In Bruges (2008) dir. Martin McDonagh “I think I’d seen a picture of it somewhere, but I didn’t really know anything about it. And I just got a train there from London for a weekend trip and I was just sort of struck by how beautiful the place was and strange and gothic and untouched for however many centuries… But I was there for a couple of days and in the middle of the second day, after going to every church three times and every gallery six times, I was just bored out of my head. And I just wanted to get drunk or get laid or anything, but sort of both sides of my brain were arguing; the culture-loving geek and the drunken slut. Then they started becoming characters. I thought why would two guys who had those feelings about the place be in that place, be stuck in that place? …It came from Bruges organically, pretty much. If we hadn’t been allowed to shoot there, I’d have scrapped the whole thing. I wouldn’t have changed it to another place because it had to be that strange and that beautiful, but also a place that people don’t really know and there’d be no reason to be there. And you can’t really say that for Venice, or Prague, or Paris, or any of those other beautiful towns. It had to be somewhere that every single character says, “Where the fuck is that?”” - Martin McDonagh

In Bruges (2008) dir. Martin McDonagh

“I think I’d seen a picture of it somewhere, but I didn’t really know anything about it. And I just got a train there from London for a weekend trip and I was just sort of struck by how beautiful the place was and strange and gothic and untouched for however many centuries… But I was there for a couple of days and in the middle of the second day, after going to every church three times and every gallery six times, I was just bored out of my head. And I just wanted to get drunk or get laid or anything, but sort of both sides of my brain were arguing; the culture-loving geek and the drunken slut. Then they started becoming characters. I thought why would two guys who had those feelings about the place be in that place, be stuck in that place? …It came from Bruges organically, pretty much. If we hadn’t been allowed to shoot there, I’d have scrapped the whole thing. I wouldn’t have changed it to another place because it had to be that strange and that beautiful, but also a place that people don’t really know and there’d be no reason to be there. And you can’t really say that for Venice, or Prague, or Paris, or any of those other beautiful towns. It had to be somewhere that every single character says, “Where the fuck is that?””

- Martin McDonagh