of the violence would possibly cause for a more sensitive audience to look fat, Romansky feels that the role of California is a component of what makes the screen so captivating.
“We’re looking to give the audience something to see. Something as mundane as a car ride, a moment when it’s simple to look the other way and check your phone and miss something, suddenly becomes a staple for the landscape alone. “
Dan Gentile is the cultural editor of SFGATE. Email: Dan. Gentile@sfgate. com Twitter: @Dannosphere