It is not the story of Elizabeth Short. The movie is complicated. It's about characters who are impacted and obsessed with what happened to her.

And I always had this idea for making a movie about a femme fatale, because I like these characters. They're a lot of fun, they're sexy, they're manipulative, they're dangerous.

Yeah, I had an idea to make a very scary movie, based on a kind of serial murderer that preys on tourists.

I've been obsessed with this kind of visual storytelling for quite a while, and I try to create material that allows me to explore it.

Beauty without the beloved is a like a sword through the heart.

Originally, 'The Windup Girl' started as a short story - a very gnarly, complicated short story set in Bangkok that didn't work very well.