The Substance Director Finally Explains What's Going On With All Those Butt Close-Ups

The Substance has undeniably become one of the most talked-about movies of the past year thanks to its grisly gore and violence, scenes of full nudity and career-best performances from leads Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.

But there’s one other thing that plenty of viewers picked up when watching the graphic body horror.

Yes, we’re talking about all of those arses.

Coralie Fargeat’s film is littered with close-ups of bums, whether it’s Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle in the shower, Margaret Qualley clad in lycra for her energetic aerobics routine or just the man that Sue sleeps with the night before her big New Year’s Eve show standing in the buff in the hallway.

Well, Coralie has finally shared her take on why her work focusses so heavily on people’s posteriors (it’s been noted that her first film, Revenge, uses similar framing techniques).

The Oscar nominee told Letterboxd: “The ass is a very strong symbol of how [a woman’s body] is not neutral in the public space. How our body is constantly scrutinised, has been shaped to please the man’s eyes, has been seen as a body part that was objectified, that was detached from the person who was simply bearing it.”

She went on to say that The Substance uses so many bum close-ups as a way of inviting viewers to think about “how much it is the focus of so many different gazes that we have to live with, that we have to take into account, that we have to endure”.

“That’s something that has defined the way we can inhabit the public space,” she explained. ”[That] shapes a lot of our behaviour.”

Coralie added: “It represents the way a woman should be totally free and entitled to use her body the way she wants, to show it if she wants, to be as sexy as she wants, to be totally at ease and happy, to be whoever, however, whatever she wants.

“To get to this place with real freedom without it being an injunction, without it being something that you reproduce because you feel that it’s your only way to exist… That’s what those shots represent to me.”

Just two weeks away from this year’s Oscars, The Substance is going into this year’s ceremony as one of the most recognised films.

As well as specific nominations for Demi Moore and its director, The Substance is also in the running for Best Picture – a rare feat for a horror flick – as well as Best Original Screenplay and Best Makeup And Hairstyling.