ATOM EGOYAN INTERVIEW, CONCLUSION
by Peter Keough
The Boston Phoenix
ve/2009/05/20/atom-egoyan-interview-conclusion.asp x
May 20 2009
Is art just a futile attempt to cover up trauma and an illusory
substitute for loss? Is the internet, like cinema, a reflection of
the subconscious processes of the mind? Sometimes I wonder how these
people have the patience to put up with me, asking questions like that.
PK: I was reading Roger Ebert’s review of your film "Ararat," and
he’s saying that it’s a very powerful story, but why do you have to
make it so difficult, , why not just tell one of the stories instead
of having it a film within a film and so forth. How do you respond
to criticism like that?
AE: It’s funny when critics’ tell you what should have done as opposed
to what you have done. I think the other extreme reaction I had was,
oh, it should have been a documentary. And it’s like, well, , no, it
shouldn’t have. That’s not the story I wanted to tell. So the question
is, given what I did want to tell, I mean, what’s the feeling about
the actual telling? You could say that it’s too complicated for it’s
own good, maybe. My own feeling about that film with a bit of distance
is that it’s wildly ambitious. I’m really proud of it, I think it’s
probably, it’s not the best film I’ll make, but I certainly think
it’s the most important one in terms of what it’s actually trying to
deal with.
I think it’s quite unique, , it’s unwieldy for sure. I mean, I think
it’s actually a film that probably should have been written as a
novel first and then adapted, but that wasn’t the way it evolved. And
it’s still seven years later, a film of mine that’s really discussed
a lot. There’s some seminars about it. It’s dealing with a really
important issue, which is: how do we deal with the legacy of trauma
through generations? And how does that distort our entire relationship
to history? I had a specific agenda with that, and it wasn’t about
trying to present the Armenian Genocide. I wasn’t trying to make the
film within the film, the film within the film actually is not for
me to make.
It’s weird that my wife [Arsinee Khanjian] starred in a version of
that film that the Taviani brothers made, called "The Lark Farm." It
was made three years after "Ararat." It’s dealing with the Armenian
Genocide based on a very successful Italian novel and it’s just not my
interest to make that type of a historic epic…I wrote the film that
I had in mind and I think with some distance people can appreciate
it for what it is. Or not, again, time tells. I think the wonderful
thing about films is that, unlike theater, they last, they persist.
Sometimes things, especially in this very accelerated kind of culture
we live in…some things that need attention may find that they get
attention after the fact, that they don’t necessarily think up to
a particular moment that they have. But, the tragedy is when those
films are not even available for distribution. I mean the great
thing about a film like "Ararat" is because it had Miramax and it’s
available through their output deal that they had with Disney, so,
that film is widely available. And that to me the triumph of a movie
like that, that it’s accessible to people and they can make their
own choice. I think what’s really sad is when a film doesn’t even
have that opportunity to enter into people’s consciousness.
And then finishing going back to what you were saying, with the
Internet being kind of a source of a collective subconscious, so you
could say that maybe it can find it’s way somehow, through YouTube or
some other alternate way of distributing it. But I wonder whether or
not that that really gives some work its fair due. It’s interesting,
I wrote a piece for "The New York Times" on summer films – I don’t know
if you read it, about a week ago, or ten days ago – and I was talking
about Frank Perry, who is actually one of these forgotten figures
of American independence cinema. He made films like "The Swimmer"
and "David and Lisa" and there was this film called "Last Summer,"
and I tried to find it.
It was never released on DVD, it was never released on VHS, but someone
has posted scenes from it on YouTube. And you go, ok, well, I guess
it’s there somehow. It has a few hundred hits…people, somehow,
have exchanged it. So then it becomes this other product, right,
it’s not really the film, it’s this sort of composite of scenes so
the rest of it exists in people’s imagination. And that’s fascinating,
isn’t it? That’s a new type of cinephilia, right, constructed of these
particular moments people wish to download or have access to and share.
PK: Sort of like with the modernism, like T.S. Eliot or something,
taking these broken fragments of past culture and making them into
something new..
AE: Yeah, and , that’s a very fascinating process to me. And in a way
that’s what Simon’s doing, right, he’s taking these items and these
objects and he’s kind of breaking them down, right, and fracturing
them, and kind of creating a new culture around them that’s relevant
to himself. Because the old one certainly doesn’t work anymore.
PK: I read a quote that you had about film, "film grammar is similar
to dream grammar" and then you suggested that’s why it caught on
so quickly not only with film makers but also audiences are able to
adapt to the language of film so readily. It’s natural. What do you
think the internet is, I mean, that caught on as quickly as film did,
certainly. Is that another form of dream grammar or dream structure?
AE: Hm, that’s a really good question. I don’t think in the same way,
no, because it’s not as hypnotic and we’re not as spellbound just
because the nature of how we receive a video image. It’s not made
for the same concentration, and I’m talking about it as the whole. I
think there are individual images that are obviously made that way,
and you can find an individual image maybe on YouTube that is made
that way, but as a collective concept the internet is so open., the
thing about a film is that it unspools, or it – again that’s an old
concept – but it is being played in a certain way, that, in a way,
there’s an inevitability about it. I mean, it’s going to end at a
certain point, and so there’s a fixed chain of images which have been
predetermined. And in that sense, we are in it’s thrall. In a way that
we are not in the thrall of the internet. It’s by it’s nature…There
are so many other possibilities that are open for us to explore at any
given time that we commit ourselves to the idea and that becomes part
of a …It’s very much rooted in our conscious world, I think. Because
it involves us, it requires us to make very clear, strategic choices
in terms of how we navigate it. Film allows us to drift a lot more,
and that’s its beauty, I think, and what makes it so intoxicating.
PK: There seems to be a catastrophe or some sort of trauma, as you
put it, at the center of most of your films, and it’s sort of a pearl
affect; you get more and more layers covering it in order to make it
something beautiful and also to make the pain something far away. Do
you think that’s an accurate description?
AE: Well yes, and often those are layers that have been constructed
by people to either hide or to protect, right? I mean, and maybe,
a grandfather thinks that he’s protecting his grandson from certain
realities [as in "Adoration"], but doesn’t really understand that
he’s also harming him. I don’t think that necessarily these things
are done maliciously, but they end up being very damaging.
PK: He wasn’t a nice man though, you have to admit that.
AE: He was not a nice man, no.
PK: Your recent film, "Chloe…" something traumatic happened during
the making of that. [the death of Natasha Richardson, the wife of
that film’s star, Liam Neeson, in a skiing accident].
AE: That was crazy, that was an insane thing.
PK: Has that every happened to you before while making a movie?
AE: No, I think it’s happened very rarely, I mean, I’ve talked to film
makers and it’s a very rare situation where a whole production comes
grinding to a halt, , and where it’s as traumatic as that was. Yeah,
very sobering, and it also really affected the crew, because I think,
, we’re in a profession where people are away from their families
sometimes, so the idea that something like that could happen of that
scale, that you wouldn’t be there. We ended up making it…but it
was just so freakish. I mean, the whole thing was just so…and it
also alerted us to [the fact that] we all fall, and we all know the
situations where someone says, "are you sure you’re ok?" And we go,
"Oh yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine."
PK: You took a couple weeks off, was that right?
AE: Yeah, and then he came back, which is so amazing. He was able
to resume.
PK: It’s also probably a way to cope too, is to focus on something.
AE: Yes, and I think it would have been more difficult for him to
come back now, say. There was a great, for him, this moment where his
whole family was there, and the boys were being looked after and he
knew that he could come and finish it, and that would be with family
while he was able to come for the four days that he had.
PK: And you’ve worked with him a lot in the past. You did "Krapp’s
Last Tape" with him, the Beckett play.
AE: That’s right, yeah.
PK: Beckett seems…I mean, the sort of starkness of Beckett in
this and the almost rococo structure of your films seem, like, along
diametrically opposite lines…
AE: I don’t know if you ever saw the film version if "Krapp’s Last
Tape?" That to me was one of the most amazing projects I ever had,
with John Hurt, and it was like, again, this idea of using different
sort of structures, but in that case, in that play, it’s all within
a linear, sort of real time. You have a 69 year old man listening to
his 39 year old self on tape, referring to his 24 year old self.
PK: Right, that is a little convoluted.
AE: Yeah, but beautiful, and so carefully wrought.
PK: When is "Chloe" coming out?
AE: It’ll be ready for the festival [Cannes]
PK: And you didn’t write this?
AE: No, no. This is the first project I’ve done where I didn’t have
any say into the writing. I mean of course, what am I saying…I spent
a year working on it, but it was with Erin [Erin Cressida Wilson,
the writer]. I mean Erin did all of the writing.
PK: And you’re working on something else now?
AE: No, just editing "Chloe."
PK: Well, it’s always rewarding to see a new film of yours.
AE: Thanks, Peter.