The new issue of Empire, out this week, features the usual clutch of film and TV exclusives: among them, we visited the editing suite of a forthcoming episode from Black Mirror's fourth season. Here's a preview from that piece, including this on-set photo.
Foster is directing one episode – entitled 'Arkangel' – from the latest run of Charlie Brooker's Netflix anthology show, and she offers a few details of what to expect. In stark contrast to another new-season episode which riffs on Star Trek (‘USS Callister’), Foster describes her episode as “raw and real, like an indie movie”. There’s certainly a grey, muted feel to the footage we’re shown, despite the typically near-future technology at the episode’s heart — which here enables Hola (Rosemarie DeWitt) to monitor her daughter (Sarah Abbott) in a truly unsettling way. Think Ken Loach by way of Philip K. Dick.
It was Foster’s love of The Twilight Zone that brought her to Black Mirror. Last year, she had lunch with a Netflix executive (Foster had previously directed episodes of Orange Is The New Black for the streaming service) and found herself complaining that Hollywood doesn’t make “short features” anymore. “I think the short story is the most perfect art form,” she says. “Today, they’re all about the big, epic franchise movies, or television made in eight seasons.”
Following that, Netflix put her in touch with Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror’s writer and creator, and within days she had joined the show’s roster of guest directors (including Joe Wright and John Hillcoat). “What’s interesting working with Jodie Foster,” says Brooker, speaking to Empire later, “is that you have to stop your brain screaming ‘It’s Jodie Foster!’ every two minutes. I think I managed to mask it.”
For more on Jodie Foster's contribution to Black Mirror, be sure to pick up a copy of the new issue of Empire, in all good and evil newsagents from Thursday 2 November. Want to get your copy days before anyone else? Subscribe to Empire here{