SPOILER ALERT:This story discusses major plot points, including the ending for Saltburn.
In the final moments of Emerald Fennells Saltburn, Sophie Ellis-Bextors 2001 song, Murder on the Dancefloor pumps out over the speakers, while Barry Keoghans Oliver dances stark naked through a grand estate house in the British countryside. Everything is diabolical, but its exhilarating, Fennell explained. Its post-coital, euphoric, solitary and its mad.
Cinematographer Linus Sandgren said the scene is about Oliver feeling as if he owns the place. In capturing it, Fennell used 11 takes before she got the right take from Keoghan. They were all very beautiful, she said. Its quite a complicated and technical camera. A lot of the time, he was immensely patient because there was a lot of naked dancing. Take #7 was technically perfect. You could hear everyones overjoyed response, but I had to say sorry because it was missing whatever it was that made Oliver that slightly human messiness. So, we had to do it a further four times.
Speaking at the films premiere, Keoghan joked, I think we got it on the fourth take, but people just wanted to keep seeing me dancing.
Saltburn welcomes audiences into the echelons of the upper class within British society and the Catton family. Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), Sir James (Richard E. Grant), daughter Venetia (Alison Oliver) and Felix (Jacob Elordi) wear cufflinks to dinner, indulge in champagne, play tennis and have songs written about them namely Pulps Common People. They own an estate they call Saltburn, and Keoghans Oliver is the poor soul Felix meets at Oxford University and invites Ollie to spend the Summer with him. Ollie becomes fodder for the family to poke fun at and humiliate. One scene has him singing karaoke to Rent by the Pet Shop Boys. As he sings, I love you, you pay my rent he realizes whats happening, and the lyrics reflect his place.
But Saltburn takes a twist. Spoiler alert Oliver has been pushed to the brink, and being enamored with Felix and the Cattons come to a halt. When Felix takes Ollie on a surprise road trip for his birthday, Felix uncovers some truths about his friend Ollies dad didnt die, and his mother is not an alcoholic. Ollie, it turns out, is not all he seems to be. His welcome reception is over, and Felix wants him out, but things suddenly turn into a family tragedy as Ollie kills them, one by one.
Fennell said the film needed a moment of jubilation for its protagonist. We do need to be on his side, and the thing for me, it was always about getting to this sense I think this film needed a moment of jubilation because Oliver is our protagonist. We need to be on his side. For me, it was always about getting it to this sense that by the end, you just think Why the fuck not? How complicit can we be? Do it and well laugh, and well love it. Well understand. That euphoric madness has to be ours as well as his.
The scene took place on a closed set with a skeleton crew, but Fennell needed a team to help pull it off. Choreographer Polly Bennett worked with Keoghan on perfecting the moves. Keoghan said, We worked really hard on it to find a comfortable place.
Fennell said, It needed to have that otherworldly fantasy sequence feeling. The edge where he feels like hes just fucking going for it, but it doesnt feel messy. The speakers had to be set up so the moment you appear in that room, theres no lag. It was the technical things. And nobody could watch the monitors except for me, Linus, Polly and Sam, our script supervisor.
Fennell, who first saw the actor in Yorgos Lanthimos The Killing of a Scared Dee,r called him incredibly talented. We push each other all the time in a really thrilling way. When it comes to stuff like it, there was never a question. Hes got to just dance to Sophie Ellis-Bextor naked through the house, and hes like, Yeah, of course. He completely understands that. We push each other all the time in a thrilling way. When it comes to stuff like it, there was never a question. Hes got to just dance to Sophie Ellis-Bextor naked through the house, and hes like, Yeah, of course. He completely understands that.
Keoghan added, There was no hesitation because it moves the story forward.
As for Sandgrens camera moves, he pointed out that Oliver was always in frame for most of the film. But this way, we see him full-figured. I think it was clear we wanted to follow him. Following him through that scene felt more natural to watch everything about him, and watch from the outside. Its about his physicality and how he feels in that moment.
Furthermore, the scene is an inverse of the tour Felix gives Ollie when he first arrives. Were given a tour of the most beautiful house in England, and we dont see the house, we see him. He shows him the staterooms first, and it ends in the Kings bedroom where the last scene begins, and obviously, hes been
sleeping there. This is where he lives. Its an act of marking his territory, Fennell said. Its his place now, and he can do whatever the fuck he wants.