Psychomagic: An Adventure and Interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky

An Adventure and Interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky 

by ADARSHA BENJAMIN

Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of the great masters of surrealist cinema.  His trinity of violent, extraordinary and symbolic masterpieces โ€“ El Topo, Holy Mountain, and Santa Sangre โ€“ have made him into an icon. Jodorowsky is not only a cult filmmaker but also a poet, author, comic book writer and spiritual mystic who holds on to the mysteries of the universe like tightly-kept secrets only to be shared with those worthy of his message. Born to Ukrainian-Jewish parents in Chile in 1929, he eventually moved to Paris to become a mime. There, he was first introduced to the avant-garde movements of performance art and cinema. His first feature film, Fando y Lis, about a young man and his paraplegic sister on an odyssey through a post-apocalyptic landscape searching for a mythological city called Tar, was beset by riots when it came out in the theater. His subsequent films proved to be midnight cult hits that earned Jodorowsky the status of legendary cineaste.  A spiritual guru, Jodorowsky heals deep-rooted psychological wounds with something he calls โ€œpsychomagic.โ€ He has written two books on the subject; Psychomagic: The Sacred Trap and The Dance of Reality โ€“ an adaptation of which is set to start filming later this year.  Here is the story of my afternoon with Alejandro Jodorowsky. 

โ€“โ€“โ€“โ€“

Iโ€™m locked out of the apartment Iโ€™m staying in in Paris.  I donโ€™t have my wallet. I have one roll of film rolling around the bottom of my bag. Itโ€™s raining. Alejandro Jodorowskyโ€™s apartment is one hour away and I have twenty minutes to get there. No money for a metro ticket, since my wallet is locked inside the apartment I am locked out of.  Like an angel from above, a nice French gentleman hands me a ticket. Small success. I run to the metro, but get lost. I find my way by memory.  The last time I visited his apartment was on a trip with James Franco and his producer Vince Jolivette to discuss a potential creative collaboration. During that meeting, he chose three Tarot cards for me, which to this day enlighten and heal a certain side of myself, and have further inspired my artistic vision. This time around, Iโ€™m alone to photograph Jodorowsky for this story and for a future photographic series.  I arrive at his building. Iโ€™m thirty minutes late. I ring the buzzer.

 โ€œBonjour?โ€

โ€œBonjour Alejandro, itโ€™s Adarsha.โ€

โ€œAdarsha?โ€

โ€œYes.

โ€œOkay.โ€

He tells me to come to the fourth floor โ€“ in Spanish.  I walk up the same familiar dark winding staircase. Last time, I was nervous and laughing hysterically the entire way up the spiral staircase. This time Iโ€™m out of breath, wet as a dog, and completely out of my mind with jetlag. Light peeks under the door. The hallway smells a bit funny. He opens the door and greets me kindly. The light inside is warm. Yellow Paris lights. I look around. I remember all the books. He leads me into the office. Pointing to a clock, he diplomatically acknowledges my tardiness. โ€œWhy yes, Alejandro Jodorowsky, I was thirty minutes late.โ€ He doesnโ€™t really mind. We move on. Iโ€™m here to photograph. He sits by the window. There is not much light. Remember, one roll of film. Itโ€™s also gray and rainy outside โ€“ Parisian skies.  A little lamp suffices. I pull out my little Honeywell.  He laughs at my modest camera. Itโ€™s a laugh of camaraderie. After all, he is an underground filmmaker, and I could only imagine some sense of nostalgia rushed over him in that moment. Snap. Snap. Snap. I take some portraits. We talk about film, but other than that it is mainly silent โ€“ silent, but comfortable.  We move to a room of plants โ€“ orchids, succulents, and cacti.  He points to a giant Bonsai. โ€œThey were once tiny plants.โ€ โ€œBonsai?โ€ I ask. โ€œYes!โ€ โ€œNow they grow,โ€ he says wisely. His apartment is a living testament to his creative endeavors. The original film reels from Holy Mountain and El Topo sit on the bookshelf behind him. I take a few more pictures. He hands me a book of his โ€“ in Spanish โ€“ artwork from a previous, botched albeit grandiose attempt to adapt the 1965 science fiction novel Dune by Frank Herbert.  Jodorowsky had planned to film the adaptation as a ten-hour feature starring Salvador Dalรญ, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson and Mick Jagger.  Dune was later adapted by David Lynch in 1981 and panned by critics and audiences alike. I wrap up shooting โ€“ the film is almost done. I take one final photograph of both Jodorowsky and myself โ€“ kind of a self-portrait โ€“ a reminder to myself that I was there, in that magical moment, with one of the greatest artists of our time. There are not many words to describe an artist โ€“ a man โ€“ like Alejandro Jodorowsky.  I leave his apartment โ€“ back into the Paris streets โ€“ past the opera house at Bastille โ€“ into oblivion and beyond. Once again, this magic man has further enlightened my path as an artist, without even trying. I asked him to choose three tarot cards for the future of art, and I hope in their mystical alliance you also find a token of inspiration to heal a side of yourself that may have been locked or dormant. I think silently, this is Alejandroโ€™s wish as well.

What is it about cinema that is so important? 

Cinema is a goddess becoming a bitch for the industry. Just as Christ has been converted by the masked pedophile priests. In the kingdom of dreams, the Gods are significant. Being the supreme being of art and film, the one which encompasses all the other arts, which is vital for the rise of our spirits. But now it is poisoned. 

Can you remember the first moment you wanted to make films or what brought you to want to make films?

When I was seven years old I saw, The Hunchback of Notre Dame from the genius Charles Laughton. And Frankenstein, performed by the genius Boris Karloff. I wanted to become one of those two monsters; I spent the entire day making horrible faces.

How did your collaboration with John Lennon come about and what was it like working with him?

I never worked with John Lennon. He saw my film El Topo and he admired my work. Yoko Ono said I was a filmmaker ahead by thirty years. They decided to help socially and economically. Thanks to them I got to debut El Topo at the Elgin Theater. As well thankful for Alain Klein, who was his producer at ABKO, gave me a million dollars to do what I wanted to do.... I made Holy Mountain.

Who are some of your favorite poets?

Lao-Tse, because besides being a poet he was a scholar. And Heraclitus, because besides being a scholar he was a poet.

Who do you admire working in film today? Is there anyone who you think is doing truly groundbreaking work?

Nicolas Winding Refn. Bronson and Drive.

What do you see as the most important lesson that a young artist can learn these days?

Donโ€™t make movies to make money, but to find your soul. Never work for the bureaucrats in Hollywood.

"I donยดt think with ideas, but with my testicles. I donยดt search, I ejaculate."

What have been the biggest misconceptions about you and your films?

Sรณlo pedos de culos que se creen cerebros. 

How do you think of new ideas for your comic books? 

I donยดt think with ideas, but with my testicles. I donยดt search, I ejaculate.  

Can you describe an interesting anecdote youโ€™ve encountered during your psychomagic sessions?

A guru who had many followers came to see me. He asked me for a remedy to sleep because he suffered from insomnia. Surprisingly, I took him into my arms and made him suck on a babyโ€™s bottle. He then burst into tears like a baby. Nobody could silence him. I had to hypnotize him to make him sleep.

Can society today still learn from psychomagic? 

Obviously, the psychomagic of individuals is passed to the social psychomagic. The countries are sick, like children. We have to make them grow so we can be a planet.

What art forms do you think represent the now?

The spiritual kiss. 

What does the future look like to you?

There is no future. We live in the eternal present. And this present is marvelous. As the world is, not as the world has been. If a cup of gold has mud, gold still remains.

If you were to choose three tarot cards for the coming ages, for the future of art and film, which ones would they be?

18, La Luna. 19, El Sol. 21, El Mundo. 

Alejandro Jodorowsky's epic story of his emigration from the Ukraine to Chile amidst the political and cultural upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries is told in fantastical, mythic form in the new book Where the Bird Sings Best. Jodorowskyโ€™s book transforms family history into heroic legend: incestuous beekeepers hide their crime with a living cloak of bees, a czar fakes his own death to live as a hermit amongst the animals, a devout grandfather confides only in the ghost of a wise rabbi, a transgender ballerina with a voracious sexual appetite holds a would-be saint in thrall. This interview was originally published in Autre Issue 2 (2012). Text, interview and photographs by Adarsha Benjamin. 


Lucky As Sin: An Interview with Lou Taylor Pucci

Lou Taylor Pucci in Thumbsucker (2005)

Very rarely do you catch an actor during that chrysalis phase between crawling out of the cocoon of one character and into the skin of another. This is exactly where I caught Lou Taylor Pucci, who is an innately gifted actor, well known for playing vulnerable souls and identity seeking characters, like the thumb sucking angst-ridden teen, Justin Cobb in Mike Millsโ€™ 2003 debut feature, Thumbsucker alongside Tilda Swinton, Vincent D'Onofrio and Keanu Reeves. The role made him a fixture in mid-aughts indie cinema.

Then there is his most recent role as Evan in the genre-bending, sci-fi, love story horror film, Spring, which features a more mature actor grappling with demons that are both figurative and literal. In Spring, Pucci plays the heartbreaking role of a young man who loses his mother and decides to go on an adventure of a lifetime. The film, shot on the beautiful coastline of an ambiguous Italian village, shows his character searching for meaning, destiny, self, loveโ€ฆanything to quell the longing. He finds his purpose when he meets Louise, a beautiful young woman who is hiding a frightening, monstrous secret that far outweighs anyoneโ€™s definition of โ€œbaggage.โ€

The film is the second feature by inventive directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead who start the film off during the low tide of the characterโ€™s mourning of his mother and his stages of grief. As the tide rises, the film crashes beautifully on the coast of Italy, where slow motion drone shots and multiple minute long pans follow the character into a deep, dark world where every part of his psyche is pushed to the limit. It is a Kafkaesque tale that harkens elements and overtones of German Expressionist cinema with a little bit of Jarmusch-cool.

Pucci fits into these roles perfectly. He is an actor that is not afraid to be vulnerable, which is the mark of a great actor โ€“ if not a believable one. I first met Pucci, who is a New Jersey native from a creative, folksy kind of showbiz family (think the Carter family), before the premiere of Spring. He has grown a massive beard for his next role, as Romeo 'Prickface' Griggs, in Poor Boy โ€“ a film about two misfit brothers who try to survive in the desert. In the following candid interview, Pucci talks about his unique upbringing as an altar boy, his dichotomous entrance into the world of independent cinema and his future goals as an actor in the Hollywood machine.

How did you get your start?

I started in musical theater. I grew up in a, I donโ€™t know what the word would be, because I canโ€™t exactly say that I was in a poor family, but I was in a lower middle class family. There was not much money. But my dad was a musician and my mom has done modeling and she loved musicals. One of the first interesting memories I have of my dad was him up on stage at a fair playing guitar.

So it was in the blood already?

Well, yeah, my name โ€“ they named me Lou Taylor Pucci, because my mom and dad both thought it was a good stage name. They thought I was going to be a musician, which is hilarious.

Thatโ€™s really thinking ahead.

So, yes, I grew up in a family that was based in entertainment and art. My dad was also a graphic artist and still is. He is actually still in bands now as well. He is in a Crosby, Stills and Nash cover band. Heโ€™s a great singer with a really high voice. So I was sort of born into that. I have two brothers and a sister and I was the first one, so they wanted me to do something. My mom wanted me to take dancing lessons.

Did you enjoy it?

You know, I was about 9 or 10 and I was in school and people were such assholes about everything, so it was literally, like, โ€œfaggot thisโ€ and โ€œfaggot that.โ€ And it was terrible. I had very few friends that I could relate to in my regular school. But I did itโ€ฆI took the lessons. It took about a year of fighting โ€“ then finally I was, like, โ€œFuck it, Iโ€™ll take the lessons!โ€ I was basically given this option by my parents before I even existed. They would say things, like, โ€œAll you do is watch TV and go to school.โ€ Then they said, โ€œYou can either become an altar boy at the church or you can audition for a community theater show and weโ€™ll bring you there and give you ten dollars.โ€ Basically, they really wanted me to be on stage. So, I decided, โ€œwhatever, Iโ€™m going to be an altar boy.โ€

Wowโ€ฆwhat was that like?

I was an altar boy for about six or seven months. I was really up for it for a little bit longer than that. I loved itโ€ฆthe different colored robes and different colored belts. It was actually pretty funny. Finally, though, I decided that I couldnโ€™t do this any more. You have to wake up so early. Itโ€™s the same thing every time. You know, I did grow up with church as a big part of my life. We didnโ€™t go to church every day, but I did go to a Catholic school for my entire life. Even during high schoolโ€ฆI went to an all boys Christian academy.

Finally you acquiesced?

Eventually I said yes, I took the ten dollars, and auditioned for Oliver! and I got into the show. When I auditioned, I was like, โ€œHoly crap, I didnโ€™t know I could do anything like this. I am singing and Iโ€™m dancing right now.โ€ And this was just at the audition! They auditioned me to play Oliverโ€ฆI got up to the last callback, but I faltered at the end because I had never read any script or had done any acting stuff in front of anybody.

Did you get a part?

I was a part of the ensemble anyways, not Oliver, but all of a sudden, it was like, holy shit, I have all these friends and thereโ€™s a bunch of girls in the show and they like this stuff and I like this stuff right now because I had all these people I could relate to finally. It was great.

"...I went from wearing a sailor suit

to playing this tortured hitchhiker.

I mean, I wasnโ€™t even going to go to the

audition, because it was so ridiculous..."

Then what happened?

Well, I started doing Broadway [after community theater]. Amazingly, long story short, I ended up on stage doing The Sound of Music running around in a sailor suit as Fredrik Von Trapp for like a year and a half. I was about 12 when that happened.

Thatโ€™s an amazing trajectory!

Yeah, it was. Well, I think there was a strange motivation my whole life that maybe I didnโ€™t know about. All I saw was my parents fighting about money and so I just wanted to fix everything. I had this complex based on fixing or helping the family. As the first born, I felt this inclination to take care of my brothers and sisters. You have to be a part of their life. And I donโ€™t know, my dad became a huge guyโ€ฆhe had a weight problem that was very insane. So, it was a real concern that he was going to die. Luckily, he has since taken control of his life, but I definitely came from a real weird, fucked up family and we didnโ€™t have any money. But the only thing that they did have is an insane amount of ambition and love and they wanted me to do something. So, they would drive me to these community theaters and they would drive me to New York.

They were really dedicated.

They would take the bus to New York and the take the bus back to New Jersey to finish whatever they had to do and then take another bus to pick me up and take me back home. This was every day.

So, when did the movie thing start happening?

I think I was about 16 and I was still in high school and I was going to a lot of auditions. I was auditioning for about a year. So, I did the theater stuff and then I decided to take time off. I decided to go to high school. I wanted to be a real kid. I wanted to go to prom. I wanted to do things that normal kids do. Because I realized that I probably was going to do things that werenโ€™t normal for the rest of my life. So, I went to high school and I was going to auditions, but I really wasnโ€™t getting anything. I think I was not getting what film was. I didnโ€™t know what it took to be in a film. I mean, I came from a theater background.

But you eventually booked something, right?

So, there was this one auditionโ€ฆfor Personal Velocityโ€ฆ.and Rebecca Miller wrote and directed the film and Parker Posey is in it with Fairuza Balk and Kyra Sedgwick. You know, Rebbeca Miller is married to Daniel Day Lewis and is daughter to Arthur Miller. The thing is, though, that I had no idea about any of this. It was just this opportunity that came up. I went to the audition and I went from wearing a sailor suit to playing this tortured hitchhiker. I mean, I wasnโ€™t even going to go to the audition, because it was so ridiculous from what I knew that I thought I could only fail.

Lou Taylor Pucci and Fairuza Balk in Personal Velocity (2002)

But you didnโ€™t failโ€ฆ.

My dad told me that I have to try itโ€ฆdonโ€™t miss this opportunity. He was always like that. In fact, he was really the only reason why I went to the audition. And then I went in and something just clicked in this really weird way. I was so nervous to go to this audition in the first place, but that nervousness was actually a part of the character. He was such a tortured, biting his fingernails until they bled, character who would not make eye contact and didnโ€™t have a lot to say, but has a lot to react to and so in that room, I had a lot to do and something happened where, all of a sudden, because I couldnโ€™t say anything, I finally understood what I was trying to do. I sort of understood what acting for film was.

What did you learn?

Well, when I walked out of the room, I remembered having tears in my eyes and sort of feeling very sad and terrible. I was, like, โ€œHoly shit, it worked it! Something happened here.โ€

And a lot of actors donโ€™t get that experience, right, that seems very authentic?

Yeah, I think I scared the shit out of myself and it was great for that role. And I think thatโ€™s what all roles are sort of aboutโ€ฆyou have to find out how to trick yourself into being someone. Each character or role has a different formula on how to do that. Each one is completely different. And you donโ€™t know how you are going to do it. Usually, you figure it out two weeks before you start filming. So, Iโ€™ve been attached to my next film for about a year. I have this big fucking beard. Iโ€™m playing a guy named Prick Face who is a dirty, southern, real hickish guy โ€“ but not trying to make fun of it. Itโ€™s about two brothers who are trying to survive, they are living on a houseboat and they donโ€™t have any education and their parents have abandoned them. And even though I have all this knowledge about this characterโ€™s story and I look like this character, I still donโ€™t know how I am going to play this part.

Is that scary?

When I get to Las Vegas to shoot the movie, something is going to happen, which always happens, where once you start getting all the dialogue memorized and you start saying the dialogue out loud to people, itโ€™s almost like living in a dream. You start noticing things about other people and they start incorporating into you. And there will be a snap. And, again, youโ€™ll be like, โ€œHoly shit, I get it!โ€ That may not be the case for the whole role, but maybe for certain pieces of it, like this is how he walks or this is how he talks. And it all comes together in such a way. Thatโ€™s why rehearsals are such an important thing to me and my career.


Did you grow up watching moviesโ€ฆwas there a specific movie, or actor, or scene that you remember really blowing your mind?

First two movies I remember seeing, honestly, are Batman and Terminator 2 at a drive-in movie theater. The truth is, thatโ€™s what I love. I love action, sci-fi, big productions. Not just spectacle, but come on, Bat Man and Terminator 2 are staples of our lives in the entertainment business. Terminator 2 was hands-down one of the best sequels. Bat Man was one of the darkest and coolest โ€“ Michael Keaton, Tim Burton โ€“ things ever created. Awesome music, awesome acting. They were turning a comic book into basically something real. And Jack Nicholson as the Joker โ€“ holy shit!

What about independent films?

Well, independent films are not something I seek out. Itโ€™s not what I go and watch. But independent films are important, because they have the freedom to be creative and original. Who knows, sometimes they do make a splash and become big. But big studio films now canโ€™t compete when it comes to originalityโ€ฆthey donโ€™t even come close.

So, youโ€™ve done a lot of independent films. Do you have aspirations to be in bigger actions films? What is your aspiration as an actor?

Sometimes people ask me, โ€œWhat characters would you like to play,โ€ and I donโ€™t really know. I think thereโ€™s two: one would be Lestat de Lioncourt from the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles and the other one would be Link from Zelda. So I guess my whole life revolves more around nerd stuff and video games and sci-fi. You know, Interview with a Vampire is definitely one of my most favorite films in the entire world. So, I donโ€™t knowโ€ฆwhat would I want to do? More action films or more independent films? I think the whole point, for me, and what has become the point in my life, has become having a diverse career and maybe thatโ€™s because Iโ€™m still sort of at the beginning of my career.

How would you define your career?

When I look at a career, I take it apart, and say, โ€˜Look, here are the people that fucked up, like Paulie Shore and other actors like that.โ€™ Iโ€™m not saying that he is a bad actor, he is just not the actor that I want to be. I mean, he stopped getting films because he did one thing and it faded out. But the thing is that he couldnโ€™t do anything else because no one would let him. So, how do I extend my freedom to allow people, or trick people, into thinking I can do anything. At the beginning of my career, just like act one in any script, if you are going to make a script thatโ€™s horror and there is nothing scary in the first 30 minutes and then the horror comes along, itโ€™s going to freak you out, especially if itโ€™s a comedy or something. I mean, if there is nothing funny in the first ten minutes, it will be hard to laugh when the jokes come along. This is why you have to build all those genre tones into your first act to make sure that everyone is ready for what is coming nextโ€ฆso that they are available to it and accept it.

Building those genre tones is what was so successful about your current film, Spring, right?

The coolest thing that they did was that they knew that our little love story, which is the second act and third act, is fun. Its not necessarily two comedians talking, but they wanted the audience to laughโ€ฆto laugh with us. So what did they do? They made the first twenty minutes fucking hilarious. Even though itโ€™s a horror film, they put so much comedy and fun into this depressed guyโ€™s life. So, thatโ€™s basically like act one of my life and career. I want to diversify as hard as I can. Play everything that I can, so that there is nothing that people wonโ€™t accept.

"I am lucky as sin that people will actually pay

for this art because there is so much art out

there that people pay nothing for...I get to have

a life that I want. Itโ€™s really not that complex: I

just want to be doing what Iโ€™m doing."

And that would be the best-case scenario?

I want to be able to do any role that I want. That would obviously be the best-case scenario for any actor: they find a role, they say that they want to do that role and then they are allowed to.

That also seems like a recipe for not being type-casted right?

Thatโ€™s exactly what I mean. I am always aiming for the long term. How do I make this last for the rest of my life? I mean, I have always wanted to play old man roles in sci-fi films - like an old mentor. I always wish that thatโ€™s what I will look like one day. I guess thatโ€™s why I have this big beard right now. I mean, I have a serious baby face and itโ€™s going to be a weird road trying to figure out what I can do.

So, what do you think of the business aspect of acting?

Itโ€™s a business. Itโ€™s a strange, strange thing. I go out on auditions sometimes just to appease casting directors. I want them to remember me. That kind of stuff sucks sometimes. You are going out sometimes for roles you donโ€™t even want, but you better do a good job because otherwise that casting director might think you suck. So, it becomes a real careerโ€ฆa businessโ€ฆ.that you have to tend to. Itโ€™s like growing a flowerโ€ฆyou have to check in and water it every day.

Yeah, and there seems to be two types of actors: the ones that let the rejection get to them and they go back home and then there are actors โ€“ excuse the morbidity of this example โ€“ like River Phoenix that donโ€™t think too hard about the machine aspect of it and they go into it with such passion and energy that they burn out. What do you think about that tightrope walk?

It is a tightrope walk. Most movies that I do are tightrope walks. I feel like now I do all the movies that normal people are sort of afraid to do. Maybe because it doesnโ€™t seem like itโ€™s been done. One of the better examples of that is Story of Luke and I played an autistic main character and itโ€™s a comedy. I mean, try pitching that. How the hell do you do that? How does the tone match up? Is there any possibility that people are thinking that weโ€™re making fun of autism if the main character is supposed to be funny, but has autism? The tightrope walk is terrifying. Same thing with Springโ€ฆhow much of a love story are you going to treat this as? How real should you be? And how entertaining should you allow yourself to be?

Lou Taylor Pucci in The Go-Getter (2007)

Whatโ€™s your least favorite thing about being an actor or being in that world?

For one thing, I think the whole system is disgusting. Weโ€™re made to be celebrities that some how entertain people into sitting on the couch or on their phone and theyโ€™re not even doing what they want to do. But one of my best friends I met when I was putting some stuff into storage and the guy working there told me that he saw The Go-Getter and decided to go to Australia for six months. We ended up going to Jumboโ€™s Clown Room and talking about it for hours. That is by far my favorite thing about being an actor.  

But the fame part or the fame game is what really gets you down?

I am lucky as sin that people will actually pay for this art because there is so much art out there that people pay nothing for and hold to a very low regard. Yet, in this world, acting is held at such a high pedestal that I get to have a life that I want. Itโ€™s really not that complex: I just want to be doing what Iโ€™m doing. But there are a lot of actors that canโ€™t. I guess thatโ€™s the real hard part. But with the new modern invention of YouTube and all these pilots, there are a lot more parts now. But because we have focused so much on celebrity and because producers have so much invested in the films they make, they need to have celebrities on television supporting their investments. So, all the main parts are going to be played by celebrities that you already know and they are going to make a bunch of money.

Was it always like that?

You used to be able to move to Los Angeles and go out on auditions and wind up in roles. But that is not really how it is anymore. Everything is outsourced. Everything is shot in different cities. Casting directors still cast the main roles in Los Angeles, but the rest of the roles are cast in Louisiana or Texas or even New York. So, as an actor, itโ€™s more worth it to go to where the work is. As a new actor, those are the roles you are going to go out forโ€ฆthe smaller roles. As a result, though, you donโ€™t really need to be in Los Angeles to make your break, which is the positive side of things. If there is anything to learn, itโ€™s that you shouldnโ€™t come to Los Angeles if you havenโ€™t established yourself at all yet.

Thatโ€™s great adviceโ€ฆis that advice you would offer to young actors?

Yes, donโ€™t come to Los Angeles if you want to make it. I think there are some laws being passed that will make it easier to make movies in Los Angeles again. I think that Hollywood should be brought back to its original glory. Thatโ€™s why weโ€™re all here competing in the first place, right?

You can watch Spring on Amazon Instant Video and most on-demand platforms. It is also in select theaters, distributed by Drafthouse Films. Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Follow AUTRE ON INSTAGRAM to stay up to date with art, culture, and more: @autremagazine

Trailer for Spring

Reluctant Pornographer: An Interview With Bruce LaBruce

Bruce LaBruce is a filmmaker, an artist, a self-professed โ€œreluctant pornographer,โ€ and one of the progenitors of the enigmatic, self-marginalizing queercore movement. His underground Super 8 films of the 1980s and 90โ€™s (including his debut feature, entitled Skin Off My Ass, about a hairdresser obsessed with a skinhead โ€“ which Kurt Cobain has cited as his favorite film) have made LaBruce an icon of gay cinema. His more recent films experiment with the same extreme and sometimes profoundly shocking themes: Otto; Or Up With Dead People is a porno-zombie flick with a political twist, while L.A. Zombie stars French porn star Franรงois Sagat as a schizophrenic homeless zombie (or so he thinks) roaming the streets of Los Angeles bringing back the dead by having sex with men.  But even if LaBruceโ€™s films are wrought with searing homoeroticism and overwhelming violence, underneath the blood-soaked sheets and layers of half-rotting flesh, LaBruce proves himself to be one of the greatest offbeat auteurs and romantics of the last two decades. There is a strange and wonderful sense of tranquility in the orgiastic tableau vivants of amputees and naked, masked men in rooms splattered with so much blood one would think a massacre had occurred within them.  Itโ€™s not so much a glorification of violence but a visceral, analytical exploration of the darkest depths of the human psyche. LaBruce, who grew up in the 60โ€™s on a small farm outside of Ottawa with its innate, paradoxical backdrop of slaughter and serenity, has come to view the entire fabric of life as a delicate, barefoot balancing act on the edge of a razor blade โ€“ and, in his view, our instinctive bloodlust is just as great as our ability to love.  It would be remiss not to mention that many disagree with this point of view โ€“ LaBruce enjoys pushing boundaries.  Entire countries have banned his films, and once an entire shipment of his Polaroids were confiscated and labeled โ€œobsceneโ€ by Canadian customs. Obscenity, LaBruceโ€™s latest exhibition in Spain, included sexually provocative religious imagery, such as a priestโ€™s face covered in semen, and caused a near-riot among Catholics and conservatives who declared the show to be blasphemous, sacrilegious and depraved.  What we mustnโ€™t forget, though, is that some of the greatest art of our time has stemmed from a staunch refusal to abide by the rules. By that definition, all artists are outlaws in their own right โ€“ making Bruce LaBruce an outlaw amongst outlaws of the highest regard.

Firstly, you grew up in rural Canada in the 70s โ€“ what was that like? Can you always remember wanting to be an artist?

Well, I grew up on a farm, and sometimes I call it the โ€œcruel farm,โ€ because there was a lot of slaughter and castration going on. On a daily basis, so Iโ€™d routinely see animals being โ€“ we slaughtered our own animals and castrated our own pigs. You know, my father and grandfather would drown the kittens and all that stuff โ€“ so you know there was a lot going on that was kind of horrific, but on the other hand it was very idyllic too โ€“ it was a small two-hundred-acre farm. As a kid it seemed huge . It was really beautiful and we had our own vegetable gardens and fruit trees.

You just mentioned drowning kittens?  

Yeah.  Well, actually we had a little dog that was โ€“ I mean, my father was a hunter and a trapper as well, he was kind of a Daniel Boone type โ€“ and I would never kill anything myself, but I would go with him and watch him shoot and trap animals. Coon hunting was always really cool in the fall, because you would run through these cornfields at night with the hounds and the flashlights โ€“ so we had this little dog when I was like two or three years old that was named Tippy that was more like a pet, because the hound dogs were strictly for hunting, and they were kind of mean โ€“ it was okay, but they were a bit scary โ€“ and then the little dog [Tippy] was jealous of me, because โ€“ I guess this is the way the story goes โ€“ it was biting me, so my father took it out behind the barn and shot it. 

Wow.

Thatโ€™s my favorite childhood story.  

So, those kind of stories, or those kinds of memories had a profound effect on your art?  Yeah, I would say so. Because I was always a little sissy. My parents were amazing people โ€“ really gentle people โ€“ even in this harsh environment. And they are still married after 57 years or something and still living on the same farm, so when I go up there it all comes flooding back. But yeah, I think my work expresses some of that violence and also it was kind of โ€“ I donโ€™t know โ€“ it was a time where the world wasnโ€™t so global โ€“ so it was very isolated and you kind of were able to live your life without processing so much negativity and everything โ€“ so it was a little enclave of sanity in a way.

So, were you creative as a kid? Did you know you wanted to become an artist? A creator?  Well, the weird thing is I never took art classes so much โ€“ I mean I did in public school, in high school โ€“ and I was always more cinema oriented, but I did take theater classes in high school. So, yes, I always had creative impulses from a very young age, and I always knew I was gay from the beginning as well.

And your parents were pretty supportive? They are โ€“ they obviously donโ€™t like my work and really havenโ€™t investigated it much. But they are also very rural. I guess theyโ€™re more hooked in now than they used to be. My mother got her first email account when she was like 75 years old. 

Amazing. I can remember the first text I got from my mom. 

Mine arenโ€™t that advanced. 

So where did the name Bruce LaBruce come from and when did you become Bruce LaBruce? 

Well, I mean, should I talk about this? I guess I talk about this sometimes.  My real last name is Bruce and I was born in Bruce Township, which is in Bruce County, and I worked at the Bruce Nuclear Power Development Station as a summer student, and itโ€™s on the Bruce Peninsula and itโ€™s near the Bruce Trailโ€ฆ.so, in other words, itโ€™s all about Bruce, you know? Itโ€™s Scottish โ€“ Iโ€™m almost directly descended from Robert the Bruce, the king of Scotland  โ€“ itโ€™s obvious that the Scottish lineage is really strong. My friend Kathleen Maitland Carter - when we started going to university she started calling me LaBruce, because I was always acting grand.

In the eighties you co-published a zine called J.D.s, which was one of the main voices of the queercore movement - can you explain what queercore is? And if Johnny and Joey Ramone were the fathers of punk, would you consider yourself the father of queercore?

I mean I did J.D.s โ€“ my co-editor was G.B. Jones and my friend Kevin Hegge is currently doing โ€“ she [G.B. Jones] was in a band called Fifth Column โ€“ so Kevin is doing a documentary on Fifth Column which Iโ€™m interviewed in, but they sometimes called them them โ€œthe grandmothers of the riot girls.โ€ But there were other people doing similar things at the same time โ€“ thatโ€™s how I met Vaginal Davis who was doing a fanzine called โ€œFertile Latoya Jacksonโ€ and there was kind of a โ€“ it was sort of a spontaneous movement that was an offshoot of punk, because there were obviously a lot of people at that time who were into punk and the punk aesthetic, but with the advent of hardcore and the mosh-pits it had gotten kind of macho and there was some homophobia โ€“ also with the intersection of the skinhead movement with the punk movement โ€“ so there was some of us that really wanted to adamantly be more sexually revolutionary, so we started these fanzines. It was a historical moment in a way.

So what did J.D.s stand for?

Juvenile delinquents was the main thing, but we always liked other J.D.s - like James Dean, Jack Daniels, not Judy Dench โ€“ Joe Dallesandroโ€ฆ.I canโ€™t remember them allโ€ฆ.

This is kind of a simple question, but itโ€™s open for elaboration. Who or what inspires you? 

Well, itโ€™s always been a juxtaposition of opposing forces, like classical Hollywood versus punk โ€“ two things that are seemingly incompatible. Lately, with YouTube, Iโ€™ve just been watching so many Hollywood movies, mostly from the 30โ€™s and 40โ€™s that Iโ€™ve always heard about or read about that Iโ€™ve never had access to, and now Iโ€™m just kind of obsessed with them โ€“ the sophistication of them and the writing and the performers and the stars and the direction โ€“ I mean, itโ€™s light years ahead of whatโ€™s going on now in Hollywood, which doesnโ€™t interest me at all. But Iโ€™m totally into revolutionary youth culture as well โ€“ so Iโ€™m totally inspired by the Arab Spring and that kind of stuff thatโ€™s going on. In terms of artists, new kids likeโ€ฆ Ryan Trecartin is pretty amazing - I like his surrealist vibe. 

So, what was the catalyst for you to start making movies?

Well, strangely enough, like I said, my parents were really simple farm folks, but they were totally smart and totally in tune with Hollywood cinema, so they would take all us kids to the movies.  So I was really interested at a really young age. When it was time to go to university I went into film school and I actually planned on being a critic. I was more into theory โ€“ I took some production courses โ€“ but I intended on being more of an academic or a critic and then it was only after I graduated that I got into making Super 8 films and art films.

And your work focuses on a lot of the gay culture, but also amputees, hustlers, the transgender, zombies, etcetera - Do you think you intentionally set out to de-marginalize the marginalized, and why do you think we put everything in categories and subcategories in the first place?

Well, I mean, for me, itโ€™s a question of your philosophy of homosexuality, and mine is more along the lines that the difference and the idea of being an outsider and being a misfit โ€“ or even a criminal โ€“ has always been my sort of romance about homosexuality, which doesnโ€™t really translate so much in the current zeitgeist, because itโ€™s all legitimization and domestication, which is fine, because there always have to be people who go against the grain, and just as a fairy growing up in a very harsh environment I learned to use my difference as a weapon, or live by my wits, and maybe I have a bit of a combative personality in that regard. And you know I made a short film recently in Berlin that will be premiering at the porn film festival at the end of October, which is a tranny porn that has two female-to-male  transsexuals, so I think transsexuals, transgendered people are really at the vanguard of the gay movement, because theyโ€™re the ones that have to put up with the brunt of a lot of the judgment and fear and misconceptions about gender and they are also redefining gender โ€“ which is really a lot more interesting than the gay marriage movement which seems to be reinforcing old gender stereotypes. 

Yeah, androgyny is really interesting right now. I see a lot of people trying to explore it in a way. 

Or live it.  Itโ€™s tricky because androgyny can be aesthetically challenging, but when people make it work โ€“ you can tell when someone really tries to make a leap forward and take it in a direction that is really avant-garde or revolutionary somehow. 

So, what do you say when you read reviews of your work โ€“ I mean what do you say to yourself when people just donโ€™t get it?

Well, I mean you have to acknowledge that a lot of people just arenโ€™t that into you. You canโ€™t kill yourself over that. Everyone canโ€™t please everyone, but one the other hand, because of the nature of my work, people have a kneejerk response to it: a lot of people turn it off after the first five minutes or they look at the surface of whatโ€™s going on and they donโ€™t really bother to explore the work. I think with my films, you really have to also look at the whole body of work, because Iโ€™m super referential, not only to other peopleโ€™s work, but also to my own work and soโ€ฆFor example, I made two films that are companion pieces for each other, Skin Flick and The Raspberry Reich; one is about the extreme right wing and one is about the extreme left wing โ€“ so in a way you have to look at them both to really understand what Iโ€™m getting at, and you can even say that Hustler White and L.A. Zombie are kind of both investigations of Los Angeles and the street world; street people, made fifteen years apart โ€“ they kind of together give a really, what I consider, itโ€™s a portrait of LA thatโ€™s rarely shown โ€“ the underworld street reality thatโ€™s rarely shown in movies. So, yeah, I would say donโ€™t judge a book by its cover.  

So, throughout the last few centuries there have been a few archetypes of homoerotic culture who created entire worlds behind their personalities  - off the top of my head I can name Oscar Wilde, Jean Genet, and Andy Warhol - do you think you fall into that vein? 

Well, thatโ€™s August company.  I do like to think that I work in a tradition of the gay avant-garde. The people you mentioned, or Kenneth Anger and some of the great porn directors like Fred Halsted and Peter Berlin, Jack Smith, all these people are very specifically dealing with the history of homosexual aestheticism and a very specific kind of avant-garde expression that has to do with the position of the homosexual in culture and what that means historically, the development of aesthetics, the aesthetic dimension โ€“ which homosexuals have always been the catalyst for all aesthetic movements - for many aesthetic movements - so for me itโ€™s a really significant thread to continue. Thatโ€™s why I find assimilation so disconcerting in a way, because the position of the homosexual as an outsider or as someone who can observe culture at a distance that, in some ways, gives them this opportunity to be avant-garde or to critique or comment on mainstream culture.  

You wrote a memoir called The Reluctant Pornographer โ€“ what does pornography mean to you?

Well, lately Iโ€™ve been saying, which has sort of gotten me in trouble, because lately Iโ€™ve been calling myself a pornographer and saying I express solidarity with pornographers โ€“ that all pornography is art, really, because itโ€™s a form of creative expression, itโ€™s the mediation of reality, itโ€™s made by people who use the tools of cinema, or making art, so why shouldnโ€™t it be considered art as well? Thereโ€™s good art and thereโ€™s bad art and thereโ€™s good pornography and thereโ€™s bad pornography, but itโ€™s all sort of an artistic expression as far as Iโ€™m concerned. 

How important is sexuality in art, or expressing sexuality through art?

For me personally, sex has always been an engine behind my work, both in terms of representing and in terms of making it, on a personal level, but I think the sexual and the creative drives are very much linked, but on the other hand I know people who are relatively, or fairly, or completely asexual who have very strong artistic drives, so I donโ€™t think thatโ€™s necessarily the case for everyone. Certainly the gay movement was always based on that kind of sexual engine as well, which for me is yet another reason why the assimilation movement, which tends to be more domesticated and kind of based on ideals of monogamy borrowed from straight culture - it kind of dissipates the energy of the gay movement in my opinion. Yeah, sex is so ubiquitous in pop culture and advertising that itโ€™s kind of hard to ignore it as an artist. 

Do you think itโ€™s more ubiquitous now than it has been?

Well, I think that whatโ€™s been happening in the last ten to fifteen years is that violence supplanted sex as the main driving force of popular fetish and popular advertising and certainly the media sells violence and death in a very titillating kind of sexualized way - which is kind of creepy. 

Yeah, especially because itโ€™s so blatant.

Itโ€™s blatant and itโ€™sโ€ฆ in a way I donโ€™t even know how conscious it is โ€“ you could talk about Naomi Klineโ€™s Disaster Capitalism and how itโ€™s a way the media keeps everyone frightened - inundated with terrorism and images of violence and that I think just pop culture and advertising almost unconsciously feed on that fear and turn it into capital. 

Which is disturbing. In your work you deal with violence in a much more visceral way that sort of explores it in a much more human way, not for gain. 

My argument is that my work isnโ€™t corporate by any stretch of the imagination, for example, which makes a big difference, when you have a film like Final Destination in Imax 3D - and itโ€™s this grotesque, brutal violence that is so magnified โ€“ I find that personally not entertaining.  But I make L.A. Zombie for example - which is a micro-budget film with really, almost crude special effects that were all done in front of the camera โ€“ no special effects stuff โ€“ itโ€™s more in the tradition of B movies where the fun is creating โ€“ itโ€™s more like being very playful, and I think that has a different effect and your motivation isnโ€™t quite so sinister somehow, and also my work tends to be a critique of popular culture or popular violence, so I always have a distance from the violence that Iโ€™m presenting.

And there always tends to be a tender, romantic notion behind it - hidden meanings come through. 

Sure, and when I show extreme fetishes, for example, itโ€™s always done in a romantic way - whether itโ€™s the tone of the way itโ€™s shot or the music and the characters who have these extreme fetishes are portrayed as kind of sweet or emotional, which is not how itโ€™s usually done in these very violent, say, video games. 

Yeah. So underneath all that, underneath all the blood and guts, would you consider yourself a romantic?

Oh absolutely, yes. I have always had a very strong romantic drive. Iโ€™ve always had this idea of classical Hollywood - certainly not having anything to do with the new โ€œrom-comโ€ mentality, where itโ€™s sort of super sentimental and manipulative. 

So, whatโ€™s next? What are you working on now?

I spent a year on the road with L.A. Zombie and then thereโ€™s also this documentary that someone made about me called The Advocate for Fagdom - a Parisian filmmaker named Angรฉlique Bosio made this documentary over the past couple of years so Iโ€™ve been traveling a bit with it as well and with her - and Iโ€™ve been working a lot, Iโ€™ve directed a couple of TV shows for Arte, TV episodes of a documentary series called Into The Night, and I also directed my first opera in Berlin [last] March, an adaptation of Arnold Shunbergโ€™s Pierrot Lunier, so now after all that I am trying to make another movie. I have three scripts in various stages of development attached to different producers - so thatโ€™s my new primary goal, is to get one shot by next year.

Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Autre Issue 2 (2012). Stay tuned for Bruce La Bruce's retrospective of films on view at MoMA in New York from April 23 to May 2.