The Chronology of Water almost ended Kristen Stewart’s acting career.
Well, not really. But she did publicly threaten to quit acting unless she was able to make this movie. Thankfully, that didn't come to fruition; we will live to see Stewart acting in more films (including an ’80s thriller about vampires co-starring Oscar Isaac).
Just as pressingly, Stewart’s feature-length directorial debut has finally arrived, and it is stunning. A non-linear memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch about trauma and how we process it throughout our lives was certainly not an easy first project to take on. But the painstaking effort — Stewart spent eight years adapting the book into a screenplay — shows in every single frame, gorgeously shot on 16-millimeter film. Meanwhile, Imogen Poots, who plays author Lidia Yuknavitch, gives a performance that’s just as stunning and gritty as the film's visuals.
Ahead of the film's release, Them spoke with Stewart and Poots over Zoom about their relationships to water, a very notable Kim Gordon cameo, and the importance of the film for queer viewers.
I was wondering about your own relationships to water, given that it’s such a prominent motif in the film and, of course, the title.
Kristen Stewart: I am such an indoor house cat. I touch the water and I burst five feet into the air. I have a really hard time. I’m super claustrophobic. I’m not a floater. I do not succumb. [I’m] not water-y, which is maybe relevant; I’m afraid of it.
Imogen Poots: Actually, I remember halfway we were doing some pool scenes, and Kristen was at the side of the pool with her headphones, everything, and she was like, “Yeah, I don’t like getting wet.” And I was like, “What, why?” My relationship with it definitely changed with the preparation for the part, because I was doing swim lessons and training all the time, and then I got really addicted to it, and I didn’t hang out with anyone because I just wanted to be in water all the time. I found it really healing and really meditative. I really became very obsessive with it.
And I got it. I got what it means to be a pool person, and it’s a very specific club, and it’s a very secret club, and the stakes are high when you’re a member. But [even] before that, there’s something about floating in the ocean, where I always think you’re close to heaven, like you’re close to the edge of something. I always feel that way with the sea.
KS: I love how Lidia describes it as her better world.
Kristen, you mentioned maybe it’s relevant that you’re afraid of water. Could you expand on that?
KS: I do avoid it, but I shouldn’t.
IP: I saw a video of you swimming.
KS: I sent her a video of me doing a couple of laps, yes, just to show her that I was better than her at it. Kidding.
When I was hanging with Lidia and talking to her about the book and her life and everything many, many years ago, she was like, “You have to come swim with me.” I bought a bathing suit. It was too small. I did not put it on. I did not get in the water. I really should have, I don't know what it is. I’m a control freak. And, you know, I should swim more. I think maybe I made the movie because I’m jealous.
IP: It’s funny, too. There are a lot of people who swim in pools and that’s part of their routine. And this is something Leanne Shapton writes about in that book Swimming Studies, where it’s like, there’s that obsession with, you go every morning and that’s part of your life, but they will not swim in the ocean because it’s unknown and the danger of that. You have no control. It’s interesting how, with some swimmers in relationship to water, it’s [a sense of] controlling this maverick force.
KS: People soup, yeah. Grosses me out.
“Take the movie, eat it up, metabolize it. I want very much for people to feel thrilled by the notion that their life is theirs to create, especially for queer people, who are consistently being asked to define themselves for other people.”
Speaking of Lidia, has she seen the film? How has she reacted?
KS: She hasn’t seen it yet, and she’s, at this point, finally ready to. I think it was something that she was kind of trepidatious [about], naturally. I think she needs to do it with a coven of women, and not necessarily at a big screening. She was like, “So can I see it on December 5?” I’m like, “Yes, that is when the movie comes out.” But I hope to get her to something. I want to be in conversation with her.
She’s like a little forest animal — like, too hot to touch. I wonder how it’s gonna go as the movie’s life expands and it makes more friends at school. And she’s very proud of us, like the encouraging messages that we get from her. I got one this morning, too. She was just like, “Unboundingly proud of you both.” She’s a teacher. She’s somebody who can’t really deal with the masses in any way, but when you're individually person to person, she makes you feel so good and so visible and like you can sort of reach into the depths of yourself and say anything and find your own terms for your identity and all of that. And she’s given that to me, not just through the book, but personally. She’s really unlocked a lot of people from their weird little internal prisons.
There’s a particularly striking scene in which Lidia is beaten by a mentor who is played by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. Tell me about that casting choice.
KS: I needed somebody with gravitas, because it’s such a quick moment in the film, and it’s very elliptical. Even in the book, it’s a pretty brief chapter, but it’s the moment in which she can take this seemingly gruesome experience of violent thrashing, but because of the life that she’s lived, that is just the repossession of that violence into pleasure. That’s how you strip yourself of certain latent trauma stuff, where you go, “You know what? I think I might have to just look right into the eye of the storm in order to understand that I like it and it’s okay.”
And so I needed somebody that was like, “Mommy,” marginal, sort of dissonant, somebody who could feel like a teacher, like a therapist, but then also somebody who kind of understands the bizarre. In the book, it says, “She made a puddle in her seat, and she could feel the sweat dripping underneath her tits.” And I was like, “Kim Gordon!” It happens so quickly. It just needs to land on you like a brick shit house, which I think she does.
What do you hope people, and especially queer viewers, take away from the film?
she could feel the sweat dripping underneath her tits.” And I was like, “Kim Gordon!” It happens so quickly. It just needs to land on you like a brick shit house, which I think she does.
KS: I wanted to make a movie that was going to be different for everyone. There’s this line in the movie that recurs kind of a lot. It’s like, “It’s in your hands.” Take the movie, eat it up, metabolize it. I want very much for people to feel thrilled by the notion that their life is theirs to create, especially for queer people, who are consistently being asked to define themselves for other people. It’s such an internal experience. It doesn’t really matter if you find the right words. Even right now I’m trying to figure out what I’m saying as I’m saying it. Having a little bit of room and grace and just understanding the kind of malleability of self is a very, very queer experience. And you don’t ever have to get to a landing point.
She ends up with a husband and a son at the end of the movie. That’s not the end of Lidia’s life. The fact that she’s kind of in control of that at the end is encouraging and quite positive. But it’s not an end game. It’s not like, “She did it! She landed! She has a kid and a husband now!” No, it takes every single day. We’re reinventing ourselves every single five minutes.
IP: Culture presents you with this idea of rules and reward. It’s just satisfying to see that we’re all so inconsistent, we say a million things we don’t mean every day, and you sabotage your best chances at something… The film, we both feel, is actually very hopeful, because it shows that that’s part of life. We’re living in a very, very clinical, sanitized, hairless society. It’s really great to see a woman becoming again and again and again, and that’s what hopefully people want to see up there. They don’t want to see people who’ve solved it. That sounds boring as hell.
KS: No. That’s so like… you’re dead.
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