Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things served as something of a visual feast for aesthetes, with every frame richly crafted with elaborate set design and unabashedly camp costuming. With the very nature of film being in motion making it difficult to fully grasp every detail upon first watch, the right tome can serve as the ideal accompaniment for fans.
There’s a certain magnetism to behind-the-scenes photographs, particularly those from period or otherworldly films. Whether it’s actors breaking the fourth wall, clutching anachronistic technology, or behaving in a way that’s out of character, behind-the-scenes photographs often serve as a reminder that despite their all-encompassing nature, the worlds which some of our favourite films inhabit are carefully crafted and often tenuous. However, Lanthimos’ take on the behind-the-scenes photobook manages to retain the preternatural, otherworldly feel of the film, with artfully captured shots of Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Mark Ruffalo only serving to extend the Poor Things universe.
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A testament to the panoptic nature of Lanthimos’ world building, the photobook—titled Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken—is published by Athens-based imprint Void. The images themselves were captured by Lanthimos, with the book a result of a collaboration between the director and lead actress Emma Stone, who played the role of Bella Baxter in the film.
In contrast to the fast-paced creation of the film, Lanthimos used a large-format camera to capture the images, with a particular focus on stillness, light, and tonality. After full days of filming, Lanthimos and Stone would develop the—colour and black-and-white—images together in a makeshift darkroom setup within a bathroom.
“The creative complicity I have with Emma added to the excitement of the task,” Lanthimos told publisher Void of the collaboration. “One would push the other no matter how tired we were after a full day of filming to process the negatives in the evenings.” For Stone, the project acted as a form of meditation, providing a way to unwind after a day of filming. “The high-stakes meditation of it is very special to me,” the actress explained, “you have to remain in control, you don’t want to screw up the pictures.”
“Sure, they’re only pictures, but they’re his pictures, his art, not my own,” she added. “It was like getting to be a sous chef, not dissimilar to how I feel with him on set, and I loved the challenge and focus of it.”
The ‘God’ in the title of the book, Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken, refers to the way the character Bella Baxter (Stone) refers to her creator Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) as God throughout the film. The rest of the title comes from a scene in which Bella Baxter sends a postcard to her God, which was ultimately cut from the film.
Rather than peeling back the curtains to reveal the inner workings of the film or seek to humanise its characters through relatable photographs, Lanthimos eschews typical film photobook conventions in Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken by widening the world he’s constructed. As such, the book adds something of a subplot to the film, with foldout pages filling the reader in on the project. That said, one of the most delightful photographs in the book is one of Mark Ruffalo lounging in a chair clad in a poofy dress. It’s hard to say whether this is part of the subplot, or just Ruffalo being himself.
Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken is priced at €55 and available for pre-order via Void.
Words by Theo Rosen
