New eyes on Old Hollywood

Hollywood here we come: Ashley Benson, left, and Madelaine Petsch in Pretty Babies Photo: Killer Films

When first-time director Tyler-Marie Evans was growing up in Las Vegas she used to seek refuge from her overly-strict family background in the films of such old time Hollywood stars as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Vivien Leigh and Rita Hayworth.

Not only did her teenage escape strategy keep her sane it also provided fodder for her debut feature film Pretty Babies which premieres tonight at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

She has described it as “a love letter to Old Hollywood” and it features two contemporary actresses, Madelaine Petsch and Ashley Benson, as the teenagers who follow their dreams as they travel from Texas to California, falling into prostitution along the way. The narrative is interwoven with clips from seminal black and white films from Hollywood’s golden age – “all of which came a price for the rights but it was so important for us to have them”.

Feature film debut for Tyler-Marie Evans who describes Pretty Babies as, 'A love letter to Old Hollywood' Photo: Kevin Hayeland/Bold Journey)

Evans explains in a statement: “I grew up in a home where there was a kind of pain I didn’t know how to hold. My sister was severely disabled, and I didn’t have a language for what that meant or how to process it. I became drawn to a very specific kind of fantasy. Old Hollywood. Women who felt completely constructed, but in control of that construction. Faces like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford … there was power in those images. My sense of what a woman was became a constructed Frankenstein from the films I had seen.

“Pretty Babies comes from that instinct. It’s about girls who don’t know who they are yet, but know the image they want to become. They reach for fantasy because reality feels too difficult to sit in. Visually, I wanted the film to feel like it exists inside the girls’ romanticised perception of life, with an impressionistic lens blurring the line of what’s there and what our characters desire. The film doesn’t try to expose the illusion, it allows it to exist.”

Evans admits she’s rather obsessed with the beauty of these iconic stars. “If you asked me if I wanted to see a [Greta] Garbo film this afternoon I would be off in a flash. The girls are living in a world of selfies but are seeking something more grand and beautiful. The trajectory of these stars presents an oral history. I would love to get these old classics back into the zeitgeist.”

Cooling off: Ashley Benson, left, and Madelaine Petsch in Pretty Babies Photo: Killer Films

She suggests that she struggled as a young person in not having a culture. “My mom was an only child and my dad’s two brothers never married. I had no culture around me. I had no grandparents for holidays. My parents were from Las Vegas and there’s no culture there. I was nine years old when I first saw Gone With The Wind and I thought I can make my lineage from that - and I was like choosing my family from the personas I saw on screen.”

Evans worked in the offices of Warner Bros in LA where she allowed her passion for cinema to flourish. Without any formal training she realised that the only way to gain some credibility was to make a short film. “It had to be done because you can’t just tell people that you’re a director with nothing to show. I needed to begin the journey but I had no money and didn’t know any investors. My boyfriend at the time had a car and I decided to sell that to get the budget together to make the film. He’s now my ex!”

A woman who worked at the American Film Institute agreed to mentor her on the side while she kept her nine to five job at Warner Bros. The pay off was that she worked for her in the evenings. She gave her plays to read by the likes of Sam Shepard and told her all about Stella Adler who taught acting to legendary stars, including Marlon Brando. “I absorbed it all like a sponge and would rush home of an evening to watch such classics as A Streetcar Named Desire. So that’s how I got my film education.”

Behind the scenes on Pretty Babies with Ashley Benson, left, and Madelaine Petsch Photo: Killer Films

She was inspired by a diverse range of female directors ranging from Agnès Varda through Sofia Coppola to Jame Campion. When the legendary Varda died she went to Paris to pay homage. If any comparisons are to be made with Pretty Babies she would be happy for people to cite The Virgin Suicides, Spring Breakers and Thelma And Louise. For the latter she appreciated how the humanity of the characters played by Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis enabled them to cope with the scene and its aftermath in which Louise shoots Thelma’s would-be rapist. “That film was a huge inspiration,” she concedes. “I believe the cinema now has taken the place of the great novels in the popular imagination.”

She cannot wait for the conversation around the film to begin. “Now I think the film can take on an identity of its own. You create this animal and it’s really weird because as a director you feel (and should feel) you’re in control. Then you let go and you’re like, oh, this is a living, breathing thing. Whether people love it or hate I just want to talk about it because I have seen it a billion times and lived it my head a billion times and now want to find out what effect it might have on others.”

Pretty Babies screens tonight at Cineworld, 21.00; tomorrow (16) at the Cameo, 20.00; and on Tuesday (18) at Cineworld, 22.00.