Tristram Shandy and the Death Knell of Post Modernism
Last night, I watched
Tristram Shandy. I liked the film a lot. It's well-written (by Frank Cottrell Boyce), well-directed (by Michael Winterbottom), and brilliantly acted (by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon). But watching it, I couldn't help feeling that it tolls the death knell of post-modernism. "Tristram Shandy," the novel by Laurence Sterne, was published in 1759 and was arguably a precursor of what would come to be called post-modernism - a style conscious of itself and of its history and in which form becomes content (the greatest example of which is arguably James Joyce's "Ulysses"). "Tristram Shandy," the film, released in 2006, announces the end of post-modernism as a radical movement that was once on the cutting edge of consciousness. Despite its excellence as a film, its post-modern strategies fail to surprise and are easily assimilated. We've all seen it before, and we all understand it only too well. The film, which would like to think of itself as cutting-edge, announces instead the final and complete exhaustion of post-modernism as an artistic strategy.
The question for artists today is: What's next? What speaks to the truth of today?
Because post-modernism clearly no longer does.
Laurence Sterne
On Self-Doubt
"Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt."
- Dorothy Parker
Today, I received the latest DVD front and back cover from IFC Films. I wrote a rather petulant letter demanding to know why my previous input had been ignored. I received the following email from Ryan Werner:
"Caveh - i really think you are wrong in this instance. you have one of the biggest video companies working on your release. i think that they know what sells dvds, and i would really listen to them. video marketing is very different than theatrical. However if you insist, we can discuss this further."
I wasn't sure what to do after that. Is he right? Do they know better than me what the cover of my DVD should look like? And even if they do know better than me what sells DVD's, is selling as many DVD's as possible the only goal? What about accurately representing the film?
When I was in film school, I noticed that the students who were most sure of themselves usually made the worst films, and those (like me) who doubted their every decision tended to make better ones. But self-doubt is both a gift and a curse, and finding the right balance between confidence (which is, I think, essential to art) and self-doubt (which is also, I think, essential to art) is a tricky process.
In this case, I'm not sure if I should fight for what my gut tells me (which is to say no to this DVD cover) or if I should be humble and accept that I don't always know what's best. I'm open to feedback on this.
The World's Mostest Clichés
"Let's have some new clichés."
- Samuel Goldwyn
The flight back to San Francisco wasn't nearly as stimulating as the flight to New Zealand. I tried watching
Lord of the Rings on the plane but I couldn't stand it. So I watched
The World's Fastest Indian instead, which I wasn't too crazy about either. Anthony Hopkins was good, as always, but what a god-awful script. I don't think I've ever seen so many clichés in a single two hour period.
Afterwards, to cleanse my palate, I watched
Perfect Strangers, another film from New Zealand (I wanted to watch as many New Zealand films as possible before my current fascination with all things New Zealand fades completely). "Perfect Strangers" is about a woman who is kidnapped by a man she doesn't know (but who claims to be in love with her), and whom she eventually kills in self-defense (before falling in love with him retroactively after his death). In any case, it was a lot less clichéd than "The World's Fastest Indian."
Iranian Censorship vs. American Censorship
Today, I met
Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director of
The White Balloon,
The Mirror,
The Circle, and
Crimson Gold. His new film,
Offside, is about young Iranian girls who have to disguise themselves as boys to attend soccer games (from which women are banned). Panahi is arguably the Iranian filmmaker most critical of the social policies of the Iranian government, and his last three films have all been banned in Iran as a result. He is also the Iranian filmmaker most critical of the social policies of the U.S. government, and has refused, in the wake of post-9/11 legislation, to allow himself to be fingerprinted as a precondition for entering the country. Consequently, he has declined all film festival invitations to visit the U.S.
We are exactly the same age. His English isn't very good, and my Persian is even worse, so we communicated by means of a translator (note to self: learn Persian). But it was fascinating to hear him talk about the difficulties Iranian directors have in trying to get their films past the censors, and it made me appreciate the straightforwardness of the American system in which the rules are at least democratic and clear: only films that are commercially viable will be greenlit. In Iran, the rules are much more nebulous, and open to the vagaries and whims of bureaucrats and clerics.
The irony here is that the international interest in films from Iran (and especially banned ones) translates into a kind of commercial viability, whereas independent American films that eschew blatant commercialism are invariably relegated to a lower rung on the hierarchical ladder of cinematic esteem. Panahi, a director of international repute, was arguably the Wellington Film Festival's most famous guest, and his films are profitable enough to allow him to finance them himself, despite the fact that his last three films have all been banned in his own country. I couldn't help wishing that my films had been banned as well.
The Late Great Charles Bukowski
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
- Oscar Wilde
I saw
Factotum today, and really liked it. I'm not usually a big Matt Dillon fan, but I thought he was excellent in this film. Matt Dillon portrays the young
Bukowski, and does so with the right balance of dignity and degradation. This is a Bukowski we can all identify with, as opposed to the broad-stroked Hollywood-inflected whino portrayed by Mickey Rourke in
Barfly. It was the best Bukowski adaptation I've seen, and the only one that made me want to actually read Bukowski.
Years ago, I saw Barbet Shroeder's
The Bukowski Tapes which was mind-blowing. What an amazing portrait of a person. I have yet to see the other documentary on Bukowski,
Born Into This, but now I want to.
Charles Bukowski
The Wellington Film Festival
Today, I flew from Auckland to Wellington, for the second leg of the New Zealand International Film Festival. Wellington is a stunningly beautiful town, which everyone here calls the San Francisco of New Zealand. Like San Francisco, it is mostly made up of colorfully painted Victorian houses on hilly streets overlooking a bay. And like San Francisco, it seems to have a bohemian, counter-cultural atmosphere.
At the festival, I saw an inspiring and moving documentary portrait of
Ans Westra, the Dutch-born New Zealand photographer whose works I had been totally unfamiliar with until today. Ans Westra, who is now in her seventies, attended the screening. She's one of those people that you just want to hug. A true artist. Seeing the film made me want to abandon fiction and devote myself exclusively to making documentaries.
In the film, Ans Westra tells the story of how she was inspired to take up photography after seeing a book of photographs by then 17-year old
Johan Van Der Keuken, whose portraits of his classmates had just been published. She and he were the same age, and his example made her believe that she too could make a contribution to the art form.
Many years later, I met Johan Van Der Keuken, who by then had become one of the world's most revered documentary filmmakers. He was being honored by the San Francisco Cinematheque and I somehow ended up giving him a ride from the screening back to his hotel. I told him how much his films had meant to me when I had first encountered his work 15 years earlier. He had already been diagnosed with cancer at this point, and died a few months later.
Baudelaire compares artists to beacons in the night. Johan Van Der Keuken was a beacon to Ans Westra, who tonight was a beacon to me.
Wellington
Ans Westra
Johan Van Der Keuken
New Zealand Cinema
This morning, a local filmmaker drove a few of us visiting filmmakers to the New Zealand beach where Jane Campion shot "The Piano," a film I love.
In honor of today's pilgrimage, here is my top ten list of favorite films by New Zealand directors, in order of preference (I have yet to see "Whale Rider," "Once Were Warriors," "The World's Fastest Indian," "Utu," or "Lord of the Rings"):
1) Two Girls (Jane Campion)
2) Sweetie (Jane Campion)
3) The Piano (Jane Campion)
4) A Girl's Own Story (Jane Campion)
5) Passionless Moments (Jane Campion)
6) An Angel at my Table (Jane Campion)
7) Kitchen Sink (Alison Maclean)
8) Crush (Alison Maclean)
9) Peel (Jane Campion)
10) Two Cars, One Night (Taika Waititi)
Humiliation as a Path to Humility
This morning, I was interviewed on New Zealand Television. I'm not sure why, but there was something wrong with the playback and the excerpts were broadcast at the wrong speed. Consequently, I sounded insane and the prostitute sounded like a man.
Then later this evening, my film premiered in New Zealand. Again, there was something wrong with the projection, only this time the film was speeded up. The whole thing had the look and feel of a Keystone Cops comedy, and I sounded like I had inhaled helium. Unfortunately, it was impossible to fix the problem, so all I could do was blog about it afterwards.
My experience of filmmaking is one of an endless series of disappointments and humiliations. Today's projection snafus were really just par for the course. These things used to make me suffer way more than they do now, but I never cease to be amazed by the irony that it is invariably the very thing we think will somehow increase our self-worth that invariably challenges it the most. It feels like the work of a higher power hell-bent on teaching us humility.
People vs Movies
Today's moral dilemma involved the question of whether to attend the screening of Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert's four-hour children-with-cancer documentary
A Lion in the House (which I had told them I would be attending), or to hang out with cinematographer Lee Daniel instead (who I ran into on my way to the screening of "A Lion in the House"). Lee is a friend from way back when (we met at Sundance in 1991 when
Slacker and
A Little Stiff were both in competition) and I knew he would be leaving town first thing in the morning.
I realized a long time ago that people are more important than movies, and that on one's death bed, it will be the encounters that one had with people that will be cherished and remembered, not the great films one saw. And yet, I had made a verbal commitment to Steven and Julia (who I also know and like) to see their film (which I had heard great things about). It was a difficult decision. My own preference on a pure pleasure-principle level was to skip the film (I could always see it another time) and to hang out with Lee instead. I don't get to see him all that often, plus he was alone (which is rare), plus I really, really like him. He's one of the most zen people I know, and I always enjoy his company and his idiosyncratic spirit.
But I decided on the basis of guilt avoidance and proceeded to the movie theater. I'm glad I saw the film because it was an amazing human experience, the kind that sears itself into one's memory forever, but afterwards I could't help thinking that I had made the wrong choice, not because the film was disappointing in any way (it far surpassed my expectations, and I'm haunted by it still) but because people are more important than movies, and I always forget that.
Lee Daniel
Postcard from New Zealand
Air New Zealand is my new favorite airline. They have the best selection of films I have ever come across on a commercial airline. It's the kind of film selection where you can watch what you want, when you want, and you can also pause or rewind or fast forward.
The first film I watched was Terence Malick's "The New World." It was like watching a miracle. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. How is it possible that this film wasn't universally praised? I thought it was his best film to date, and this from a director who had already made three of the greatest films of all time. What I especially loved about it was the way the locus of the poetry in this film shifts from his previous voice-over and imagery-centric poetics to a poetics of narrativity itself. I was stunned by the brilliance and maturity of his story-telling, and I can't think of a more brilliantly edited film. I have also never seen a film that so convincingly captures the absolute disparity between the mindset of the European colonists and the radical alterity of the Native Americans they first encountered.
Afterwards, I watched Michael Haneke's "Cache." He won the best directing award at Cannes for this film, and it's easy to see why. Every single shot is brilliantly conceived, brilliantly composed, and brilliantly executed. This film has already been universally praised, so there's no need for me to add my voice to the already loud chorus, but I would like to add my voice to that chorus just the same.
The last film I watched was "Tsotsi," the South African film that won the best foreign film oscar this year. Usually, I'm not crazy about the oscar winners, but this particular film blew me away.
This was the most fun I've ever had on a plane.
Other People's Trailers
A couple of years ago, I was contacted by
Film Threat about the possibility of their putting out one of my films through their DVD label. I was open to the idea, but the negotiations stalled over my refusal to allow them to pout trailers for other films on the DVD. They assured me that the trailers would inhabit a separate link, and would be entirely optional. Even so, I said I didn't want my films to be used as advertisements for other films, and I turned down their offer.
Today, I found out that the DVD of "I Am A Sex Addict" will have trailers for other films at the beginning of it. I was assured by the
Weinstein Company that the viewer would have the option of clicking to the main menu and obviating the trailers, but still, the experience will be one of immediate marketing assault.
The upside of going with The Weinstein Company is that the DVD will be in more stores than it would be otherwise, and in fact they have been very accomodating. But the downside is that the DVD will bear less and less resemblance to the product that I myself would have wanted to put out into the world.
Bruce Conner
Tonight, I went to see a screening of "Pandora's Box," the G.W. Pabst silent film classic starring Louise Brooks. I had never seen the film before, and it made a big impression on me. But the main reason I went was because experimental film legend Bruce Conner was introducing the film. He's in his seventies now (he was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1933), and doesn't seem to be in the best of health.
When I was in college, I spent two full days at Anthology Film Archives in New York watching their entire library of canonical experimental films. I'm not sure how I managed to get permission to do this, but they were showing the entire library to a film scholar who was writing a book on the subject, and they let me sit in on the screenings as well. It was just me and this guy in a darkened room for two days, watching one experimental classic after another.
It was a strange dreamlike experience, but two films stood out for me. One was "Rose Hobart," by Joseph Cornell. The other was "Report," by Bruce Conner. Both of these films sent me in a whole new direction in my filmmaking. Along with the work of Godard and, later, Ed Pincus, these were probably my biggest cinematic influences, at least at that time.
Fifteen years later, I met Bruce Conner at an art gallery opening of his work. He seemed in poor health even then. I told him how much his films had meant to me, and he nodded politely and tried his best to be gracious. It was hardly a meeting of minds, and I felt vaguely foolish.
As it turns out, Louise Brooks was also from Wichita, Kansas, and their lives (sort of) intersected briefly. Tonight, he told the story of their almost meeting.
A Scanner Darkly
Tonight, I went to see
A Scanner Darkly. At first, I was a little put off by Rory Cochrane's performance (which struck me as distractingly over the top), but I was soon won over. It's a strange film. It starts out fairly straightforward, but it keeps shifting on you at an epistemological level, so that you realize only gradually that the film is much more serious, much more metaphysical, and much more subtle than you had originally assumed.
When I read the novel, I remember thinking, "This book is so narratively obdurate and unconducive to a film adaptation. How is Linklater going to pull this off?" Philip K. Dick's simultaneously paranoid and speculative turn of mind makes narrative cohesion and resolution anathema to his worldview, and makes any film adaptation particularly fraught.
And yet, Linklater somehow makes it work. The film is a Dickian mishmash of ideas and feelings that feels more authentically Dickian than any of the previous film adaptations of his books. In Linklater's adaptation, there is more feeling, more imagination, more paranoia, and more despair. And the spirituality is not the ersatz spirituality of a "Blade Runner" or "Total Recall," but the imminent and lived spirituality of ordinary existence.
Hollywood has a way of sanitizing everything it touches, and this film eschews such sanitization to a remarkable degree. Even "Blade Runner" was only "Hollywood" dark. This film is truly dark. It's a remarkable achievement, and doubly remarkable that Linklater was able to pull this off within the studio system and using bona fide stars.
Linklater's example is almost unparalleled in American cinema: he has an uncanny ability to push the envelope as far as it can be pushed (without tearing), and his commitment to doing this has remained intact, despite his success and despite his proximity to the formidable machinery that has ground the rough edges off of less indomitable talents. Whatever happened to Ridley Scott or Paul Verhoeven or John Woo? They made great films before they became cogs in the Hollywood machine. With "A Scanner Darkly," Linklater proves once again that it is possible to make art films within the studio system.
Richard Linklater
To Record or Not To Record a DVD Commentary
"My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry."
- Nikos Kazantzakis
Today's big dilemma was whether or not to try to (hurriedly) record a DVD commentary for the film. I kept tergiversating, as is my want. On the one hand, a lot of people enjoy commentaries, and it might be good to record one if only for the sake of posterity. On the other hand, I find most of them almost impossible to sit through, and they can leave a bad after-taste if not enough care and attention is put into them (which would have been the case if we had tried to do one tonight for the upcoming DVD release).
My original idea was to do the equivalent of a commentary, but as a separate film. We shot over 50 hours of making of footage, and the plan was to use this footage in conjunction with narration and re-enacted scenes to make a well-thought-out "making of" film in lieu of the obligatory commentary. But the sudden decision from on high to set a street date (and the total lack of communication about it) has made that moot, so I was considering a commentary track as a last-minute compromise.
What I finally decided was to do a separate "making of" film after all, and simply put it in a vault until the DVD is re-issued (which will also include the scenes censored from the film and from the extras). Of course, that could be a while.
Nikos Kazantzakis
Welcome to the Big Leagues
"Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads."
- George Bernard Shaw
Today I got a call from the DVD label that is releasing "I Am A Sex Addict." Apparently, their legal department has insisted that I remove 3 minutes of footage from one of the DVD extras. The scene in question shows the actress snorting coke on the set, and talking about her drug use. It's a hilarious scene, and adds a layer of complexity both to her character and to what transpires in the rest of the film. I was given the choice of either taking out the offending scene, or not having the DVD extra appear on the DVD at all. I chose the former option, but with a heavy heart.
I guess this is the price of success.
George Bernard Shaw
Film Comment Article
"Procrastination is like masturbation. At first it feels good, but in the end you're only screwing yourself."
- "Anonymous"
Most of today was devoted to re-writing the
Film Comment article. I was stoned when I wrote the last version (about a month ago), which I've since decided wasn't such a great idea. Fortunately, there wasn't enough room in the last issue for that version to go in, so I was given a one month extension. As is my want, I put it off until the last minute, which was today.
I love that magazine, and tried to do a good job. But I always find it hard to tell if something I've written is any good or if it's just awful. It usually takes me some time to get perspective, and time is unfortunately what I no longer have.
World Cup
"The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon."
- Franz Kafka
Today, Mandy and I watched the World Cup. I never used to watch sporting events because I always saw it as a waste of time. There are so many things I want to do before I die (so many more than I have time for), and watching sports was never very high on that list.
But the older I get, the more interested I am in understanding what other people find interesting, and the more willing I am to participate in the rituals of our culture. I think this is partly the result of greater humility, partly the result of greater curiosity, and partly the result of the realization that "all things are of God."
As a result, I have become less interested in changing the world and more interested in being part of it. It's also the reason why I am more interested in narrative filmmaking than ever before. It may not be what I gravitate to naturally, but it's where most people live, and I would like to live (and eat) alongside them. It's lonely on the margins, and I desire companionship and community just as much as anyone else.
It's a tricky catch-22, because as a filmmaker one needs to be true to oneself, and to make the films that one finds personally inspiring. But one also needs to make the films that other people find inspiring, and there's the rub. If one goes too far in either direction, one loses one's way. One has to walk a tightrope, as it were, between the Scylla of ivory tower hermeticism and the Charybdis of filmmaking-by-committee. And it's very easy to fall off that delicate tightrope.
SASH
I was recently contacted by
SASH (The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health), a non-profit organization "dedicated specifically to helping those who suffer from out of control sexual behavior." They wanted to know 1) if they could screen "I Am A Sex Addict" at their upcoming annual national conference, and 2) if I would be willing to fly to Chicago to attend the conference and address the organization (which is made up primarily of sex addiction therapists).
Needless to say, I would be thrilled to address a roomful of sex addiciton therapists.
The organization has a fairly comprehensive website, which includes a self-test to determine if one is a sex addict.
Free Zone
Green Cine recently asked me to interview Israeili film director
Amos Gitai for their rather formidable website, and I agreed for three reasons: 1) I enjoy talking to famous directors I've never met, 2) I'm interested in films about the Middle East, and 3) When
I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore was rejected by the Toronto International Film Festival in 1995, I was told by one of the programmers that is was between my film and Amos Gitai's and that they had finally decided to accept his film rather than mine, not because they liked his film better (they claimed to prefer mine) but because they believed it would sell more tickets. Having been told this, I've felt a personal connection to the guy ever since.
I had only seen one other Gitai film before, a very free-form documentary about the Israeli peace movement that I found fascinating, if a bit unstructured. But I had heard that he was a great guy, and I admired his pacifist views as well as his prolificness (he has made over 40 films).
Tonight, Mandy and I watched his 2005 Cannes entry,
Free Zone, which starred
Natalie Portman and
Hana Laszlo (who won the best actress award at Cannes.) I found it alternately brilliant and inane, original and contrived, subtle and ham-fisted. But there was something about it that was somehow so profoundly symptomatic of the culture it was depicting, that even its flaws end up being a perfect expression of its worldview. And Hana Laszlo's performance really and truly is remarkable.
Amos Gitai
DVD Scene Selections
Most of today was devoted to parsing the film into appropriate scene selections for the DVD and coming up with appropriate titles for each section. This morning, the Weinstein Company sent me a tentative parsing of the film into 17 sections and suggested titles. I wasn't crazy about their subdivisions or their titles, so I countered by parsing the film into 40 sections and suggested titles.
They said that was too many. I insisted. They suggested a compromise. I agreed.
And so, the film will have 26 sections and titles.
Because I don't technically have final say in the art work, these negotiations are always delicate. They are basically agreeing to my suggestions 1) out of kindness and 2) to avoid acrimony. It's more work and money for them to try to placate me, but they're willing to do it as long as it's not an absurd amount of work or money. And 40 sections is, arguably, a bit much.
I've liked working with them. They've been respectful, reasonable and responsive.
menu page work-in-progress
DVD cover
Today, I received an email from a friend who works at Green Cine telling me he'd seen an ad for the September 12th DVD release of "I Am A Sex Addict" and that the DVD had a leopard-skin spine! I contacted IFC to see why no one had bothered to consult me about the art work before sending it out, and I was sent the following DVD cover. I'm not sure why they decided against using the poster image, which I prefer. Their proposed DVD cover strikes me as too serious, too sexual and too dark. The poster image strikes me as both lighter and more arresting. What do you guys think?
Prosposed DVD Cover
Poster Image
Brief Encounter
Today, we completed the sound mix for the "I Am A Sex Addict" DVD extras. During my lunch break, I went to get a salad at Whole Foods and, at the check-out line, ran into
Rob Epstein who made the academy-award winning
The Times of Harvey Milk, one of my all-time favorite documentaries. He also co-directed, with his partner Jeffrey Friedman,
Paragraph 175,
The Celluloid Closet, and
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. He was also, along with Veronica Selver and the late Peter Adair, part of the filmmaking collective that, in 1978, made
Word is Out, one of the first (and, in my opinion, best) documentaries about the gay experience.
I had met him only once before, at a screening of
Underground Zero, the omnibus film about 9/11 to which we both contributed a short. He told me he had seen "I Am A Sex Addict" and really liked it. I was touched. I told him I'd heard great things about his class (we both taught at California College of the Arts this year). He told me he'd heard great things about my class as well.
By then the cashier had finished ringing him up, and it was my turn, and we said goodbye.
Rob Epstein and Harvey Milk
The Selected Poetry of Keats
Today, at a garage sale, I came across the out-of-print Signet classic edition of The Selected Poetry of Keats. I love these particular editions because they're unassuming, inexpensive, and easy to carry around. Also, they usually come with a pretty good introduction. This one is by
Paul De Man, from whom I took a class on "Reading and Rhetorical Structures" while at Yale. He was an almost mythical figure for me because he had once met
Maurice Blanchot, a writer I idolized.
The Signet classic series is edited by
John Hollander, another Yale Professor whom I once took a class from, and whose tour-de-force form-and-content-are-one
Rhyme's Reason is a description of every English verse form in the style of that particular verse form.
In college, I always preferred Shelley to Keats. One summer, I walked from Genoa to La Spezia (a three day journey) to make a pilgramage of sorts to the Bay of Lerici where Shelley drowned at the age of 29 (and where Lord Byron used to swim across the rather formidable bay - in the dark! - for nightly trysts with his secret paramour).
Years later, in Rome, I accidentally stumbled upon the house that Keats died in at the age of 25, and I became a bit more interested in him as a result. A few years later, I came across a recording of F. Scott Fitzgerald (who I love) reciting a poem by Keats (his favorite poet), and my esteem for him went up a notch. And then recently, I decided to memorize Keats' "When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be" (to alleviate the tedium of swimming laps in the pool at the local gym) and I was hooked after that.
In short, I was very happy to find this book today, and am very much looking forward to getting to know the poems a little better.
John Keats
An Inconvenient Truth
Mandy and I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" tonight. I expected to like it, but I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. I was pretty much blown away.
I was also humbled. The film is so well made. I had never heard of Davis Guggenheim [the director) before. Apparently, he's also a producer and director of the HBO series "Deadwood"
It was one of the few films I've seen that I would have been proud to have made. There are a lot of films that I enjoy but would never want to have made. This one was different. In that way, it was right up there, for me, with "I Heart Huckabees" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
Al Gore's performance is astonishing. It seemed to me that this film had placed him in the front running for the 2008 election. I can't imagine a better calling card or campaign platform.
I hope he runs.
High Society
Dan Kapelovitz, the creator of the Los Angeles-based cable access show
Threee Geniuses (on which I was once a guest), interviewed me about two months ago when
I Am A Sex Addict opened in Los Angeles. Dan was working as a freelance journalist at the time (after a brief stint as an editor at Hustler magazine), so he recorded the interview without knowing exactly where it would eventually end up.
Well, the published interview arrived in the mail today, and where it finally ended up was in High Society, a pornographic magazine. It's mentioned on the cover of this month's issue, with the tagline "Confessions of a call-girl junkie!" The interview (which I thought was actually quite good) is interspersed with random photos of Rebecca Lord (the porn star who plays one of the lead roles in the film) having inter-racial sex.
It's an odd experience to read an interview about my film (which is essentially a critique of magazines like High Society) being used as fodder for the displaying of pornographic images. I don't mind the juxtaposition - on the contrary, I think it's fascinating. I like it that information about my film is getting out to their clientele. But it's an odd irony nevertheless.
Threee Geniuses
