For “ Kinds of Kindness,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ twisted three-part anthology film set in alternate realities with a cast led by Jesse Plemons , Emma Stone , and Willem Dafoe, production designer Anthony Gasparro (“First Cow”) was tasked with transforming New Orleans into a nameless city by avoiding any iconic references to the Big Easy. That meant going on the outskirts — uptown, in the suburbs, or on the lakefront — to create an eccentric vibe. In “The Death of R.
M.F.,” Robert (Plemons) endures daily abuse from his boss, Raymond (Dafoe); in “R.
M.F. Is Flying,” distraught policeman Daniel (Plemons) welcomes the miraculous return of his marine researcher wife, Liz (Stone), lost at sea on an expedition and presumed dead, but then suspects that she’s an impostor; and in “R.
M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” Emily (Stone) and Andrew (Plemons), who belong to a sex cult run by Omi (Dafoe), are on a mission to find a woman who can resurrect the dead.
In fact, the cult became crucial in the selection of New Orleans; it was the only city that offered the kind of secluded lakefront house that the director desired for a cult devoted to water. “That was the most difficult location to find,” Gasparro told IndieWire. “But once we first saw that house, we decided that we were going to film in New Orleans.
I always felt we were shooting on the edge of New Orleans, which I quite like in general as a way to shoot a city. “Because it was so location dependent, it was really .
