Original-Cin Q&A: Bone Cage director/star Taylor Olson talks toxic masculinity and the environment

East Coast writer, actor and now director Taylor Olson’s toxic-masculinity and eco-themed debut feature Bone Cage tells the story of a man struggling with inner turmoil while trying to maintain a tough exterior.

Based on Catherine Banks’s Governor-General Award winning play of the same name, Bone Cage centres around Jamie, a young man who makes his living operating a wood processor, clear-cutting for pulp. At the end of each shift, he walks through the destruction that he has created, searching for injured animals and rescuing those he can.

Olson immediately connected with Bank’s play and thought it would make a great story to tell on screen. 

Bonnie Laufer spoke with Taylor Olson about his directorial debut, the challenge he faced making the film and why the story was so personal. 

Jamie (director/star Taylor Olson) examines the carnage after a day of manly clear-cutting.

Bone Cage is available on VOD on July 6th. 

ORIGINAL-CIN: Bone Cage was an ambitious project for you. Not only is it your directorial debut but you chose to take on the lead role as well. What initially connected you to Catherine Bank’s play that convinced you to make it into a film? 

TAYLOR OLSON: When I was in university, it was one of my favorite plays. I really connected with it mainly  because my family's been in the forestry industry for generations and like Jamie  in the film, my grandfather ran a boom boat business. 

So I knew this world pretty well and then I was lucky enough to do the stage version. I was acting in it and it was the second day of rehearsal that  as I started to transition into this world, I was remembering everything from my childhood and growing up in the forestry industry. 

I was thinking about things that my grandfather and my father had said that we're so similar to things that Jamie was saying in the play. And so that's when it felt really personal, I thought. Okay, it'd be nice to take this on and see it on screen.

O-C: Then, once you decided to do it, what really challenged you showing us this world and what he goes through emotionally? There's a lot to process.

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OLSON: There were a lot of things that were challenging. We were making this movie on a micro budget so, one of the biggest restraints was just, how much can you do with this much money and how much time do you have because in the end we only had 16 days to shoot.  

Most importantly I wanted  to capture both the landscapes and the destruction but also the beauty of the East Coast scenery while also being close and intimate with our characters. So we decided to shoot it on really wide lenses and really intimately so that we could  be immersed in the world of the characters, but also get the feel of the location and what the world meant to him. 

O-C: When I watched the movie I was thinking, what an interesting time for it to be released.  Your character Jamie  feels so isolated, in a way what have we all been going through for the last year and a half.  I think it is something that will resonate with a lot of people. 

OLSON: Yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting because it was obviously not a lens that we were thinking about when we shot it.  Jamie's going through a specific type of isolation. 

We've all been isolated from each other physically. But yes, dealing with the emotional and mental isolation that he's put on himself, especially in this community, he's taken on an armor of performative masculinity. And then it's like it's welded itself to him and you can't actually pull it apart and get it off.  

So he's isolated himself. He's done the action of isolating and so it's interesting to think about it. 

O-C: The film also makes us look at the forestry industry from different viewpoints.  Here you have an industry where people cut down trees for a living.  But then on the other hand, it makes you think about wildlife habitats and what it does to the animals who live there.  It’s something that Jamie really struggles with in the end. 

OLSON: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that interested me most about the play and Jamie's character is that paradox of this hard case guy who is  also so sensitive and cares so much. 

I immediately connected with that because I saw so much of my dad in Jamie. He always talked about how when you're working these clear-cutting jobs you're working yourself out of a job in 10 years. You look at the trees and it's sad when you think about habitats and how it affects species. 

There's a trigger effect because we're not supposed to clear-cut. We're not supposed to destroy habitats or ecosystems. There’s a ripple effect when you destroy habitats for one animal, how it then affects the next and how it can destroy a whole ecosystem. 

And so, hopefully, what people can see in the film is it's a little bit of that warning sign of, “This is what it does to the environment, but this is also how it affects us personally.” The environment is stripping away at our soul at the same time. 

O-C: So now that you've got this film under your belt, what were some of the lessons that you learned that you might take with you for your next project?

OLSON: Oh my goodness, so many! (Laughs) You learn so many different things, not just about the technical aspects of filmmaking, but learning how to deal with people on a whole other level.  

Making this film reinforced something that I've always believed, and that is what matters most on the set is leading with kindness, courage, and compassion with everyone, and how much that matters more at the end of the day than even the product of the film. 

That was one of the things we set out to do.  The more that we were working with folks throughout the whole experience, the more that we saw that that was most important.  It went a long way, not just in terms of people feeling good on the set but in terms of their output in the film. There were some really tough long days especially in the forest and I found  kindness, courage and compassion goes a long way.

O-C:  You’ve been slowly rolling out the film and showing it on the East Coast. You must have been so proud to show this to people who live there, but still nervous to know what they thought. 

OLSON: It was really great when we played here at the Atlantic International Film Festival. Just to see people who connected with the film who said, “I knew that guy when I was growing up,” or maybe, “I was that guy when I was younger.” That was beyond moving and rewarding.  

The reaction of people saying they felt seen can be a hard thing, but it also can be a healing thing at the same time. So it was amazing to see that and to see or hear someone reach out personally and say, “I'm really passionate about the forestry industry and clear-cutting, you really nailed it.” was beyond what i could imagine.  

I'm part of this huge Facebook page, where everyone's sharing all these ideas and thoughts and it was really interesting to see that there are so many people in communities across Canada, who are really passionate about this.