EMILE HIRSCH EWAN MCGREGOR JAVIER BARDEM - Mean

+marion cotillard Emily Mortimer Kelly Macdonald+mean magazine vol.2 issue 14 In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you. —Leo Tolstoy++emilehirschVenturesBeyond the WildewanmcgregorDeconstructsWoody Allen’sDreamjavierbardemSTUNSCoens’Country3 ∞Covers Ideas =+1MEAN Collector’s IssueEnter theIdeadromewithPaul ThomasAndersonFrancis FordCoppolaToddHaynesMarcForsterMarjaneSatrapiBillHaderjenamalone1cover of 3

+marion cotillard Emily Mortimer Kelly Macdonald+mean magazine vol.2 issue 14 My one regret in life is that I am not someone else. —Woody Allen++ewanmcgregorDeconstructsWoody Allen’sDreamemilehirschVenturesBeyond theWildjavierbardemSTUNSCoens’Country3 ∞Covers Ideas =+1MEAN Collector’s IssueEnter theIdeadromewithPaul ThomasAndersonFrancis FordCoppolaToddHaynesMarcForsterMarjaneSatrapiBillHaderjenamalone2cover of 3

contentsmean volume 2, issue 1432 The Role LessTraveledGentleman-adventurer Ewan McGregorawakens to Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream42 Buck WildInto the Wild’s Emile Hirsch traverses thepath from youth to young manhood50 Old SoulSpanish actor and No Country for Old Menstar Javier Bardem gives no quarter58 A Lucky ScotThe rising fortunes of Oscar-bound bonnieKelly Macdonald64 Emily Ever AfterShockingly, Oxford-schooled thespianEmily Mortimer loves ice dancing, Russiangirls with gold teeth and just about anythingthat’s ever been on television74 Present, Past& PerfectNot to worry—Jennifer Jason Leigh knowsyou’re still freaked out by her role in SingleWhite Female. She gets that a lot. But whatis she up to these days?And: filmmaker Richard Shepard on hisfavorite J.J.L. performances82 Belle on the BallLa Vie en Rose’s likely Oscar contenderMarion Cotillard is… How you say?A smart cookie.84 Places In The HeartActress-singer-songwriter-wild child JenaMalone shares her poems and journal entries88 Blood From OilPaul Thomas Anderson’s science of alchemy94 Still Knockin’On Heaven’s DoorThe return of Francis Ford Coppola98 Stronger Than FictionThe Kite Runner’s Marc Forster100 Seeing the RealHim, At LastGetting schooled by Dylan biopic directorTodd Haynes102 At Home InThe WorldThe bittersweet wisdom of graphic novelauthor and filmmaker Marjane SatrapiCONTINUED »COVER 1 & THIS PAGE: Emile Hirsch photographed byPatrick Hoelck, COVER 2: Ewan McGregor photographedby Rankin, COVER 3: Javier Bardem photographed byKurt IswarienkoA FILM BY JEAN-LUC GODARD

contentsmean volume 2, issue 14« CONTINUED14 MEAN OPTICThe kaleidoscopic art of RachellSumpter. Also, Q&A’s with cartoonistTravis Millard and stencil art forefatherBlek Le Rat. Plus: Devofrontman Mark Mothersbaugh’slatest home-design venture17 MEAN CHICBoutiques Seven and OpeningCeremony, and fun fall fashionfrom Abigail Lorick, AlbertusSwanepoel and Laura Poretzky23 MEAN BEATJamie T, The Fiery Furnaces,Andrew Bird, DJ MathieuSchreyer, Roberty Wyatt &The Misshapes give good music104 CAPTURINGJennifer Carpenter moves beyondThe Exorcism of Emily Rose while stillkeeping things nice and gory inShowtime’s serial-murderer seriesDexter. Alexandra Maria Laraloves the fact Francis Ford Coppolahand-picked her to star in YouthWithout Youth106 REVIEWSOur customary DVD + CD reviews.Plus, an interview with legendaryincendiary wit George Carlin108 GAMESFreedom of choice: The only choicefor Next-Gen gamers110 MEAN GADGETSThe perfect projector, a helmet cam torecord your latest skydive and thesharpest music mixing software around.111 MEAN WHIPLASHGetting all Mad Max with a slick, newelectric motorcycle and Italian scooter.Also, a way to stay in shape when thebike gang rolls on without you112 MEANSANITYBill Hader and Bob Zmuda debate thepossibly faked death of comedy god AndyKaufman. Also, a chapter from the futurebiography of The Office’s B.J. Novak,and a psycho-therapist’s evaluation ofpresidential contenders Hillary Clintonand Rudy Giuliani120 GET MEAN WITHTODD RASSMUNSENWhen our resident pop culturecolumnist gets imbedded in Hollywood,he develops a mysterious allergicreaction to his environsTHIS PAGE: Javier Bardem photographed byKurt Iswarienko

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MEnOpticblek le rat& travis millardon “world” tour BY JESSICA JARDINEisland lifethe explorations of rachell sumpter BY VALERIE PALMERArtist Rachell Sumpter likes a goodadventure. Living without running water orelectricity in a cabin on an island in PugetSound’s San Juan Archipelago, as she currentlydoes, seems to qualify as one. “Weactually get our water from a well,” shenotes matter-of-factly. She also hikes outto a specific spot on her island in order toget a signal on her cell phone or tap intothe wireless connection from one of thenearby islands, so if you get an email fromher, keep in mind that she might have hadto sit on a rock in the rain while pecking ather laptop. “It’s sort of like daily entertainment,”she says of her attempts to communicatewith the outside world.It wasn’t always like this. Sumpter spentmost of her 20s in places like the Bay Area,where she grew up, and Los Angeles,where she studied art. There were someuncertain, wavering years in the interim;years of trial and error. Her initial plan tostudy neuroscience went awry, and heridea to be a graphic designer lost its lusterwhen she enrolled in art school and foundherself surrounded by other arty types forthe first time. “I think that was the bigthing for me because I didn’t know anyartists except for my grandma, who gaveup making art to be a mother,” Sumptersays. “I didn’t really know anyone who wasmaking art, so it was kind of hard for me. Ididn’t want to be Van Gogh, cutting off myear and going crazy.”Once she realized that desperation andhardship weren’t prerequisites for being anartist, Sumpter re-focused her attention onbecoming one. After receiving a BFA fromPasadena’s Art Center in 2003, she beganshowing in Los Angeles galleries and designingbook covers to pay the bills. Amongher most recent accomplishments: Shecontributed the cover artwork for Dave Eggers’newest novel, What Is the What, anda pictorial of gloomy illustrations, inspiredby Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, to the latestissue of McSweeney’s Quarterly.Sumpter’s current body of work dealsexclusively with people living in arcticconditions, whom she defines not as anyone particular cultural group, but as anarchetype: “People who survive in cold climatesor need the cold climates to continuetheir lifestyle.” In Sumpter’s fascinationwith this dying breed there’s an implicitawareness that environmental erosion inevitablyleads to the demise of peoples andcultures. “The [need for the] preservationof things—or their lack of being able topreserve things—is intrinsic to my interestin their lifestyle,” she says.After the vernissage of her latest showat Boston’s Allston Skirt Gallery in early fall,Sumpter returned back to her little island,where she’s now getting ready for winter.Chopping firewood is part of her preparation.“Otherwise, you know, I don’t getshowers,” she says. “Warm showers arereally nice and something I don’t want tolive without.”Clearly, there are some limits to her thirstfor adventure. She may paint arctic natives,but she’s still a California girl at heart.More Rachell Sumpter atrachellsumpter.comThese days, urban art strugglesless for display space in tony galleriesand respectable museums,but exhibits like the ongoing ScionInstallation Art Tour still provide awelcome platform for grassrootsartists to showcase their work.On its current, fourth, go-around,the Tour rolls through nine cities,includes a pit stop at Miami’sArt Basel art fair this winter, andconcludes in Los Angeles next year.Over 150 contemporary artistsworking in various media (photography,painting, collage) took theshow’s current theme—“A BeautifulWorld”—as an inspiration pointfor their contributions, all of whichare to be auctioned off for charityafter the tour winds down. Wepicked two favorite heavy hittersinvolved in this present round—legendary French painter/stencilistBlek Le Rat and L.A.–based collage/comic-bookartist Travis Millard—andblitz-interviewed them.Blek Le RatHow did you choose to interpret “A Beautiful World”?“It’s a Beautiful World” can be interpreted in two senses: Oneis that life and nature and people are beautiful. But on theother hand, I wanted to talk, and not in cynical terms, abouthow sometimes the worst situation in life, for example, in warthe death of a little girl can bring a human reaction from asoldier and he cries. In my opinion there is beauty in an imageof humanity in the horror of the war.You began using stencils as graffiti art in Paris in the early’80s and have gone on to inspire everyone from ShepardFairey to Banksy.You mention Shepard Fairey who, in my humble opinion, is oneof the two stencil artists I respect most. Shepard and Banksyboth use stencils, but in a very different way, and they havetheir own eccentricity. Although Banksy’s stencils are similar tomine, he has found his proper way to get the message across,while Shepard has generated a very new style aesthetically. Hisconcept of the propaganda of his art is something that I havenever seen before, and is a really strong one.You’ve expressed a desire to stencil the Great Wall ofChina. Has that happened yet?Unfortunately, not yet. But I can’t wait to make this dreamcome true. I love to work in places soaked with history, wherethe stones [retain] the memory of what happened before. Forexample, last summer I worked in Nevada on the ruins of an ancientsilver mine. I pasted three images of a family of pioneersfrom the 19th century. This kind of work is my favorite action,and as inspiring as the walls of the city.Travis MillardTell us a bit about your company, Fudge FactoryComics, as well as your new book, Hey Fudge.Goodness gracious! Well, it’s a company alright—let’snot mistake that. There’s lots of paper-shuffling,staple-clacking, pencil-sharpening, phones doing theirthing… a water cooler, many other things. Recently,Narrow Books released Hey Fudge, a 240-page bookcollecting the last few years’ worth of my mini-zinecomics, photos and drawings.There’s a lot of talk these days about the vibrant,burgeoning contemporary art scene in Los Angeles,especially in East L.A. and Downtown. As anL.A. artist, what are your thoughts about this?My satellite gab scanner has been on the fritz for a fewweeks, but the last thing I picked up was somethingabout “the keg running low” and “going out forcheeseburgers.” There’s been great art coming out ofLos Angeles for decades, and it seems like now, morethan ever, there are opportunities for artists to get theirwork on the wall.Besides participating in this Scion Installation ArtTour and putting out Hey Fudge, what else is onthe horizon for you?Two hard-boiled eggs.14 november-december opticmean

wa lteria livingHOME SPACE ODDITIES BY VALERIE PALMER“It’s not like we’re out to change the bottle openers ofthe world—we’re just having fun,” Mark Mothersbaughquips about his latest venture, Walteria Living, a designcompany run by himself, his wife Anita and designerKathleen Walsh. The ethos of the line—a blend of humor,high design and kitsch—is evident in curios like Walsh’sporcelain Chihuahua nightlight and a series of (otherwise)traditional plates and vases adorned with Mothersbaugh’sdrawings and manipulated designs. As you’d expect fromany project concocted by the Devo frontman, there’s a littleironic twist to each piece, a dash of gleeful irreverence—maybe even some mischief.Mothersbaugh has always had an art habit. “Somepeople play tennis every day. Some people have a martinievery afternoon,” he explains. “I draw.” So what beganas small, postcard-size drawings sent home to friendsand family during worldwide Devo tours has been resurrected,postmarks and all, for a “Postcard Diaries” series ofdesigns transferred to plates, vases and even carpets producedunder the Walteria Living moniker. “They’re called‘postcard diaries’ because I used to do them on postcardsexclusively,” Mothersbaugh says. “I got into it during a timewhen mail art was a big thing.”Many of his sketches were never intended for publicconsumption; he simply doodled in response to the worldaround him. Whether it was the VP of a record companyoverfilled with self-importance or some guy raising a fuss inthe next aisle on the airplane, Mothersbaugh got it all downon paper. Even now, with two small daughters and a steadystream of film and TV scores to hammer out, he still finds thespare time to scribble something every day.To the multi-talented artist, creative expression is agiven. What renders this project particularly worthwhile,he insists, is the thought of people eating off platesembellished with his diary entries, or the possibility thatsmall children might inadvertently smash the vases he codesigned.“The idea of invading people’s homes with yourimagery—there’s something satisfying about that,” Mothersbaughsays. “Everything is art first, function second,” hiswife Anita chimes in, adding that the images do really drivethe product, in keeping with the Walteria Living mantra: “Alittle bit of art in everything you do.”The kitschy pièce de résistance in the current collection isa cuckoo clock, cast in porcelain and adorned with Mothersbaugh’smanipulated Black Forest design. He also composedthe clock’s chime: six seconds of a celeste, pizzicato, celloand electric organ that will remind you every hour on thehour—with a wink and a mischievous grin—that time isindeed passing.More cuckoo clocks & other charming curios atwalterialiving.comOPENING CEREMONY PHOTOGRAPHS BY ISABEL ASHA PENZLIENMEnchicstanding on ceremonyL.A. ARM OF NYC BOUTIQUE MAKES A SPLASH BY CHLOE POPESCUOpening Ceremony is the kind of store you want tostay a secret forever. But hip Angelenos (the kind who wearRay-Bans and don’t brush their hair) have already ferretedout the tiny gem tucked between a diner and a car washon L.A.’s La Cienega Boulevard. And by the sight of franticfashionistas running back and forth collecting plaid shirtsand ink-washed skinny jeans, you can tell that stylists havealready claimed it as their turf, too.Housed in a building that used to serve as CharlieChaplin’s dance studio, Opening Ceremony is the WestCoast counterpart to the New York boutique Carol Lim andHumberto Leon launched in September 2002. Opened justseveral months ago, the L.A. space embraces you from themoment you pass through the vintage-looking wood-andfrostedglass door. The space itself feels less like a storeand more like a home. Walking through the more than 10rooms, closets and nooks is akin to strolling through anestate sale where you get to check out both trendy threadsand trendy folk. The door knobs and windows in the storeare all original hardware, as are the two huge walk-in safeson the premises.The front room displays the latest collection of OpeningCeremony’s eponymous line, designed in-house. Atthe back of the boutique one stumbles over a men’sarea equipped with everything from Cheap Monday andAcne Jeans to tighty-whities hanging on a clothesline.There is also a small book-selling nook, where one canperuse coffee table tomes on Mexican architecture, aswell as CDs.A narrow hallway lined with cases displaying neon-huedvintage sunglasses and antique jewelry leads the visitor tothe Brazilian Room—devoted to South American designers—and,farther down, into the Swedish Room. OpeningCeremony also stocks an impressive array of items fromBritain’s cherished Topshop label: the entire Kate MossTopshop collection, as well as linen dresses, silk shorts, totebags, and Celia Birtwell for Topshop lingerie—the latterdisplayed in a vintage suitcase.The overall vibe is classic chic/urban urchin—thinkAnna Karina and Cory Kennedy. Established labels likePeter Jensen, Proenza Schouler and Mayle rub shoulderswith upstart hipster faves Alexander Wang, Rodarte andKaty Rodriguez. Further funking up the scene are leggingofferings from Jeremy Scot, and metallic trench coats byL’Wren Scott.Everything from the music (when this writer visited thestore, it was the funky beats of M.I.A.) to the décor feelsspecial and one-of-a-kind. Every year, Opening Ceremonyspotlights a different country’s underground and high-enddesigners. In the past, this has meant that Sweden andJapan got their due, but this year, to celebrate the openingof the very first West Coast location, the theme hasshifted to highlight an L.A. vs. NYC rivalry. Swing by to seehow the Southland-bred lines hold up against (supposedly)more fashion-savvy NYC ones.Visit openingceremony.us16 november-december meanchic

MEnchicto the manners bornABIGAIL LORICK’S POLITE DEBUT BY ERIN SKRYPEKNot just another model-turned-designer, Abigail Lorickis someone who aims to refine fashion. Sickened by thelack of good manners in today’s harried world, Miss Lorickis imposing propriety through her clothes. The looks sheproposes might be covered-up and ladylike, but they alsofit like a glove, hugging a woman’s curves and celebratingthe inherent sexiness of her figure. Speaking of gloves,Lorick’s making those, too. And while an underlying senseof decorum and well-mannered charm will set any collectionof clothes apart these days, what’s truly unique aboutLorick’s eponymous startup label is that it has a starring rolein the series Gossip Girl— a sort of Beverly Hills: 90210 forGeneration Y debuting on the CW network this fall.We asked Lorick to give us a behind-the-scenes glimpseat her new venture.Describe this new collection of yours.It’s about a modern-day lady, a Lorick Lady. She has thefabulous jacket, the great scarves and, of course, properetiquette.Spring/Summer 2008 is your debut season, yet LorickLady is already pretty famous.Well… my clothes are featured in Gossip Girl, a newfashion-driven television series that just launched this fallon the CW network. Eric Daman, who also worked onSex and the City, is heading the wardrobe department.There is a character in the show, Eleanor Waldorf, whois a fashion designer and has her line picked up by HenriBendel. Lorick is the collection behind The Eleanor Waldorfcollection—I’m the person who really designs all theclothes. It is pretty exciting that the collection is going tobe seen all over the world. They thought it would be funnyto put me in the show as Eleanor’s assistant. I had fun beingon set and playing with the clothes, pretending like Iwas indeed a fashion assistant. There is one scene wherethe girls actually steal one of my jackets…Where are you from?I am originally from Amelia Island, which is the northernpart of Florida, just below Georgia. [Over there] we stillindulge ourselves with grits, bourbon and hospitality.Ah… fabled Southern charm! Where does yourknowledge of proper etiquette come from?More from my grandmother than my mother. When Iwas younger I found the manners [I had been taught] tooconstricting, but as I began to travel, I learned that everyculture has its own manners and customs, and that this isa beautiful aspect of life. “When a Lorick Lady travels, sheknows it is her duty to study local traditions and values;thus she will never make another feel uncomfortableeven in foreign lands”—that’s one of the written rulesof a Lorick Lady.What were you doing before you started designingthe line?I was modeling for many years and then I began designingfor a small label known as T.S. Dixin.Your future plans for the new line are…?I want it to grow and mature from season to season, as ourladies do. I wish for the Lorick collection clothes to becomestaples in every woman’s closet, always accentuating feelingsof liveliness by inspiring their owners to dress and feeltheir best. There are fun pieces that can work for a 20-yearold,as well as more sophisticated pieces that can work fora 32-year-old. We encourage the Lorick Lady to step out ofthe box and mix and match them.PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE SANGAs Old Navy and H&M have increasingly swept asidethe Art Nouveau galleries in NYC’s SoHo neighborhood,the most recent outpost of the Seven New York boutiquenestled itself quietly on Mercer Street in a bid to promotean aesthetic, forward-focused vibe in the area. With thechange of locale, the concept store that over the pastseven years has been generating its own Factory-esquescene for the island’s truest fashionistas, has entered a newgrowth phase.“We’re a gallery-like machine of fashion, designed tonot only sell clothes, but inform the clientele about themost inventive collections,” Seven NYC founder and buyerJoseph Quartana says proudly. “Many of our clients spendtwo hours looking at each piece in the store before tryingsomething on!”Quartana originally opened shop with college comradesSteve Sang and John Demas in 2000, in the then-emergingLower East Side. In December of last year, he shiftedground to SoHo and introduced the ‘hood to the broodof progressive designers Seven routinely stocks, whichinclude Bernard Wilhelm, Raf Simons, Jeremy Scott, Preenand ThreeAsFour.MEnchicseven 2.oAN NYC CONCEPT BOUTIQUE, MOVING FORWARD BY IAN DREW”We’re a home for edgy designers who create newworlds with their collections,” Quartana notes. “Of course,there are certain commercial restrictions, but, more importantly,[every line we carry] has to be visionary, consistentlystrong for at least two or three seasons.” Quartana (whocarries an economics degree from Rutgers and is unafraidto admit that his passion for pushing the fashion buttonwas triggered by early, life-changing experiences withpsychedelic drugs) quickly established Seven as an arbiterof style through a strict selection process.He routinely monitors 20 to 25 designers at a time—fresh new talents whose names are first whispered in hisear by respected editors and other tastemakers in his innercircle. His insistence on spotlighting the crème of avantgardedesigner talent has inevitably brought on chargesthat Seven retails laughably unwearable clothes. Quartanadefends his curatorial approach: “A lot of our designers justaren’t for everyone. Pieces are misunderstood. But I haveto create a story with each designer’s world, and it has toextend across each of my designers in the shop, as well.What we have is the best of what’s out there and everypiece is essential to the whole picture.”Equally essential to the trademark Seven experience isthe way the retail space itself is organized—like a minimuseumin which every piece is carefully displayed formaximum effect. The Mercer Street store design is basedon a circular, clockwise pattern, in which the clothing isallowed to breathe. Faceless mannequins sport signaturelooks favored by Seven’s elite clientele, which range fromWest Village pier queens to celebrity trendsetters likeChloë Sevigny, the Olsen twins and Björk. “We wantedto [deliver] a pure experience and eliminate any distraction.The store is an homage to our creative policy,”Quartana says.While it seems natural that a trend architect like hewould have a five-year plan firmly locked in place, Quartanainsists that he hasn’t mapped out any further expansion forhis concept boutique. “The way we’ve grown over the lastfive years has been organic, so I have no idea what’s next.Except that I will continue to make Seven the most interestingfashion retailer on the planet.”Visit the SoHo outpost of Seven New York at 110 MercerStreet, or check it out online at sevennewyork.com.18 november-december meanchic

MEnchicrad hatterMEET MILLINER EXTRAORDINAIRE ALBERTUS SWANEPOEL BY ERIN SKRYPEKWe live in a time when, for the most part, only Britishroyalty, quirky movie stars, Japanese women terrified ofthe sun and any wise person who rides a ski lift dare don aproper hat. Gone are the days of men who never went fartherthan the front door without flipping on a felt fedora;the quaint age of ladies who wouldn’t dream of departingfor daily errands without a pillbox hat pinned precisely totheir heads. But hats are beginning to make a comeback,especially on the runways, and the man leading the chargeis Albertus Swanepoel.Recently singled out by Style.com as “fashion’s new favoritemilliner” for his work at the Proenza Schouler Spring/Summer 2008 show, Mr. Swanepoel is swiftly morphinginto the American counterpart to famed British millinerPhilip Treacy—no small feat, seeing as the United States is afar less hat-centric society than the United Kingdom.The 48-year-old hatter—a Dutch Afrikaner who movedto Manhattan two decades ago—properly graduated tothe world of American couture (if there truly is such athing) a few years back, crafting head gear for Marc Jacobs,Proenza Schouler, Paul Smith and Tuleh. He recently addedErin Fetherston, Rodarte, Thakoon and Zac Posen to hisrepertoire; not to mention an exclusive collection of hatsunder his own name, for Barneys New York.“He’s a hat genius,” piped Erin Fetherston afterher Spring/Summer 2008 show in September, whereSwanepoel created a whimsical array of headpieces thatmirrored chunks of snow-white coral or dove wings, andwhite satin turbans with a little bird peeking out of arosette of folds in the front. “He made all my millinerydreams come true!”We asked Swanepoel about his choice of métier,whom he’d like to hat and what it’s like to sit atop thefashion pile.How did you become a milliner?By chance. I always liked accessories, so when clothingdesign did not happen for me here in New York, my thenwifeand I started a glove company that developed intoa hat-making venture during the summer season, whengloves weren’t in demand.You strike me as an old-school gentleman: well-manneredand soft-spoken. Have the mores and chivalryof past hat-wearing eras infiltrated your life becauseof what you do?I had a very strict upbringing; good manners were ofutmost importance. I think wearing a hat is a ladylike, orALBERTUS SWANEPOEL PORTRAIT BY SEAN DONNOLAgentlemanly, thing to do. My father used to wear a hat almostdaily and my mom wore one to church on Sundays.You collaborate with so many designers: How doesthat work?It works in various ways. Some designers give me a sketchto interpret or realize. Sometimes I have to copy somethingexactly from a vintage hat or photo. I sort of make it realfor them; I give it a form. I have some say in proportionand color, or I make suggestions for materials and [advisethem on] technical matters. Some hats are very challengingtechnically. I hope to reach the stage where I can actuallydesign for a label like Stephen Jones does for Dior.If you could collaborate with any designer—alive ornot—who would it be?Christian Lacroix Couture would top my list. I’m a hugeadmirer! Also, Hussein Chalayan and Alexander McQueen.As for the designers who joined the choir invisible: Adrian,Elsa Schiaparelli, Cristobal Balenciaga and Monsieur Dior.And if you could collaborate with any artist, whowould it be?Cecil Beaton, Oliver Messel, Marcel Vertes, Christian Berard,Jean Cocteau… I guess I should have lived in the ’30s!What is the most fashionable style of hat to wearright now?The fedora is the new shape, I think. I’m already seeing alot of cool girls on the street wearing one.Whose head would you most like to see one of yourhats on?Queen Elizabeth. Also, José Cura—the opera singer; JoseManuel Carreño—the ballet dancer; Inès de la Fressangeand Charlotte Gainsbourg.What’s your favorite fabric to work with?Duchess satin. I love the richness and structure of thematerial. I also love straw cloth, which is difficult to find,and silk organza.If you weren’t making hats, what would you be doing?I think I’d be a game ranger in the Serengeti, wearing khakiPrada and driving a vintage Rolls! Or maybe a fashion illustrator.Or an opera singer.Have you gone mad yet?Mmmm, I don’t think so! I have my quirks. I love whatI do but my passion sometimes comes in the way ofthings.20 november-december meanchic

MEnbETHe w a s b a l d, I w a s p l a y in g, s h e h a d a c a m e r a…I c a m e, I s a w, I w a s horrifiedTh e y p u t u s u p in lovely a c c o m m o d a t io n s—v e r y “open p l a n”I c a n’t remember w h a t t h e t u n e w a s , b u t I o b v io u s l y l ik e d it a l o tAb o u t a s u s e f u l a s a n a s h t r a y o n a m o t o r c y c l eTh is w a s t h e set list f o r t h e n i gh tMEnchichello, good buyABAETÉ’S LOW-COST HIGH STYLE BY ERIN SKRYPEKGo d Bless a l b u m s re c o rd e d in m o n o !It’s a rare occurrence these days when a woman canactually go out and buy a dress she sees highlighted ina fashion mag. The prices of designer duds are sky-high.We can blame inflation, the power of the euro (or theweakness of the dollar, depending on how you look at it)or the designers themselves for supposedly using the mostluxurious materials French and Italian mills have to offer.Yet somehow, we remain convinced that swell-looking,well-made clothes that don’t skimp on quality or break thebank are not a pipe dream.That’s exactly why we love Laura Poretzky and her line,Abaeté. Poretzky’s is truly a designer collection—it evengoes down the runway at Bryant Park each season—butowning one of her simple, modern, feminine dresses willonly knock you back $400 at most. And that’s a bargain,considering how much style Miss Poretzky—soon to beMrs., by the way—pours into each piece she designs.The attractive, strawberry-blond designer was born inFrance to a Russian father and a very chic Brazilian mother,who has inspired many an Abaeté look; actually, “Abaeté”is her mother’s family name. After graduating from RhodeIsland School of Design, Poretzky began her career designingswimwear in 2003. Her bathing suits weren’t the typicallyteeny bikinis you see on the beaches of Rio, thoughshe had become well acquainted with “barely there”swimwear while spending time in her mother’s native land.Rather, they were elaborate, Old Hollywood–style bathinggarments, the kind you’d imagine Grace Kelly slipping into.The kind you could add a few inches to the bottom of andend up with an Alaïa-like mini-dress.But when Poretzky transitioned from swimwear to anentire range of ready-to-wear, she did not end up sendingdown the runway stretchy, Hervé Léger/Alaïa/ChristopherKane–style looks. While she continues to show her bathingcostumes on the runway, the rest of her current collection isentirely Lycra-free. Like the designer herself, the clothes areelegant, but understatedly sexy. Poretzky always seems tobe aware of female curves, but never puts them on blatantdisplay. Even her bathing suits are more covered up thanyou’d expect. And her dresses are prim enough for theoffice, but whimsical and elegant enough to wear out todinner, with a quick change of shoes.Speaking of shoes—Poretzky also designs a shoe andhandbag collection for Payless, so you can basically geta pair of Abaeté shoes for about $20. And who needs todrop $900 on a pair of Italian stilettos when you can get anequally well-designed version for less than you’d pay for adecent lipstick?jamie t the visual brooklyn diaries photographs BY paul g. maziarJamie T’s had a big year. The 21-year-old Wimbledon native saw his debut record, Panic Prevention, recognized with aMercury Prize nomination for the Album of the Year. His incantatory, poetic rhymes set to acoustic guitar hooks and reggaebeats place him in an exciting continuum of British singer-storytellers who have been able to fold hip-hop conventions intotheir own, original brand of songwriting. Think The Streets aka Mike Skinner. Think Plan B. In fact, don’t think at all and letMr. T (né James Treays) do the thinking for you. Revel instead, like we are, in the broken charm of his observant ditties like“Sheila” (“Her lingo went from the cockney to the gringo/Any time she sing a song”)—a hit last year in Britain—and hismouthy couplets about the plight of working-class stiffs, drunks and bored young men with no real prospects or directionin life and only the next pub brawl to look forward to. (For the latter, he has one bit of cheeky advice: “Take your problemsto United Nations/Tell old Kofi about the situation.”)This fall, the U.S. release of Panic, coupled with vigorous stateside touring, is bound to bring yet more recognition for thisapple-cheeked bard of the streets. Visiting Brooklyn over the summer, Jamie checked out the hallowed turf of his heroes,the Beastie Boys, gigged about and recorded some impressions exclusively for Mean in a mini visual diary.22 november-december meanchic

obert wyatta master soundsmith on the divine comedy of imponderable thingsBY john payne + photograph by alfreda benge“I have my loyalties, you know. I believe in Charles Mingus.I don’t apologize to him or thank him or pray to himfor rain. I’m glad he’s here, that’s all.”Thus spake Robert Wyatt, one of the great creakyrock/jazz/pop/avant whatsits of the English music scenewho, like Mingus, is a famously non-genre-bound composer/multi-instrumentalistwho smears the tedious oldlines between “serious” music and pop effluvia. Wyatt’ssweetly crooned and decidedly English voice (‘e drops ‘isaitches) comes in service of idiosyncratically drawn musicalshapes, which can be arcane free-jazz- or bop-splashedor kinda ’60s psychedelic or straight-ahead pop or NuevaCanción-inspired, though often as not, it’s all and none ofthe above and far the better off for it.’Tis no small wonder, then, that the speckled likes of JoannaNewsom, Elvis Costello and Alexis Taylor of Hot Chiphave all chorused loudly at one time or another in praise ofWyatt’s uniquely shaped soundscapes disguised as pop music.They might know of him from his drumming/singing inthe late-’60s early-’70s avant-jazz-rock band Soft Machine,or his whimsically modernist jazzy-pop combo MatchingMole (from the French machine molle, or “soft machine”),or perhaps recall his numerous plaintive-choirboy appearanceson recordings by the cream of the ’70s English artrockcrowd such as Henry Cow and Hatfield and the North;most assuredly they’ll know Wyatt’s wrenchingly beautiful1974 solo album Rock Bottom, written shortly followinghis spine-shattering fall from a second-story window; althoughit could be that their lives were changed by Wyatt’ssubsequent English chart-topper of the ’70s—the definitivecover of Neil Diamond’s “I’m a Believer.”While the above “career trajectory” of such an artistdoesn’t make a lot of typical showbiz sense, there’s nodoubt that it’s uncommonly inspiring, as is just one listen toWyatt’s new Comicopera (Domino), whose appeal involvesthe very ambition of its undertaking in the ADS Year ofOur Lord 2007.Well… an opera? Hold up: Wyatt is anything but grandiose;in fact, he’s the very definition of the wrongly self-effacingartist. His “opera,” he says, is merely a way of tellingstories of everyday life, and about the people he meets. Theancient Athenians had it right, he thinks.“Greek theater was divided into comic and tragic,”he points out, “and comic didn’t necessarily mean funny;comedy is much more about human foibles and failuresand mischief and madness.”Mischief, slight madness and a touch of melancholyare the key tones of Comicopera, in which Wyatt employsseveral different characters (mostly sung by himself) to tellthe story, and ultimately foregoes his native tongue entirelyto sing in Spanish and Italian. “Sometimes,” he says, “youlisten to a singer-songwriter and you think, ‘This is just oneperson crying aloud against the wilderness’ or whatever.But some of the people on Comicopera are people tellingme off; another part is somebody saying how wonderful itis dropping bombs on a sunny day.”Accompanied by a fortuitously assembled group of playersand singers such as ex-Roxy Music members Brian Enoand Phil Manzanera, and the wonderfully straight-tonedBrazilian chanteuse Monica Vasconcelos, Wyatt’s dramaset to music is an openly drawn frame that accommodatestouching tales of love gone stale (and how to push thereset button), misplaced faith, the uses of nostalgia, whitelies, and the dark truth about war’s often hazy moral lessons—plussome choice bits about his hunger for a cultureother than his own moribund English one.Unlike the Greeks, Wyatt does not concern himselfdirectly with tragedy as such, or religion and destiny andthe big sort of imponderable eternal things. What he doesaddress is “various sorts of strategies that humans employwhen life itself needs some kind of dealing with in thehead. I have no knowledge of anybody who’s got a generalanswer, but I do know of people who had interesting andrewarding lives exploring different ways of having a mentallife co-existent with their daily life.”Wyatt’s own scheme is to draw on things and peoplethat have inspired him in the past, such as surrealism,avant-garde jazz, mysticism and revolution. Both the distinctivelydifferent symmetry and dryly humored gravitasof Wyatt’s new music was inspired in various measure bythe assorted likes of Duke Ellington, Ornette Coleman,Federico García Lorca and Che Guevara, all of whom, likeWyatt, felt powerful incentive for change.“These are all people who were totally exasperated withthe trajectory of history,” he says. “And they thought, well,one thing we’ll do is just completely change art, break therules, get back to the subconscious; just start again, helpthe workers—never mind shaving. It’s [a view] I’ve alwaysempathized with. I haven’t really seen much of it that getsyou out of the morass, but somebody lives in hope.”The humble Wyatt doesn’t seem to realize how, forsome of us, hearing such specially sculpted music does infact lift the listener way, way out and above the mire.“In the end,” he says, “I’m not a politician or philosopher;I’m simply a person who makes records. I try and useall the skill I’ve acquired to make some kind of listenableseries of things happen to the ears. For now, that’s thechallenge, and even if nobody understands a word.”24 august-september meanbeat

A small tweak makesa big difference.The tC has been tweaked for 2008._A redesigned front-end grille_Projector headlamps and new taillights_New exterior colors and updated interior fabric_Standard seat-mounted side airbags and side curtain airbags *_Under-cargo subwoofer_iPod connectivity*The tC comes equipped with driver's side front airbag, passenger's side front airbag, seat-mounted side airbags,side curtain airbags, and driver's side knee airbag. iPod ® is a registered trademark of Apple Computers, Inc.

the misshapesdedicated followers of fashionBY adam sherrett“I totally forgot about this interview,” says the softvoice on the phone. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m inmy pajamas.”Under normal circumstances, such a comment wouldmean little to an interviewer. However, when it leaks fromthe lips of one of the three asymmetrically coiffed Misshapesat 6 p.m. on a Saturday, it seems to carry a bit moreweight: I suddenly feel overdressed in jeans and a T-shirt.I sit down with the nonchalantly disheveled GeordonNicol in his Manhattan apartment’s pseudo-courtyard totalk about his DJ trio’s fame and their new collection offashion portraits, Misshapes (powerHouse/MTV Press).His getup—all-black combo gym shorts and tank top andbed-head perfect hair—begs for questioning, and I, like atrue inquisitor, demand that he define his own sense ofstyle. “I really don’t know how anyone can define a style,”he retorts. “I mean, I’m wearing gym shorts, a wife-beater,and slip-on Vans that my friends drew on! When I go out,I’m not consciously thinking about what I’m gonna wear;it’s a natural thing.”After all, personal style and a Warholian grasp of theZeitgeist—more so than beat-matching and scratchingskills—have powered the meteoric rise of Nicol and histwo Misshapes cohorts, Leigh Lezark and Greg Krelenstein.Over the course of only a few years, the twentysomethingthreesome have become New York nightlife ringleaders,evolving from underage partiers to underage party hoststo in-demand DJs/fashion icons. Nicol surveys their accomplishmentswith a sense of fatalism: “We’ve beenreally lucky. We’ve had a lot of opportunities presentedto us—putting together a book, soundtrack-ing fashionshows, traveling all over the world. In that sense, our liveshave changed a lot.” What about the street recognitionfactor? “I guess there’s more of that too. What’s funny iswhen the middle-age Vogue readers who have nothing todo with the party recognize your face,” he adds. “It’s notbad—just kind of funny.” All the same, Vogue editor SallySinger contributed a foreword to the Misshapes book, agesture sure to further enhance the trio’s reputation asstyle catalysts.Anyone in the know is by now familiar not just with theMisshapes’ parties and the hosts’ faces, but also with thesignature “wall photos” at their weekly events, which havenow been collected into a photo album. Like a typical party,the book’s stark cover reveals nothing. Oh, and don’t evenbother looking for a glossary. “It’s kind of like a Where’sWaldo,” Nicol says. “A glossary would be almost impossible—andtacky.” However, he reassures, “The notablesare in here, but you have to go through the book to findthem.” Inside the tome, images of celebrated hipster icons(Madonna, Bloc Party, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Chloë Sevigny,etc.) are methodically blended with photographs of partyregulars like Sophia Lamar and Jackson Pollis, who’ve beenMisshapes devotees since the beginning. Former Dior Hommedesigner Hedi Slimane, Visionaire magazine co-founderCecilia Dean and photographer Nan Goldin also figure inthe lineup. “I started with close to 300,000 photos and gotit down to just under 3,000 for the book,” Nicol says. “Ifthis book does well, I’m sure there’ll be a second.”All sequels aside, lack of confidence has never beenan issue with these three trendsetters. And the attendeesto their Saturday night extravaganzas at East Village clubDon Hill’s don’t seem too timid either. Like it or not, they’reunafraid and completely indifferent to the opinions ofthe uninitiated. “I think that people on the outside lookin and say, ‘Look at these assholes trying so hard,’” Nicolsays. “But in reality, the people that come to the party arejust coming to have fun. What matters most, he adds, isthe all-inclusive acceptance of individuals from a myriadbackgrounds, looking to have fun in their own way. “I thinkthe word ‘Misshapes’ means something eclectic,” Nicolconcludes. “It’s all these individual styles coming together[in one place]. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Misshapesparty or New York City—it could be anywhere.”2008 SCION tCMEnbET© 2007 Scion is a marque of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc.

MEnbETThere are some things Eleanor and Matt Friedberger, thesister-brother duo Fiery Furnaces, agree on: Bob Dylan. TheSopranos. And who played Ouija board with Grandma. Butthen there are some things they don’t exactly see eye to eyeon—like whether Eleanor had any game time with Grampson the old backgammon board, or where the concept of“Restorative Beer,” a track from their new album WidowCity, came from.The two talk at the same time and answer questions inone breath. They seem like close, old friends but displaytypical brother/sister animosity where needed. “We gotcloser when I started playing music,” Eleanor admits. “I’msure even during the biggest fight we ever had,” the elderMatt explains, “no one said, ‘I’m sorry.’ That’s a privilege offighting with a sibling: You don’t really have to make up.”The one thing they seem to agree on most during ourinterview is poking fun at my poignant Chicaaaaago accent.The Friedbergers themselves are Chicago natives. And althoughMatt has shed his long “A” Chicago pronunciationssince his move to New York, Eleanor slips from time to time,and blurts forth words like Indiaaana. The transplants don’tmiss their home. “We go there so much,” Matt acknowledges.“You should always leave,” he advises. “If you don’t leavefiery furnacessibling secretsBY charlene rogulewski + portrait by amy giuntawhere you are from, then you don’t get to go home.”The siblings recorded most of their latest record, WidowCity, in and around the Chicagoland area. Their studio sessionswere done across Lake Michigan in Benton Harbor,Michigan, and the mixing was accomplished at Chicago’sSoma Studios.It’s not exactly simple following the elder Friedberger’sthought processes, although Matt begs to differ, and pointsout it’s a simple task. “I had some fake method involvingimaginary Ouijas for myself,” he says of the lyrical inspirationsfor Widow City. In his “imaginary Ouija board” sessions,he would ask the game board what lyrics his sistermight want to sing and wait for the board to answer. ImaginaryOuija sessions weren’t the only convoluted methodsthe duo used. Knick-knacks and mouse-masticated magazinesalso heavily influenced Widow City’s lyrics.For the most part, the Fiery Furnaces’ music comes froma made-up world. “We just think of it as the real world,”Matt explains. “But we just make up stories about it.”“I was planning my dream house,” Eleanor tries to explainbefore Matt chimes in and pokes fun: “Eleanor wasplaaaning her dreaaam house with aaads aaaand picturesfrom maaagazines...” Yes, she’d cut ideas for her dreamhouse out of vintage magazines in their beloved GrandmaOlga Sarantos’ basement in Forest Park, Illinois, just westof the Chicago skyline. This is the same grandmother whoappeared on their 2005 album Rehearsing My Choir, andnarrated stories about her life over the Friedbergers’ punchyand charmingly manic music. These magazines and sundryother curios contributed to the sibs’ Widow City.Widow City is the duo’s first for Chicago label Thrill Jockey.In 2002, the Friedbergers got their break when RoughTrade signed them on for their debut, Gallowsbird’s Bark.“I had moved to New York and I was trying to play music,”Eleanor remembers. “And then Matt moved shortlyafter, so it just made sense for him to help me.”The band released two more albums, Blueberry Boatand Rehearsing My Choir on Rough Trade. In 2006 theyput out Rehearsing My Choir’s companion album, BitterTea, on Fat Possum Records before signing on with ThrillJockey for Widow City.The record takes its name from the “city of disappointeddreams that we all live in,” Matt says.Not necessarily true for the duo. They have grown frombeing a small stage act at Brooklyn’s now defunct NorthSixvenue to having their name up on the marquee at RadioCity Music Hall. But it’s their playful take on their dismalsurroundings that has inspired them throughout theirhumble beginnings.“There’s this mini school, where I used to live, out byKennedy Airport.” Matt says. “It’s the most depressing thingyou can imagine. I use to work in schools when I was young.I was an aide.”“I used to work in Elmhurst, Queens at an insurancecompany. It was not fun,” Eleanor says.These days, the younger Friedberger spends most of herdays walking through Socrates Sculpture Park in Greenpoint.“The Greenpoint skyline is going to look so different10 years from now,” she imagines.“In 15 years we’re not going to even believe that itlooked the way it does now,” Matt chimes in.“My neighborhood has already changed a lot,” Eleanorsays with a sigh.“…But that’s nothing like what it’s going to be in 15years,” Matt proposes.Widow City is cohesive and sometimes chugs alongpowered by a Tropicalia rhythm. “It was mostly drumsand early ’70s keyboards,” Matt explains. While WidowCity is more accessible than their previous albums, it stillevidences the duo’s trademark dissonance and unfocusedmethods—Eleanor singing over a different melody thanwhat her brother punches out. “We were going to havethe album be this narrative… that we decided not to do,”Eleanor divulges. “It told a story from beginning to end.So we only kept a couple of the songs.”“Matt’s the music man,” she says. While he contributesmost of the instrumentation for their albums, Eleanor is incharge of all singing duties, although she’ll step up to write atwo-chord song here and there. “Eleanor wrote ‘Tropical Ice-Land,’” Matt admits, “and that’s our most famous song.”Their back-and-forth is almost as static and quick as theirmusic’s focus. Take “Ex-Guru,” the band’s catchiest tune offthe new album. “That song’s based on two people,” Mattexplains, “but we can’t say who they are.”“They’re both top secret,” Eleanor interrupts.“…And both are very real,” Matt adds.“We know someone who has a guru,” Eleanor continues.“They go to conventions where the guru is…”“…It will often be a Doubletree Hotel by an airport,”Matt says, but the actual specifics are a secret that remainsbetween the Friedbergers.a window intotheir widow cityfiery furnaces documenttheir habitual haunts &favorite points of inspirationin new yorkphotographs by eleanor& matt friedberger(1st c o l u m n, t o p to b o t t o m)Eleanor: 91-31 Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst, Queens—where I worked in an insurance claims office for 2years; Eleanor: My favorite park—Socrates SculpturePark, Long Island City; Eleanor: Five cop cars inLong Island City; Matt: Stables in Howard Beach(2n d c o l u m n, t o p to b o t t o m)Eleanor: View from my bedroom window; Eleanor:Dancing at Stuyvesant Cove on a Sunday afternoon;Eleanor: Giglio Feast at Our Lady of Mt.Carmel, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; Matt: P.S. 213 MiniSchool, Brooklyn(3rd c o l u m n, t o p to b o t t o m)Eleanor: The Greenpoint waterfront (my neighborhoodfor the past 7 1/2 years), as seen fromStuyvesant Cove; Eleanor: Queens Blvd., Queens;Matt: Stables in Howard Beach; Matt: “The spirit oflearning” on Linden Blvd., Brooklyn(4th c o l u m n, t o p to b o t t o m)Eleanor: More feasting at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel inWilliamsburg; Matt: Kings Co. Hospital, Brooklyn26 november-december meanbeat

mathieu schreyerl.a. soul manBY jenifer rosero + photograph by brent bolthouseANDREW BIRDsolidarity troubadourBY A.D. amorosi + photograph by cameron wittigMeeting DJ Mathieu Schreyer, aka Mr. French—a manwho still spins vinyl and carts his own 45’s to his weeklyDJ residencies at L.A. boîte Hyde—is refreshing. Just likeCoca-Cola tastes better out of a bottle, listening to him spintracks from his massive collection of reggae, dub, salsa,samba, Afro-beat, soul, funk and broken beat records,complete with the sound of scratches and little imperfections,feels more wholesome and pleasurable than groovingto a laptop-engineered set.The French-born Schreyer, who settled in the U.S. in1995, got his own show on influential Los Angeles radiostation KCRW last winter. He’s now able to reach more earsand share his gospel—a passion for old-school turntablismand what he calls “soul music from all over the world.”What led you to the music?I had been into music from an early age. The first thing Iever bought myself was a tape, when I was 5 or 6. Havinglots of siblings, I used to take their records and play themall the time for my friends at after-school parties. When Iwas a teenager, my sister used to go out with this guy whohad a huge record collection, and he turned me on to jazz,soul—the kind of stuff I’m spinning now. It kind of openedmy eyes and educated me about all sorts of different music.Then I started buying records, and the next thing you know,a restaurant [in my neighborhood] asked me to DJ, so itkind of all came naturally.How did you get your own show on KCRW?I befriended [KCRW’s] DJ Garth Trinidad. We startedhanging out and DJing together at Zanzibar in 2002. LastChristmas he came to me and was like, “There may be anopening at the station. Would you like to do a show?” andI was like, “Fuck yeah!” So he took me there, and I hookedup with Anne Litt, who is also a DJ at the station, and I didone demo. The music was fine and they liked my programming,but I was a bit shy—and that was a problem. So Irecorded the demo a second time, and three weeks afterthat, they [asked me], “Can you start next Friday?” It allhappened really fast.Your show happens on Friday nights, between midnightand 3 a.m., and it’s called On the Corner. Whydid you pick this moniker?I really wanted something that was reminiscent of thestreets, because all the music I play is so street-oriented—the music of people in the streets just having a good time,whether it’s in Cuba, Senegal or Japan. And I was playingthis On the Corner record that Miles Davis did in 1972.I went to [KCRW general manager Ruth Seymour] withthe name and Ruth, who’s from New York, said, “On theCorner is very New York. I love it.”If you had to categorize the kind of music you play,what would you call it?Soul music, but not as in only Marvin Gaye–type soul music.Soul music from all over the world. When I play Latinmusic, it’s their rendition of soul music. When I play SergeGainsbourg—that’s our soul music from France. If I play ATribe Called Quest, that’s some soulful hip-hop. What I’mlooking for in music is a feel. And that feel comes from anartist who is expressing themselves from a purely non-businessstandpoint. Put it this way: The music I like is not madeto be sold. It’s people’s expression recorded on tape, andeventually someone likes it and they try to sell it. But theway it was made was completely from the soul. Whetherit’s soulful electronica, or soulful hip-hop—it’s music thattouches you. You listen to this music, man, and you don’tneed to go to church!Many DJs use vinyl emulation software, and a Seratosetup is de rigueur these days, it seems. You’re still goingat it old-school—you use only vinyl. Why?I’ve been buying records for the past 17 years. I want to usethem. I don’t want my records to sit on a shelf, nor do I wantto sell them. It’s my passion. I lived for that all my life, and Idon’t want to let go of it. Serato makes much more sensetechnologically; it’s more practical and all. But I’m taking mytime to get into that. I’ll get an iPhone before I get a Serato.That way I feel more like an artist as opposed to a robot oranother DJ with a laptop.What other kinds of things do you do, and what doyou ultimately want to do?I definitely want to help expose more of the music I liketo a wider crowd; movies would be a great medium [toaccomplish that]. So I want to get into music supervisionand soundtracks. I have a couple projects comingup with Michel Gondry, who is a friend of mine. I’vebeen doing production since ’99—I just make beatsand work with different artists. I’ve worked with Tricky,N’Dea Davenport of the Brand New Heavies; old-schoolMotown artists like Syreeta— Stevie Wonder’s wife.I worked with Leon Ware, and a bunch of hip-hopartists like Chali 2na from Jurassic 5 and Tre Hardsonof the Pharcyde. Who knows, maybe I’ll get the opportunityto start a label and get some of these greatartists better exposure. I’ll just keep going and try totouch as many people as possible.No one wants to be alone—it’s doubtful that evenGreta Garbo truly did. But if you’re going to do it, do itwith the panache that Andrew Bird sings of in “Imitosis,”one of the debonair tracks from his recent record ArmchairApocrypha.At 34, Bird—an instrumentalist known for his splendidprowess on violin and glockenspiel— has penned one ofthe most eloquent songs about the joys of loneliness. “Thesong was based on a revelation I had when I was 19,” Birdreveals. “I understood that no matter how much we surroundourselves with other people, we’re still trapped inour own bodies.”Bird’s work is sprinkled with eye-openers about wars,animal innards and blissful paranoia, in addition to wittydiscourses on his distrust of the psychological elite, educationalpathways and pop science. He has been recordingwith the likes of Squirrel Nut Zippers and his own brittleBowl of Fire since 1996, though he only relatively recentlybegan recording on his own, issuing Weather Systems(2003) and The Mysterious Production of Eggs (2005). Yetit is only his third effort, Armchair Apocrypha, that finallyhas the heart and the aggressive heft of a record worthy ofhis name below the title. To say nothing of some damnablygrouchy guitars.“A band is just symbolic really,” Bird says. “Eventhough I held onto the name Bowl of Fire longer than Iwanted, I managed to tour all around solo for the longesttime.” It was just him, his fiddles, his guitars and variouslooping pedals. “There’s something serene about it,”he adds. These days, when he collaborates with othermusicians, he chooses them based not only on whatthey can do for him, but also on what he can do with,and for, them. They have his back; he has theirs. “Atthe end of the night, these are the guys you’re leavingwith,” Bird comments about the symbiotic band-budconnections that fuel his work. Take Martin Dosh—anequally solitary producer, sequencer and lo-fi electronicmusic-maker. Bird collaborated with Dosh on some ofArmchair Apocrypha’s spookiest moments (tracks like“Simple X”), and toted him on tour. “I never, ever questionhis taste and am always totally amused by what he’splaying,” Bird observes. “Plus, I don’t like stock footagein music, ideas by rote. I always trust that he’s not evergoing to be unengaging.”Bird’s evolution from pint-size student of the Suzukimethod (a nurturing approach to music-learningfor children) to hyperactive, jittery sound-maker withthe swingin’ Squirrel Nut Zippers reaches full fruitionMEnbETwith Apocrypha. Even though his previous solo recordsdisplayed a mad eclecticism (German lieder, gypsy music,jazz, soul and folk) in tiny doses, his latest work internalizesall of his influences and regurgitates them in a moreorganic and focused fashion. “Before, I couldn’t let all themusic I was enamored with seep through. A lot of thoseother records were more deliberate. If I felt myself [including]inflections from other eras or other genres of music,I would take them away.”Now Bird takes nothing away, and opts instead to playwith people who bring their whole record collection tothe party—as evidenced by songs like “Spare-Ohs” and“Yawn at the Apocalypse,” bright, resonant testimoniesto his skill at stripping down the essence of musical genresand rejiggering it into organic new compounds. “I like tothink of that playing process as sounding asexual,” Birdnotes. Yet he can’t help but bring a plump lushness to allthat he beholds.While some blame the aggression of its guitars and thewordy whimsy of its lyrics for the fact that Apocrypha isturning out to be the most popular album of Bird’s career,he himself refuses to puzzle out the mystery.“There are no answers,” he says. “There’s just lookingat things from different angles.”28 november-december meanbeat

the role less traveledEwan McGregor Suits Up for as Woody AllenBY JOHN PAYNE + PHOTOGRAPHS BY RANKIN

One of life’s most horrific pleasuresin recent times has been replaying inone’s head that legendary scene in1996’s Trainspotting where the franticyoung junkie played by Ewan Mc-Gregor evacuates his precious dopesuppository into one particularly gruesomepublic toilet, then dives into themuck after it, whereupon wondrous,liberating fresh vistas are revealed tohim and us.McGregor made it seem fun, even,diving headfirst into a grimy bog. Thefact is, his charming on-camera easeand loose-limbed athleticism are theproduct of a lot of serious dramatictraining that has served him well in arather bizarrely varied film and stagecareer which has seen him assayingsuch far-flung roles as the Jedi knightObi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequelsThe Phantom Menace and Attackof the Clones, a lunatic rock star inVelvet Goldmine, a song-and-danceman in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!and London productions of Othello andGuys and Dolls.All of which is the merest tip ofthe polar cap for the prodigiouslyprolific McGregor, who at age 36 hasracked up 30-plus stage, televisionand film performances, the latest ofwhich is his starring role alongsideColin Farrell in Woody Allen’s just-outCassandra’s Dream.And while McGregor enjoys discussingthe art of acting, the veneratedmotivations and inner hells of the charactershe plays are, he feels, best leftunprobed. By himself, at least.“I’m not particularly conscious ofthe methods I use to come up withcharacters,” he tells me by phone fromhis home in North London. “SomehowI think that it’s instinctual. I like to talkabout the films, though, except thethings I find the most interesting are thethings the tabloid press is, of course,least interested in. They want to knowwhat happened last night with JudeLaw.” He laughs. “It’s not as if I’m goingto tell them.”It’s that plucky fuck-it ‘tude combinedwith a down-to-earth good humorof McGregor’s that tends to bothlure in and captivate audiences. Hecombines the earthy rogue appeal ofthe young Albert Finney in Tom Joneswith something slightly more hightoned,but only just. Growing up ina small farming town in Scotland, hewas addicted at a young age to films,especially black-and-white ones, andfelt the acting bug especially when hisuncle, the actor Denis Lawson (LocalHero), came up from London in hissheepskin waistcoat and no shoes.“He didn’t look like anyone else‘round about me,” McGregor says.“We would go and see him in theshows and stuff. Back in the ’70s therewas something on British televisioncalled Armchair Theater: half-hourdramas that were like one-act plays,and he was often in those. And itwas like an event—everyone wouldget ‘round the telly and sit down andwatch Uncle Denis. And so I was like,‘Fuck, I wanna do that.’”Thus McGregor left school at 16 andgot a job in a repertory theater a fewmiles from his house, working there fora few months as one of the stage crew.“We’d put up scenery and take downscenery, and then occasionally they’dgive me little walk-up parts. I startedlearning my job then.”As for Uncle Denis, “He’s still absolutelymy inspiration,” McGregor says.“It’s embarrassing how much I act likehim in some things I do. I phone himup all the time from the set and say,‘Den, I’ve really done you today in thisscene.’ And I was thrilled the first timehe phoned me up and he went, ‘Ewan,I’ve just done you in a scene.’ The piècede résistance will be when we endup sharing the screen in something. Idon’t know when that will happen, butsomething fantastic will come alongthat we can act in together.”Following his six-month repertoryexperience, McGregor did a one-yearacting course at Scotland’s Perth RepertoryTheatre and eventually movedto London, where he attended theGuildhall School of Music and Drama.“It kind of got me into the industry because,you know, you do the shows atthe end of your final year that everyonecomes to see, and through that I endedup working.”Still, he thinks it’s difficult to teachsomebody how to act. “You can’t, really,”he says. “But what you can do isput people in an environment wherethey can feel safe to try things out, andyou can put them through differentclasses and ideas about acting techniques—youhad people who taughtyour method acting classes, and otherpeople who use emotional memoryrecall and that sort of thing. But it’s difficultto say what you learn. I suppose Icall on it all the time. I don’t know that Ido, but I suppose that I must do.”McGregor’s role as the strung-outRenton in Danny Boyle’s Trainspottinghad come a year after his smash filmdebut in Boyle’s Shallow Grave, in whichhe played a callow young Londoner whoplots the dismemberment of his deaddrug-dealer flatmate. One might wonderwhat motivated him to choose theseoften borderline-crazy or at least, well,intense types of roles that he undertakeswith such gleeful abandon.“A good story,” he says—end ofstory. “I sit down with the script andif I get that feeling like you get whenyou’re reading a good book and youdon’t want it to end, and if by the endof the script you’re seeing yourselfwhen you’re imagining the story, thenit’s something I’ll want to do.”As for the refreshingly weird varietyin his choice of roles—ultimately hisown decisions, though his managersmust tear their hair out from time totime—he says, “I think it’s excitingthat way. I’m quite easily pleased,and as I’m reading something, I canoftentimes see the good film in a scriptwhere maybe others don’t—and I’moften not right.”In McGregor’s view, a film’s artisticsuccess has next to nothing to do withwhether it’s helmed by the best directorin the world or is played by the best actors,has the best composer and editor“we had absolute freedom to improvise,but we didn’t feel the need to changeanything. there’s a reason why woodyallen is considered a great writerand i’m not.”34 november-december mr.mean

58 august-september mr.meanand DP, etc., etc. “If your story is notvery interesting,” he says, “then yourfilm is not very interesting.”Whereas, he thinks, if a movie depictsa ripping good yarn, that canmake up for other things, even ifthey’re simply shot, as is the case withWoody Allen’s films.“They’re very pure in the way heshoots,” says McGregor. “But becausehis stories are very good, I think that’sone of the great lessons about workingwith him. The performance is generallyenough without 15 takes. I mean, he’scompletely unique in how little coveragehe does. You just shoot a master, awide shot, and that’s it, really. And it’sjust absolutely lovely, because for theactors the performance is everything,and nothing gets stale or old becauseyou’re going through it so quickly.”Cassandra’s Dream is Allen’s latestmurder-melodrama concerning twomiddle-class London brothers, played byMcGregor and Farrell, who take part in ahigh-risk and ultimately soul-destroyingscheme to finance their wildly differingaspirations toward a better life. The filmboasts a veritable feast of great English,Scottish and Irish actors savoring thechance to bring out the best in Allen’sdevilishly plotted and immaculatelycrafted script—or to toss it out the windowand improvise if need be.“We had absolute freedom to dothat,” McGregor says, admiringly.“He’d start almost every scene and say,‘You know, look, these are just wordsthat I wrote; just say whatever you like,and just as long as you hit the beat,put it in your own words, don’t worryabout it.’ But, I’m sure Colin feels thesame way, we didn’t really feel the needto change anything because it was sobeautifully written. There’s a reasonwhy Woody Allen is considered a greatwriter and I’m not, so why should Ichange it?”The affably forthright McGregorrecently took on the role of Iago in aLondon stage production of Othello,by some extension a bit similar to thebrother he plays in Cassandra: a backstabbingfigure who must ensure audienceempathy by somehow comingoff if not entirely sympathetic, then atminimum perversely likable. McGregorhandles that tricky job with such finetuning in Cassandra that one mightquestion how much it has to do withsuperb acting technique versus theequally formidable task of just beingyourself in front of a camera.“Well, Woody was always quitekeen that the story was about ‘twonice boys,’ says McGregor. “He’d say,‘This is a film about two nice boys,and just because of their flaws andtheir faults and the situation, they endup doing a terrible thing.’ But he wasalways quite adamant that they weregood lads; just working guys whowere struggling along.”McGregor felt sympathy for his characterIan, the ruthless would-be hotelierbrother to Farrell’s sweetly loutishmechanic.

“I suppose I could understand Ian,”he says, “because bad characters… Idon’t know how bad they think they arethemselves, you know? It’s easy to playa kind of two-toned villain, but I don’tthink people are really like that. Peoplethat do terrible things still think they’reprobably all right.” To him, it’s not terriblyexciting to play someone who’s justpurely evil. “I mean, there’s no shortageof British bad guys in American movies,you know what I mean?”In Cassandra, the bond between Mc-Gregor’s grasping yuppie fuck andFarrell’s heavy-drinking/gambling-addictschlub is played with touchingcredibility. The two actors come off sobelievably brotherly, in fact—so completelyfamiliar with each other’s tics,vanities and fatal flaws—that it’s hardto believe that McGregor and Farrellonly became acquainted when bothwere cast in the film.“I’d never met Colin,” McGregorsays. “The process of getting the filmtogether was very quick. Woody wasgoing to shoot a film in Paris and thenat the last minute changed his mind.He pulled this script off the shelf andI went and flew over to New York tomeet him, and Colin went to New Yorkto meet him. Literally, I met Woody forabout 30 to 40 seconds. I’d fallen inlove with the script, and then I foundout Colin was playing the other brotherand I thought, ‘This is just great.’ So Igave him a call and he came over andmet my family—we sat down and hadsomething to eat and just got on immediatelywell.”McGregor is effusive in his praisefor the skills of the feral Farrell. “I justthink he’s brilliant. There are a few actorsaround that you hope your pathsmight cross with one day, and he’s certainlysomebody I’d hoped for.” And hereports that it came as a relief that thepair got on so well. “I don’t think youcan create chemistry or manufacturea brotherly relationship onscreen. Youknow you’re both playing brothers, soyou sort of instinctively relate to eachother in a certain fashion.”According to McGregor, WoodyAllen’s style of quick-shooting hisfilms—usually setting up just one shotand grabbing the scene in two or threetakes—is, for actors like Farrell andhimself, the only way to go. “It’s veryoften that you’re discovering things forthe first time as you’re saying them andthe cameras are rolling, and there’s nosense of repetition because you’re nottrying to re-create anything; it’s brandnew.And if it’s not the best take, it’sgenerally one of the most exciting.”And, he believes, there’s a stake init. “As Woody would always say, ‘Youcan’t fuck this up. You just have to stayin character and keep talking.’” Although,he recalls, if an actor did muffhis lines, “You’d see Woody rubbinghis hands together, looking delighted,thinking, ‘I’m gonna put that in.’ Andhe did. He likes putting in all your flubsand stammers. Human beings flub and38 november-december mr.mean

“Woody Allen said to me, ‘Critics canlove us or they can hate us. Either way,it makes no difference.’ and he’s right.”STYLING: Alix Waterhouse,alixwaterhouse.comGROOMING: Liz Martins, nakedartists.com,using Origins productsFIRST SPREAD: T-shirt, FolkSECOND & THIRD SPREAD: T-shirt, H&M;Shirt, C.P. Company; Vest, Paul & Joe;Pants, Create Your Own; Glasses,Ray-Ban WayfarerFOURTH SPREAD: T-shirt, H&M; Shirt,Aertex; Jacket, Hardy Amies; Glasses,Ray-Ban WayfarerFIFTH SPREAD: T-shirt, H&M; Cardigan,Guess; Jacket, Marc Jacobs; Jeans, NudieON THE COVER: Shirt and jacket, Gucci;Vest, Acne Jeans; Pants, Trovata;Glasses, Ray-Ban Wayfarerstammer when they work, know whatI mean?”The image of the Infallibly GreatActor is easier to pull off on-screen, ofcourse, as McGregor found out duringa long run of stage performances inGuys and Dolls two years ago.“…There was a moment where Iforgot the words in the middle of asong one night,” he says, chortling. “Inthe middle of a song! And the orchestrakeeps going, and there’s nothingyou can do. So I was just making shitup.” He starts singing the lyrics he hadimprovised on the spot: “‘I like to lookat your face. I like it a lot…’ That wasterrifying. I felt like I’d been in a car accident.And that’s when you realize whatlive theater is all about. The danger ofit is brilliant.”Yet he requires the pure energy of doinghis stuff in front of an audience fromtime to time. Unlike performing in frontof a blue screen for one second-unit director,there’s a full house of people, andthey’re watching, and listening.“It’s exciting, because you’re maneuveringa group of people’s emotionsfrom one place to another, andit’s quite a powerful feeling.”Apparently, exciting his own imaginationis still of primary importance to ourEwan McGregor, the former party boywho’s now a devoted family man with awife and three daughters, the youngestof whom is a Mongolian adoptee. Youmight’ve seen him blow off steam in a2002 PBS documentary that found himwatching polar bears migrate in remotenorthern Canada, or watched the 2004Bravo channel series that documentedhis round-the-world motorbike trekwith pal Charley Boorman.Ultimately, the thing that strikes youabout McGregor is his restlessness,which in his case isn’t the desperate,empty, Hollywood-needy searching wehear a little bit too much about, buta healthier, more swashbuckling kindof world-conquering that can inspireeven the most jaded film fan to wantto heartily slap him on the back andcheer him on. It’s a vicarious thrill sortof thing.Like the late Klaus Kinski, Mc-Gregor just craves the work, andit doesn’t matter whether the criticsconsidered his choice of filmshigh, fine art or something trashyand cheap. True, Kinski needed themoney. For McGregor, however, actingis, simply stated, something hejust loves to do.And if it makes critics grumble andgroan on occasion—so be it. “Youcan’t please them, you know?” Mc-Gregor laughs again. “This is somethingI learned from Woody. He said tome before we went into the screeningof Cassandra’s Dream in Venice, “Theycan love us or they can hate us. Eitherway, it doesn’t matter. They’ve lovedme in the past. They’ve hated me in thepast. It doesn’t make any difference.’And he’s right.”Extraordinarily refreshing, isn’t it, towitness the excitement of an excellentactor doing it for thrills and laughs,and who couldn’t give a toss aboutthe hoary old bores of career arc orbox office.“I just don’t care!” McGregor cackles.“I’m happy if people see it and likeit, but sometimes it’s quite cool to watchthe dog that slipped through the net.“I just got this feeling cominghome in the car at the end of thenight from the film set, feeling likeI’ve done my best shot, I’ve givenmy best work, and feeling I did thebest job I could. And I felt satisfied.If you’re looking to be the most famous,you’ll never get there. I love theidea of someone waking up going,‘That’s it! I’m famous enough! I canbe happy now!”40 november-december mr.mean

uckwildEmile Hirsch’sRites of PassageBY PETER RELICPHOTOGRAPHS BY PATRICK HOELCK

There comes a crucial juncturein the life of every boy when he mustmake the difficult transition into manhood.Difficult, because we live in anage when a twisted premium is placedon youth, when adult responsibilitiesloom like a sober yoke to be avoided atall costs. As a result, a state of arresteddevelopment often prevails.Occasionally, the core topic hasbeen addressed in film. In NicholasRoeg’s 1971 classic Walkabout, anAborigine boy experiences both asexual awakening and a brutal lossof innocence while wandering aboutthe Australian outback. Seldom,however, is the subject seriouslyexamined in American cinema, althoughthis fall, the Sean Penn–directedadaptation of John Krakauer’sbest-selling book Into the Wild cutsinto the heart of the matter, leavingviewers imprinted with the emotionalequivalent of dark, arterial blood.The star of Into the Wild is 23-year-old Emile Hirsch. Hirsch playsChris McCandless, a real-life tragicfigure who, upon graduating fromEmory University in 1990, donatedthe money from his medical schoolfund to Oxfam, cut all ties with hisfamily and set off on a two-year walkaboutaround the United States andMexico that reached its mortal conclusionin the forbidding interiorof Alaska. Inspired by the writingsof Henry David Thoreau and JackLondon, McCandless’ mission wasto find his own definition of truthby confronting nature’s unforgivingextremes. For Hirsch, the role was atwofold crucible. While repeatedlyrisking his own life reliving the challengesMcCandless faced, he assayedthe tricky transition from on-screenadolescence to young adulthood.If all that sounds a tad heavy-handed,the thesis dissolves completelyupon meeting Hirsch. Seated poolsideat Santa Monica’s tony Viceroy Hotel,his 5’ 7” frame is dwarfed by a canaryyellow high-backed leather chair. Hewears baggy camouflage cargo shorts,his dyed-black hair flopping over a facethat has yet to shed the last vestigesof baby fat. If anything, he looks likehe’s still inhabiting the role of prodigalskate-rat Jay Adams from 2005’s underratedLords of Dogtown.As well perhaps he should. Althougha box-office flop, Dogtownprovided the entree to the currentphase of Hirsch’s career. Sean Penn,who had done the voiceover narrationfor the original Dogtown & Z-Boysdocumentary, saw the adaptation and,impressed by Hirsch’s performance,phoned the young actor.“I was at a point in my life [afterDogtown] where I hadn’t worked ina year and was really depressed, justsitting around wishing for an adventure.All of sudden I get a call”—hereHirsch affects a spot-on MarlboroscorchedSean Penn drawl—“‘I wantto talk to you about something.’ So Igo meet Sean in Malibu. We’re walkingaround this parking lot barefootand he starts telling me the synopsisof Into the Wild. And it struck methat I had seen the 20/20 episodeabout McCandless when I was 9 yearsold. It had made a big impression onme—the spooky, almost magical ideaof going by yourself into nature.”Over the course of that summerand fall, Hirsch and Penn got togetheroccasionally for a root beer orsomething slightly stronger. WhileHirsch grooved on getting to hangwith one of his heroes, Penn was subtlytesting to see whether or not hisprospect was worthy of the McCandlessrole. Meanwhile Hirsch read andre-read Krakauer’s gripping accountof McCandless’ epic journey, and thefuse was lit.“When Sean first approached mehe said, ‘In the next four years I’m goingto make this film.’ So I thought OK,when I’m 25 it’ll be something we’ll do.Then all of a sudden he called me like,‘I wrote the script. The script’s done.The part’s yours if you want it. Comeup to San Francisco and read it.’”Hirsch headed to the airport andcaught the next flight. His life wasabout to get wild—literally and figuratively—toa degree he couldn’thave predicted.“The first day of shooting in Alaska,me and Sean get on a snowmobileand head out on this crazy trail. Seanguns it up a hill, the snowmobile flipsover and me and Sean both go flying!I was fine, and Sean was like, ‘Thatwas good instinct the way you jumpedaway from the snowmobile.’ Then herighted it, said ‘Get on!’ and we spedaway, twice as fast as before.”Thus began a year of living, Hirschsays, “like a traveling band of gypsies.”As cast and crew retraced McCandless’risk-riddled journey, Hirsch undertookthe challenges of his role head-on,imbuing the film with its disconcertingdegree of verisimilitude.Hirsch’s voice rises in a sort ofwistful incredulity as he recountsrisks taken: kayaking solo throughwhite water rapids in the Grand Canyon;walking around Nevada’s LakeMead on a day when crew memberscracked under the heat and quit;working heavy grain-threshing machineryalongside Vince Vaughn,who plays McCandless’ temporaryemployer Wayne Westerberg. Noneof those outward feats, however,compares to Hirsch’s devastatingportrayal of the drawn-out processof McCandless’ starvation.This final withering away is responsiblefor one of the film’s rawest scenes,where McCandless, trapped in themiddle of the massive Alaskan wildernesson the wrong side of a thaw-swollenriver, stands screaming and shakinghis rifle, desperate for game.“Where’s the fuckin’ animals now?I’m hungry! I’m fuckin’ hungryyyyy!”Hirsch shouts, quoting the scene,much to the consternation of a nearbyhotel concierge.“That scene was all improvised,”Emile says, settling down. “It wascool the way Sean shot it. It’s such awide vista and McCandless just looksso small against this huge canvas ofnature. He’s nothing! It’s man versusnature, and man’s gonna lose.”Emile Davenport Hirsch grew upin Southern California, the son of aproducer father and schoolteachermother. A Pisces, he rates the stretchof beach from Venice to Temescal ashis favorite waterfront. His childhoodnicknames, courtesy of friends, wereOatmeal and A-Meal-For-His-Mama.“I didn’t necessarily have Shakespearegiving me nicknames,” he sayswith a grin.From a young age Hirsch wasgroomed for—though not pushedinto—his profession. He attended LosAngeles’ Alexander Hamilton HighSchool Academy of Music, and beganplaying bits parts on television showsas a kid. He recalls working alongsideC. Thomas Howell, the actor whounderwent his own coming-of-age onscreen in 1983’s The Outsiders: “WhenI was about 10 years old, I worked onan episode of a short-lived show calledKindred: The Embraced. I’d just startedacting, so I’d do my scene the sameway every take. C. Thomas nudgedup against me and says, ‘Do whateveryou want!’ I didn’t understand what hemeant—‘Do whatever you want’? So Itried to loosen up and follow his lead.Like, unexpectedly, he’d take the paperwrapping off a straw during a take andblow it at somebody. And I was likewow, you can just do what you want!”Following bit parts on moreTV shows (ER, Sabrina the TeenageWitch), he snagged the role of achurch-serving Southern hellion inThe Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys.It was in that darling little indie filmthat a through-line was laid: Hirsch’scrush in Altar Boys was played by JenaMalone, who six years later wouldportray Chris McCandless’ youngersister Carine in Into the Wild.“When I first worked with Jena,she seemed older than me. She’s acouple months older than me, butshe was so mature at the time thatshe really seemed older than me. Sofor Into the Wild it was great becausewe were already buddies, but by thattime I’d grown up a lot, and suddenlyshe didn’t seem older than me; sheseemed younger than me. And thatcontrast was strange.”Stranger still was the contrast betweentwo of Hirsch’s following roles.In 2004’s ribald comedy The GirlNext Door, Hirsch played a clean-cutAmerican kid who falls for his dishyblonde neighbor (Elisha Cuthbert)—areformed porn star. Then Hirsch wasdirected alongside Justin Timberlake inNick Cassavetes’ young urban gangstertragedy Alpha Dog, released earlierthis year. When told that Alpha Dog’sbeefcake quotient has made it a favoriteamong gay men at parties, Hirsch howlswith delight, then composes himself:“I hope they can take it seriously, too.”Sandwiched between Altar Boysand Alpha Dog was Lords of Dogtown.Unlike Alpha Dog, where he was unableto meet the real-life criminalhis character Johnny Truelove wasbased upon, Hirsch and his Dogtowndoppelganger Jay Adams hung outand bonded—a closeness that led toHirsch writing a parole letter in supportof Adams when the legendaryskateboarder subsequently woundup in prison. By witnessing the interactionbetween Adams and fellowDogtown O.G. Tony Alva, Hirschcame to understand the lasting, razorwirebond shared by certain questingtypes of bros.“Alva and Adams were on set oneday, and Alva was making fun of Jaybecause when he was little he had aboil on his foot, and Jay was like, ‘Fuckyou, dude!’ They were going at eachother and laughing, bickering aboutlittle things from 25 years ago.”The anecdote begs the questionthen, what does Hirsch believe thatJay Adams and Chris McCandlesswould have thought of each other ifthey’d ever met?“Maybe they would’ve liked eachother. But for guys with convictionsthat strong it’s really easy not to likeanother person too, if they think thatperson’s convictions are wrong. AndJay and Chris probably would’veconflicted!”Today is Hirsch’s first day back inL.A. after some months away. He’sbeen in Berlin, completing filming ofSpeed Racer, the Wachowski siblings’live-action adaptation of the belovedanime. Hirsch, who plays the titularSpeed, deems the shoot “über-challenging”and mentions that it tookplace in Berlin’s Studio Babelsberg.“It’s an old historical studio whereLeni Riefenstahl shot a bunch of propagandafilms. It was a little creepy atfirst, but we made a good film there.”The shoot for Speed Racer wasdiametrically different from that ofInto the Wild. Most of Speed’s sceneswere filmed against a green screenin preparation of post-production44 november-december mr.mean

special effect overlays. Rather than doany actual driving, Hirsch spent longdays in a gimble. “It’s a robotic chamberthat throws you around againstthe green screen. It’s like riding amechanical bronco.”Polishing off his Coke, Hirsch suddenlybegins singing the Speed Racertheme song with jaunty, mock-vaudevilleaplomb. During the course of theinterview, he has variously enthusedabout the music of Daft Punk, Eminem,Tupac and Elliott Smith’s Froma Basement on the Hill. Now he pauses,and adds Eddie Vedder’s originalsoundtrack for Into the Wild to the list.“I had never really listened to PearlJam before, but now I love ‘em. Thesongs Eddie made for Into the Wildare such unique songs. There’s onepiece he does where I’m running up ahill, and the song is almost like a wail.The camera moves back to this plaquethat I’m writing and it says, LOST...ALONE. At that moment you reallyfeel like you’re out there in the wild.“When I was shooting Speed Racer,Eddie had a show in Venice, Italy,and I went there for the first time. Iwent to his hotel and we were gettingready to go to the show and there wasa freak storm—the stage blew awayand someone broke their arm. So theshow got cancelled and Eddie andI just hung out all night at the hotelinstead, and it was wonderful to talkto him. He’s an extraordinary person,smart and warm. He reminded me alot of Sean actually; he’s like his musicalalter-ego.”Hirsch drops silent, letting thecomparison hang in the air. But it’sclear that part of what draws himto certain roles, to certain types ofpeople, is a willingness to take therisks involved with being sincere in anage of prevailing ironic detachment.Then, and only then, can one emergefrom the wilderness of youth into theartistic terra firma of adulthood.(For the record, Emile Hirsch’s fivefavorite films starring Sean Penn areDead Man Walking, Mystic River,Sweet and Lowdown, Colors and FastTimes at Ridgemont High.)STYLING: Ilaria Urbinati, ilariaurbinati.netGROOMING: Lina Hanson, magnetla.comPRODUCER: Sara PineFIRST SPREAD: Suit, Obedient Sons;Shirt, Helmut Lang; Tie, stylist’s ownSECOND SPREAD: Jacket, Obedient Sons;T-shirt, Morphine GenerationTHIRD SPREAD: Blazer, McQ by AlexanderMcQueen; Slacks, Modern Amusement;Shoes, stylist’s ownFOURTH SPREAD (LEFT): Jacket, Buddhist Punk;T-shirt, Modern Amusement; Jeans, A.P.C.;Shoes, Double IdentityON THE COVER: Shirt, Ksubi; Jeans, A.P.C.46 november-december mr.mean

SoulJavier Bardem’s Menof Constant StruggleBY PAUL CULLUMPHOTOGRAPHS BY KURT ISWARIENKO

“Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and I forma three-dimensional view of the same man.The aspect I represent is violence.”If we’re being honest, the personmost responsible for Javier Bardem’sAmerican career is probably JulianSchnabel’s wife. Olatz Lopez Garmendiais a half-Spanish beauty (shewas once labeled in print “orchidaceous”)who brought a prodigiousknowledge of Spanish cinema toher marriage. And by the time herhusband was ready to segue from hisart-world feature debut, Basquiat,to Before Night Falls—the story ofgay Cuban poet and prisoner ReinaldoArenas, who survived Castro’sprisons only to die of AIDS in NewYork—he had his casting nailed.“He took a huge risk getting mefor the film,” Bardem says. “Nobodyknew who I was, some people felt thatI was miscast, I could barely speak anyEnglish and the physical resemblancewasn’t there. But we jumped off acliff, both of us, and I will always begrateful.”Bardem is the youngest memberof a famous family of actorsand liberal activists—his mother,Pilar Bardem, is a matriarch of thestage and the screen; a brotherand a sister are actors, as were hisgrandparents. And his uncle, JuanAntonio Bardem, was a filmmakernoted for his outspoken criticismof Franco’s regime. After studyingas a painter, in 1990 Bardem wasfirst cast by Bigas Luna in The Agesof Lulu and subsequently in Jamon,Jamon, Huevos de Oro (GoldenBalls) and La Teta i la Luna (The Titand the Moon). He also appeared inPedro Almodovar’s High Heels andLive Flesh and Alex de la Iglesia’sPerdita Durango, before receivingan Oscar nomination for BeforeNight Falls in 2001. Since then, hisEnglish-language body of work hasexpanded to include films by JohnMalkovich (The Dancer Upstairs),Michael Mann (Collateral) and MilosForman (Goya’s Ghosts). Manyfelt he deserved a second Oscarnomination for his notable leadperformance as paralyzed euthanasiaadvocate Ramon Sampedroin Alejandro Amenabar’s The SeaInside. He’s currently on display intwo new pictures: Coen brothers’ NoCountry for Old Men, based on CormacMcCarthy’s novel, and MikeNewell’s Love in the Time of Cholera,an adaptation of Gabriel GarciaMarquez’s work of the same title.Bardem spoke to Mean fromthe Toronto Film Festival in earlySeptember.Your character in No Country forOld Men, Anton Chigurh—a contractassassin who dispatches hisvictims with a pneumatic stun gundesigned for use in a slaughterhouse—isa piece of work. Can youdescribe him in your own words?Well, since the author, Cormac Mc-Carthy, didn’t describe the characterextensively in the book, he was quiteopen to interpretation, or at least asto how to portray his behavior. Andso the Coens and I would talk anddecide more or less which way to go.In the book he’s a Russian hit man.Is that correct?The thing is, he could be Russianor he could be from nowhere. Thefact that he’s a foreigner, and thathe doesn’t really belong anywherespecial, made it possible for me to bein this movie.In the film, Tommy Lee Jones playsa Texas sheriff who sees the scourgeof drugs as almost an Old Testamentkind of plague. And yet yourcharacter, more than any of theothers in the story, lives by a moralcode that is inviolable, and to whichhe remains resolutely attached.What I felt when I read the book andthen the script is that they [the threemain protagonists] are different sidesof the same man. Josh Brolin—thegreat Josh Brolin, whom I adore, andwho is amazing in this movie—isplaying one side. He, Tommy LeeJones and I form a three-dimensionalview of the same man. The aspectI represent is violence. The scarything is that to this guy I’m playing,violence is not personal. He doesn’thave wishes or goals or ambitions.He doesn’t want to get to any particularplace by his actions. He just goesinto harm’s way, reacts and leaves.And the difficult part was trying tobring something that is human intothat. It was as if we were workingin a very abstract kind of painting,where nothing is logical or structured;rather, it was more like, “Let’sjust see where this goes.” In otherpeople’s hands, this character couldhave been a cliché.Did you meet Cormac McCarthywhile preparing for this role? Iknow he spends a lot of time at the“When they was havin them dope wars down across the border you could not buy a half quart masonjar nowheres. To put up yourpreserves and such. Your chow chow. They wasnt none to be had. What it was they was usin them jars to put handgrenades in. If youflew over somebody’s house or compound and you dropped grenades on em they’d go off fore they hit the ground. So what they done wasthey’d pull the pin and stick them down in the jar and screw the lid back on. Then whenever they hit the ground the glass’d break andrelease the spoon. The lever. They would preload cases of them things. Hard to believe that a man would ride around at night in a smallplane with a cargo such as that, but they done it.I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up something that would just bring the human race to its kneeswhat you would probably come up with is narcotics. Maybe he did.”—Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

Santa Fe Institute, which seemslike a kind of modern-day Los Alamosfor genii without a portfolio.We were shooting in Santa Fe fortwo and a half months, and it sohappened that he came to the setonce. You know, I’m kind of obsessiveabout the work, and I wouldnormally have a lot of questions. Butwith this movie, since it’s the Coens,you may not have every answer, butyou know that they do. There’s thisfeeling that you really have to letyourself go because these guys aregoing to take care of you.The same thing happened withCormac McCarthy. I would havebeen able to overwhelm him withthousands of questions, except thatthe thing was flowing already. It waslike, don’t be too anxious to controlthe character, because the controlsare in someone else’s hands. So don’tworry. Trust. Like Bruce Lee said: “Bewater.” Which is a beautiful way tosay, “Flow, man.”I know there’s already an Oscardrumbeat for you again for thisperformance, which is interestingbecause I always thought therewas an undercurrent of violencein many of your previous roles;certainly in Collateral, but alsoin The Sea Inside, where I thoughtthere was an enormous amountof violence, or at least frustration,simmering just below the surface.Well, what you may call violence, I callstruggle. Violence exists all aroundthe world, but so much more so inAmerican movies. It’s very difficult tofind one where there’s not a gun. Andso when I decided to do this film, therewere two things [that motivated me].First of all, the Coens are by far myfavorite directors. I mean, of course,there are huge names who have createdhistory in movies, whom I admireand would die to work with. Butthe Coens—something happened tome the first time I saw Blood Simple,Fargo, Miller’s Crossing. It was like,“Who the hell are these guys? How arethey able to create such unique charactersand make them so enjoyable towatch, even when they are the mostcruel motherfuckers of all time?”Secondly, when I read the script,I saw this whole thing going on, thisviolent character, and I knew thatbehind it there’s a statement: NoCountry for Old Men—“old” meaningthe old ethical rules that are missingthese days, because we are so lostin this nonsense and unstoppableviolence that creates in us a completenumbness, where it’s difficult for usto even react because we are so overwhelmedby it.58 august-september mr.mean

“Like Bruce Lee said: ‘Be water.’ Which isa beautiful way to say, ‘Flow, man.’”That’s what I happen to think, too.Plus, I totally trust the Coens. Andso I knew this was not going to be anempty movie about guns and blood.Right—it’s a movie about civilizationcoming undone, and thereturn to a natural world that isutterly unsentimental. But maybewhat I’m thinking of is not violenceat all; maybe it’s just power, theforce of your momentum comingoff the screen. I know you werea boxer and on Spain’s nationalrugby team. Are those experiencesautomatically part of what youbring to a role?Yeah. Actually, when I started out in1990, I did really physical roles, andthen after three years I stopped. Icould see this was not the right wayto go, because physicality is somethingthat doesn’t last forever anddoesn’t work for every role. Body languagedoes, but not physicality. So Ihave this big bulldog face, this brokennose, and I thought, okay, let me useit to my advantage. If I play against it,then it works like a visa—I can alwaysget back to this place.So in The Sea Inside, for instance,maybe it seems kind of weird thatbeing this big man, I would pull myselfonto the bed and make peoplebelieve I’d been there for 30 years. Orwhen I was going to do Before NightFalls, a lot of people were saying I wasmiscast—that this big guy is going toplay Reinaldo Arenas, who was thiskind of flower. But I said, “No, hewasn’t a flower—he was a tree trunk.Otherwise, he would have died in thefirst 10 years.” He was a fighter, andthat is what you have to portray: areally strong soul—unbreakable. Theway you use your body to get there isthe less important thing.You once said, “I don’t believe inGod, I believe in Al Pacino.” Whenyou were preparing for BeforeNight Falls, did you study Scarface?It might seem counterintuitive,except both your Arenas andPacino’s Tony Montana get spit outof Cuba and wind up in America,where they make something ofthemselves.Not really. But I have to see that filma lot. Once a week is too much, butthere was a time when it was almostonce a day. I didn’t watch Scarface tosee how Pacino did a Cuban accent,for example, but there is somethingin his performances that I find amazing—tosee his process, how he takesrisks, goes really far out there andgets back again, and always takes theaudience with him.Anton Chigurh in No Country forOld Men couldn’t be farther awayon the acting spectrum from yourrole in Love in the Time of Cholera,where you’re playing a paragon ofsweetness—an almost Chaplinesqueman who carries a torch forthe same woman for 50 years.You’ve seen the film? Now I’mshocked. I haven’t seen it yet, butI’m very anxious to.You come from a Spanish dynastyof actors. Who would be the equivalentof your mother, Pilar Bardem,in English-language film?Maybe Judi Dench. She’s a strongwoman, and she’s very well respectedin Spain. She has done a lot of theaterand also a lot of movies, but moretheater than movies, as all my familydid. Except my uncle [Juan AntonioBardem], who was a film director.Is it true that he was a premiercritic of Franco?Yes. He spent, I think, three years injail. He belonged to the CommunistParty, which at the time was forbidden.He was always portraying theregime from different angles, andeventually he got arrested.But one of the beautiful things—I’m saying this as a joke—that theFranco regime led to in our country,nowadays, is this division where thereare essentially two different Spains.Thank God, things aren’t meltingdown, and it’s creating a new generationwhere people relate to each otherfrom different perspectives. But still,there is an extremely violent rightwing that reacts in a very unpleasantway to anything that is said againstthem or the government. This stupidasshole we have, called José MaríaAznar [the conservative People’s PartyPresident, whose administrationlasted from 1996 to 2004]—in the lastyears of his government, he startedto refer to himself and to the governmentin a way that [was reminiscentof] fascist times. And there was a logicalreaction on the part of the people,which included me and my motherand millions of others. One of the outcomesof this was the demonstrationwe held against the war in Iraq. Andfrom some of the reactions, I realizedthere are still people who believe thata fascist regime is the only solution.What kind of a world are they livingin? Thank God they are few, but theyare noisy.Spain occupies an odd place inAmerican history, whose progressivepolitics reached a zenith in the’30s. Then, the hallmark cause wasgoing off to fight in the SpanishCivil War—the assumption beingthat if we had stopped Franco inSpain, we never would have hadto confront Hitler. Is this widelyremembered in your country?I can only speak for myself, but Iwould say that people from my generationknow that. Except that it’stotally irrelevant now. What’s beengoing on in the past 15 years in theWhite House has had an effect onthe rest of the world. I think the goodnews is that the United States is biggerthan the White House, and thereare a lot of people in this country whoraise their voices against that—whichis something we [Europeans] are alsoaware of. But, unfortunately, the mostnoticeable policy in the world is [thatof the] White House. That’s the harmthis stupid killer named Bush is doing,especially in how the rest of the worldappreciates the United States.To me, your film Goya’s Ghosts wasan exact allegory of American politics—ofAmerican triumphal-ismand interventionism around theworld. You have Napoleon saying,“They will greet us in the streetswith flowers.”That movie was written before theinvasion of Iraq, and Milos [Forman]always attributed the similarities tothe stupidity of the human race. Butit demonstrates how some peoplecan accommodate any amount ofhorror or misery in the name of holdingonto power, which you can putinto context in any country. Peopleare capable of the most extraordinaryevil in order not to lose power.They’re also capable of exactingimmeasurable damage when theyact in the name of God—as theInquisition did.Yes. In the name of good and in thename of God.STYLING: Eric Orlando, seemanagement.comGROOMING: Jamal Hammadi for HammadiBeauty, magnetla.comFIRST SPREAD: Shirt, Agnès B.SECOND SPREAD: Suit and shirt, Agnès B.THIRD AND FOURTH SPREAD: Tuxedo jacketand pants, Agnès B.; Tuxedo shirt andshoes, John VarvatosON THE COVER: Vintage Levi’s jacket fromWhat Comes Around Goes Around,New York; Shirt, Calvin Klein; Jeans, Levi’s;Shoes, John Varvatos56 november-december mr.mean

aKellyMacdonald’sSeries ofFortunateEventsBY KEVIN O’DONNELLPHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDY EATONLUCKY SCOT

As the Bard would say, Kelly Macdonald’s fortune has kept an upwardcourse. In the mid-’90s the Scottish actress was pouring pints in a pub. Whenshe heard about a casting call for the now-cult movie Trainspotting, shelunged forth, unfazed by the previous lack of significant acting work on herrésumé. The move paid off: Macdonald nabbed the indelible role of Diane, asexed-up schoolgirl who screws heroin addict Mark Renton (unforgettablyplayed by Ewan McGregor) and only post-factum reveals she’s not yet oflegal age and forces him into a relationship. “Serendipity has a lot to do withmy career,” says the 31-year-old Macdonald in her delicate purr. “After theTrainspotting audition, I knew acting was what I wanted to do. And if the filmdidn’t work out, I was going to try for drama school.”A decade later, Macdonald’s still getting lucky. Her latest strike is a supportingrole in the Coen brothers’ dark neo-Western No Country for Old Men,adapted for the screen from Cormac McCarthy’s book of the same name. Lastyear, Macdonald was visiting New York and attending the nuptial festivities oftwo friends, when she was suddenly summoned to try out for the part of CarlaJean Moss in the Coens’ film. “Everyone at the wedding was like, ‘Good luck!You’re brilliant!’” she recalls. “But I didn’t thank them for the hangover I hadwhen I first went to see the casting director.”She should thank them now, because she positively shines in No Country asan innocent Texan wife whose husband goes on the run from a psychopathickiller. Co-leads Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and a fantastically creepy JavierBardem get most of the screen time, but each time Macdonald’s Carla Jeanslides into narrative focus (particularly during a resigned showdown withBardem’s gun-wielding desperado, Anton Chigurh), she brings a quality ofquiet, understated grace to an otherwise über-violent flick. Most admirably,she gets her character’s Texas twang down pat. And while naturally endowedwith an earthy, rolling Scottish brogue, Macdonald didn’t find mastering theforeign dialect all that difficult. “Weirdly, the Texan was quite an easy fit,” shesays. “It’s much easier to do than just a general American accent.” Of course,she relied on the help of a dialect coach. But, stranger still, an important partof her character study involved scrutinizing the voices of locals featured in aradio broadcast about drug testing in Texas high schools.For someone who claims to not actively pursue parts, Macdonald hasimpressively lucked into collaborations with Robert Altman (Gosford Park),Mike Figgis (The Loss of Sexual Innocence) and Michael Winterbottom (TristramShandy: A Cock and Bull Story). But that doesn’t mean she gets whatever“I don’t know what the fuck I would be doing”“if it wasn’t for Trainspotting.”she wants; she still has the occasional audition debacle. Macdonald says shewas rejected for the role of black-spandex-wearing heroine Trinity in the WachowskiBrothers’ sci-fi juggernaut The Matrix. “I was really unprepared forthe audition,” she says. “I walked into the room and they had a punching bagset up and I thought, ‘This is really bad.’ I remember it how you remember areally drunk evening, with certain flashes of mortification.”In 2003, the actress married Dougie Payne, bassist for the Brit-pop outfitTravis. They live quietly in London, although they truthfully don’t get to spendmuch time together—she’s been busy preparing a new part in the upcomingfilm adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke; he’s always touring. Macdonaldthinks the arrangement is actually beneficial for their relationship: “We’vebeen apart from the get-go,” she says. “It’s what we’re used to. But when we doget time off, it’s proper time off, not just a few nights or weekends.”Overall, Macdonald declares herself quite satisfied with the balance of hercareer: challenging, high-profile film work coupled with relative anonymityoutside the professional arena. “I’ve been incredibly lucky so far,” she says, reiteratinga firm belief in her good fortunes. “I don’t know what the fuck I wouldbe doing if it wasn’t for Trainspotting. In 10 years, I hope I get to work with thesame people time and time again. It’s nice when you get asked back...”60 november-december ms.mean

STYLING: Derek Warburton, oliverpiro.comHAIR: Ryan Trygstad, thewallgroup.comMAKEUP: Christy Coleman, thewallgroup.comLOCATION: Milk Studios, New York,milkstudios.comPhotographer assisted byAngelo D’Agostino + Joe DelanoFIRST SPREAD: Dress, Naeem KhanSECOND SPREAD: Dress, Louis Vuitton;Fishnet tights, Wolford; Shoes, Lui ChinnTHIRD SPREAD: Dress, Naeem Khan;Fishnet tights, Wolford; Shoes, Lui Chinn62 november-december ms.mean

emilye erAFTERA British Actressin Pursuit of theExceptional LifeBY SORINA DIACONESCUPHOTOGRAPHS BY KURT ISWARIENKO

Little-known fact about EmilyMortimer: In 1991, just as she beganher studies at Oxford University, shecontributed a series of columns tothe London newspaper The EveningStandard where she chronicled, withtrenchant wit, her disenchantmentwith “the small choice of genuine freespirit” among her peers and bemoanedthat her generation was “probably theleast interesting to date.”The romantic sweep of her followingyears, which found her movingto Russia to study theater andeventually arriving in Hollywood towork with the likes of Woody Allenand Wes Craven, proved that she’sthe opposite of “uninteresting”: adreamer-adventuress destined fora zestful, exciting existence. Thedaughter of a noted London barristerand author, John Mortimer, she wasschooled at the exclusive St. Paul’sGirls and went on to study Russian,English and Drama at Oxford. Shecame to the attention of U.S. audiencesplaying a neurotic aspiringactress in 2001’s Lovely & Amazing,in which her character’s “Do my armslook flabby?” monologue capturedthe misery and self-doubt inherentto the métier in excruciating, movingdetail. Since then, she’s been workingsteadily and building a résuméthat reflects both her prowess indrama (Dear Frankie, Bright YoungThings, Young Adam) and her abilityto tackle both the silly (Scream 3)and the subtle (Match Point). Herupcoming projects include DavidMamet’s Redbelt, and a reprise of herrole as Nicole, a charmingly clumsyMiss Moneypenny to Steve Martin’sInspector Clouseau in Pink Panther2. This fall she returns to the screenin the curious dramedy Lars and theReal Girl, playing the sister-in-lawof a shy Midwesterner (the titularLars) who falls tragically in love witha blow-up doll.Literate, possessed by a quintessentiallyBritish compulsion for jollyself-deprecation and, these days, at35, afflicted by a touch of elegantworld-weariness, Mortimer continuesto stand out among her fellowactors. Before she departed for alate-summer vacation in the Hamptonswith her American-born husband,Alessandro Nivola, and their4-year-old son, she chatted withMean about such heady topics asher lifelong infatuation with kitsch;ice-dancing and all things Russian;the script she just completed; andthe implications of the “Faustianpact” she made when she decided topursue a career as an actress.You’ve been working quite a bit58 august-september mr.mean

lately. Not only have you beenmaking movies back to back, butyou even had an episodic role on aTV series in the U.S…I wasn’t really part of the cast, butI did three episodes of 30 Rock. Iplayed Alec Baldwin’s demented fiancée.I did Lars and the Real Girl lastautumn, and then I went to Lithuaniato shoot a movie directed by BradAnderson (The Machinist), withWoody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley,called Transsiberian, which is sortof a psychological thriller set on theTrans-Siberian railway. AfterwardI did a David Mamet movie withChiwetel Ejiofor. And now I’m justabout to start Pink Panther 2. I’mgoing to be the same old complexlyinept secretary!What did it feel like to act oppositean inanimate object in Lars and theReal Girl?It was amazing how having that dollin the room—sitting at a table withyou or sitting in a car with you oron the sofa opposite you—reallyadded extraordinary feeling to thescene. She somehow animated themovie! And there was somethingvery bizarre about how this extremelyinanimate object animatedthe rest of us.Lars and the Real Girl is a difficultfilm to take in as a viewer. Eventhough there is a lot of lightheartedhumor in it, this is a pictureabout mental health and the lastingimpact of emotional woundsinflicted in childhood and so on.Was shooting it a heavy experience?It wasn’t heavy, but it brought upin all of us involved in making it aconversation about family, actually,as much as mental illness. We wereall able to draw on relationships wehad with family members that aren’tas realized as we’d like them to be, orfeelings that some sort of neglect hasgone on and the relationship hasn’tbeen nurtured the way it should be.We were all thinking about people inour lives, like Lars, that we haven’tgiven enough attention to. But this isalso a film about the complication ofbeing in a family.I somehow get the sense that becomingan actress is something thatjust sort of happened to you…I think so. I was a fairly solitarychild—an only child for a long time. Ihave a sister, but she was born whenI was 13. I spent a lot of time in thecountryside with my mum and dad,even though I went to school inLondon. We would go to the countryevery weekend, and I would sort of

wander around and watch an awfullot of television, which I think wassort of a reaction against this veryrefined upbringing I had. My dadwas a writer, and I went to all of theseacademic schools—yet I became atelevision addict from an early age. Iwould watch absolutely everything:from black-and-white films withpeople with tri-cornered hats onships to documentaries on how tobuild a house in Wales. And whatdrew me in was always somethingvery kitsch, like ice-dancing. I wasobsessed by ice-dancing! I wantedto be an ice-dancer… There was thisEnglish ice-dancing duo, Torvill andDean, who were a phenomenon andwon every gold medal, and I wasobsessed with them. My husbandwas singing Ravel’s Bolero in the taxigoing home from dinner the othernight, and he said, “What’s it that I’msinging?” And I was able to tell him,“It’s Ravel’s Bolero,” because that’swhat Torvill and Dean danced toin their last Olympic performance.And they got a perfect six score fromevery judge!And then I loved anything withdancing girls in it. Anyone withfeathers in their hair and sequinedcostumes—I was absolutely besottedby them. There was sort of a tragicbeauty to these women, and that tome represented show business. Thatwas definitely where my fantasies lay,and it’s what got me into the whole[acting] thing.What do you read these days forpleasure?I don’t have time to read very muchat all. I wish I did! I spend most of mytime reading bad scripts. I read an essayby Joseph Brodsky when my sonwas about 2 years old, and it was thefirst thing I’d read since he was born.And I only read it because it was fivepages long. I’m getting back into it.It’s hard. One of the sad things aboutgetting older is that you don’t haveenough time for a fantasy life.You studied Russian in college, andthen moved to Moscow for a whileto take theater classes. I imaginethat your infatuation with Russiabegan when you first read classicRussian authors, like Tolstoy orDostoyevsky. Is that true?Actually, again, it was less high-browthan that. We had a Russian teacherat school, which was a very unusualthing even for a posh Londongirls’ school; hardly any of them hadRussian as a subject. But there wasthis amazing girl named Irina, whoseemed only about five years olderthan us. She was in her early 20s andshe had escaped from St. Petersburg,or Leningrad as it was then, in thehull of a ship. She was extremelyglamorous and strange and exoticto me. She wore red stockings andgold teeth, because all of her teethhad fallen out, and had long hair. Myinterest in Russian really started offas a crush on her. She introduced usto all sorts of literature that wasn’ton the syllabus, and she would takeus off to strange performances andpoetry readings by Russian poetswho had managed to get to London.We felt like we had been given a keyto this secret world! She really caughtmy eye and made me think, “I want toknow more people like that.”As a woman and an actress, do youfind the reality of being a strangerin a strange land inspiring or difficult?I think it is difficult, but it’s probablydifficult in a good way. One of thegreat things about being a woman isthat you are both somehow on theoutside as well as in the middle ofthings. You’re both allowing yourselfto be in the thick of things and partof life in a kind of exciting, male way,but also wondering whether or notyou should be. And then there is thispart of you which has to do with havingbabies and being a homemaker.So there’s a constant feeling of beinginside and outside of things, as a girl,and I do like that.Also, having the type of family andeducation I had in England can bevery defining. You can be so definedby where you grew up and where youwent to school and who your parentsare. It’s something that’s very hard toshake off, yet I’m terrified of beingdefined; somehow it really scares me.This notion that someone could summe up in a couple of words… Thatwould be tantamount to a dismissal!So I’ve really sought to, in ways thathave been exhausting and sometimesreally exciting, put myself in a positionthat’s challenging and scary justin a bid to not be defined and not beable to define myself somehow.Actually, in the essay I mentionedbefore, Brodsky was saying, “We’realways complaining once we live inexile.” Yet it’s an incredibly privilegedposition to be in. It’s very wonderfulto have this kind of perspectivethat many people in the world don’thave. It’s like going into outer space,and being able to look down on theworld from a different viewpoint.And sometimes it can feel lonely, becauseyou can’t really work out wherehome is once you’ve left.You played an aspiring L.A. actressin Lovely and Amazing, and it’s oneof the most moving depictions ofwhat that’s really like. At this juncturein your career, do you still feelthat there is a level of humiliationinherent to the very process of beingan actress in Hollywood?Definitely. I’m constantly being toldthat I’ve got to dye my hair and get myteeth whitened and that I’m not sexyenough or that I should show my titsmore…That I’ve got good breastsand that I should make them moreapparent when I go into meetings.And I would if I thought it would getme jobs! But I don’t suit that sort ofthing. It doesn’t make sense when Idye my hair; I end up looking like adental hygienist or something. It justdoesn’t feel like me and I can’t carry itoff. I would succumb to all this adviceif I only thought it would help, butactually it just makes me less attractivethan I began.This is a weird, weird job. In someways it feels like a Faustian pact. Itcan be tremendously exciting, as anactor, to get to live out your fantasies,and be a child, and go off and haveadventures and meet really fascinatingpeople and get to behave in ways,as other people, that you would neverbe allowed to in real life. But thereis a price one has pay—all fantasticthings come with a price. You feelpanicked a lot of the time that it’s allgoing to come to an end. If you worktoo much, your real life suffers; if youdon’t work at all, your real life suffers.And you do become rather unhealthilyinterested in your wrinkles—butmaybe everyone does; even peoplethat aren’t actors.What was working with DavidMamet and Woody Allen like?In both cases, it was very challengingand very exciting to be in thehands of a genius. You feel, of course,extremely intimidated by that. Bothof them are very respectful of actors,to the point where you’re almostlonging for them to be less respectfuland tell you what the fuck to do! Butthey don’t. And they’re very differentcharacters, but I guess they bothhave an extreme self-assurance thatcomes with a long career of havingproduced incredible work.In both cases, it felt so effortless.On Woody’s movie, we were all homeby 3 p.m. We never did more thantwo takes ever, and we never talkedabout what we were doing. Whenwe rehearsed it, there was no conversationat all about the job at hand,and it was extremely disconcerting,but also very exciting. Woody wascharming and rather relaxed, andyou could have a conversation withhim, but he’s shy as a person.David Mamet was amazingly affableand charming, and funny andencouraging. He comes from thetheater world and on his sets thereis this feeling of a troupe of peoplewho are all in it together; he’s a realcompany person. He treats everyoneexactly the same way.I think his film is so beautiful; itkind of feels like a samurai movie.It’s set in the jujitsu world. [Mamet]is a jujitsu fanatic, it turns out, andhe’s all into martial arts. After a lifetimeof reading crap, I found hisscript brilliant and his storytellingimmaculate. The plot and the themeare so perfectly married, and thiswhole notion of what it is to be ahero is played out in every level ofthe story. I hope the film comes off asit should, because he wrote a reallyfantastic script.You directed a play in college andalso wrote a script. Any more ofthat on the horizon?I have written a screenplay, and myfriend and I are writing another one,which Jeremy Thomas, who producedYoung Adam, is producing. I believeDavid Mackenzie, who directed thatfilm, is going to direct ours.I don’t know why I keep doing thesethings! It’s such torture writing a filmscript. Have you ever tried it? It’s anightmare. Your brain aches from it.It’s like putting a very difficult jigsawpuzzle together. But this last scriptwas really an excuse to just keep intouch with my best friend who livesin England. Our husbands wouldn’tbe able to complain about the hoursthat we would spend on the phonetogether, because we would just tellthem it was work. It’s taken us aboutfour years to finish it; we’ve had twochildren between us during the timeit’s taken to write the thing. It was inour best interest to draw it out as longas possible, because it meant we wereallowed to fly to the other side of theworld to see each other.Is it finished?It’s finished, and now they’re tryingto get the money together for it.Hopefully, if it all works out, they’ll70 november-december ms.mean

film it at the beginning of next year.This year you also played a littlepart in one of the shorts from Paris,Je T’aime, directed by Wes Craven,who made all of the Scream movies.How did that come to pass?Funnily enough, I came to L.A. toaudition for Scream 3, which I knewI wasn’t going to get in a millionyears. I was going up for the part ofan extremely ambitious actress fromBakersfield, California, and I knewthere was no way I was going to getit, but it was just sort of fun to go andaudition for this thing… and I bloodygot the part. Wes and I made reallygood friends making that film. I lovehim! I think he’s such a wonderfulguy, and when this project camealong, he asked me to do it, and I wasonly too pleased.You play a character who travelsto Paris mainly because she’s obsessedwith visiting Oscar Wilde’sgrave in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.Do you have any pet obsessionslike that yourself?Part of my kitsch fantasy life is tohave a caravan with an awning anda zip-up fringe, that really 1970skind of thing.We never had anything like thatwhen I was a child, and that for somereason to me seems exotic and interesting.I’ve been lobbying my husbandto get one of these things and hejust won’t let me. And every time it’sfor very good reasons. It’s like, “We’rejust about to leave California for NewYork. Where the hell are we going tokeep it?” So I get very obsessive aboutthings like that, and then I forgetabout it and then it comes back, or…Or you just move on to the nextobsession.Exactly.STYLING: Seble Maaza,margaretmaldonado.comHAIR: Rebekah Forecast, thewallgroup.comMAKEUP: Troy Surratt, jedroot.comStylist assisted by Jessica Van NielFIRST, SECOND AND THIRD SPREAD:Dress, Naeem KhanFOURTH SPREAD: Dress, Behnaz SarafpourFIFTH SPREAD: Dress, Behnaz Sarafpour;Shoes, Fendi72 november-december ms.mean

IN PRESENTPerfectJennifer Jason Leigh:A Performer’s ProgressBY KATE KOWSHPHOTOGRAPHS BY KURT ISWARIENKO

STYLING: David Thomas,luxemgmt.comHAIR: Andy Lecompte,soloartists.comMAKEUP: Fiona Stiles,thewallgroup.comMANICURE: Tom Bachick,cloutieragency.comStylist assisted by Dan MustoFIRST SPREAD: Trench, Prada;Boots, Miu MiuSECOND SPREAD: Vintagegown from The Way WeWore, Los AngelesTHIRD SPREAD: Dress, Prada76 november-december ms.mean

2 From The HeartA filmmaker revisits his favorite pair of J.J.L. performancesBY RICHARD SHEPARDIn 1990, two movies in which Jennifer Jason Leigh played aprostitute came out within 30 days of each other and promptlynosedived at the box office.It’s a crying cinematic shame, since Miami Blues and Last Exitto Brooklyn—as different as they are from one another—areequally excellent pieces of work, and Ms. Leigh is heartbreakinglybrilliant in both. Of course, Whoopi Goldberg won the BestSupporting Actress Oscar that year for Ghost—a commercialmega-hit that has aged as well as a carton of milk—while Leighdid not even get nominated.Yet to me, she is one of the best actresses of her generation.I proposed reviewing Last Exit to Brooklyn and Miami Bluesfor Mean before I even knew that Leigh would also be featuredin the same issue in conjunction with her latest film, Margot atthe Wedding. This J.J.L. overload is not a magnificent piece ofpublicist synergy. It is proof that almost 20 years later, this nonsuperstar,non-Oscar nominee is still doing some of the bestacting in cinema.Miami Blues (the title didn’t help the film’s box office prospects;I think people expected it to star Philip Michael Thomas and Donwhat’s-his-face) is a colorful, gleeful, sadistically funny thriller directedby the great, unheralded George Armitage. He went on tohelm Grosse Pointe Blank, and not a whole helluva lot else. Maybethat’s because Hollywood seems to hate gifted directors whoshake up convention; I guess it makes the hacks nervous.Leigh wasn’t the only one on fire in Miami Blues: She costarredwith an extremely thin and sexy Alec Baldwin. His electricpsycho-sweetie Frederick J. Frenger Jr. is a showcase for the kindof dangerous acting that comes in short supply these days.And yet despite Baldwin’s and Armitage’s stellar work (executiveproducer/actor Fred Ward is sort of annoying as thecop on Baldwin’s tail), the most exciting thing in the film isLeigh’s innocent, sweet, sexy and downright giddy hooker. HerSusie Waggoner is a revelation. I remember seeing the film andthinking at the time, “Who the hell is that actress?” Watchingit again today, I ask myself the same thing. Leigh commands thescreen with a vulnerability that’s almost shocking; she looks asif she might genuinely break at any moment. That energy flowfuels a performance so on-edge and alive that when you thinkabout other actresses who have tried to play vulnerable, “real”prostitutes (read: Julia Roberts), you just have to shake your headand feel sorry for them.Of course, Roberts’ Pretty Woman role made her a huge moviestar, something J.J.L. never became. This might be because shefollowed Miami Blues with another prostitute part—and thatperformance was too graphic and harrowing to spell anythingelse except a giant “Fuck You” to any and all saccharine streetwalkerroles in the Hollywood canon.There aren’t a lot of laughs in Last Exit to Brooklyn, anadaptation of Hubert Selby’s famous underground novel. It’s apitch-black story of life, love and loneliness set on the strike-riddendocks of Brooklyn in the 1950s. It’s about drinking, fucking,repression and anger. And at its center, breaking our hearts ina completely different way than she does in Miami Blues, isJ.J.L.’s character: a hooker with a heart of Bourbon and a brilliantmoniker, Tralala. Like Barfly, Barbet Schroeder’s ingenious,150-proof meditation on Charles Bukowski, director Uli Edel’sLast Exit takes the dank world of drink and drinkers and stirs itinto a refreshingly original cocktail. Edel (who made both the “Iwant to be a heroin addict/I’ll never be a heroin addict” junkiemasterpiece Christiane F and Madonna’s fart-bomb thriller Bodyof Evidence) takes an astoundingly difficult piece of material andsomehow makes it breathe here. I’ve never been a fan of gangrapes on or off the screen, but Last Exit’s tortured ones somehowwork within the flawed lives of its characters. Tralala is so broken,so deeply hurt, so secretly (here’s that word again!) vulnerable,that being gang-raped is the only way for her to feel alive.This is the type of movie that makes you want to take a longshower after seeing it. It’s also the type of movie that you won’tforget, and might grow to love. And it’s in no small part thanksto the fact that in playing Tralala, Leigh almost ascends to a newlevel of acting.That the actress could so convincingly embody prostitutecharacters in two consecutive roles—and render them so differentin spirit and tone—is a testament to her incredible abilities, ifnot her box-office acumen. In the years that followed these twinaccomplishments, J.J.L. would act in mainstream hits like DoloresClaiborne and Single White Female, exploiting her slightlyodd mannerisms to fit into the Hollywood studio culture. Maybeher greatest recent work is the film she co-wrote and co-directedwith Alan Cumming, The Anniversary Party. It’s an insanelydead-on take on Hollywood friendships and marriage—and init, as in the films mentioned above, actor/writer/director Leighpeels back the layers to reveal that elusive thing we always lookfor in film: Truth.Richard Shepard wrote and directed this fall’s The Hunting Party,starring Richard Gere and Terrence Howard, as well as The Matador,with Pierce Brosnan. If opportunity ever struck, he wouldclearly love to work with Jennifer Jason Leigh.and pieces of herself to Mean in arecent interview.You grew up in Hollywood. Haveyou ever lived anywhere else?Not really. I mean, I traveled as a kidwith my parents to different places,but I wouldn’t say I really lived anywhereelse.How long have you been acting?A while! Professionally, since I was 18.You’re famous for your meticulousresearch process and your full-immersionapproach to acting. Whatdoes your method entail?Well, I like to immerse myself as muchas I can in a role. If I really like the roleand the script, then I just try and figureout who the person [I’m playing]is. And to do that, I will sometimesmeet and research people who seemto me to be somewhat similar to thecharacter. Sometimes I’ll look at photographsor paintings, and that will inspireme. [If the character belongs to]a certain period, then I’ll be trying tofigure out the clothes… It’s hard to say,because it’s not that cerebral a processfor me. It’s more, “Um, is this gonnabe challenging for me? Is it gonna beexciting? Is there something I want tounderstand about this person that Idon’t quite get right off the bat?”I think more of trying to be true tothe character than of doing a performance.What I hope to do is just makea character real. Then you get somekind of intimacy with [the audience]that you wouldn’t otherwise. It getspeople to have the feeling that they’vetruly come to know someone.You’ve portrayed some pretty deranged/damagedwomen over theyears… What kind of feedback haveyou received from moviegoers forthose performances?It really depends on what the characteris. Like, my role in Single WhiteFemale—people are sometimesfreaked out by that—but in a funnyway, not seriously.If you’re playing a particularly troubledperson for a long stretch oftime, how do you expel that negativitywhen the shoot wraps?You’re never really that person. Al-“I can’t really map out my career.I don’t have that much control over it.”though sometimes it lingers a little bit,but after, like, two weeks, you’re kindaback to yourself.You’ve worked with influential directorslike Altman, Cronenbergand the Coen brothers. What didyou learn from each of them?You get different things from differentpeople, obviously. Altman just reallyloved actors so much and he was soopen to what they have to bring. Hewas also very mischievous and he reallycould see things in people—like,certain things I didn’t even know I wascapable of, he could see in me. He hadthis tremendous belief in people andencouraged a lot of risk-taking. Andhe was also a lot of fun!You worked with female directorsAgnieszka Holland on WashingtonSquare and Jane Campion on Inthe Cut. What was it like to workwith them—as opposed to malefilmmakers?Every director is different, but I don’tthink it’s so much a sex thing.You made your Broadway debut asSally Bowles in a Cabaret revival afew years ago. Did you experiencestage fright?It’s scary the first couple of performances,but then that kind of goesaway. I get [more] nervous doing talkshows, because then it’s about beingyourself and that’s more nerve-wrackingthan being on stage.You seem to be adamant aboutkeeping your professional and privatelives separate. Do you takethe publicity factor—how muchexposure promoting a movie willcommand—into account when youchoose a role?I don’t think about that! I’ve beendoing it so long: You do press for themovie and sometimes I feel that’s reallywhy you’re getting paid. [Laughs]The acting part of it is really fun andthe press is a little harder, if you’re aprivate person or if you’re shy or selfconscious.But obviously, the morepress you do, the better it is for themovie and it’s also good for you andall that stuff, so you just sort of bite thebullet and do it. But it’s definitely notthe most fun part of the career.In 2001 you co-wrote, co-directedand co-starred in The AnniversaryParty with Alan Cumming. Sincethen, the film has become an indiecult classic. Why is that? Is itbecause it’s so keenly perceptiveabout the business of acting?!It’s a comedy and we are making funof it all. But there are definitely somereal things in it—or it wouldn’t befunny, I guess. If it didn’t have somekind of truth to it, it wouldn’t bevery funny.Do you think you’ll ever writeagain?I do!What do you enjoy about writingscreenplays?I enjoy creating stories and charactersand things like that. I don’t actually enjoythe writing part. I like it before andI like it after. The actual doing is reallyhard for me. I’m very self-critical, so Ican do absolutely nothing for days andweeks and months. I procrastinate somuch because I’m afraid that what I’llwrite won’t be good.Your mom, Barbara Turner, writestoo, right?Yeah. She’s a really, really wonderfulscreenwriter. I show her everything Iwrite and she’s really helpful.Moving on to your latest movie,Margot at the Wedding. I’ve got twosisters, and watching it brought tomind a few memories about growingup with them…Oh, perfect!Your character in this film, Pauline,is a lot more normal compared todarker, more obsessive kinds of rolesyou’re best-known for. Did playingher pose more of a challenge?No! She thinks she’s more groundedthan she is, which can be true of mostof us. But I thought she was reallysympathetic. She’s very warm. Andshe really wants everything to workout, because it isn’t, like, right fromthe get-go.Your husband, writer/directorNoah Braumbach, directed you inMargot. Was there an initial periodof adjustment involved in workingtogether professionally?No, it was amazing. I loved it! He’sjust brilliant and I really trust him,obviously. He knows what I’m capableof, and he knows when I’m not doingwhat I’m capable of, and he pushes meuntil I can give it. It’s such a luxury foran actor to have that.What kind of movies do you like towatch these days?I just want to see something that ringstrue and feels unconventional andexciting to see. Something where I’mnot ahead of the story.How do you look for roles?Usually, my agent sends me stuff.Do you find that your taste haschanged, in terms of scripts thatinterest you now, as opposed toyears ago?I don’t know… Probably. I find I likeless and less, so I don’t know if mytaste is changing or if the writing’sgetting worse.Is that because there’s a dearth ofpithy and interesting roles for an actressat a certain stage in her career?I think it’s hard to find good roles formen, too. I just don’t think there’s thatmuch good stuff happening. I likethe really young filmmakers who aremaking movies today, like Andy Bujalskiand, you know, that movie, HannahTakes the Stairs, is really good.There are these young people makingmovies with their video cameras…That’s exciting.Can you visualize how a project willturn out while you’re making it?No. While you’re working on it, sometimesyou get a feeling like, “Oh, thisis not good!” or, alternately, you knowthat it has a chance. Sometimes youcan have a really good experience [onthe set] and then you see the movieand the movie’s not very good. Andsometimes the opposite is true.Are there any specific films thatyou really believed in while youwere making them but that turnedout badly?I wouldn’t want to talk about that.[Laughs]Years ago, you starred in a Faith NoMore video, “Last Cup of Sorrow.”How did that come about?Oh, they just asked me and I thoughtit might be fun. It was really just assimple as that.What’s your taste in music like?Pretty eclectic. I like the White Stripes,I like [jazz singer] Ruth Edding. I like abunch of stuff. I feel so nerdy answeringthis question because there are somany musicians I love.What is it about acting that keepsyou coming back to it over andover again?I just like how you can lose yourself init. And you can get to do somethingthat is very naked [and exposed], butit’s very private at the same time.Do think growing up in Hollywoodhas molded the way you think aboutmovies and the business?Well, I think it made it seem possibleto become an actor. It didn’t seemlike a far-off dream and it made thewhole thing a little less romantic forme. I always like coming back to L.A.I’m very comfortable here—which isgood, because most people who haveto live here aren’t comfortable andthey don’t like it. It’s hard if you’re usedto a big city—because L.A. isn’t that,you know? It’s very suburban in a way.I just think of it as a bunch of minimallsspread out, with freeways inbetween. But I love it that you can hikehere and that there’s so much natureand so much privacy and quiet. Youdon’t hear horns blaring constantlyand things like that.Do you have any sense at all of whatyou’d like to be doing a few yearsfrom now?I’m not good at that. I can’t really mapout my career. I don’t have that muchcontrol over it. I think it probably doeswork for some people, but… I’m morein the present, sort of… or in the past.[Laughs] I can’t really think too muchabout the future, except like, “Oh, youknow, there is some piece of art I’dlove to go see,” or something like that.Any genres you’d like to explorefurther in the future?I’d like to do more comedy, I think.80 november-december ms.mean

elle on the ballMarion Cotillard’s Rose-Tinted FutureBY miles marshall lewis + PHOTOGRAPH BY bruno dayanIf Marion Cotillard has any jitters over a potentialOscar nod for her outstanding turn in the EdithPiaf biopic La Vie en Rose—a New York Times criticpraised her tour-de-force embodiment of France’siconic singer as “the most astonishing immersionof one performer into the body and soul of anotherI’ve ever encountered in a film”—she’s maintainingher outward cool. A concierge at the fashionableHôtel Costes in Paris’s first arrondissement directsme to an ornate purple-and-gold private roomdesigned in Napoléon III–period style, where alithe, unassuming Cotillard sits quietly sipping juicethrough a straw.Hardly Piaf reincarnated, in person the 32-yearoldactress brings to mind her more quotidian rolesas the pregnant Joséphine Bloom in director TimBurton’s fantasy drama Big Fish, or café ownerFanny Chenal in the Ridley Scott romantic comedyA Good Year. A César winner in France for A VeryLong Engagement, Cotillard may soon add to hertrilogy of English-language films (which includesAbel Ferrara’s Mary) by taking part in an upcomingadaptation of the Fellini-inspired musical Nine.Discussing international ambitions, Marion Cotillardallures even in straightforward conversation withher characteristically-coquettish French charm.Before starring in La Vie en Rose, had you seenany of the other films made about Edith Piaf—for example, 1983’s Edith and Marcel?No, but I saw all the movies she did as an actress.Do you have a favorite among them?Not especially. I have scenes that I really love. Especiallywhen she’s drunk, actually; she plays it sowell. [Laughs] The last movie she did [Les Amants deDemain], she was 44, so it was very close to the end.It was in ’59, and it’s very interesting, because she’sbeautiful. She plays a woman desperately in lovewith her boyfriend, who doesn’t love her anymore.The boyfriend goes with other girls. She becomescrazy and tries to kill him. And the guy realizes thatsomeone that is willing to kill you for love is the oneyou have to be with, but at the time, she is so fed upthat she met another guy, and it’s quite interesting.She’s very good! I think she was a good actress.Why did you decide to do American films?Oh, I didn’t. It was not a conscious desire. But Ithink that in a way I wanted to have some Americanexperiences. When I started watching movies, myfavorite movies were all American—Singin’ in theRain, Annie. I love Charlie Chaplin! Even when Iwas very young, I never saw a dubbed movie. Myparents taught me to [read] subtitles, so it was nota problem to see an American movie. Except forSingin’ in the Rain and Joe’s.Joe’s?!Not Joe’s… Sharks? What is the Spielberg movie?Oh, Jaws!Jaws! I would watch that movie in French. But thedirectors who were a part of the creation of mydream to be an actress—to do all this—must havebeen American.How did the opportunity to do Tim Burton’s BigFish come about?Well, he was looking for a French girl, and I had thechance at that time to be in a very successful moviehere [Jeux d’Enfants], which is called in English LoveMe If You Dare. So I had the chance to be amongstthe girls he would meet. And he was my idol, sotalking about doing a movie with him was… Thefact that I would meet him was huge for me.What is your favorite Burton film?I love Beetlejuice. There’s some movies [of his] Idon’t like, but when I love someone and he doessomething I love less, it’s just a human thing, so Ilove him more.You’re in talks to star in Nine with Sophia Loren,Penélope Cruz and Catherine Zeta-Jones, underOscar-winning Chicago director Rob Marshall.What can you say about the possible project?Nine is a very famous musical in the U.S., about adirector who is surrounded by all these women.We’re in talks, so that’s the only thing I can say. Butmy dream is to do a musical. As I told you before, myfavorite movies when I was young were Singin’ in theRain and Annie. And my dream is to do an Americanmusical, because we don’t have musicals here, it’s notour culture—except for Jacques Demy, but [he made]a very specific kind of musical. I love Broadway.Is the voyeuristic celebrity culture of Americastrange to you? What do you think of thewall-to-wall coverage of Lindsay Lohan’s andBritney Spears’ private lives?It’s sometimes funny. But when I see those girls inthose papers, they don’t seem to be very upset aboutall this. [Laughs] But no, I don’t care. I care aboutmoving my ass on “Slave 4 U.” I really don’t careabout Paris Hilton, if that’s your next question. Onething that shocked me was to learn that all these verywell-known people don’t have any rights in Americaor England. If some photographers take pictures ofyou with your boyfriend, you can’t sue them. Here,we can do that. Each time I’m in those kinds of magazines,and I really do not want to be, we have lawshere that you can go to the trial and you will alwayswin. If Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp would live inEngland, they would go out of their house and haveall of these bees with cameras everywhere. Fleas! Forme, that’s a little bit shocking.Would you like to balance your career betweenFrench and American films?The plan is: Tell good stories. That’s it. I have an amazinglybeautiful project in France at the end of 2008.It’s a true story, it takes place in the desert and it’s inthe early ’30s. She’s a woman, she flies planes and shegoes to Africa by herself because the love of her lifehas crashed in the desert. There is a French directorfrom Tunisia [attached to the project], Karim Dridi.You became a spokesperson for Greenpeace.Why?Because I think that my brain is functioning quitewell. [Laughs] Really. Respecting people and thingsis something normal for me, that’s normality.Spending money to earn money, spoiling the planet,is something I can’t understand.What did you think of Al Gore’s film An InconvenientTruth?It’s very easy to watch, because it’s clear. Everyone canunderstand what’s going on by watching the movie.But what I don’t understand is, they did a book ofthat movie [and] it’s not made with recycled paper!That I really don’t understand! I had that book andwatched everywhere, so maybe I’m wrong, but thatpaper doesn’t look recycled at all. [Laughs] Man! Doall the things. It’s a detail I would see because I’m sointo it forever. But I really appreciated Al Gore fromthe beginning, and I think he has something in hishands which is very important. I think he’s a verytrustable guy. So I will support him, even if his bookis not made with recycled paper.

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With There Will Be Blood, his fourth film and the first one he’s directed in five years, PaulThomas Anderson is taking a creative leap. Abandoning the scarred suburban sprawl of his nativeSan Fernando Valley—the canvas against which he established auteur credentials with Boogie Nights,Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love, he reaches into the historical past and mines the terrain of turnof-20th-centuryCalifornia for parables of cutting contemporary relevance. This is also the first timeAnderson, nominated twice for Best Original Screenplay Oscars, adapted his script from a book. Hissource material is Oil!—a 1927 novel by prolific agit-lit author Upton Sinclair—which documents,with muckraker gusto, the rise of a ruthless oil magnate during California’s black gold rush.The usually press-shy Anderson invited Mean into his home for an exclusive interview in which hediscussed his process of adaptation and his collaborative method with Blood lead Daniel Day-Lewis—and illuminated a few mysteries of a more lighthearted nature, such as the footwear favored by hislate mentor Robert Altman and his entrée of choice at the legendary Art’s Delicatessen in Studio City.loodromOilPaul Thomas Anderson’s Science of AlchemyPHOTOGRAPHS + TEXT BY PATRICK HOELCKWhat chain of events led you to Oil!, UptonSinclair’s book that you chose to adapt for thescreen as There Will Be Blood?I found the book in London, and had it for a whilebut didn’t read it. Wait, that’s not true: I read thefirst few chapters and thought they were fantastic,but for whatever reason I didn’t keep reading.I didn’t set out to adapt the book. At the time Iwas struggling to find something to write. I didn’tlike the things I was writing that were original. Andpurely as an exercise, I just started adapting pagesfrom the book, and it looked really good. It lookedlike I didn’t write it, which was what I was tryingto do. I had been writing things that were vaguelysimilar in their locales—exterior stories, desert stories—butthey weren’t very good. Yet there wereso many great things in the first 100 pages of Oil!and so many good introductions to characters andthings that weren’t followed through in the restof the 500 pages of the book, that at a certainpoint I said, “It would be impossible to adapt thisbecause I couldn’t get that much money to makethe movie.” I thought, “Maybe if you did it as aminiseries, you could do it.” I felt comfortableenough keeping some of those characters goingand answering some of the questions the authorput out there.Honestly, I didn’t know that much about UptonSinclair, and it probably helps that he’s not alive insome ways. I didn’t feel this feverish dedicationto his words. I was playing pretty fast and loosewith the story, because I was experimenting. Andyet it was nice to have a ready-made scene thatwas already so well written that I didn’t have todo anything to it.You have firmly established your own uniquestyle as an auteur. What was it like to adaptsomeone else’s vision—especially the vision ofa mythic author like Sinclair?Again, I didn’t feel too much pressure. I had heardan interesting story about how he had started towrite the book, and that kind of informed howI went about it. His wife owned a plot of landdown near Long Beach, and there was an oilstrike down there. He went down to a homeowners’meeting there and witnessed them arguing,“What are we going to do? There’s oil here. Whysit around with vacation homes, when we couldget together and sell off our land?” He describedwhat he saw as human greed laid out in front ofhim—the ugliest of the ugly!That was enough for him to get started on acertain path and write the book. I think he had areally good journalistic approach to everything: Hewould really investigate things, and so by the endof it, he really knew how these oil barons worked.It’s his remarkable descriptions in the book that

made me think it would be excitingto try to film it. There’s the Eli Sundaycharacter [played by Paul Dano] that hebased on Aimee Semple McPherson,this famous Pentecostal female preacherwho was involved in one scandalafter another. I’m not sure, but it seemslike he based the main character, the oilbaron, on Edward L. Doheny and HarryF. Sinclair, who were these bigger-thanlifeoil figures that got involved in a lotof scandals in the ’20s. Reading aboutthem independently of the book, Istarted to maybe understand, moreand more, what attracted Sinclair himselfto the story. Investigating what heinvestigated was really fun to do.How strictly did you adhere to thetext, then—since it seems like yourgoal was not to adapt the bookline for line? Did you just take theoriginal material, internalize it, setit aside and then build your scriptfrom there?There were some times when I wrotedown my memory of what a scene was.I would write what I remembered aboutit. I would look at it, and it would bepretty close, but I would invent a fewthings, and I would sort of have to askmyself if it was better or different. Itwas kind of like researching the thing:You could get so stuck in research thatyou can get nothing done. There’s acertain point at which you take it all in,adjust it the best you can, go forwardwith as much respect for it as you can,but ultimately say, “This has to be amovie and it has to be filmable. It hasto be a different thing in some places.”There’s an opening speech that [protagonistDaniel Plainview] gives that ispretty much word for word how Sinclairwrote it: “Ladies and gentlemen,I’ve traveled over half of our states…”There was nothing to add to it to makeit better. That was probably the biggesthook for me, when I read that. It wasjust, “Wow! That’s pretty good.”Is There Will Be Blood an allegoricalfilm or a topical film? What is it trulyabout—for you, anyway?It’s topical, because there is so muchtalk about oil nowadays. It’s historicalas well. I don’t really know.Did you enjoy working on a projectthat sort of lent itself to a largerscope, at least geographicallyspeaking, than some of the otherwork you’ve done?Yeah. It’s great to work outside—like,80 percent of [this film takes place]in the outdoors. I think I consciouslywanted to make a movie that we couldfilm outside; to try to stay as muchaway from shooting indoors. Whenyou work with the same people overand over again, you go, “I cannot gointo another cramped room next to[cinematographer] Robert Elswit.” Youneed space! You need air.There Will Be Blood is remarkableamong your films so far for its outrightabsence of comedy. Is thatreflective of the times we live in? Isthis no time to escape?I think it is funny. There’s a lot of humorin the story; I hope there is, anyway. Itmakes me laugh.Why did you decide to cast DanielDay-Lewis as your lead in Blood?And, since he works quite seldomthese days, why do you think heagreed to make the film with you?I wanted to work with him since I firstsaw him [on-screen]. He’s a director’sdream. I had written about half of thescript and sent it to him to see if he wasinterested. I did it for two reasons: If hewas, it would help me finish it, and ifhe wasn’t, I probably wasn’t going tofinish it. He was the only actor I wantedthat I thought could do it.You’ve always been like that when itcomes to casting your films, right?Pretty much. But the funny thing is,there are so many supporting partswhere I’ve asked somebody to do it,and they’ve either politely—or angrily—saidno, because they thoughtit was too small a part or whatever.Yet, inevitably, you always end up withthe right people for the movie; it’skind of bizarre how that works. Andthere is always this moment early onwhen the studio is sort of wonderingwhat big stars can be in it, and youinstinctively try to fight against thembecause you’re just trying to find theright person. Sometimes the Kool-Aidslips in a little bit, and you get ideas thata person is good and you realize theyaren’t good at all.Day-Lewis is also famous for fullyimmersing himself into his rolesand sometimes spending the entireduration of a shoot in character.How did his own process mesh withyour direction and how did you twocollaborate to create his character,Daniel Plainview?We talked a lot. It took two years toget this project up and running. It wasnot laziness on our part, but there wasa baby that came out, Daniel hurt hisback, and nobody really wanted to giveus the money. So those things added anextra year to the whole thing that reallygave us all this time to keep talkingabout it. At the same time, I never feltlike we over-talked about it, so therewas something to look forward to duringthe making of the film. There wasstill mystery.It was such a privilege to work withhim. It’s hard to talk about things youreally like or that you don’t want tojinx, I guess.So, did he stay in character throughoutthis shoot?He did. I think it’s so misinterpretedas something bizarre or unnecessary,when really, when you end up seeinghim [at work] you can’t believe thatnobody else would do it that way. Youwonder why others don’t have the disciplineor the focus. If you had the opportunityto be somebody else for threemonths and it helped maintain the focusand the dedication that was neededto do it really well, why wouldn’t you?It’s just concentration—an amazingamount of concentration.I don’t really like working with peoplewho kind of brag about being ableto joke with the crew and when [I] call“Action!” they are right there with it. Idon’t really buy that, or believe it. Thatkind of acting is usually not very good.Music obviously always plays a significantrole in your films. Whatwas your approach to the Bloodsoundtrack, given the story’s timeperiod and tone? You mentionedKrzysztof Penderecki as a composeryou listened to while you were writingthe film. Did any of that stuffmake it in the final cut?It didn’t. But we did great by having[Jonny] Greenwood do the score, whobesides being in Radiohead, is alsothe BBC’s composer-in-residence. He’samazing. There were two orchestralpieces that I had heard that I really feltwould be terrific for the film, which weended up using on the soundtrack. Iwas able to sort of put those things inand show the film to him and ask himif he wanted to write any more stuff.He was nervous at first about how bigthe task was, but came back with allthis wonderful music and these wonderfulideas.How much better does your writingbecome when it’s handed over togreat actors? Is that something youtake into account as you’re writing?Name some instances whenyou were amazed and surprised bywhat actors were able to do withyour writing.If you have a great actor and you’vewritten something really well, you’revery lucky. But when you have a reallygood actor, and you have somethingthat you’ve written really poorly, chancesare it’s your fault. If someone who isreally capable of doing verbal curlicuesstumbles, it usually means that I haven’twritten it well. It’s embarrassing.…If the writing isn’t there, not evenDaniel Day-Lewis can pull it off!It’s completely true. I remember whenwe were doing a minor scene betweenCiarán [Hinds] and Daniel, and Danielsays, “How big is this room?” It’s simpledialogue back and forth. Originally, itwas written as a page and a half, andwe were trying every ridiculous idea inthe book to stage it: “What if you’restanding over here? What if you’restanding on your head? What if thereis a barrel of oil on fire behind you?”We were trying to make it work andwe couldn’t. Then Daniel said, “Usually,in situations like this, I’ve foundit’s not the staging that’s the problem;it’s the writing.” And it really was theproblem. We just stopped and lookedat the scene, and it was very easy to go,“Cut, cut, cut, cut.” Instead of 20 lines,it’s suddenly five lines.None of us had the solution, and itwas just that bolt of lightning that madeit all work: “Maybe it’s the writing.”What are some specific sources ofinspiration, other than film, thatnurture your own work these days?That’s a good question, but I don’t havean answer to it.While working in Hollywood, howdo you minimize deleterious interferencefrom studio heads andprotect your own vision? Did anybodydare give you notes on ThereWill Be Blood? Could working withimposed limitations sometimes be apositive thing for a filmmaker?I’m working with people that I’veworked with before, so we know eachother—which has its own set of dysfunctionaldynamics. We fight, but ina good way—or we don’t fight whenwe should.How does it feel to be the youngeston set and in charge of a production?Does this affect your approachat all?I used to be the youngest on my sets;not any more. I’m a 37-year-old man.Magnolia, Boogie Nights and Sydneyhad you working with prettymuch the same ensemble casts. Willyou resurrect this tradition? Whyhave you steered away from it onThere Will Be Blood?I just couldn’t see Luis Guzman runningaround the desert in 1911 California…It just didn’t seem to work out. I thinkthere was a part of me that was nervousthat I wouldn’t be working withPhil [Seymour Hoffman]. I remembercalling him a few different times whenwe started filming [Blood], and it felta little bit like a kid calling home fromcollege—because it was the first film Ihad made without him. But it’s equallyterrific to work with new people.How have you dealt with the pressureof being called “the new OrsonWelles”? Did the scrutiny and addedexpectations that came with yourearly success impact your creativity?I was just starting to feel good aboutthis interview... Let’s move on to thenext question.What did you think of the Tarantino-RodriguezGrindhouse experiment?Does genre filmmaking holdany appeal to you?Grindhouse is great, particularly Quentin’shalf of it. I just loved it. I’ve been toQuentin’s house a few times, and [thefilm] felt exactly what it’s like to go tohis house, where he shows you moviesand trailers.Robert Altman is undoubtedly oneof your biggest influences. Whatwas it like working with him onA Prairie Home Companion? And90 november-december cinemean

what are the most important lessonsyou learned from the man himselfand from studying his work?It was great, obviously. It was a privilege.Bob never stopped making moviesand never stopped trying to leapfrogfrom one thing to the next. I remembertelling him that I felt burned out or thatI felt tired, and he would not say anythingin response. He would just lookat me in this way that implied, “Whatare you fucking talking about? It’s aprivilege to get to do this. You have todo it. Don’t get tired.”He seemed so thrilled that he got anotherfilm off the ground. I wasn’t thereback in the old days, but he really had away of letting everything brush off him.Nothing got to him. He just kept hisvision; he moved straight ahead. Evenon his last film, there were producerstalking behind the scenes, secondguessing,thinking, plotting delicately.He knew it was happening, but he justcompletely ignored it. He had done thisenough to know that he was going toget everything he wanted. There wasabsolutely no reason for him to hollerand scream about it.You once said—“Magnolia is, forbetter or worse, the best movie I’llever make.” Do you still feel thesame way today?[Silence]How do you feel about the possibilitiesof shooting digital versusshooting on celluloid?It depends on what you’re doing. Idon’t think we could have done whatwe did on [Blood], a movie with bigdaytime exteriors, if we were shootingon film. I like going digital for somethings, but I don’t really like it verymuch. I like film.Name three extraordinary filmsthat you love, but 99 percent of themoviegoing public has most likelynever heard of.I like films that people have heard of:The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Giant,The Big Lebowski.I remember that when you told meyou liked Bad Santa, I thought youwere teasing me.…It’s gotten to the point now, where,if Bad Santa is on, I have to go into theother room to watch it, because Maya[Rudolph] is so sick of it. She loved it thefirst five times, but now she just can’tdo it anymore.What was it like to write for SaturdayNight Live? Can you discuss yourinvolvement with the show? Whatsketch were you most proud of?There was only one sketch that I did,which finally became a short with BenAffleck. I was just holding on for dearlife, because everybody was beingfunny and I was completely out of myelement and I just had this video camera.It was great! It’s like, you shoot itin two hours, you edit it that night andit’s on the air in hours. Within 24 hoursyou’ve done a short!When you flew out to Hertfordshireto meet Tom Cruise in preparationfor Magnolia, he was shootingEyes Wide Shut. Did you noticewhat kind of shoes Stanley Kubrickhad on?I think he had sneakers on. He also hada big parka on. It was cold. I can’t besure, but I think it was sneakers.What’s your shoe of choice?Practical shoes! Whatever works forvery long stretches of time. We allwore boots when we were out in thedesert [Ed. Note: Anderson shot Bloodon location in Marfa, Texas], and that’swhat everybody pretty much wears outthere. You couldn’t wear sneakers, becauseit was too rocky and you wouldtwist your ankle. I wasn’t a big bootwearer before, but I got into it becauseyou had to.What did Altman wear?He wore Campers. Is that what they’recalled?You’ve been known to befriend andwork with people much older thanyou, i.e. Philip Baker Hall, Robert Altman,Jason Robards. Why is that?A lot of those guys were the sameage my father was. I’ve always lovedthat group—Bob Ridgely, too. Philipwas younger than Bob and Jason. ButBob, Jason and my dad were all prettymuch the same age. That’s what it is,really; an affection for that kind of man.There’s a sense of humor about thoseguys that… I was really sad when Bob[Altman] died, for a number of reasons,but above all because he was the lastperson like that I knew who went. Ifelt like, “That’s it. I don’t have any ofthem left. I don’t have anybody leftthat was in World War II or had thatkind of sense.”What’s your favorite sandwich atArt’s Deli?The sandwiches are too big there. Iget eggs and bacon.What is the most American thingyou’ve ever done?I said “arigato” to a Korean man.Jake Gaskill contributed to this feature.unexpected gifts that do goodHow to give a gift that helps fight poverty around the world:1 Choose a gift.2 Personalize a gift card.3 Oxfam sends a gift card to your friend or loved one.4 Your donation goes to those who need it most.The purchase of each gift item is a contribution toward Oxfam America’s many programs, not a donation toa specific project or goal. Your donation will be used where it is needed the most – to help people in poverty throughout the world.92 november-december cinemean

Still Knockin’ OnHeaven’s DoorFrancis Ford CoppolaStorms the Last Citadel BY PAUL CULLUMFrom a contemporary vantage point, it’s almostimpossible to remember the influence Francis FordCoppola had on filmmaking in the ’70s, and howcompletely he embodied the times and pointed to afuture well beyond them. He was the first to bringa film-school curriculum to the working toolboxof studio production; the first to parlay his time atthe Roger Corman finishing school into Hollywoodsuccess; the very public face of the scruffy hordesof movie brats mobilizing to throw open the studiogates and upend the half-century-old culture ofmarket-driven, mass-produced films. Coppola wasin fact a well-read theater director and film aesthetewith the symbiotic personalities of showman and visionary.The Godfather set the tone for the decade.The Godfather: Part II doubled down and gloriouslypulled off the bet, even as The Conversation remadeAntonioni’s Blow-Up as an art-house thriller, perfectlyencapsulating Watergate-era paranoia in thebargain. He spent the next four years on ApocalypseNow, vilified by virtually everyone fit to venture anopinion. (The film’s co-screenwriter, John Milius,recounts that when 4-year-old Sofia Coppola wasasked by a teacher what her father did for a living,she reported, “He makes Apocalypse Now.”) Andyet again, the gamble paid off splendidly. At the firstcast-and-crew screening in San Francisco, filmmakeremeritus Billy Wilder, given the first word, rose todeclare the film a masterpiece. Coppola was also atthe forefront of many technological innovations thefilm industry eventually adopted, even as his ownoutput throughout the ’80s and ’90s never againquite matched the intoxicating achievements andimplicit danger of the four aforementioned films.Youth Without Youth, based on a 100-pagenovella written in 1976 by Romanian authorand world religion scholar Mircea Eliade, marksCoppola’s return to directing after a 10-yearhiatus. In the interim, the ’70s became codified asthe last Golden Age of American cinema and theGodfather trilogy entered the cultural pantheon(abetted no doubt by The Sopranos, in whoseuniverse, apparently, no other movies exist). Coppolagained the financial independence that hissudden and emphatic enthusiasms had repeatedlydenied him. Daughter Sofia received an Oscar forBest Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation.And in his 68th year and his 47th in the business,Coppola may have made his most audacious filmyet with Youth Without Youth. Told as a classicalOld World mystery, and shot without moving thecamera, in the style of Yasujiro Ozu, Youth representsCoppola’s assault not just on a new form ofpersonal filmmaking, accomplished with his ownmoney and without outside interference, but onthose ineffable subjects that film itself (or at leastAmerican film) has proven incapable of capturing:time, consciousness, ontology—the stuff of literatureor philosophy. As he himself notes, it may take20 years before history renders a verdict.And yet, Coppola himself appears to revel in thechallenge. Currently in Argentina shooting his nextfeature, Tetro, about an extended Italian family ofartists reminiscent of his own, Coppola found timeto answer 20 questions for Mean—and quoted apithy verse from the poet Robert Browning’s “Andreadel Sarto,” in which an aging Renaissancepainter and Salieri-like craftsman laments his failureto achieve greatness: “Ah, but a man’s reachshould exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”Why did you stop directing for a decade? Wasthe caliber of commercial films you were beingoffered—Jack, The Rainmaker—beneathyour talents or at odds with your interests?I don’t feel anything is “beneath” me and havealways been interested in versatility, trying manydifferent genres and styles throughout my career. Inthose 10 years I was focused more on trying to find away of being a filmmaker who writes original material,as well as building my various companies—so Imight have a source of support and finance.Did the media sensation surrounding ApocalypseNow Redux and other director’s cuts/reissuesof your films revitalize you, or at leastconvince you there was an audience out therefor your work?I think I always knew there was interest in my work,but I did want to find a way to work on more original,personal and innovative projects—projectsthat required a little more than just a few hours of“entertainment” (though entertainment is important,too), and could support deeper interests, suchas when we read great books.You often blame your respite from filmmakingon Megalopolis, a long-planned epic thatseems to have preoccupied you at least sinceOne From the Heart—the story of a Manhattanutopia that was reportedly derailed in yourmind when 9/11 happened. Is this connectedto your long-rumored adaptation of Goethe’sPHOTOGRAPH BY Nicolas Guerin/Corbis

Elective Affinities, and can you describeit briefly?No, Megalopolis has nothing to do withElective Affinities, but like that project,is an ambitious, personal film. …“Ah,but a man’s reach should exceed hisgrasp, or what’s a heaven for?”You reportedly re-cut Supernova in2000, after Walter Hill bowed out;you re-cut a Thai epic, The Legendof Suriyothai; and you produced orexecutive-produced 26 films or TVseries, by my count, since your “retirement”in 1997. Is “retirement”then the wrong word?As a long-term board member of MGM,I saw the abandoned film Supernova andfelt it could still be released. So I did helpre-cut it so that it could be put into distribution.However, I am often erroneouslycredited with having more to do withthat film than just that. I am a friendlyguy and often have been talked intohelping out in any number of ways.Not only the most visibly prolificdirector of your generation of filmmakers,you were also its most visionary.Have most of the things youpredicted come to pass?It’s not particularly useful or popular tosee way out into the future; it’s betterto have those ideas closer to when theyare about to be accepted. The iPod, forexample, was something that alreadyexisted for years, but Apple greatly improvedit in function and design.George Lucas was your protégé:you produced his first two featurefilms, THX 1138 and AmericanGraffiti. He is now seen as a latter-dayThomas Edison, creditedwith ushering, in large part, digitalfilmmaking into Hollywood. He’sarguably a billionaire today as aconsequence—for pushing ideas heseemingly inherited from you. Didyou prosper as well, and is digitalfilmmaking a boon or a liability tomodern filmmaking?Well, believe it or not—dare I say it?—Iam extremely affluent too, althoughmainly from the aggregate of my otherbusinesses and real estate. I am proudof George and very fond of him, as ayounger brother. Digital filmmaking isas natural an evolution of cinema aswas color and sound. The two mostimportant aspects of the beauty andluster of photography are the lensesand the eye of the cinematographer.At the end of Hearts of Darkness,you envision a day when some littlegirl in Iowa can pick up a hand-heldcamera and be revealed “as thenext Mozart.” With the rise of You-Tube and related technologies, arethose days finally upon us?YouTube is absolutely fascinating. I amwaiting for the “next shoe to drop,”which is the natural and easy access toaudiences: distribution.Is your success in the wine and resortindustries a natural by-productof your reputation as a filmmaker—thatis, an outgrowth of yourlegacy, persona and reputation forquality, if not a kind of nostalgiafor you and the sacrifices you haveendured for your body of work?I have a very good imagination, a lotof energy and a love for innovation,so I imagine my success in these otherbusinesses stems from the same sourceas my success as a filmmaker. No doubtmy fame as a filmmaker helped withthe other areas I went into.Could this be extended to the filmsof your children—specifically Sofia’sOscar win for Lost in Translation?My wife Eleanor and I did a good jobraising our kids, and provided a verygood education, in a certain sense:The message from a parent can bedevastating to a kid… “You’ll neveramount to anything!” is a self-fulfillingprophecy. We used to say to Sofia whenshe was 8, “You are Superwoman; youcan do anything.”The Godfather trilogy has becomea part of our cultural heritage, andnowhere is that evidenced moreprominently than in the seven-yearrun of The Sopranos. Did you followthe show or note the Godfatherreferences throughout?After making The Godfather, I wassick of gangsters. I really didn’t wantto make a second film. In truth, I havenever seen The Sopranos, though Iknow it’s very good.Sony executives are quoted in thepress kit for Youth Without Youthas saying that this film is like noother in memory. Was that yourintention? Are there films or filmmakersthat served as touchstoneswhile you were making it? It mademe think of Ozu’s work; Vertigo, ABeautiful Mind, The Bridge of SanLuis Rey, Altered States, The HolyMountain… I could go on, but howwould you describe the film?I truly followed the footsteps of MirceaEliade—and Ozu [was an inspiration]only because I never moved the camera.Yes, I agree that you could characterizeYouth Without Youth as similarto Vertigo—a film I was very impressedwith as a teenager—because it wraps alove story in a mystery.Adrienne Brodeur, editor of yourAll-Story short-story magazine, hasbeen quoted as saying about you,“Neither of us is drawn to very experimentalworks.” That begs thequestion: Is Youth Without Youth anexperimental work?I feel Youth Without Youth is told in avery classic way. I tried to make clear,always, when things were happening,to always move forward—except forsome memories of when [protagonist]Dominic was a young man and inlove in 1894. But I’ve always felt thatmovies, too, could be deep and bearre-viewing, just as good books bearre-reading. But they also must be engaging,entertaining and beautiful onthe first viewing.How do you think this may be receivedby an audience, and whataudience do you intend it for?I would guess that most would sayit is “interesting.” Beyond that, thereactions will be all over the map,until about 10 or 20 years from now,at which time there will be a consolidatedopinion.Filmmakers successful in Hollywood,like Steven Soderbergh, have madeunorthodox pictures like Schizopolisto recharge their batteries andreacquaint themselves with the joyof filmmaking. Did Youth WithoutYouth have a similarly liberating effecton you, and was it designed to?Well, Steven is a young man—I’mmuch older—but certainly I did lovethe chance to work in a personal way.In Tetro, now, I can even have the opportunityto write an original screenplay—myown story—and make aneven more personal film.Taking these two latest films together,how are they representativeof the current phase of yourcareer? What about them will becarried forward in your subsequentfilmmaking?Freedom of expression.Are narrative and allegory complementaryor mutually exclusive?Well, you can certainly today make anykind of film, as long as it’s got a conventionalnarrative and, moreover, a storythat everyone already knows. It’s liketelling kids The Three Bears, which theylove because they already know it. Butcinema is really more like poetry thannarrative prose, and is most beautifulwhen it uses metaphor. So yes, narrativeand allegory go well together.In paying for this yourself, presumablyone of the things you buy isthe lack of ulterior meddling—thestudio notes, test screenings, focusgroups, etc. Did the distributor orothers have any input?I put up all the money and thereforegot to make all the final decisions. Thatdoesn’t mean there weren’t notes orconsultation, but [they were betweenmyself and] my colleagues. WalterMurch had a profound impact on thefilm; and so did the photographer[Mihai Malaimare Jr.], my old associateFred Roos and Anahid Nazarian. Youknow, I can best explain it like this:When I make a film, I go to two peopleon the set and say to them that theyare always free to render an opinionabout the shooting and the shots.They are the camera operator and thescript supervisor. Why only those two?Because the operator sees the performancesright through the lens andtherefore has the best opportunity toget the “sensation.” The script supervisor—becausethat is the job they do.So it’s not that you don’t want notes oropinions, you just don’t want too manybecause the more you get, the morethey start to contradict each other.What is missing from modern filmmaking?If you asked any contemporary,working filmmakers worththeir salt this question, they wouldlikely respond that they miss thefreedom and excitement that youonce personified. What would yousay is missing?The encouragement to experiment, totry to go farther and uncover more. Alack of variety. I understand that onecannot even get support to do a dramatoday, that that is relegated to cableTV. The understanding that not all filmswill be an immediate financial hit, thatsome take longer to accomplish that ormay never do that, even though theyare very valuable and stimulating. The“M” for movies is really now only an“M” for money. Rarely do I go to themovies without thinking or saying,“I’ve seen that before.” That’s why Iloved Punch-Drunk Love; I had neverseen anything like that before.I remember seeing The Conversationin its first commercial releaseand thinking, “I can tell this is brilliant,but it almost eludes me”—it’sso diaphanous, told in wisps andfragments, that I can just barelycomprehend all of it as one piece.Today, it’s a template of what themodern thriller should be. Doesthis latest film you made point to anew way—a paradigm shift, if youwill—and will it be seen as such 20years from now?Probably. You know, recently I wasasked how it felt to have made Godfather,Conversation, Godfather II andApocalypse Now straight through infour years… “Were you feeling ontop of the world?” In truth I was veryfrustrated at the time, felt very unappreciatedand depressed, which is whythe streak didn’t continue. No one saidto me at the time that this was a raredemonstration of excellence; it wasthe reverse. I remember when the criticFrank Rich called Apocalypse the biggestdisaster in Hollywood history. I felt,“Gee, is it really the biggest disaster? Isthere nothing worse?”Orson Welles once lamented thatcomposers were allowed to go onworking into their ’90s, but filmmakerswere put out to pasture inwhat might be their most productiveyears. Do you feel the same? Toask the question in another way…Early in Youth Without Youth, BrunoGanz’s character describes TimRoth’s Dominic as follows: “Thepatient is clinically youthful.” Doesthat describe you?I never felt “put out to pasture”; Hollywoodhas always been good to me,even affectionate. And I feel the sameabout them, despite always being posedas very critical of them. I love the Hollywoodtradition and history and amproud to be part of it. Yes, I think I amvery youthful—just not all the time.96 november-december cinemean

Marc Forster Wrestles with The Kite RunnerBY PAUL CULLUMDirector Marc Forster is a hard man to pin down.Born in the small town of Ulm, Germany and raisedacross the border in Davos, Switzerland, he was 12years old before he saw a movie in a proper theater.The picture was Apocalypse Now, and it inspired himto pursue the life of a filmmaker. When his family’sfortunes took a turn for the worse, a family friend paidfor him to enroll in film school at New York University.He eventually made his way to Los Angeles in the mid-’90s, where he directed his $10,000 debut, Loungers,still rendered unavailable by prohibitive music clearances.A little-seen second feature, Everything PutTogether, starring Radha Mitchell, got him the job tohelm the Southern Gothic race reverie Monster’s Ball,which garnered a Best Actress Oscar for Halle Berry.His body of work built on Johnny Depp’s turn as PeterPan creator J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, andprogressed from the Nicolas Roeg–inflected dreamscapesof Stay to the underrated and heartwarmingStranger Than Fiction. Most recently, Forster broughtthe bestselling novel The Kite Runner to the screen,in partnership with Stay scripter David Benioff. He’scurrently in pre-production on the next installment ofthe retooled James Bond franchise, working from ascript by Paul Haggis.You work in a wide variety of genres and it’s difficultto find a through-line that connects all yourfilms, except that I always seem to detect a worldwithin a world—or at least, a secret world behindthe world of the film. Sometimes it’s a fairy talethe characters find themselves inhabiting—literally,in Finding Neverland or in Stranger ThanFiction, but also in something like Monster’sBall, which is ultimately a fable. In EverythingPut Together or Stay, it’s the paranoia or alteredreality that overtakes the characters, which soonenough dictates its own logic. Even in Loungers,your largely unseen debut feature, there’s thisodd interior world of a kooky family that no oneelse seems to understand.I think what’s similar [in all of my films] is the sensethat, deep inside, they always deal with a main characterwho is emotionally detached. If you look at BillyBob’s character in Monster’s Ball or Johnny Depp’scharacter in Finding Neverland, it all comes back tothis emotionally damaged character who can’t connector truly open up. In Stranger Than Fiction, withWill Ferrell, again it’s the same thing. In The Kite Runnerit’s a different through-line, but Amir, the lead, isan emotionally repressed character who is hiding thissecret within him that enables him to act truthfully.I think that’s the connection. Every director, in oneway or another, is telling similar stories. I don’t wantto become too Freudian here, but it’s always aboutyour childhood.You were born in in 1969, in Ulm, Germany—thebirthplace of Albert Einstein. Is there somethingin the water that produces dreamers who eventuallyfind their way to America?stronger than fictionMaybe! But Ulm is a very provincial small town, so Idon’t know how much dreaming goes on there. Also,my birthday, January 27th, is the same as Mozart’s,although I’m reluctant to compare myself. Very earlyon, we moved to Davos, Switzerland, the home ofthe World Economic Forum. Growing up as a child inDavos, which was in the mountains, we didn’t haveTV and I always had to go to a friend’s house to seeit. But what came out of that was that I had to createmy own games and play by myself a lot. We lived upon a hillside, and for any other kids to come and playwould have been a bit of a commute. Most of thetime I was on my own. I would play in the woods andcreate these imaginary scenarios—I always had to becreative and figure out different ways to do that.I know that your brother was diagnosed asschizophrenic and committed suicide. I don’twant to be too facile about this because it’s thestuff of your life, but I presume that had a bigimpact on you.He was five years older than me, and he was diagnosedwith schizophrenia when he was 20 or 21. Soit was rather late. He was a mathematical and physicsgenius. If you’ve ever seen the documentary Crumb,he was like Crumb’s brother [Charles]. He just wasn’table to function in the world. I remember when I wasat NYU film school in New York, one day he showedup at my house and he was just sitting there. He basicallysaid that God sent him there, and I had to makea movie about this story that he wrote down andhanded to me. And then he went back to Europe. Wewere very close.What did your parents do?My father was a doctor, and my mother was a mother.My father only practiced when he was young. He rana research laboratory for a company that he took overfrom my grandfather and eventually sold to Pfizer. Hedidn’t like to work in the corporate structure. Thena stock crash happened, and everything changed.Before that, we had a very comfortable lifestyle andseveral houses. When that happened, we had nothing.But I still believe to this day that it was the bestthing that ever happened to us. Ultimately, the greatlesson about life is if you’re wealthy and you haveeverything, everybody caters to you, everybody lovesyou and all doors are open to you. Yet when you loseeverything, you truly understand what life is about. Itwas the first time the family really understood eachother, or looked to each other for support.Wealth becomes a scrim, a membrane that replaceshuman interaction.I don’t want to say that wealth is bad, but I think thatwealth can distract you from what life is really about.Kids often lose touch with their parents; nannies alwaysleave, so there’s automatically an abandonmentissue. Coming to Hollywood, it’s very similar: All doorsare open, and then suddenly people aren’t there anymore.I realized it’s illusionary. Life always changes;you can’t always be successful, and you can’t alwaysmake movies people love.Your childhood sounds not dissimilar to the circumstancesof the family in The Kite Runner.Absolutely. I could relate to so many things. Khaled[Hosseini, author of the novel] took stories fromhimself and his family and friends, but you find thosestories all over. If you dive into the Afghan community,you quickly figure out that a lot of people havestories that are similar, that they also left the countryduring that time or were captured by the Russiansand tortured. A lot of them were part of the fightingat the time; there’s one horror story after another. Soobviously, it’s a very different culture, but there werea lot of parallels with the immigrant experience, and Iwas an immigrant here. Losing your wealth, and alsohow the father dealt with the son, from an emotionalperspective. My father died of cancer. And then, Ialways felt like I had these little secrets in me—notwhere I would betray anyone, but more secrets aboutmy childhood that I haven’t been completely truthfulabout, and that I’m still trying to resolve in films likethat or in characters like that. This was the hardestfilm I’ve ever made.Did you film in Afghanistan, where much of theaction is set?No. Insurance-wise, I wouldn’t have been able to doit. It was in China, right across the border, across themountains there. It was 25 miles from the Pakistaniborder and 50 miles from the Afghani border, rightwhere they all collide. When I was in Kabul, I felt,“Maybe I should just film here.” But the problem is,most of the architecture has been destroyed throughall the wars. The town we filmed in, Tashgarkan, haspretty much the same architecture that was in Kabulin the ’70s, and it’s totally untouched.Was this the biggest thing that you’ve done,budget-wise?No. It was in the $20 million range, and Fiction andStay were both $40 million.The character of Assef, a bully and a rapist—inthe book he’s half-German, and also a Hitlersympathizer. Did your background lead you tochange the character?Afghanistan was always very close to the Germans,and during WWII they were German sympathizers.But in the film, I thought it was cliché to have thisblonde, blue-eyed German character—it just didn’tfeel right. I’m less German than I am culturally Swiss,because I was brought up there, although there’s definitelya side of me where if I’m two minutes late, forinstance, I’ll feel really bad about it. Whereas, Mexicandirectors like Alejandro Iñárritu will say, “Oh, I wantto show you a rough cut,” and they show up an hourlate. They have no sense of time. And I think to myself,I wish I could do that and just sort of let go. Time is anillusion—it doesn’t really mean anything.”PHOTOGRAPHS BY PHIL BRAY/DREAMWORKS PICTURES 200798 november-december cinemean

I’m Not There is the latest opus from Todd Haynes,the American auteur whose highly respected body ofwork includes Safe, Velvet Goldmine and Far FromHeaven. It explores the life of Bob Dylan with theblessing of the great Zimmy himself, who is notablyportrayed here by a number of different performers,ranging from 13-year-old African-Americannewcomer Marcus Carl Franklin, to stars like HeathLedger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and actress CateBlanchett. Haynes’ cool yet somewhat obfuscatingapproach to the material is sure to yield interestingresults and raise many an eyebrow. Mean asked thefilmmaker to explain his method in piecing togetherthis unconventional cinematic portrait.The first question everybody is going to askabout this film is why you cast a bunch of differentactors to play Bob Dylan at different times inhis life. Indeed, why?The idea basically came after a sort of surprise immersioninto Dylan’s music and work that occurred at theend of the millennium, in 1999, in New York, and tookme across the country to Portland, where I was comingto write my script for Far From Heaven. I had beena Dylan lover in high school, but I had lost track ofwhat he’d been doing in the ’80s and ’90s. The returnto his music came out of nowhere for me, and it wasvery charged and very obsessive. I think it was harken-hair and kind of slide-y hands and gestures and bodymovements that were never repeated again in hiscareer. He never looked, sounded, talked, moved,or behaved that way again. So it was an absolutely,singularly defined moment in his career. It happensto be one of the most famous periods for Dylan, sowe’ve seen these photographs [documenting it] overand over again. I really wanted to infuse it with a freshshock-value that I think people of that time wouldhave felt and which was lost over the years.Hence my choice in casting a female to portrayhim. There’s a strange androgyny about Dylan at thattime, but it’s a different kind of androgyny than theglamorous, fashion-infused idea of male androgyny.This was almost like how a woman is androgynous ina strange way—more of a Patti Smith than a DavidBowie model. I just thought that an actress could dosomething extraordinary with that particular Dylan,and Cate Blanchett certainly did.What about the other actors you selected to playDylan—what kinds of effects were you seekingwhen you cast them?All of them take various stages of his life one stepfurther into the imaginary realm—which hopefullyrenders the surrender Dylan made into an idea orinfluence that much more dramatic, or humorous,or whatever the case may be. …Like when he was aDylan]. Dylan’s work isn’t always defined by that kindof righteous certainty, but at two very critical pointsin his evolution, he was. Twice he showed similar instinctsto provide the answer through troubled times,and was very [militant] about it. So I am drawing aparallel between those two very different sides of him,largely to bring on some understanding of his Christianconversion, which still befuddles a lot of people.I can imagine Bale really going to town withthat... Let’s discuss Heath Ledger as Dylan.His name is “Robbie Clark,” and he’s an actor, acounter-culture actor of the Vietnam era. His story ismostly about the struggle of private life and romanticlife and marriage against successful public life, andhow hard that is for most artists to juggle. It was truefor Dylan as well. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays his loveinterest and later wife and mother of his kids. She sortof combines aspects of both Dylan’s early romanceand relationship with Suze Rotolo, who was the earlymuse, inspiration, and partner on the cover of TheFreewheelin’ Bob Dylan. This female figure is a hugeand positive influence on Dylan’s life, and she alsoincludes Sara Dylan—[also known as] Sara Lownds,who Dylan married in ’65 and was the mother ofhis four kids. He sort of struggled in that marriage,and expressed a lot of ambivalence on records likeBlood on the Tracks, as the marriage was failing.Seeing The Real Him, At LastTodd Haynes on His New Bob Dylan Non-BiopicBY MYA STARKTODD HAYNES PORTRAIT BY JONATHAN WENK/TWC 2007ing a change in my life I didn’t even see coming yet,that would ultimately take me back to the West Coastfor good. So, I was listening to bootleg Dylan materialI hadn’t heard before, and reading biographies I’dnever read before. All of the bios seemed to re-echothis recurrent view of Dylan, which was that he wasa mercurial figure of almost constitutional change,where he would immerse himself intensely into onephase, and one period, and one area, or one ideology,and produce intensely in that guise. And then,almost out of a sort of internal necessity, he wouldshed those skins and move in a different direction. It’shard to know how much that’s an aspect of him as aperson, or a result of the enormous scrutiny he livedunder. Maybe he was simply trying to find fresh air tocreate new work.A lot of people, I think, will be very intrigued thatyou cast an actress, Cate Blanchett, to play Dylan.Yeah, it was really specific to the time and place,where the “Jude” character [Ed. note: the differentdepictions of Dylan by each actor are given differentcharacter names to distinguish them] exists inthe Dylan mythos. In 1966, the story kicks off withour depiction of [the] Newport [Folk Festival], whereCate’s character plays plugged-in electric, and startsthis whole era of his life. The following year, Dylanwent to the UK, Europe and Australia for a notoriouslycontroversial tour with the Band as his backup group.They played extremely loud, extremely violent-soundingmusic for his audience, and for most pop musiclisteners at the time. It was a complete challenge tothe ethos of antique commercial music-making thatdefined the folk era. What was so bizarre and amazingabout Dylan at that time was how he looked, andhow he behaved. His mannerisms and his physicalstate—that incredibly skinny body and crazy nest ofyoung, Woody Guthrie–imitating wannabe, and impressingthe people he met in his journeys from Minnesotato New York in the very early ’60s with theseoutrageous tales of his past and his adventures and hiscarnival upbringing. His claims of playing with bluesmusicians, and all of these stories which are used verbatimin what my character “Woody” says in the film.People were dumbstruck by Dylan’s performance atthe time—it seemed completely, patently impossible.But he was so persuasive and so strangely committedto this persona that they went with it and just sort oftook it in. So I just made that “Woody” character doall those things he did, except that he literally callshimself “Woody Guthrie,” and he’s black, and he’s13 years old. But people are all just blatantly ignoringthat, just as they did the implausibility of what the realDylan was doing back then.Christian Bale’s character is closer to the knownbiography of Dylan and actual events in his life. He isvery much engaged in two moral crusades: The firstone is being the spokesperson for the folk revival ofthe early ’60s Greenwich Village, taking on that CivilRights–era mantle as spokesperson and visionary ofthat time. We learn about him through the guise of adocumentary that is looking back on whatever happenedto this notable folk figure who left his famebehind when it got too commercial for his own values.But then he is discovered in the’ 80s, when this imaginarydocumentary takes place, having construed himselfas [a born-again Christian] who became a pastorand settled into a Pentecostal assembly in California.That, of course, is also something that Dylan did. Hedidn’t literally become a minister, but he ministeredfrom the microphone and from his recordings—thegospel records he put out in the late ’70s-early ’80s.I’m just drawing a line, establishing a sort of moralcontinuum between these two very different faces [ofIt seems like your film is showing us the wayDylan used the cultural figures who precededhim to construct his identity, and making us thinkabout how we, who came after him, use what hedid to construct our own identities.Oh, absolutely. I think that’s intensely material wedraw from: popular culture and peer culture andsocial culture. I drew myself intensely from myown cues, and the media and entertainment worldaround [me]—those images, those fantasies—andDylan did the same thing. Maybe that’s truer forcreative people, I don’t know: that there needs tobe a kind of identification process with other figuresin the arts, or in the creative spheres, that guide youor pull you out of yourself, out of your origins. Thatdefinitely was true for Dylan with Woody Guthrieat the beginning, and maybe with those less identifiableas singular figures after that. In my film, Iincorporate one of the characters with that of ArthurRimbaud and his mystique, and Richard Gere’scharacter relates to Billy the Kid, so I continue thatprocess of melding the artist with his inspirations afew times throughout the stories.How did you structure all of this?The stories interweave, but they are pretty muchgrouped in chronological order, in that the youngeststories are interwoven with other youngerstories at the beginning of the film. And they moveforward toward the last story introduced, which is“Billy”—the Richard Gere story. So you’re alwaysinterweaving, but the stories are still being introducedto [the audience] in chronological order. Andthere’s a return to the first story from the last atthe end of the film that makes you feel like you’vecome full circle, and these cycles of change don’tever really conclude.

Marjane Satrapi, at Home in the WorldBY MAHSHID HARIRI FEIZTalking to Marjane Satrapi, authorof the graphic novellas Persepolisand Persepolis 2, is an intimidatingprospect.Besides her talents as artist andstoryteller, her erudition (Karl Marx wasbedtime reading during her childhoodin pre-revolutionary Iran), her pedigree(she descends from one of Iran’s lastemperors), and the breadth and depthof her life experiences, there’s herincorrigible outspokenness. This is,above all, a woman who doesn’t shyaway from telling you what she reallythinks. In fact, one can say it’s preciselybecause of her insistence on speakingher mind that she ended up in Paris, aninternationally-known artist and newlyminted filmmaker.Recently, Satrapi co-wrote and codirectedan upcoming animated adaptationof her Persepolis books, which—literally—illustratethe stations of her journey.The French-language film featuringSatrapi’s characteristic black-and-whiteline drawings and searing wit won theJury Prize at the Cannes Film Festivalearlier this year. An English-dubbedversion is slated for a late Decemberrelease in the U.S., with protagonistMarjane voiced by Chiara Mastroianniand additional voiceovers by CatherineDeneuve, Gena Rowlands, Sean Pennand Iggy Pop.Persepolis begins with Satrapi’s childhoodin Iran, where she’s raised to thinkindependently in a time and place whereindependent thinkers are severely punished.When her obstinate candor andpassion for punk rock get her in trouble,she leaves for Austria, where she experiencesthe freedom and failures of highschool far from the family she left miredin the nightmare of the Iran–Iraq war.She eventually returns home to confronther own identity—at fundamental odds,she quickly discovers, with the chauvinismand general suppression mandatedby the Islamic regime in power.Seven years after Persepolis waspublished in print and 13 years aftershe permanently left Iran for France,Satrapi sat down for a late-nighttransatlantic phone call to discussher work, her hopes for the future ofher homeland and the source of thatunquenchable spark of humor thatilluminates even the saddest momentsof her life’s story.In your books and in the film, theyoung Marjane is an idealist who’sdisappointed over and over again.Are you still an idealist?Of course I am! Once in a while peopleask me, “Do you really believe that youcan change something?” They makeme doubt that we can change things.Of course we can change things. Idon’t pretend that art will change thewhole world, but I think it is possibleto change the world if we want to. Ibelieve in it. No matter how many morerevolutions I will have in my life, I willkeep on believing that—or I will die. Idon’t accept the idea that it is impossible,because if I accept this idea then Iwill shoot myself in the head, and thatwould be much easier.The Marjane we encounter in yourwork is an incorrigible rebel. At 6,she dreams of becoming the nextprophet. She pipes up and confrontsher teachers in school. When everyoneelse goes along, she simply can’tkeep her mouth shut. Some peoplearound her interpret that as youthfulrebellion. Others say, “She’s just atroublemaker.” Are you?The problem with me is not that I’mprovocative or a troublemaker. Provocationis something that is done inorder to make you react. I have neverdone something like that. I have alwayssaid what I really think. This is notprovocation; it is personal thinking. Ihate to lie, so I always say what I think,even though I know that I should not.It’s always better to say it. I think it’sbetter to be a troublemaker than to besoft and without any brain.Your life and work are inextricablytied to the political movementsthat shaped recent Iranian history,and of which you are highly critical.Would you characterize yourself asa political cartoonist?No, absolutely not. A political cartoonistis someone who raises up his armand chants slogans. For me, thosepeople are preaching a little bit. I amnot a preacher. I have always said itis not so much that I am interested inpolitics, but that politics is really changingour lives. The decisions that aremade have a direct effect on our lives,so whether you want it or not, you haveto be interested in politics. I wouldn’tsay I’m a political cartoonist; I wouldsay, maybe, a humanist?Your autobiographical graphic novelsand now the movie based onthem depict a life full of sadness.There is loss of one’s family, betrayal,loneliness, depression and evensuicide. And yet Persepolis is also anextremely funny film. How do youkeep your sense of humor?I think humor is about two things: it’sabout being intelligent and about beingpolite. First, life is extremely serious,but we can’t take it seriously becausealready it is so serious. Second, I don’tthink that you have the right to go andvomit on people’s heads; you also haveto be a little bit polite. You must be ableto recognize the pain in life and makepeople understand it without making itlike a bag which you put on their backsand say, “Now you carry it.” Talkingabout being desperate in an extremelypolite way—for me, this is humor.All the human beings in the world,we cry for the same reason—becausesomeone is sick or dead, whatever. Butwe don’t laugh for the same reasons.Laughing with somebody is to understandthe spirit of the other person…For crying, you don’t need anybody.You just sit in your house and you cry.Laughing is about communication. It’ssomething that you share with someone.For me, somebody who doesn’thave a sense of humor is stupid. To beable to laugh [demands] intelligence.In your work, you address the conceptof living in exile and also thedifficulty of assimilation. Is there afundamentally unbridgeable gapbetween traditional Eastern culturesand liberal Western ideals?Do you think it’s harder for Iraniansto assimilate into Western culturethan people of other nationalities?I don’t think so. It’s what surrounds Iraniansthat makes it a bit more difficult.Generally, they didn’t leave the countryfor economic reasons. It is not an im-persepolis stills, soney pictures classics, 2007migration of choice—leaving becauseyou will have a better life. They left forother reasons, so there is always thisdeep attachment to the culture wherethey came from, because they left despitethemselves. [Ours] is also a veryold culture. It has archaeological layers.With the Iranian culture, the more youdig, the more you have to dig. You thinkthat you have understood, but then yousee the layer under, and another layerunder, and then another layer under.There’s 5,000 years of history and it’s aheavy thing to carry around. You can’tpretend that it doesn’t exist, because it’sthere, like a big piece of jewelry.Persepolis depicts the meddling ofthe Iranian state in all personal matters—fromthe imposition of theveil to parties and public displaysof affection. There is always somebodywatching. Every day we hearreports that the Iranian governmentis becoming more restrictive,more oppressive, more extremist.What do you see in Iran’s future?I think there is a big change thathas been made in Iran and after thischange, you cannot go backward.Most of the population of Iran nowcan read and write, which was not thecase many years ago. The other bigchange is that two thirds of the Iranianstudents are girls.I am convinced that the biggest enemyof democracy and change is a cultureand not one person. As much as thefather is chief of the family and nobodyhas the right to say one word abovethe word of the father, so the dictatoris also the father of the nation. It’s thesame scheme. So for a democracy to beable to stand we have to have a societyin which men and women are equal.For example, it’s true that under theShah, women could ask for a divorce.But if you have no education, you havenever worked, you are not economicallyindependent, you have been marriedto the same man for 15 years, you havethree kids and you want to leave—canyou leave? Of course you can’t, becauseyou don’t have the means to beable to leave.Today, you don’t have the right toask for a divorce except in some specialcases, but at the same time a womanwho works can leave the house muchmore easily. For me, it’s like—before,they didn’t have any legs and the doorwas open, and they said, “Run!” Howcan you run if you don’t have any legs?Today we are getting stronger legs, butthe door is really closed. However, wecan also kick the door open.I also think that the change that happensin a country has to come from thepeople inside the country. You cannotjust go to a country and say, “This is notthe way things should be and we are goingto offer you democracy by bombingyou.” We did that in Afghanistan andIraq, and it has not worked. [It] will neverwork. In Iran, the evolutional changeis there. In a society where 65 percentof the students are women, that is achange. They can arrest whoever theywant, but that is something they cannotchange, and if I think about that, then Ican have some hope.Under what circumstances wouldyou go back to live in Iran?If it were a democracy, of course Iwould go back to my country. Iranis the most beautiful country in theworld. We have the mountains and thesea. It is cold and warm at the sametime. We have the four seasons. Thefruits there are the tastiest in the wholeworld. The food there is the best. I lovethe people; I love their sense of humor.Do you know any place in the worldwhere all the people who know howto write and read know all the poemsof Hafez, Saadi and Ferdowsi [Ed. note:the great triumvirate of classical Persianpoetry]? Why the hell would I sit inParis? …Rainy, gray Paris!You co-directed Persepolis with VincentParonnaud, with whom you’dshared space in a design studio inParis. What was the experience oftransforming your graphic novellasinto an animated film?It was great. I was a little afraid of workingwith 100 people the whole time but,at the end, it was a great joy. In the beginning,I wanted to kill everybody. Butthen you realize that when you have aproject like that, when the original ideacomes from you and then everybodyadds something to it, suddenly your ideagoes much farther. Plus, I had the possibilityto do exactly what I wanted, so Ididn’t have to make any compromises.Iggy Pop voices your uncle in theEnglish-dubbed version of Persepolis.How was that for you, a formerpunk rocker, to get an icon like IggyPop involved?I was on my way to collapse when I methim! He is extremely sane; so gentleand cultivated. He was also extremelyarticulate and he knew about everything.I was pretty amazed. I listenedto his music for more than 20 years,and every day I had to have a little bit.His music would give me the punch Ineeded to continue my day. So to beable to work with him was really a bigdeal. I also got to work with Sean Penn,who was a wonderful talent, and GenaRowlands—another icon of Americanfilm. It was a great experience to workwith all these people. They were notlike, “Oh, this is your first movie.” Theywere real professionals and they werereally listening to me as if I had alreadymade 55 movies. They were extremelygenerous to me.What are you doing next?The movie has been sold in all the countriesaround the world, so I have to goto other countries. Until May [of nextyear], I’m just traveling, carrying themovie all over the world. Afterwards,I would like to make another comicbook. And Vincent and I would love tomake another movie together.You imagine making more filmswith Vincent?Absolutely. That was such a big thing!We worked three years together andwe never argued once. He is like adouble of myself. When you see themovie, you see what crap it is this talkabout East and West, North and South,Muslim and Christian. Whatever! Onpaper, Vincent and I are the opposite:He is French, I am Iranian. He is a man,I am a woman. Everything should bethe opposite, but we are like one soulin two bodies. It was sufficient thatwe have the same intelligence. It’s notbecause you come from the same placethat you understand somebody.102 november-december cinemean

[Capturing]jennifer carpenterBy jake gaskill + polaroids by jennifer carpenter[Capturing]alexandra maria laraBy sorina diaconescu + polaroids by alexandra maria laraAs the titular devil-child in The Exorcismof Emily Rose (2005), Jennifer Carpenternot only rekindled our collectiveallegiance to the Prince of Darkness, butalso mesmerized with her ferocity andterrifying vulnerability. On the Showtimeseries Dexter, she’s currently the witty, sailor-mouthedsibling of a cop moonlightingas a serial killer. A classically trainedthespian, Ms. Carpenter is refreshinglygrounded and genuinely good-humored.She’s breaking the Hollywood ingénuemold, and, in the most secular way possible,we thank God for it.You’re shooting the second seasonof Dexter at the moment. How’s thatgoing?It’s really good. We finished the first season,and I had no idea what they were going todo with the second. I’m the writers’ biggestfan, because they have just blown us allaway, and they’re pretty good about keepingthe stories a secret. But I kind of like itthat way, because it’s like life.What are a few things I should do whilevisiting your home state of Kentucky?I think everyone should go to the KentuckyDerby at least once before they die. Next,probably visit Bardstown Road in Louisville.And then, my mom and dad’s house.Didn’t your aunt actually get you intoacting?I was 8 years old, and I think she took mysister and me to [an] audition thinking itwould be a good form of free babysitting. Ithink I made a conscious, committed decisionthen to do it for the rest of my life.Did you initially drift toward drama orcomedy?I was always such a clown around my family—I’mnot sure they always enjoyed it, butI know I did. I always wanted to be invitedto do comedy, but for some reason I wasalways cast in dramas. I still feel like I’mproving myself as a comedian. That’s whyI’m happy Dexter is sort of showcasing thata bit more for me.How much of Debra Morgan, the characteryou play on Dexter, is in you, andvice versa?We have a lot of parallels in our lives, but Icertainly don’t go home feeling like her.What about Debra’s rather foul mouth?Now that I have taken home with me.My mother came to visit about a weekago, and I found myself apologizing overand over.Since you attended Juilliard, I have toask: Do top-tier art and drama schoolsforce students to don dark, hoodedcloaks and participate in Gothic ritualsà la the Stonecutters or that part at theend of Eyes Wide Shut?Ha! You know, I didn’t even put in my application[for Juilliard]. My mom did it onthe sly, and when I got to Chicago, wherethey were having auditions [for admission],she made me aware I was going there. Andthose four minutes in that room decidedthe course of my life.As someone who’s never been in a positionto win an award, I am curious howit felt to win an MTV Movie Award.It was one of the most stressful nights ofmy life. I’m really uncomfortable goingto events like that and having my picturetaken. I think a lot of people get into thebusiness to be in that arena, and I amjust avoiding it at all costs. I mean—I lovemy popcorn statue. To have some sort ofreassurance like that feels pretty good.It’s actually the hood ornament on my carright now.What does your family think aboutyour success?Everybody’s equally supportive. They’rejust not impressed though, and I love thatabout them. Growing up, if I wanted to dosomething, they never said, “No.” Theyalways said, “How?”How does it feel to not be the daughterof John Carpenter?Actually, one of our producers [on Dexter]asked me if I was his daughter maybethree weeks ago, because she read thisarticle online that said I was shy about it,and that is why she never mentioned itto me. I’ve never pretended to be JohnCarpenter’s daughter. Robert Carpenter isa great father.Last question: Are you or have youever been a member of the CommunistParty?No.Good. That makes things a lot easier.For the female lead in his first film innine years, Francis Ford Coppola singledout Romanian-born, German-bred actressAlexandra Maria Lara. For the luminousLara—a refugee from her native Romaniawho grew up in West Berlin since theage of 4—the film marks a notable accomplishment.The multilingual actressportrays dual roles in Coppola’s YouthWithout Youth—having also acquittedherself with panache by playing Hitler’ssecretary in Downfall, and collaboratedwith James Ivory and, respectively, AntonCorbijn on the latter’s Joy Divisionbiopic Control. We asked Lara to takephotographs of her Charlottenburg, WestBerlin, habitat—and she complied, shylyidentifying a Polaroid of current boyfriendSam Riley with a little heart symbol.Anyway, Alexandra…How did you get cast in Coppola’s latestfilm?I think Francis saw the movie Downfall,where I play Hitler’s secretary, and got intouch with me. It was really unbelievable:I got a letter from him with his script, andthen we met in London. And the day wemet, he offered me the part and I wentdirectly to a makeup test. It was the mostincredible day an actress can imagine!To me Youth Without Youth is essentiallyan exalted film/poem about romanticlove—and the two charactersyou play symbolize a kind of ideal lovethat knows no bounds and transcendsspace and time.I always had the feeling that my parts wereactually a variation of one soul. The movie isbased on subjects like time and consciousnessand reincarnation—there’s a completelydifferent basis of reality throughout it. Iwas very curious about how we would tellthe story. I can say that to work with Francisis extraordinary, because he is the legendhe is, and because you can feel that he is avery intense director, a very careful observer,and very passionate about his work. I reallyenjoyed every day on the set, because everyday was different from the one before.To work with Francis Ford Coppola isprobably the dream of every actress onearth. I’m happy, of course, that it happenedto me, and that I was the one who was allowedto go through that experience.In Youth Without Youth, you speakEnglish sprinkled with some Romanian,and also Sanskrit, ancient Egyptian andSumerian. In real life, you’re fluent inRomanian, German and English. Whatlanguage do you dream in?I think in German. I always continued tospeak Romanian with my parents and I’mreally happy about that, but German feelslike my mother language.It seems like you’re making a lot ofmovies with strong underlying politicalthemes—Downfall, obviously, andeven Youth Without Youth. Recently,you were cast in Uli Edel’s upcomingfilm about the Baader-Meinhof Gang,the ’70s left-wing guerilla group. Is thatpurposeful or accidental?I’ve been lucky to be part of movies wherehistorical background has a big importance,and that’s always very interesting for anactor: You’re able to learn something; learnabout history. I once played Napoleon’slover, Maria Walewska. And I made anothermovie, Control—about Ian Curtis. That wasquite fascinating for me, too, because Ididn’t know anything about Joy Division orthe music scene at that time in England.I’ve always been careful to choosethings that could be right for me, but I’vealso been in comedies and romantic movieswhere the subject is more about feelings.I’m a fan of those, too.There’s been such a rejuvenation of thearts in Romania, especially in film. FilmmakerCristian Mungiu won the Palmed’Or in Cannes this year and severalRomanian films got a lot of attentionabroad and were even released in theU.S. Why is it that all of a sudden suchgood movies are being made there?I think Romanians always made beautifultheater and beautiful films. But the countrywent through a very difficult time wheneverything was censored. Everything hasits time, and now it’s time for people likethese filmmakers to answer some questionsabout what exactly happened therein the recent past, and tell powerful stories.This is not light cinema. When you watchthe movies of Cristi Puiu, Razvan Radulescuor the new movie of Cristian Mungiu, it’simpossible to go out of the cinema withouthaving to think about the world and life.I’m very happy for them and I think that alot more stories are to come from all theseplaces in East Europe.104 november-december capturing

CDhaikewsBoys NoizeOi Oi OiTURBO/LAST GANG RECORDSbleep, thump, bloop, thump,beepDaft Punk does it much betterstick to the remix!—Jessica JardineEwan PearsonPiece Work !K72-CD look-backdreamy electro indieM83 with moves—J.J.Something forRocketsOne Track MindORIGINAL SIGNAL RECORDINGSbouncy, safe indie rock;singer: Itzhak Perlman’s sonOK GO with edge—J.J.BlancheLittle Amber BottlesORIGINAL SIGNAL RECORDINGSAndrew Bird-y fright,Gothic visions, harmoniessweetly haunting themes—Jake GaskillSix Organsof AdmittanceShelter from the Ash DRAG CITYfolky Doors darknesspost-apocalyptic riffsskillful mix of sounds—J.K.MinipopA New Hope TAKE ROOT RECORDSgorgeous, soaring voicerepetitious, tad too nowcatchy but safe sound—J.K.BabyshamblesShotter’s Nation EMI/PARLOPHONEpiping Chinese rockis to huffin’ as this isto most new CDs—Sorina DiaconescuThe Rumble StripsAlarm Clock EP KANINE RECORDSif you buy intothe hype of one more Brit band,let it be this one—S.D.The SecretHandshakeOne Full YearTRIPLE CROWN RECORDSsynth/vocoder pop,cheesy + fun. (except moreformer than latter)—S.D.RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRReviewsDVDGeorge Carlin:All My StuffBox Set, MPI HOME ENTERTAINMENTThere are few comedians… Fuck that, there are fewartists who have had as much influence on shaping ourcultural landscape as George Carlin. His HBO specialswere not only comedic masterpieces; they also tantalizedand piqued the imagination of countless underage children(the undersigned included) whose parents were eitherastonishingly progressive or clueless about their kids’viewing habits. Occasioned by the release of this beefyDVD box set, which includes 13 of his HBO specials as wellas two lengthy interviews (and is worth its weight in rhodium),Mean was honored to speak to Mr. Carlin about theart of crafting comedy and the poetic punch of those sevenfour-letter words.—Jake GaskillHow does it feel to have accumulated enough stuff towarrant a DVD box set?It’s just satisfying to have turned out so much work at ahigh level in the field I chose and love. The tangible part isanother little element of the satisfaction. You can put theDVD box set on the shelf and look at it.Is there a piece of material that you aren’t particularlythrilled with that audiences really love?I don’t have anything like that. I’m very happy with justabout all of it. The one thing that jumps out at me is thatI became a better writer over the years. In fact, I startedout considering myself a performer who wrote his ownmaterial. But at a certain point, I began to realize that Iwas really a writer who performs his own material. I’mnot unhappy with what did come out, but I’m sad at whatcould have been if I had been this better writer. But that’snot how life works.Is there anyone right now doing stand-up comedy thatreminds you of the stuff that you, Lenny Bruce, MortSahl and others were doing in the ’60s and ’70s?No. I don’t notice much of today’s comedy because I’mnot drawn to it. I’m not really in show business the way alot of people are. The way I always put it is, “I don’t havea membership card, and I don’t have to go to the meetings.”I’m not a gregarious person. I’m good companyand all that, but I really don’t give a fuck about a lot ofpeople. I don’t want to hang out. I don’t want to wastetime with a lot of small talk and bullshit. I like being inlove with Sally [Ed. Note: Sally Wade is Carlin’s significantother] and having our two dogs. I get to do my work andshe gets to do her creative work—the rest of the worldcan go take a flying fuck.Ted Streshinsky/CORBISWhat sorts of things make you laugh?I like it when people are using their brains. I like things thatsound freshly considered. There are a number of ways for acomedian to be good. One is to write jokes well. If you’renot just doing jokes for their own sake, but you exploretopics and have ideas about them, that’s another level. Thenthe third level is using skillful and marvelous language. In acomedian there should be a touch of the jester, a touch ofthe philosopher and a touch of the poet.Could America improve its standing in the worldby employing more considerate and less bellicoselanguage at the highest level? In other words, whatif we stopped using vernacular like “war on terror,”“stay the course,” “cut and run,” “heck of a job,” orany other idioms that make us look like assholes to therest of the world?Suggesting that would probably be true, if it happened.But doing that suggests a national intelligence, and it suggestsa freedom to operate in that area. My observation isthat there is no real freedom to change very much of ournation, although people think there is. The people whoown everything are in complete control, and they don’tallow that shit to happen. Elections, petitions, class-actionlawsuits, chanting, voting: None of these things trulychanges anything at the root. The root of things is thatthis country is involved in extending its power whereverit can, for the sake of itself. And big pharmaceuticals, bigpetrochemicals, big oil, big finance, big agri-business, bigmining—all of these huge interests—completely obliterateany choices we think we have, through lobbying. Theycan afford to change things for their benefit and not thepublic’s benefit.“George Bush had been called a wimp for so long,he apparently felt the need to act out his manhoodfantasies by sending other people’s children to die…If you want to know what happened in the PersianGulf, just remember the names of the two men whowere running that war: Dick Cheney and Colin Powell.Someone got fucked in the ass.” That was you in 1992.Were you surprised when an almost identical situationunfolded just over a decade later?I’m very proud of those pieces from the early ’90s. Thatwas a period when I discovered I was a writer. Jammin’ inNew York, in particular, had a lot of things in it that mademe sit up and take notice. So that piece stands, and ithas a nice timeliness today. I’m sure it will recur when webomb the Iranians. You can smell that shit down the road.Generally, audiences are more de-sensitized than everto explicit material. Is this positively or negatively affectingyour use of language?When you do a piece of material, as I’m doing now—writing,learning and memorizing the new show—you’re notin the society at large. You’re in that piece of material. Ifproperly used, words still have the effect they’ve alwayshad. …There’s a thing I’m doing now about the cult ofthe child and obsessive devotion to children: “When doesa kid ever get to sit in the yard with a stick anymore? Justsitting there with a fucking stick? Do kids even know whata stick is? You sit in the yard with a fucking stick, you dig afucking hole, and you look at the hole, and you look at thestick, and you have a little fun.” Those words I use in therehave an effect. If I just threw them in anywhere at all, thenI’d be the one who is littering the landscape with the word.You have to learn how to save these words for the rightplacement. When you’re a poet, you have to know whenit’s appropriate to outline the clouds, talk about the stream,the fields of green and all that shit.So we shouldn’t lose sight of how powerful thoseseven words can truly be when used properly.You have to remember that there is a difference betweenbeing an entertainer and being an artist. I happen to beboth. The way I entertain people is through my art. My artis in the writing of the words. There are a lot of entertainerswho are not also artists. An artist is in the middle of a turbulentstream, always moving forward and never satisfied.So people who look at the words and the ideas can claimto have a little art going for them. But people who just kindof pile up a lot of jokes together about going to the mall, orbeing married, or having a new kid—that’s entertainmentto me and it’s different.Why is “fuck” so versatile?It’s a great intensifier: “Who the fuck are you? Where thefuck did that come from? What the fuck?” It heightenswhatever it is you were already trying to say. And of course,in specific forms, it has a lot of great uses. It’s just a wonderfulword, and it will always be handy.What vulgar art can we be expecting from you in thenear future?On March 1st, I’ll be doing another HBO show called It’sBad For You.DVDElectromaA Film by Daft Punk, VICE RECORDSTo nonbelievers, the appeal of Thomas Bangalterand Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s bleepy noisemakingremains a mystery. But to Daft Punk’s wideand quite global audience, it’s fresh, progressive andfun to dance to. The French duo’s sustained popularitysince the mid-’90s has had a lot to do with their cleverattempts to give a visual dimension to their music, andin 2005, they established a film production company,Daft Arts, to further their experiments in imagery. Januarymarks the DVD release of their first feature-lengthfilm, Electroma.Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s the story of two robotswho motor across America on a quest to becomehuman. The result is a painfully drawn-out silent filmoccasionally punctured by songs not created by DaftPunk. One actually feels trapped in the car with therobots—a mighty boring place to be, what with thetotal lack of conversation or interaction. The scenes(hot desert vistas, Anytown USA–scapes) are framed,shot and presented to the viewer in a manner similar toobjects in an art exhibit. Fine in theory, I suppose, butrather cruel in reality.The robot protagonists do finally turn human,simply by having some clay plastered over their helmets.Then they look like caricatures of Bangalter andde Homem-Christo. They skip around town in JohnTravolta’s Saturday Night Fever strut and their facesmelt in the sun. Not to ruin it for you, but (major spoileralert!) they both kill themselves in the end, about 75minutes too late.—Lily Moayeri

GMESa million little choicesin pursuit of endless virtual freedom BY JAKE GASKILL“The ordinary man believes he is free when he is permitted to act arbitrarily, but in this very arbitrariness lies the fact that he is unfree.” —HegelFreedom of choice is a polarizing topic.It has determined elections, incited violenceand ruined many a Mass. There’s no questionthat having too many choices—justlike having too few—is almost never agood thing. That’s because, to paraphraseFrench biologist Jean Rostand, the choicesreality proposes are generally such as totake away one’s appetite for choosing.Yet in the videogame world, freedom ofchoice has rapidly become the most unanimouslycherished aspect of game design. Byproviding all the necessary tools, and then,like some cruel deity, allowing us players todecide for ourselves how best to apply them,game developers have been able to tap intoour innate love of doing things our ownway, man. And even though “sandbox”games (featuring non-linear narratives thattake place in free roaming environments) arenothing new, practically every high-profilegame, regardless of genre, released overthe past few months or set to be released inthe near future, is built around one unifyingprinciple: choice.This past August, 2K’s anti-utopianmasterpiece BioShock stabbed a plasmidsyringe into the head of anyone who stillbelieves videogames are a childish andinconsequential pursuit. The game forcedplayers to make choices, both from a combatperspective (gene tonics, plasmids andupgradable weapons…oh my!) and froma morally ambiguous decision-makingperspective. You say you wouldn’t thinktwice about ripping a little girl’s head off,because she’s just a digital character?Well, when you’re looking straight intothe genetically mutated eyes of a LittleSister while she writhes in your hands andbegs for her life, it just ain’t that simple.Games like BioShock, of which there arefew, draw tremendous strength fromtheir ability to emotionally engage playersby offering them the chance to formulatetheir own experiences, and progressthrough the narratives in a fashion thatbest suits their own tastes.Choice is also the driving force behindsuch varied titles as Ubisoft’s Assassin’sCreed (action-adventure), EA’s Medal ofHonor: Airborne (first-person shooter),Burnout: Paradise (racing) and BioWare’sMass Effect (role-playing game).Assassin’s Creed allows players to stepinto the boots of a nimble 12th-centurymercenary. Expansive cities inhabited by dynamicand action-responsive citizens playhost to the dirty deeds of main characterAltair, and since there are no restrictions onhow players get from one point to the next(every building is scalable…Every. Single.One.), choice becomes the deciding factorin how players experience the game.Burnout: Paradise takes the blistering-speedracer series to another level bydropping players (and their vehicles) into acompletely free-roaming environment. Unliketraditional racing games, which requireplayers to unlock areas over the course ofthe narrative, Paradise lays it all on the tableat the starting line. Players can blast aroundthe city and engage in spectacular vehicularacrobatics without ever being involved inan actual race. Of course, in order to unlockbetter vehicles you have to participate inevents, but even the path you pursue inthose races is completely up to you.Now, all the aforementioned titles giveplayers the freedom to explore enormousvirtual worlds, and we love that. MassEffect gives players the chance to engagein a story that spans the entire galaxy.BioWare’s epic RPG allows you to essentiallyplanet-jump to your heart’s contentby way of interstellar transportation. Butthe most important aspect of choice inthe game concerns dialogue. The amountof words in this game is just, well, toostaggering for words. The outcome of thenarrative depends solely on how playersnavigate morally uncertain situations.During conversations, players choose thelines that their main characters will utter,and every choice shifts the game in differentdirections, leading to different narrativeconclusions.“What could be driving this choicecentricgaming trend?” you undoubtedlywonder. And if you’re the perceptive sort,you might have noticed that our societalobsession with personal prerogativesextends to other popular forms of entertainmentand technology. YouTube,TiVo, video on-demand services, news aggregatorsthat allow people to filter typesof news according to their preferences:Each of these services caters to our ardentdesire to be in control.In times of increased paranoia anddistrust, personal freedoms (like freespeech and the right to not have your ballshooked up to a car battery without propercause) are usually the first to get abortedand are, more often than not, handed overwillingly. But after a while we start to feeltrapped, limited and under the thumb ofsome not-so-invisible authority. We naturallygravitate to fantasy and entertainmentto help us cope.The cinema boom during the GreatDepression was the direct result of peopledesperately wanting to escape the horrorsof the times by inhabiting, if only for a littlewhile, make-believe worlds better thantheir own. Today, we favor entertainmenttailor-made to fit our whims and schedules.Granted, it would be far nobler to fightfor greater control of freedoms that trulymatter in reality. But seeking refuge in ourminds and finding endless contentment inour ability to avoid commercials is the farmore convenient avenue of rebellion.Videogaming is benefiting tremendouslyfrom this state of affairs.For the same reason we enjoy bettingwith somebody else’s money, we love it thatwe’re able to partake in a variety of personallyfashioned experiences at our leisure,without the risk of significant sacrifices.When it comes to games that emphasizechoice and experimentation, players aregiven the opportunity to take chances andflex their creative muscles in ways thattraditional, linear narratives would simplynot allow. This in turn ensures substantialreplay value (as participants adopt newstrategies and new characterizations inorder to alter the feel and flow of the game)and gives players a sense of personalizationthat goes a long way toward enriching notonly gaming experiences, but the entiremedium as well.So this holiday season, do whateveryou want to do, go wherever you want togo and kill, smash, fight, shoot, chat up,race, pursue, entice and annoy whomeveryou want, whenever you want. Because inthe end, the choice is truly yours—in thevirtual world, if not the real one.WWW.THECOBRASNAKE.COM108 november-december games

MEngAdgetsBY ANDREW VONTZMEnWhiplAshBY ANDREW VONTZZERO ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLEExploring what would happen in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust was a popularcinematic trope back in the ’80s, when nobody doubted that Ronnie Reagan couldunleash megatons of decay heat on those goddamn Russians, if he was so inclined. InMegaforce, one of the many Mad Max knockoffs of the era, a crew of badasses in goldbody suits defend the future of the human race in a G.I. Joe–meets–Star Wars setup.Their secret weapon? The fact that all their vehicles, from helicopters to dune buggiesto motorcycles, could run in complete silence.Two decades later, Zero Motorcyles brings the stealth-mode fantasy of Megaforce tolife with a whisper-quiet electric bike that saves the planet and allows its users to sneakup on their godless Communist enemies in complete silence. Too bad the Cold War isover, because the Zero would be the perfect rig for laying down a hardcore citizen-militiaassault across the Russian steppe. This zero-emission bike can be set up for street ridingor off-road motocross action and programmed with an acceleration curve to suit theabilities of the rider. It gets the equivalent of 300 miles per gallon, hauls ass, and costsless than one cent per mile to operate. Bonus: it also looks great with a replica Megaforcegold unitard from American Apparel. $6,900; zeromotorcycles.comVECTRIX ELECTRIC SCOOTERSONY ACID PRO 6In the days before GarageBand, Acidwas the gold standard for intuitive, userfriendlyloop-based music production. Sixhits of Acid later, this sequencing programstill trips hard. The interface remains perfectlysimple, making it easy for neophyteproducers to jump in and start makingbeats. But features like the included NativeInstruments Kompakt software synth,20 VST plug-ins, and unlimited multitrackrecording render this a killer app for pros,too. Like GarageBand, Acid comes with aplethora of free loops to get you started—theoretically, you can write songs withoutrecording a note of music. But unlikeGarageBand, Acid allows users to dumpjust about any format of audio samplesinto the mix.Mean summoned the spirit of the KLFand laid down snippets from the Apollo 11lunar landing alongside beats from Reasonto produce one choice track. Whether youwant to unleash your inner Daft Punk orcobble together license-free backgroundmusic for your podcasts, Acid fits the fill.$375; sonycreativesoftware.comSONY SOUND FORGE 9Even the best tracks don’t bang unlessthey’re mastered properly. A track fromAcid, for example, will sound much betterif it’s polished in a high-quality masteringprogram such as Sound Forge 9.0. As is thecase with the afore-profiled Acid software,Sound Forge’s interface is so simple that auser with minimal experience could loadthe program and quickly figure out howto knock out a decent master. Spend moretime exploring Forge and you’ll discoverthat the more-than-40 included studio effects,noise reduction tools, and various fileformat/output options will allow you to putwhatever shine you can dream up on musictracks, podcasts and soundtracks. $300;sonycreativesoftware.comDELL 1800MP PROJECTOREarthians in hot pursuit of Mid-Centurymodern, minimalist, biodegradable, lowcarbonfootprint, ecotecture-style cleanliving have launched a new trend—fueledin their homes, no doubt, by wind poweror Flatpak rooftop solar panels.These gentle folk have eschewed thegaudiness of flat-panel HDTV’s for thenew generation of digital projectors. It’sa great idea: Get rid of your ugly box (ifyou’ve still got one); liberate yourself fromhaving to figure out how to properly hanga flat-screen on the wall, and use a projectorinstead. Dell’s 1800MP costs only$729, but it has a 2000:1 contrast ratio and1024x768 resolution piping out at 2100lumens—bright enough for viewing withthe lights on. A variety of in/out jacks coverall of the A/V bases you’ll need to plug theprojector into a video source. Play movies offyour laptop, watch the TV show you savedon your DVR, or project Baraka on the sideof the garage where you park your Prius. The1800MP can handle it. $729; dell.comV.I.O. CAMHelmet cams are perfect for capturingsports adventures, bike rides throughthe city and even, um, intimate momentsat home.Most helmet cams (or point-of-viewcams, as they’re also known) consist oftwo components: an external lens and aseparate digital video recorder (flash drive,DV cam or hard drive). With this type ofsetup, you connect the lens to the digitalvideo recorder, push “record,” and thenset about on your merry path with the DVRusually tucked away in your backpack. Ifyou want to see the image you’re capturingor make sure that the lens is properlyoriented, you have to pause, pull out theDVR and check it. The beauty of the V.I.O.POV.1 helmet lens is that comes with itsown DVR—a flash drive about the size of aTV remote that has a small built-in monitor.Better yet, a wireless remote that can bemounted anywhere with the included Velcrostraps (like around a shoulder strap on abackpack), lets you start and stop recordingand tag clips on the fly.Various mounting rigs allow you to installthe POV.1 on a helmet, handlebar, snowboardbinding, or wherever your needsmight demand. A USB connection enablesyou to transfer files directly to your computer.(Although you can also toss the memorycard into a card reader.) While most usersprobably own editing software like MovieMaker or iMovie already, the V.I.O. comeswith POV.1 software that works fine forbasic edits. This is the future of point-of-viewcameras. $850; viosport.comItaly has long produced the world’s most sought-after scooters. Now Vectrix ushersin a new era of environmentally friendly scooting with the MAXI-Scooter, a badass rigwith an electric engine capable of reaching 62 miles per hour accelerating from 0-30in 3.6 seconds. The battery recharges in just two hours at home. On the road, it recoversenergy lost during braking. A bidirectional throttle allows the rider to slow downsmoothly. Virtually maintenance-free, the MAXI-Scooter is mighty economical, too:Vectrix claims that the energy needed to power the trusty gadget for a 62-mile ride costsless than 50 cents. Look good. Feel good. Scoot. $11,000; vectrix.comBLACKBURN TRAKSTAND ULTRAWhen you have to work late and autumnal darkness sabotages your good intentionsto roll out with the local bike gang, mount your rolling masterpiece in the BlackburnTrakStand Ultra. Its Centriforce resistance unit relies on a centrifugal clutch system tocreate the closest feeling to riding on the road offered by any trainer Mean has tried.The heavy-duty flywheel provides enough resistance to generate actual rear-wheelcoast when you stop pedaling—just like it would out on the pavement. It also providesenough resistance for high-wattage sprint interval workouts. The slate-gray aluminumframe has a tidy industrial look: When you’re not riding, it can serve as a tasteful bikestand that will keep your bike upright, out of the way and protected from the exigenciesof bipedal movement. And when you are riding, you’ll look cooler than those folksin spinning class, dripping with sweat while their instructor barks New Age wisdom atthem. $300; trakstandultra.com110 november-december gadgets+whiplash22 november-december meanmachines&meanrides

stop& Bill Hader iNBob ZmudamakingConversationPHOTOGRAPHS BY JESSICA GELTsenseBob Zmuda is a comedy legend, known for hispartnership/friendship with anarchist artist-slashcomedicgod Andy Kaufman and for establishingthe massively successful charity organization ComicRelief. Bill Hader is a comedy freshman of sorts who,in just a few short years, has gone from backyardsketch-show obscurity to permanent cast membershipon Saturday Night Live and co-stars in the latestSeth Rogen/Judd Apatow mega-hit, Superbad.When Hader and Zmuda recently came together,Mean eavesdropped on their excited banter about therole of serendipity in comedians’ careers, the crossgenerationalappeal of Kaufman’s trailblazing workand oh, so much more.—Jake GaskillZ: Bill!H: Bob!Z: You came in from Canada, right?H: I was in New York doing SNL, and I’m here doingthis thing called Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It’sanother Judd Apatow production.Z: That’s hot!H: Do you know Judd at all?Z: I gave Judd his start. Judd worked as an intern atComic Relief for two years for free—that’s when he wasa struggling stand-up comic.H: The guy owns the town right now!Z: When did you meet him?H: I met him during my first season on SNL—athis house. I got really nervous. I had to sit in his studywhile he dealt with his air conditioning guy. The firstthing he said to me was, “I don’t really like impressionsand stuff.” He really put me on the spot. He was like,“But I saw you do a thing where you were a guy at aTarget place, and I thought that was good.” I just felt100 feet tall after he said that. …I had met Seth Rogenon my first thing I did, which was a small part in You,Me and Dupree. So I don’t know if he said anythingto [Apatow], but I remember that within 10 minutesof meeting Seth and Evan Goldberg, Seth’s writingpartner, Evan goes, “He should be Officer Slater inSuperbad!” Cut to December, and I’m having thismeeting with Judd…Z: I think [Superbad] could really go through theroof. What else are you shooting?H: I got a small part in this Ben Stiller movie calledTropic Thunder; like, this big-budget action/comedy.Z: Stiller is so fucking hot. Jesus!H: He’s great. This is like an all-star kind of thing. Iplay an executive, and I have all these scenes with thishead of a studio. And I asked, “Who’s playing the head ofthe studio?” And [Stiller] was like, “He’ll be at the readthrough;don’t worry about it.” I show up at the readthrough,and it’s Tom Cruise. So I just sat there whilehe yelled at me, and the fucking room was losing it. Thenice thing about being on SNL is that you don’t get insanelystar-struck, so I felt pretty professional. But I wasshocked. He’s like, “You motherfucker! Get the sand outof your vagina, you fucking pussy!” …Tom Cruise yellingat me! It was hilarious. And I had asked [SNL producer]Lorne [Michaels] about it. I said, “I’m doing this stuffwith Tom Cruise. You have any advice?” And he said,[adopts Michaels’ voice] “Act smaller than him.”Z: Good advice!H: Very good advice.Z: You’ve been on SNL how long?H: Two seasons.Z: How’s that going?112 november-december meansanity

H: Great. I really love it. It’s stillthat feeling of “I can’t fucking believeI’m on this show.” I started takingcomedy seriously in March 2003,when I went to Second City L.A. I justlucked out because Megan Mullallysaw this sketch show we did calledAnimals from the Future. It was justme and three buddies.Z: Where was that?H: We did it in a backyard in VanNuys. We didn’t know the comedyscene. We didn’t have the money.We never called agents or managersor any other stuff. We just wanted tohave our own thing.Z: No pressure.H: No pressure. Just go out there…and after, we’ll have a party. So even ifthe people thought we sucked, we’dget a big crowd and turn it into a party.But that was when I’d go, “Why wasthis funny? Why wasn’t that funny?”You start to question with your friendswhy things are funny or not funny:“I’ve seen that shit before. Let’s gobigger.” We thought we were geniuses!And Megan Mullally saw me in thisone sketch and said it was great.Z: What brought her there?H: One of the guys in the groupwas her brother-in-law. So she cameto see her brother-in-law’s show, andwe went to Canter’s Deli afterwards.And she said, “I think you’re reallytalented,” and I said, “Thanks!” Twomonths later, I was working as anassistant editor on Iron Chef, and theeditor was yelling at me. I think hecalled me a bum. It was right out of amovie. Then my phone rings, and it’slike, “We’d like to meet you for theshow. You’re going to have a meetingwith Lorne. When are you available?”I was like, “Whenever you need me.Right now.” And then Megan Mullallycalled me and said, “I had dinnerwith Lorne, and I told him aboutyou.” And I go, “Oh my God! That’scrazy.” She’s the whole reason I haveany sort of a career.Z: So you weren’t a stand-up?H: No.Z: So where did all the impressions[you do] come from?H: I honestly figured out that Icould kind of do impressions to preparefor my SNL audition. I used toimitate kids in my class, teachers,relatives or whatever, but never celebrities.I literally turned on the TV,and I watched Al Pacino giving an acceptancespeech or something, and Iwould go to my wife—my girlfriendthen—and be like, “How’s this?” I wasjust learning and fucking up a lot. SoI started doing stand-up to work onmy SNL audition. And I saw theseother comedians, like [Knocked Up’s]Charlyne Yi and other great peopledoing the kind of stuff that I wantedto do. Actually, my dad did stand-upin the early ’80s in Oklahoma, andhe’s a big comedy fan.Z: He must be thrilled.H: He can’t believe it! He’s a greatguy. I’m really close to my dad. I remembergoing, “Hey dad: You knowthis Italian character I got going on?People just don’t do stuff like thatanymore,” and he goes, “You’re rippingoff [Andy] Kaufman. Shut thefuck up!” The funny thing is the stuffthat you guys were doing is so inherentin my generation’s subconscious.Z: It’s great that you tip the hat toKaufman… that he [still] influencespeople.H: That’s what I loved about you,and the stuff you and Andy Kaufmandid. It didn’t feel like it was influencedby anything. It seemed like it was itsown crazy thing. Like a spontaneousenergy that I’ve never seen before!Z: We were just buddies fuckingaround. There was no plan to it…H: Watching this stuff growing up,I remember going, “He’s just trying tomake his buddy laugh.”Z: It all came out of the ’60s. Itcame out of guerilla political shit inChicago, in the streets—fucking withpeople’s heads. It all really came froma nasty, mean place at times; fromjust wanting to fuck with people andnot wanting to be part of the system.It was kind of like the first punk-comedy.Also you had that counter-culturething going when SNL started,going back way before the SecondCity out here. Second City Chicagowas a big political-minded group atthe time. So you had this politicalhotbed, which was great. Kaufmanstayed totally away from there.H: Why was that?Z: Andy was always a loner. Hewould never be a part of a group.Andy was more content to be on thestreet and fuck with people. He didnot like the big Hollywood bullshit. Itdidn’t feel like an art—not that Andywould ever claim to be an artist. Butit was that kind of renegade, provocateurthing. That’s why I’m so gladthat years later he got recognized,because of Man on the Moon andeverything. And what was amazingabout the success that he had was…all of this stuff happens by accident.Look at you…!H: Did you feel at the time that hegot recognized the way he shouldhave been?Z: No! All of the guys in the industryknew that what Kaufmanwas doing was so different, so outthere, so ahead of its time. That’swhy even Lorne over at SNL wouldjust leave him alone… There werenever any notes for Kaufman. Lornejust said, “What are you going to sayto this guy? He’s from outer space,or something!”H: I was telling the guys, “Yeah.I’m going to meet with Bob Zmuda,”and they were like, “Tell him ‘I’lldo anything you want me to do forComic Relief.’”Z: That’s good to know. It’s been atrip. When Andy died, that’s when Istarted Comic Relief. I was destroyedafter Kaufman died. He was my bestfriend. A young guy, 34 years old—and he was also my employer.H: And they don’t know why hedied, right? It’s a mystery.Z: It depends. Right around thetime Elvis died, there were all thoserumors that he had faked his death.Andy called me one night and said,“I have the best idea ever! This is thegreatest put-on of all time. It’s goingto be my crowning achievement.I’m going to fake my death and Iwant you to help me.” I said, “Andy,it’s illegal. People fake their deathsall the time to get insurance money.It’s a brilliant idea, but if you wantto do it, I can’t help you. I could becharged for helping you. Besidesthat, I’m not going to lie to yourparents. Your mother would probablyhave a fucking heart attack. Inever want to hear about it again.”Six months later, he’s dead.Let’s put it this way: If he walkedthrough that door right now, I’d besurprised but I wouldn’t be shocked.I believe he’s dead. I used to push himaround in a fucking wheelchair whenhe was down to about 80 poundsbecause of the cancer, and peoplewould come up to him and go, “Andy!You and this dying routine…” He’dlaugh at it. He’d say, “They don’t reallyknow that I’m dying.” And in factme and [Kaufman manager] GeorgeShapiro couldn’t tell you truthfully ifhe pulled this off or not… He was atotally healthy guy. He never smoked,[was into] holistic medicine, a vegetarian.How does he come down withlung cancer? And [director, producerand Kaufman cohort] John Moffittwill tell you that Andy is alive, becausehe called Moffitt one night andwent over to his house and broughta Bible with him and said, “I’m goingto tell you something but you have toswear on a Bible that you will not tella living soul. I’m planning on fakingmy death. I want to be gone for manyyears.” And Moffitt said, “Like one ortwo?” and Andy said, “No. If I wasa boy about it, I’d say 10 years. If Iwas a man about it, it’d be 25 years.”The 25th anniversary is coming upin a year and a half! And believe me,Kaufman was the guy. He was a purist.And he would say, “This would bethe biggest thing in the world.”H: But in the book [Zmuda’s AndyKaufman Revealed: Best Friend TellsAll, 1999] you talk about going to thefuneral…Z: I was too shattered to go insidethe funeral home. But my friend JoeTroiani went in, because he thoughtwe were faking it. And in the Jewishfaith there isn’t usually an opencasket, but there was so much conjecturethat he’d faked his death thatthe family decided to have an opencasket. But if you ask Joe today, he’llsay, “I couldn’t tell you if that was awax dummy or not. It’s a dead body.It’s got wax on it, and it’s embalmed.How do you know?” Now, this isreally bizarre. When we wrote TheTony Clifton Story, [Ed. Note: TonyClifton was Zmuda’s and Kaufman’sfoul-mouthed lounge singer alterego],and this was about four yearsbefore Andy’s death—before he evensays he’s going to fake his death—hecomes in one day, and he says, “At acertain point in the movie, Tony Cliftondies, and we have a funeral.” AndAndy Kaufman in real life supposedlydied of lung cancer at the Cedars-SinaiHospital here in Hollywood. Onpage 108 of The Tony Clifton Story,Kaufman had Tony Clifton die oflung cancer at Cedars-Sinai. So youstart putting these things together,and you could start going, “AndyKaufman faked his fucking death!”H: The entire time you were talking,all the hair on my neck wasstanding up. That’s the most insanefucking thing I’ve ever heard! Andthe thing is, every generation sincethat happened—every comedyguy—has this conversation. So whoare some other guys that you werehanging out with?Z: Kaufman never really hung out.Kaufman’s whole thing was pussy.He couldn’t give a shit about thecomedians. The biggest influence onKaufman was probably professionalwrestling, because when he was alittle kid, he would go into New Yorkbut instead of going to a Broadwayshow, his first sense of theaterwas wrestling matches at MadisonSquare Garden. His sense of performancewas not just to play the part,but to really get an audience crazy. Sothat’s when we started wrestling withwomen and then eventually [withpro wrestler] Jerry Lawler.The thing with Kaufman alwayswas, “Was that for real?” That’s thesignature of Kaufman. And a lot oftimes we didn’t use actors, becauseactors would fuck it up. So nobodyknew. It was only between JerryLawler, myself and Kaufman. Wedidn’t tell anyone.H: Where did you and Lawler andKaufman meet to talk about this?Z: Out of the blue, we got a call“I heardpeoplegoing,‘Kill theJew! Killthe Jew!’and theywerethrowingthingsandyellingat me.”—Bob Zmudafrom a real wrestling promoter inMemphis. Jerry Lawler had beensaying, “He’s been wrestling women.How about him wrestling a guy?”And Andy said, “I want to do it!” [Hismanager] George [Shapiro] said,“You’re going to break your neck,”and Andy said, “George, it’s all fake.Believe me. Jerry’s a pro. It’s all goingto work out.” That’s when we startedmaking those tapes to get everybodyriled up—with him going, “Hi! I’mAndy Kaufman, the actor. You mightknow me. I’m a star in Hollywood.I’m going to be in your neck of thewoods. I’m sure you’re going to wantto come up to me and get my autograph…But I understand that in thesouth, there’s a hygiene problem. Wetackled this problem 50 years agoin the north.” He made it betweenthe north and the south! We’d belaughing our asses off. So when wego down to Memphis, we show up atthe hotel, and the manager says, “Youcan’t stay here. We’ve gotten ninebomb threats. We don’t want you inour hotel.” And all through this, forweeks, he’d been trying to call JerryLawler, but he won’t return the call.We figure that Lawler was going tokill him, because everyone hatedAndy in the south.H: Did he ever get worried aboutthis shit or was he excited?Z: He got worried the morning of.He kept thinking, “The guy is a pro.He’s just playing me. There’s got tobe that unwritten law that this is soreal that even though you and I havenever met, we’re going to pull thisoff.” The only time he was going tosee Jerry Lawler was at this Saturdaymorning show the morning of thematch. So we show up at this thing,and Andy stands up. “Hi Jerry,” andputs his hand out. And Lawler spitson his hand and goes, “I don’t likeJews,” and Andy said, “Holy… fuck!”So we were all scared shitless. AndAndy thought, “We have to call thisoff.” The guy was going to kill him,but everyone hates Andy Kaufmanso it’s going to be okay. Lawler’s goingto get away with legal murder. Andnow Andy says to George Shapiro,“I want out.” So George called thepromoter and said, “Andy’s goingto cancel.” And the guy says, “Whatdo you mean ‘cancel’? The place issold out. You write me a check for$50,000.” And $50,000 back thenwas like $400,000 now, and Andydidn’t have that much. So Andy said,“Fuck it!”It was like the boy who cried wolf,and now he was really in trouble.The promoter calls back and says,“Legally, a match has to last oneminute.” If he could just stay awayfrom Lawler for one fucking minute,then we could say that he quit or runout of the place. So what you see [ontape] is real. That’s when Andy putsthe double chokehold on him, andthat’s when Lawler picked him upand knocked him out cold.H: What did you do when thathappened?Z: When we showed up at theMemphis Coliseum, people were soupset they had the Memphis SWATteam bring us in. They were throwingso much stuff, and I heard peoplegoing, “Kill the Jew! Kill the Jew!”So they take us in, and we’re like,“He’ll run around for a little bit andthen we’ll get the fuck out of town.”And then Lawler knocks him out,and then he picks him up and doesit again. And because it was sucha neck injury, they had to put thatspecial stretcher under Kaufman. SoGeorge Shapiro gets in the ambulance,[Andy’s] girlfriend does, andI do, and the ambulance guy goes,“Only two family members allowed!”and closes the door and leaves. Nowthat the SWAT team sees that thestar is gone, they disperse. So I haveto walk back to the dressing room—this whole fucking distance. And thecrowd has tasted blood. They are outof their minds. And I have to walkback through the crowd, and theywere throwing things and yelling atme, “That’s the friend of the Jew!”H: What did you do?Z: I look at the biggest guy there,and I slap him and push him out ofthe way. This guy could have killed me.But after that, it was such a completeshock to everyone that I was able toget the fuck out of there. And thenthey did X-rays of Kaufman at thehospital, and he was fine. But this becamesuch an incredible story. It wason front pages all over the country.Lawler’s a pro. He was a bigKaufman fan himself. And he realized,“If you want to take it to theultimate level, if you want to pull areal put-on, don’t even let the otherguy that’s supposed to be in on it withyou know you’re part of it.” And thatwas that unwritten code of the realwrestlers. It’s brilliant, because it’slike plausible denial.H: So how did you know he was agood guy?Z: Because he was concerned, andhe called the hospital. And I think becausethere was so much press, Jerrywent, “Hey, this is great. I’m on thefront page: Andy Kaufman: Crippledfor Life.” So then we milked it. Andycould have left in an hour from thehospital, but he stayed there a week.And then he had the neck braced thathe wore for like, six months.H: Do you still do any of that stuff?Are you still writing—outside ofComic Relief?Z: There’s this crazy documentaryI have about… You see, Jim [Carrey]didn’t meet Milos Forman until twoweeks after principal photographywrapped [on Man on the Moon] .For 85 days, Jim was either Andyor Tony [Clifton]. When I saw thisI went, “Somebody should reallycapture this if he’s really going to stayin character.” We came in with ourown crew, so it’s not like a “makingof” documentary. It’s going to comeout within the next six months. Andthen a year and half from now is the25 th anniversary of [Andy’s] death.So in a year and a half, on May 16 th ,[2009], there’s going to be a hugepublic event. We’re taking out adsthroughout the world. Also, R.E.M. isgoing to be closing the show.H: Holy shit! I have to be there.114 november-december meansanity

MensanityBooks Can’t Solve EverythingBut the future autobiography of b.j. novak, entertainer ofreal people, just might. we proudly feature an excerptBY B.J. NOVAK WITH PAUL BARMAN + ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL KRALLMe and B.J. Novak drove back eastin a mauve ‘Lac. When we got to ourdestination, I got fired and his recordcame out—we both had a release date.On NBC’s The Office, B.J. plays a tempwho stays verklemmt. In real life, hewrites Office episodes and performsstand-up, doing more than any tempever dreamt. William Novak, his dad,wrote about hemp and then became aghostwriter. B.J.’s upbringing fueled hisearly success. He asked me, a rapper,to ghostwrite the first chapter of hisfuture autobio. —Paul BarmanChapter 1The first writing that I ever rememberfeeling a purpose about waswriting dirty song parodies for mycousins and other kids in elementaryschool. That’s the first time I sawwriting as a form of edutainment orliterature—adding something to theworld, rather than proving what I’velearned to the teacher.In my home, there was a ton of booksand magazines all around. My dad haswritten a lot of autobiographies as aghostwriter and a few scattered nonfictionbooks that reflect his interests:marijuana, single people and Jewishhumor. So there were these shelves inmy house: the psychedelic drug shelf,the geeky ’80s humor shelf; all sorts ofweird libraries. It was a sort of Montessorienvironment for a kid, although itwasn’t just Dr. Seuss books.At one point my mom ran a datingservice. At that same time, my dadwrote a book called The Great AmericanMan Shortage. He was a working,but struggling, writer without a bestseller,and they thought this would behis big breakthrough. But it didn’t goanywhere. I think after that book hebecame a ghostwriter.Due to my father’s ghostwriting, Imet all these incredibly bizarre celebritieswhen I was a kid. Nancy Reagan,Oliver North, Tip O’Neill, George Stephanopoulos,Earvin “Magic” Johnson—just a really interesting range of people.“The Mayflower Madam,” SydneyBiddle Barrows, threw witty darts likearrows. Claire Sylvia had gotten a heartand lung transplant from a man’s manwho loved what she couldn’t stand.She craved new foods and started tograndstand. We never know how we’llland a new chance.I read the introduction to my dad’smarijuana book and it never occurredto me that he was a marijuana smoker.You have these boundaries, I guess,when you’re a kid. Books can’t solveeverything. There are some things thatyour mind will or won’t take.I look more like my mom than mydad. We are a relatively similar-lookingfamily. We look similar and have similarinterests, too.My face gets excited about a beardfor the first couple days. Then my faceseems to lose interest. Finally, my braingives up when it sees my face.I was putting on this variety show atHarvard [Novak went to Harvard] andI invited Bob Saget to perform there. Iwrote him a letter because I knew hisstand-up persona was so different thanhis Full House persona. He did the showwith me and then he asked me to writefor his new show, Raising Dad—thisWarner Brothers sitcom. I was just graduating,about a month away. So I wentstraight to Los Angeles.Sometimes people say improvisationis the greatest form of comedy,or the most difficult. There’s a pyramidscheme going on where there’s actuallymoney made on these classes, andpeople signing up and paying to seeeach other, teach each other this sortof structured form of improv. I guessit’s impressive that people come outof it but I don’t think it enables a lot ofpeople to do their best work.I’ve amassed a lot of stand-up materialthat feels so irrelevant to me, stuffI wrote a couple years ago. Standingon stage saying that stuff would feelironic, or something. It wouldn’t makeany sense. I cycle stuff out, I really don’thave that much material. It’s kind of asad secret about me right now. I havea solid 30 minutes but I don’t have anhour. If someone wanted to see me twonights in a row, they’d have to see theexact same thing. But it’s the same at aJerry Seinfeld show.The formulaic story arc—exposition,climax, conclusion—was not written byGod. I believe in it, but it’s a means toan end. If it feels right to you then it’sright. The audience will always want tosee some kind of evolution. In order towrite dialogue for distinctive characters,it helps to picture them, especiallyonce you know the actors. I guess it’seasy for me. Maybe I’m just good!My father said, “Only say what youthink is funny, only keep what theythink is funny.” I say, always write toentertain real people. It sounds pretentious,but I think a lot of people,from junior high all the way to television,write to impress people they’renot friends with. They write to impressteachers. Then the teachers justbecome studio executives or networkexecutives or critics. They never writefor their classmates. They keep writingfor teachers so they can get goodgrades and prove their worth. Youshould be writing for the kid sittingnext to you. You should never be writingfor your teachers.The smaller the scrap of paper I writeon, the better the idea tends to be. Idon’t know why, but if I’m writing onthe corner of a piece of paper or a scrapof an index card, I’ll fill it to the marginswith cool stuff. If it’s a legal pad, I havea lot more trouble.116 november-december meansanity

Across Political Divides,Our Therapist-EssayistCouches Presidential HopefulsMensanity specialpresidential election 2008BY DAVID HAYES + ILLUSTRATIONS BY DANIEL KRALLRudy giulianiRudy Giuliani has a nice, toothygrin. He seems earnest. He knows whathe wants and doesn’t like anyone disagreeingwith him. According to thosewho have, he really doesn’t like it. Rudy,like all of us, has a dark side, which hehas for the most part kept in check.But the unconscious mind, with itspenchant for blustery psychic hiccups,reliably burps forth. Then—oops!—something we have tried to keep tightlyunder wraps leaks out.What is often reported about Giulianiis his egotism. His New York mayorshipwas filled with in-the-trenchesphoto-ops: He was reliably first on thescene of shootings, fires and kitten-intreesrescue operations. He’s a mediawhore who loves the limelight, a manwhose M.O. is suave assuredness whenothers around him go unnerved. He’salso known for being a vicious, untiringrival, with a reputation for defendinghis political pursuits like a meth-crazedrooster at a cockfight.If I were to look into his upbringing—somethingI might do if he weremy patient—I would find that he wasan only child, considered a “miraclebaby” by his parents who had troubleconceiving. Notably, and perhaps notso surprisingly (according to the recenttell-all Giuliani biography Rudy),his father did time in Sing Sing correctionalfacility and was reportedly“hired muscle” for the Mafia. Thatmay explain Rudy’s years of impassionedcrime-busting in Washington. Icould also make interpretations aboutthe opera club he began when he wasyoung, his dalliance with priesthoodor his hatred of ferrets. While noneof these pieces of his personal historyalone construct a clear picture of theman, they may, retrodictively, point ustoward Rudy Giuliani’s self-proclaimeddestiny of “miracle politician.”Alas: like Icarus, whose waxen wingsbegan to melt as he flew gloriouslytowards the sun, here too, a fall isimminent. The hubris of the narcissisthas a fragile foundation, bound tocrumble as his true vulnerabilities, andthe manic defenses employed to holdthem back, seep through. In Rudy’scase, such emanations appear in twocategories: pre-9/11—during whichtime he displayed his regular intolerancefor difference of opinion; andpost-9/11, when his identification withhis father’s anger has been polarizinghis politics into a paranoid re-enactmentof pre-emptive aggression.“Right now, as we sit here enjoyingbreakfast, they are planning on cominghere to kill us,” thus spoke Rudyto an elderly woman’s query duringa recent campaign stop. While he’sprobably accurate on a technical level,it goes without saying that brunchersin several Middle Eastern nations aresaying the same thing about us. Thisquote is perhaps better understood asan insight into the nature of Rudy’s internalworld, where danger looms anddissension is a threat to the core.“I understand terrorism in a way thatis equal to or exceeds anyone else,”Rudy also recently noted. Concretely,he’s referring to his 9/11 experience.But the genetic interpretation of hisstatement points toward an interpretationof “terrorism” in a much moreproximal and internal landscape.Ironically, despite relying on “security”as his campaign buzz word (whichfor the populace at large invokes collectivefear and insecurity), during thefirst presidential debate, he confusinglyreframed his rhetoric as a “lead fromoptimism.”Rudy’s résumé reads pretty well,unless you’re a ferret-loving Haitianhanging out at the Brooklyn Museum,or a New York City rescue worker witha bad cough. It’s his emotionality andvolatility that tend to leave a bad taste.But perhaps this is what politics is reallyall about: The way people tend to vote,and how they lean in the polls, showsus that the persona persuades aboveall; that the archetypal image of thepolitician is greater than the sum of hisor her deeds.If, as the Buddhists and many object-relationspsychologists believe, theoutside world is merely an illusion—aprojection of our inner psychic landscapeinhabited by a chorus of “goodor evil” characters—then, looking atour politicians as the disowned aspectsof our national self, we find a hollow,inauthentic, yet persistently heroicidealization. Rudy Giuliani, and everyother narcissistic political idol, risesthrough the ranks because we are a nationthat needs and loves the cowboyhero. We worship the one who’s “notgoing take it any more”; the one who’sgoing to protect the good and punishthe bad.If only it were that simple! Breakingthings down into black and white is notonly unhelpful; it’s pathological—atleast for an adult.As many of you know, therapistsgenerally prefer to explore rather thangive advice. As such, I shall not opine onwhether Rudy Giuliani is fit or unfit tobecome our next president. What I’mreally coming out strong against, however,is the lack of respect we pay toour own inner bullshit meters—thoseinner compasses that, when workingwell, alert us to the lack of caring, toempathic miscue or emotional incongruence.Our own black and white thinking—andthe fantasies and fantasticalpoliticians it creates—is our greaterchallenge.hilLary clintonHillary is the new J.R. She’s powerful,feisty, determined, hated andloved in surprisingly equal measure. Butwhat’s not to love, America? She’s ourfirst viable shot at a female commanderin chief. If that came to pass, it wouldrepresent a giant step for us as a nation,but merely the logical conclusion to theascent of a woman accustomed to beingfirst from the crib.She was a first-born, the first studentto give her college commencementaddress, the first lady of Arkansas for12 years, the Arkansas Woman of theYear in 1983, Arkansas Young Motherof the Year in 1984 and twice namedone of the top most influential lawyersin America. She was a first lady foreight years and also the first first ladyto have a postgraduate degree, to besubpoenaed before a grand jury, andto set up offices in the west wing of theWhite House.“I’d play out in the patch of sunlightthat broke the density of the elms infront of our house and pretend therewere heavenly movie cameras watchingmy every move,” the young, wouldbeNew York senator once wrote to amale friend. When the latter made theircollegiate correspondence public lastsummer, we got a glimpse of Hillary’searliest fantasy of basking in the warm,fuzzy glow of the spotlight.What we have here is an ambitious,steely candidate whose resumé reads,at least until 2001, like a liberal manifestochecklist. She sought to bringattention to child advocacy issues,women’s and minorities’ rights, healthcare initiatives, hunger, housing reformand worked hard on the campaigns ofothers who supported these issues.So why isn’t every woman, minority,sensitive New Age male, metrosexual,homosexual, healthcare worker andDemocrat ready to vote for her? HillaryRodham Clinton seems to havesystematically frustrated our desire tolove her more. Maybe it’s our fault.Maybe it’s us, not her—although hererstwhile supporters point out that,since becoming a senator from NewYork in 2001, she has compromised herrecord and innermost beliefs by becomingmore moderate and centrist in herpolicy-making.Let’s consider for a moment whata shift in the gender balance of thenation’s most powerful job wouldmean for Capitol Hill and the rest ofthe country. This is the big chair, thebig leagues, and the first time Americahas had to reconcile the notion of awoman in command. Patriarchies areaccustomed to men being in command;that is, in fact, their point. Yetfeminists and an impressive array ofpsychologists, philosophers and thosewho still align themselves with NewAge creeds allege that the modernworld is out of balance. History, theyargue, has been largely repressive ofthe essential aspects of feminine powerthat could theoretically level a testosterone-infusedsocio-political system.And, as one theory goes, male dominance—asidefrom some necessaryevolutionary elements—is an exaggeratedand rigidified defense against howvulnerable, and yes, inferior a man canfeel when he measures his own prowessagainst the life-giving power of thefemale. Patriarchal cultures throughouthistory (which is like saying, “prettymuch all cultures”), it follows, are thuspervaded with aggression, dominance,violence and repression of others ascompensation for how little powermen actually feel they have.Enter Hillary and her 2007 bid forpresidency. Even when you considerthe larger, aforementioned implicationsof her candidacy, she still seemsquite suited for the job. She has beenbent on changing the system—anysystem—since her childhood. Her earlyrebellious struggles against her fatherevolved into a lifelong effort not onlyto be seen, heard and understood, butalso into a struggle to surpass Father.By all accounts, she has what a formerClinton friend and advisor called “aquality of ruthlessness.” But, hell, that’sPolitician 101. To develop into theextremely powerful woman she has become,in the unbelievably misogynisticenvironment in which she finds herself,necessitates perseverance, determinationand aggression.Yet perversely, these same characteristicsthat have enabled her to succeedevoke in us feelings of resentment, disdainand abandonment. We don’t likethat she seems often unable to leavethe guns at the door. There are waysin which her well-intentioned fightingspirit betrays her. Recall her “…I couldhave stayed home and baked cookiesand had teas, but what I decided to dowas fulfill my profession…” comment,along with her infamous dis of TammyWynette—when she huffed that shewasn’t just going to, as Wynette putit in song, idly “stand by her man.”(Never mind that she eventually didjust that, standing by her philanderingmate, much to the dismay of ardentfemale supporters everywhere.)“I’m the one person they’re afraidof,” she said recently, referring to herRepublican adversaries. Hillary hasfighter fatigue—the bitter taste ofresentment that comes from havingspent her entire life fighting for something.Warriors often win, but seldomforget the war.Clinton has been in the spotlight forclose to 40 years. After numerousseverely probing investigations andcountless biographies (including a fewscandalous ones), no big skeletonshave emerged from her (now turnedinside-out) closet. While there is anabundant legacy of information abouther politics and her life choices, TheReal Hillary Clinton remains an impenetrablefortress. We complain that westill have no idea who she truly is. Andthat can only mean two things: Eitherwe have failed to find a consistentHillary in which we can see ourselvesreflected, or she has failed to let us inon whatever lies beyond her votingrecord or rhetoric—which is what weexpect and demand from our nec pluribusimpar leader. Hence our collectivecompulsion to keep investigating her.Perhaps this is why we’ve critiqued notonly her voting record, but also herhairdos, outfits, and lately, her cleavage.Actually, I think it’s only one pieceof the puzzle.“Help make history!” her campaignWeb site extols. Indeed, her electionwould be historic. Surely such a shiftof power would require the right combinationof elements: stars must bealigned, as well as our ideas aboutmasculine and feminine. The Jungianpsychologists have posited that,regardless of our respective gender, inorder to be a truly individuated being,we must reconcile, integrate and find abalance between both masculine andfeminine archetypal qualities within us.The ancient art of alchemy was thoughtto be the symbolic representation ofthis process.What remains to be seen is whetherHillary Clinton and the rest of the countryis ready to turn lead into gold.David Hayes, M.A., MFT, is a licensedmarriage and family therapist inBeverly Hills, and reachable throughLAtherapist.net118 22 november-december meanmachines&meanridesmeansanity

get m Enwith todd rassmunsenWHEN OUR TRUSTY CORRESPONDENT GETSEMBEDDED IN HOLLYWOOD, HE OBSERVES THEPLIGHT OF LOCAL WORKING STIFFs AND HIGH-PAIDSTARS—AND DEVELOPS A MYSTERIOUS ALLERGICREACTION TO THE ENVIRONS“IF MY TIME INHOLLYWOODTAUGHT MEANYTHING,IT’S THAT ONEMUSTN’T FUSSOVER PESKYFACTS.”Todd, RESOLUTE AS EVER.By a peculiar twist of fate, I recently found myselfin line at Hollywood Station, one of L.A.’s landmarkpost offices.I was in town at the paid behest of a majormotion-picture studio. A cabal of producers hadcontacted me after learning of my expertise in thefield of arctic exploration gear, and inquired if I wasinterested in acting as a wardrobe consultant on theset of an upcoming film about the legendary Teufelssonexpedition of 1909. As I felt an obligation to mygreat-grandfather Arne Rassmunsen, a member ofthat vaunted scientific voyage, to ensure that the filmwas as historically accurate as possible, I agreed. It alsodidn’t hurt that the money the studio was offeringwould finally enable me to complete the constructionof the telioscope I had been laboring over for monthsat my Zurich home base.Having flown into Los Angeles and checked myselfinto an overpriced hotel abutting Sunset Boulevard, Inow awaited my turn to mail the contents of my pricelesspackage (papers I had obtained which confirmedthe existence of Aldous Huxley’s never-producedscript for a Don Quixote cartoon) while curiouslypondering my surroundings.The industrial thrum of the Hollywood P.O.’s beleagueredair conditioning unit was a reminder of justhow hot fall can get in the dark heart of SouthernCalifornia. In front of me stood a fellow with straggly,long, blond hair and a sun-whipped face. Whilehe tapped his foot impatiently, fretting with hisown package, I noticed the crimson rash coveringhis hands and wrists. I took a half step back as hecoughed into his red fist.When this stricken son reached the front of theline, he asked the woman behind the counter to borrowsome tape. She handed him two even strips ofadhesive and looked aghast at this hands. He thankedher for the tape in a loud voice. Then he noticed herstaring.“Ha! Yeah!” he said. “I’m, y’know, Spider-Man? Iwork that stretch on Hollywood Boulevard by Mann’sChinese Theater… Yesterday I go to put on my costumefor work, and there were tears in the gloves. SoI took a red Sharpie and colored in where the skin wasshowing through. But now I can’t get the ink off!”I had encountered this strange strain of workingstiffs earlier on that very day, when I went on a reconnaissancetrip around my hotel looking for a propercup of espresso. Costumed as various legendarymovie characters, they mill about Hollywood’s certifiedtourist-trap locales, entertaining out-of-towners.On the one hand, I was relieved that the Spider-Manfor rent before me wasn’t suffering from some abominabledermatological disorder. But on the other, I felta profound melancholy at the plight of today’s streetcornerAmerican superhero.I left the Hollywood P.O. and drove to the ÜberpeakPictures lot. After a mildly invasive security check, Iadvanced through a Byzantine series of connectedbuildings toward an elevator that would take me tothe sub-space where the initial costume fitting wasalready under way.“First time?” asked the elevator operator, an ancientman with silver hair sprouting from his ears.“Why, yes, it is,” I replied.“Well, I suppose we all cross the River Styx at somepoint,” he offered with Charon-like insight.The elevator door opened, spilling us directly ontoa cavernous soundstage. A Big Hollywood Actor,gayer than a summer day, was standing in the middleof a large pile of clothes. Upon closer inspection,they appeared to be the actual garments worn bymembers of the Teufelsson expedition, items of immeasurablehistorical importance.“Christ, these muggings are hot,” the B. H. A.huffed, staring accusingly at his feet.“They’re called mukluks,” I retorted. “And if I’mnot mistaken, you’re also wearing a genuine pair ofsealskin gloves that once belonged to the great BarleyByggvir of the Teufelsson expedition.”“Sealskin?” shouted the B.H.A. “I don’t do sealskin!”He pulled off the offending gloves and threwthem roughly to the ground.Greatly disturbed, I instinctively reached down toretrieve them. As if on cue, a petite assistant enteredsoundstage right, bearing a large platter of rhomboidshapedhors d’oeuvres. The B.H.A. grabbed a fistfulof sandwiches and pressed them into his mouth. Hechewed for a while, his mastication face resemblingthat of a randy camel.“This is the finest Genoa ham that money canbuy!” he enthused over his snack.“Looks like baloney to me,” I muttered under mybreath.“So,” the B.H.A. burped forth, slapping me onthe shoulder with extravagantly affected bonhomie,“let’s get rid of all these crappy old outfits, eh? Toomuch of a premium is placed on authenticity thesedays, don’t you think? To be frank, it’s fucking up myartistic license.”He must have seen the expression of incredulity onmy face, for he quickly corrected himself:“Did I say artistic license? I mean, my wife’s shoppingallowance at Macy’s!”The space erupted in laughter, and it was only thenthat I noticed the half-dozen assistants posing in asemi-circle formation well away from the B.H.A. Theyscampered forward and collected the clothes beforedisappearing into the darkness.In the end, a film was made of the Teufelssonexpedition of 1909. Only, of course, the locale waschanged from the Artic Circle to Ibiza, the subsequentwardrobe consisting primarily of slimming swimwearand tennis outfits. But if my time in Hollywood taughtme anything, it’s that one mustn’t fuss over peskyfacts. They only get in the way of Academy Awardnominations.As for me, I cashed my Hollywood check andreturned to Zurich, ready to finish building my telioscope.It was only as I got to work that I noticed apeculiar rosaceous rash tainting my hands and forearms.And the funny thing is, I don’t recall penciling itin with a red Sharpie.illustration by jordan crane120 22 november-december meanmachines&meanridesgetmean