Alejandro G. Iñárritu

30:53So according to this guy, this AI thing is going to be something that will really change forever. The thing that maybe you and I will see. We see. Who were the filmmakers that you saw over the course of your life that gave you the permission to do this? I think that the great masters that has in a way show us that cinema is to a road to explore yourself deeply and share it. which I think is actually subscribe, I mean, it's in the essence of even the first cave men that put their handful of blood and ord paint and they leave their hands there as a testament of her existence and try to project themselves in some way or in the painting is a tradition that you know the painters do an outdoor painter how you call it out self portrait or a memoir or a journal or any any self reflection that invites you to not only observe exteriorly the world as I have done in all my films, but suddenly there's a moment that you need to go inside and allow yourself to do that.

32:22It needs a time and it needs a moment in life, which I found it at this moment. But the teachers, I think, that were the masters that has showed the way to do it. I think was Alejandro Hodoroski, for example, that he really goes deep in the unconsciousness, I think. I think it's Tarkowski. I think it's another great director that everything that you see it belongs to an interior reflection of a soul, the point, there is nothing more than something clearly interior. Obviously, Federico Felini, it's another one that he was capable to laugh about himself and about all his interior demos and contradictions.

33:13So just to name, I will say a few, well, I will say that another master of that is Luis Buñuel. So Luis Buñuel, for example, is one of my favorite directors, and I think Luis Munoel always was going through this very deep understanding of first what, a kind of an x -ray of yourself in order to project what you perceive and what you are building in reality. So that ability to do that I think those are like, say some of the masters that I remember when I first saw Bunwell in film school. I took a Bunwell class so I saw all the open well films and I remember feeling broken open. Like I feel like this is a new, this is a doorway to what's possible.

34:03And when I say that's not like we can make things like what he made, he's giving us permission to go further than we have seen before. Exactly. I think that there has been many examples, you know, this Polish director has, what was it has, has amazing films that are so profound psychologically or a man with a camera at these Russian films that, you know, is just an exploration of what you are seeing and how it impactful. So what I'm saying, the history of cinema is full of these, you know, And I will say, through thought, to, in a way, through thought, with his playing with his own mind, and exercising and exploring ideas in cinema, which is very intellectual, but at the same time, it's deep in their mind.

34:59I think Berklin too. And in a different way. In a different way. But absolutely, I think in persona, persona means in Latin, mascara, a fashion. masks, masks. That's the word person, a person or persona is a mask. So, suddenly to allow yourself to take out your mask, because we have this public figure, you are a public figure, you have a public persona, I have a public persona, I'm a persona to everybody, I have a mask, but then we have this intimate private space that we built our life in and only to take out that. But that's what I attempt to explore in battle. I try to say, okay, whatever you think, this is what really is going inside.

35:49And it's a vulnerable place. It's a fragile place. It's a scary one. And it takes time to really go and try to be the possible honest, the best way and honest way for you to do that. But I found it incredible liberating and a privilege and a pleasure to really just go there and take out the mask. Yes. How is the alignment between your inner self and your outer self? I think the pen in who I have, I think I have a way, some mechanisms that are trigger by different circumstances where I can immediately find myself repeating or plain things in a way that every time I have been closer to be conscious about things that I don't like that I do or I say or you know that it's not correct.

36:50It's not me as I should be or I will love to be and that's what I think conscious is in a way meditation give you that's only you observe yourself you are a little bit separated but I think yes I think I play I'm a different person sometimes if I am in a set for example when I'm directing a film I become so focused and so isolated that I need to the process of making something like that it demands you all your focus and your attention and so on. I'm a little detached of the reality. So that person is not me now, which I'm completely fully here. Or in a public event where you have 2 ,000 people listening or a social party.

37:45So yes, I think in a way we all have different persons based on the condition. I love this. I think it was Orson Wilson that he said something very, very wise and funny that says, everything that has been said about me at some point is true. That's great. In a way that, yeah, yeah, this guy is an asshole. Yes, that Tuesday at 6 a .m. I was maybe an asshole. Oh, this guy is so wonderful and generous. Yes, that Saturday I give a big tip to that guy and I was in a good mood. And what I'm saying is the perception of our persona is so fractured and fragmented, depending on which day and who experience and where you were, you that is almost impossible to not have probably this kind of multi -fractured thing.

38:37Am I right? No, absolutely. Absolutely. It's just the nature. I always made it a point when I would meet an artist. Let's say an artist was on tour. And they were, I can remember the one not long go where the artist was playing at Hollywood both. And they asked me to come back stage after the show to meet with them and I refused. And I really want to meet with them. But imagine your state of mind after coming off stage with 20 ,000 people screaming, how grounded will the conversation be, how present can the person be? And I want to see who they really are, not who they are right after 20 ,000 people because it's a completely unrealistic, it's an unrealistic situation to be in for anybody, being in front of 20 ,000 people and 20 ,000 people listening to you and cheering for you.

39:34It's funny that you mentioned that because one of my, I'm a super fan of Tom York, right? And I was, well, I was here in a concert in LA like three, four years ago. And I think it was Paul Thomas Anderson who was, who invite me to go to the backstage to meet him. And obviously I would love to meet Tom York, but exactly because the same reason you have just said, I rejected the idea. And my son was with me, my son is a musician. He said, that, I said, I don't want to meet him in this circumstance because I know how he feels in a way. I know the rock concert, but I know that when you have a public event, your mind is rambling.

40:21You're not yourself. You're not yourself. You're not yourself. It is funny. And then I regret. But then, listen to you, I said, I felt it. I know that people is not in their minds. So that's why you said how alive. In my case, it wasn't a rule. I just the first time that it happens, like, it was a feeling. Just this doesn't feel right. I know this person isn't going to be themselves. And I really want to see who they are. And this is a chance to... This would undermine that. How... What kind of circumstances make you feel that you are not in that state? I mean, have you had these... in a concert or different artists or different environments make you feel that you are not regrouping as you would like to be or the one that you want to and that give you kind of a different persona.

41:16I would say if I went out to dinner with more than four people, I would not be comfortable. I feel like I couldn't be myself. I can remember going to a dinner with maybe 20 people with a friend that they were invited to and they invited me to come And I remember sitting at the table and I ended up hurting my back at the dinner because I was trying to shrink myself to become invisible because I was so uncomfortable with that many people. And his nervousness, I don't know how to describe it. Yeah, just like you feel fragmented because I feel like when I'm with someone, when I'm talking to you, we're connected to each other and I feel like what you're saying and what I'm saying are directly related to the fact that we're here together.

42:04Yeah. And when there's 20 people, it's, you don't have that feeling. You don't have that sense of connection. And I love that. And I'll say also, even in one -on -one situation, until there's a sense of some thread of common ground on anything, it's really awkward for me. Just because I feel crazy. You know, I feel like I don't relate to how to relate to the world. I Completely understand I becoming that way to I think that these dinners know this this dinners of more than eight Eight people for me is kind of the maximum and now as you said four is perfect I can handle four six people like two couples more my wife and I and two couples that's more than enough to enjoy it and to get something about it to grow to whatever, to get like this sensation waste time.

43:00Exactly. And you know maybe it's the age because now I need to understand that I don't need to spend time with people that I don't want to spend time with. Absolutely. Same here. And I think we're both 1963 people. Yes. Which one? I'm in March. Which they? March 10th. So Friday. Wow. 60. Yeah. Wow. And what's interesting. How do you feel? How do you feel? Fine. No, no thoughts, no like, oh, holy shit. I usually don't think about numbers. So when you say it, it's like, wow, that's interesting. But I don't think in those terms. I have never been hit by any decade. in the 30s, 40s, 50s. This is the first time, and maybe because many things has been aligned with this in a funny way, you know, I have just finished a movie, and it's a very personal movie, and the classic baby blues that when you finish something, you know, there's a space that is left, and that space has to be filled.

44:00So I have been here many times, but anyway, there's an space, and I'm trying to understand again who I am after a movie that I was so busy mentally and physically, And now is this ordinary time, okay, let me reordle. Let me find myself again, who I am. It's very strange. Is this strange? It's happened to you? Absolutely. Absolutely. I start producing my life. Like when I, if I'm not creatively producing in the studio, I get home and start moving the furniture around. I'm very, I need to keep myself occupied. So in a way you never have emptiness. I do because sometimes everything sort of finishes.

44:35But for the most part, I like the idea that there are many balls in the air. Because for me, the fun part is like solving the problem of it. Cracking the code of making something new is so exciting. I love it. And it could be with an artist. It could be with my favorite artist. It could be with an artist that I don't listen to. But hearing what they want, what they're hoping to accomplish. And listening to it and listening to what's going on inside of myself. and helping them find the best version of themselves. And it's really fun. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And I think that we're talking about age that I was telling you about that is the first time for me, it's different because I have a kind of process where differently from yours, so differently from yours, I suddenly find myself inside a project where I cannot leave.

45:39I need to work 24 hours, days and years in. Obsessively. Which sometimes can turn wrong or right. It can be either way. But not necessarily a pleasant one. You know understood and and and now hearing you in a way. I'm not saying it's right. No, no I'm saying it's right for me exactly, but I would say whatever you're doing Do it. No, it's working. No, I think his work that I'm saying it sometimes can be right or wrong a film can be better or not or People can like it or not the results honestly is something that you don't control So I try to avoid thinking about honestly saying something I hate when people say no Honestly, it doesn't matter.

46:28It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And especially doesn't matter because even if it matters, you cannot do nothing. Exactly. It's an accepting that you have no control, gives you the confidence to make the thing you want to make. Exactly. So anyway, but the right or wrong is not about that, is that I find myself obsessively with one thing to make it, let's say, perfect, which doesn't exist. and then when it finish there's a big boy, you know, as big as the project. Absolutely. So that's where I am now. And so that's why the 60s with that and then my son, Eliseo, has just go to London. He's doing music, by the way.

47:11And now is the emptiness, a kind of moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm surprised you didn't do music in and B .U. guys so much because he's like, yeah, I mean, musicians, I always say, you are flying and we are crawling in our fogging cameras. My big joy in life is here music. I mean, there's nothing more I can enjoy more in my life. It takes me away. I close my eyes and I'm in the music. I love it. The thing is that, you always say, it hits you and you don't have to then to intellectualize. It's, and the body doesn't lie. So when the frequencies hit your ear and your body, you are there, it's presence and there's no lie, no intellectualization, and it's just so chah.

47:57Again, it's because you don't think, and that's what I think is the reality. It's unconscious, it's trigger, and memory is an all that is. And I think that the joy of music is, I think compared to the cinema is nothing come. but I feel that in your work, it feels like it's images, but it's music. It's not, you're not telling us too much. You're not telling us what to think. You're inviting us to participate in this experience. That's how I feel it. And I think the way I approach films musically is very musical because I always, when I writing a film, I'm listening to the same album over and over again.

48:44So I need to understand how a film sounds and what is that kind of a genre? If it's like a... I'm more as per us, my first one was like a... like sticky fingers rolling, it was like greedy and raw. I do. Rock to the score end up being similar to the music or not necessarily. No, not necessarily. It's just the texture of some particular album end up being kind of something that I need to understand. For, you know, like... it goes with that. It goes with that. Whether that's the music used or not. Exactly. It's not the music that I will use or even the score. It's just I need to understand that the skin, the texture of that, in the music, and rhythmically, and then because I think when we born, the first thing, the first thing we hear when we born is a bit, right?

49:33It's our heartbeat. It's the fucking drum bit. That's the first thing we can't do. probably our mom's heartbeat. A sucky. A sucky. Then hour. So now you have a fucking drum beat now in synchronized or normally or not. And then the last thing we end up hearing in our bed, if we are lucky enough to die a peaceful death, is the last drum is when we go. And so our life is defined by a beat or a drum beat or a heartbeat and a rhythm. And I think that has to do a lot with the way we conceive things. So I try always to understand what is that heartbeat? Or what is that drum beat that will define the rhythm of that?

50:16We cause rhythm is God. It was, I mean, without rhythm, there's nothing. There's no architecture, there's no universe, there's no nothing. So yes, I tried that. Birdman was like a thing that I need to find and I invite, you know, my friend, Antonio, to play the drums. And he played it, and I have all these tracks. And even I play... Did he play watching the movie? No. No. He played first. I asked him to say, you know, Antonio Sanchez. I said, let's go to the studio. So we went to a studio in New York, and I was kind of reading this thing and say, OK, this is a moment that... The script is done.

50:55The script is done. So, and I kind of knew, because again, I have a good musical ideas, and I have a good eager, but I'm a terrible player. And so, I knew exactly kind of the things that I wanted in terms of, let's say, bits or rhythm or, you know, speed. So, I was describing him. You know, this is a scene that he will arrive and his daughter is there and they start discussing, so it has to be So he was like, okay, what about this? Da, da, da, okay, the syncopa. Or, you know, let's go a little bit more funky or a little bit more jazzy. So he was incredible. He's an incredible, incredible drummer.

51:32And he was, so we were doing tracks and I was just imagining how the actor will be and how the camera will be moving behind because it was continuous movement, continuous rhythm. And those tracks were incredible. incredible. It was the bluff of the film movement and the side. Listen to it on the set when you were filming. Sometimes when I needed, I set to the actors to Edward North or these guys. Look at this. This is going to be here. So it was helpful for them to understand the pace and for the camera. That's what I'm saying. So that film was very, very Have there ever been a film before with just a drum score?

52:15Not that I know, not that I know maybe yes, you know, you feel so radical It's so Radical but it's so and it's loud But you know what you know I remember that the Academy members of the You know the Oscars and the Academy members they did not Consider that was a score and I said guys So you are telling me that drums are minor than a guitar or a piano. This is a fucking instrument. But it was funny that they considered that like, okay, his drums is not a symphony or whatever. In the old days of hip -hop music, when I started doing hip -hop music, the powers that B didn't acknowledge it as music.

52:56The hip -hop. So they thought, oh, this is just beats. They don't even know what it is. It's like, why do people like it? It's not music. That was the conversation. But that was in the 70s. Now we are in the 2020s and it was the same kind of like, yeah, I mean, arrogance. The small mindedly of thinking they knew what music was. And the same, I remember, you know, there's a nanick of Gustavo Santolalla, which is my friend, and he did the music for the first four films of mine. and Gustavo doesn't read music, he's out to the dyadic, but he's one of the best musicians because wherever he played the finger in a Ron Rocco, in a guitar, or whatever, he composed he's just beautiful and spacey and musical, but he's not an academic.

53:45Yes, beautiful. And there was this kind of youth that he played in Babel. And it was a couple of notes, like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And again, the guy's struggle so much to accept his nomination because it was like how this guy is not a musician, there's no score, there's no violins, there's no orchestra. It was like if it was a minor expression when I said it's not about the amount of instruments and if a horn or a violin is superior to a drum, so I mean you know what I mean again this is exclusion or you know perceptions of one of the things that you said earlier, Gustavo's helping me on my project.

54:26No, yes. Well, that's fantastic. He's amazing, right? I mean, he's incredible, but he told me I will not say the name. One of the most, you know, he said that he was so excited to arrive to this dinner of the Academy Awards. And he saw one of these very venerated musicians, old guy with all the awards and he didn't even give the hand to him. He was like, oh, I love your word. And the guy didn't give the hand to him, like saying, you are not a musician. And I said, wow, you know, that's so sad. It's sad. It's so sad. And funny, sad for them, not for him. Not for Gustavo. For Gustavo, it's funny.

55:09It's sad for the person who refuses to shake somebody's hand. Exactly. But I feel that every instrument, right, is so powerful. Again, like that discussion of Tick -N -Tackhan and the Nobel Prize of Korean about the dignity or the consciousness of a plant or a human. Why a human is bigger than a tiger? I mean, it's ridiculous. You know ridiculous. Absolutely. So you mentioned earlier that you made Birdman in 19 days, now looking back, if you had all the money in the world and forever to shoot it, would it be a better film? No, I think the restrictions that I had were so important. I mean, I have to say that this script is start getting tighter and tighter because the need, and I start getting out all what it was not absolutely necessarily.

56:05There's a moment that is there. I remember that there was kind of a moment that even with a very restrictive budget and And the film got to a place that it was what it is now. But there was like one million dollar that was out of budget. And I remember one heck of the studio told me, Alejandro, what about if you take out the flying scene, for example? So then you will save that. And I said, oh, fucking God, this is what it's about. So just for you to understand that if you don't know what the film is about, or if you're a director that is, you are vulnerable or you don't understand rightly what, where are the fights to be fight, you have to fight.

56:46It can be destroyed. So the limits of what is necessarily, it's delicate because you can sometimes stream out as well as you know what it is. Exactly, but it was laughable for me to say to this person, you know, you don't understand what the film. So by saving one million, that film will be destroyed, it will not exist. So, but at the And I have to recognize that, yes, I think restrictions creatively are very healthy. I really learn a big lesson there because to have all the freedom and all the money normally, I will say something in the Renaissance where all these Renaissance painters were there, they have patterns which was unfortunately the church.

57:28That was they were just painting church things. I will have love to see all these guys painting ordinary life at that time, but they didn't. But the restrictions and the timing and the budgets were very constrained. They were kind of, they were in a way, employees with tight, and they flew and they were restricted as hell with limits and things, not necessarily smart sometimes, but that made them and they recognized them. They could not conceive to be free and with all the budget and it's about me, no, they They were doing things for Goth. Yes. No, they were not important. Yes. And they were restricted and look what they did.

58:14Amazing. So I think every artist need a little bit of that. And I guess that you as a producer, you do that with musicians, right? Absolutely. You have to restrict sometimes. Absolutely. I believe less is more. You know, I like the least amount of information to get an idea across. us usually sounds the best and carries the most emotion. If you have one guitar, if you have Gustavo playing his guitar, that's got an emotion in what he plays, the simplest thing. If you have 20 people playing guitar together in Unison, it's like a wall of sound. There's no, it's the part, you may understand the part better from that, but you don't have the feeling of the connection to the music.

58:59You don't hear the fingers, you don't hear the personality of the player. It's just the melody. I agree. It's one of the things we do in the recording studio in, like it's not uncommon in a chorus to double the lead vocal. And what happens when you double lead vocal, it reinforces the melody. And it sometimes can make the words seem less important. It's like a balance. I agree. I agree with you. And what you're saying is funny because I've seen so many great musicians that start with the first or second album are now really in this space where it's about their voices, the lyrics, the neatet thing.

59:46And then they start being produced, wrongly produced, and overproduced. And that's the triad. I mean, how many, no, I mean, have seen so many people overproduced that it's only if it's about everything but about And that happens a lot absolutely and now technology has changed where when I first started There was 24 track recordings So you couldn't have more than 24 tracks of music unless you had two big machines Yes, which not a lot of people had and then you were limited to 48 And um and in one of the studios I worked that we only had 16 tracks and some studios we would take the 16 track machine and put an eight track head on it because you only had eight, but they sounded better than the 16 because it's like going up in resolution in your field.

1:00:33You know, you have more. You're using a bigger footprint of the information. I remember, I would sometimes print the same track when I had 24 tracks on my first recordings. I might put the kick drum on six of the 24 tracks, even though it's just the same kick drum. But sometimes when you mix them together, you could get it to sound more powerful. But it was always just like trial and error, try to find what makes it sound louder, what makes it sound more original, what makes it sound crazier. Now what is this scary now for me, too, in the music that I hear a lot, is that everybody's sounding the same, don't you think?

1:01:15So they use the same software. And it's, so now, when I, to finish the point about how many tracks you have now with Pro Tools, you have infinite tracks. So there's no reason to think in terms of conserving because it's free. I could just do another one. I could just do another. I could just add more. I could add more. And then you start having hundreds of tracks. and fixing it and editing and then it lost the whole thing. Yeah, all the humanity goes out of it. That's in the film industry, for example, in ourself. I used to edit still in tracks and to edit was a very difficult thing. Now, obviously, with the technology and the avid, again, give you 1000 possibilities in one second.

1:02:06Or color correction, for example. I will put you the classics. because you arrive to do the color correction of a scene and you can really the contrast, the highlights, the blue as the pale, the t. And you can easily fuck it up the whole thing. I mean, by doing it, if you spend too much time, then you get lost and the I get lost and then you don't know where you are. And then you arrive the next day and said, am I an idiot? What I was, I mean, it's so easy to get into a truck. So I mean, what I'm saying is having all the freedom and all the choices. I think is the most difficult thing. Much more difficult than to have the restrictions and print.

1:02:45I would say this, I always said this to the John Filmmaker, said, you have to have a principle. Not rules. I hate rules because rules seems like the restry. But for example, the principle of Bergman was very clear. It was his one take and the restrictions were very clear. There was no way to get out of those principles. I cannot... And that principle saved my ass because then I had to solve things in this principle. And it's fun. It's like the rules of the game. If there's no rule, then there's no game. Yeah. So that principle of the game, it's... And I see now a lot of... I will say, albums or films that without that, not a lot of budget or not a lot of...

1:03:27They don't have a point of view. It's stuff. It's just like a shmogasport. That's the thing. And what I see in the music is like, what you were saying about the voices, like there's great singers, and but they just sound the same. And, and, and, and, and, and you know, I remember the time of the D7, you remember the Yamaha D7, and all the things that were in the, but now every singer sound like, I said, can they feel that they sound exactly the same as the other person that they... Some of them want to. Some of them think, oh, that's what works. That's what some of them really like clear. This is this is the sometimes sometimes like this is the sound.

1:04:06This is the sound now and I've always been I've always told like that's the sound now that's the last thing I want to exactly exactly that you can you remind all these young guys will be trying to find their own sound it will be amazing and that's what I found sometimes when I feel or hear some fearless musicians in the London scene, for example, there's these jazz guys that are trying a lot of things that are like, these cats are like saying, wow, these guys are sounding now with kind of a mix of the old jazz with maybe old microphones, but with a little synth that is now super cool. You know, that's where suddenly I found incredible combinations, but it's hard to find.

1:04:48What are they called? The comments, is that the name of the group? Some of them are called the ones? Is that the one? No, no, no, no, no. I remember the name. There's a jazz group now that's like, it's more like a collective. I can't remember their name, but there's a collective and then there's all the offshoots, but they're like the happening jazz guys in London now. It's supposed to be incredibly. That's, I think, there's a freedom, but they don't care about the Grammys and all that thing. I think that's a triad, you know, about how many likes you have or how many followers and all that shit.

1:05:21But I think there's a lot of things happening. I have to say. How surprised are you in the success you've had? I will say that the first thing that I felt when I did Amores Perez was super surprising because I never expect that film will be as successful as it was. It was a dogfight film with a crash and it was very in a Spanish and no stars and And, actually, it was a film that was rejected in the Canfield Festival competition. And they said, it's too long, it was three hours long, and it's too violent, and nobody wants to see it. And then we end up in this kind of other, smaller kind of venue in Can.

1:06:07And we won, that was the best, again, the best thing that could happen was that we were not accepted in the official competition. And then in the Semana de la Critique, which is not even an official kind of section, we were accepted, we won, and then from there we start kind of really, really having a lot of success in every festival we won the awards. Like we won like 160 awards in the water. I mean, it was kind of crazy. And honestly, and I tell you this seriously, I not only did not spectate, but actually when I was receiving praise, or I felt that Journalist wants to interview me and all that I have kind of a section in the New York Times magazine inside that was like a big deal.

1:06:54Naively, innocently, innocently, I thought that, you know, most of the directors, because at that time, again, there was no many films being produced as now. I thought, you know, everybody will have a share of a little fame and I'm just going into a normal... You're 15 minutes. Yeah, exactly. Which I said I think will be kind of normal that you are getting interviewed by this magazine or that you get a good review I said well it for me was kind of a normal not normal, but I didn't expect that it can go absolutely wrong And it could be completely different. Yeah, and it could have and the next one could have could have Every time can be bad and I have had bad experience, but in a way I was naively taken by surprise and I'm glad and I my father And you will see this scene in Badavel.

1:07:48My father had a very, very particular relation with success, because he never had success. And at the same time, his theory, which was very well intentioned, not, I don't know, the execution, but when my father saw somebody doing something right or good or excellent, he never praised you. never and the reason was that he said that when you pray somebody You will hurt him and you will in a way help him to believe or be self -conscious and then he will start not doing that and and you will dam it show for example I have an anise The nephew that was incredible in football. He was like eight years old.

1:08:30He was a fucking rock star And my father loved football. He never said to him something nice He said, why? And then he told me this story. So my father never praised me about nothing ever. He was very kind and nice, but he was never deliberately do that. And at the same time, he was protecting you. Protecting me, and at the same time, in the Catholic thing, to be successful and especially in Hollywood, is an open door to lose your soul. And it's almost like a prive scene. people that are successful can lose their own minds. First of all, you can lose success. So it's a possible way to lose something or you can lose your soul because then you will have a lot of pride and then you will be tempted by a lot of things that are wrong.

1:09:21So in my upbringing and my conception, half success was very contradictory because it was something that you want to have. You wish you would like to be appreciated. you would like to be successful, have every normal human being. But once you have it, you have to feel fear, to lose it, fear, to be tempted, fear, to all those restrictions and guilt. So I navigate that, and my father had a line that always repeated, that is in battle, that says, remember that to success, he said in Spanish, I will do my best translation, remember to success, give it a sip, you know, taste it, give it a sip, do the gargle, gargle, and then spit it because if not, it will poison you.

1:10:12So my father always, I mean he was obsessed with it. And my father said that the worst thing that he see in human beings is when they were successful, there was a football player that was very successful that went to Spain and he won like five blah blah and he always spoke in third person of himself, I've already said, when somebody starts speaking in third person, they lose their mind. You never want to be that. Anyway, so in a way, my father despised so much success that he impregnated me always a fear. And a dove, I always was, I will say, conscious of never believe it. So if you ask me, I will say, the first success that I have took me by surprise because ignorance and naiveness or innocence.

1:10:54And then as I have been sometimes more successful, I always remember that. I try to really put my feet on the ground and never, I have never believed. I have the imposter syndrome. Let me put it that way. Yes, I do. I'll leave it. Have you had the imposter syndrome? I don't know if I've had imposter syndrome, but I'm always surprised when anything's successful. I don't expect it ever. I never expected. because I know that's not in my control. Exactly. All there's so many things have to go right for something to be successful that all happen after I say, okay, let's put it into the world. And then you have a surprise.

1:11:36Yeah, then whatever happens happens. And usually I'm making something else by that time anyway, and I don't even look back. And let me ask you and Vianne is with this, when there's a disappointing result of something that you love so much, and you put a lot of energy or life for whatever that you love. And there's a disappointing or the reviews. I don't know in the music how the reviews are, if they are really cruel or they are tough, or have you been exposed to bad reviews or critics? Absolutely. And now I wrote this book. It's the first time I wrote a book, and I worked on it for eight years.

1:12:12And it's the first thing I've ever put out with my name on the front, because usually my name's on the back, the artist's name's on the front. So it's more personal than usual. You're exposing now, you're absolutely and and I'll say it's more personal even though I don't talk about myself at all in the book It's personal in that it's how I see the world. It's my it's very much my perspective and I read many reviews some very good many very good and some bad and when I read the bad ones I just laugh because so It's clear the book's not for them. Do you know what I'm saying? I don't think everything is for everybody.

1:12:55So there's one person who's saying, you know, I'll read this book every day for the rest of my life and someone else will say, this is nonsense. Like this is what I want my money back. And I love that. And one of the things I say in the book is that the best start divides the audience. It's like, if everyone likes it, you didn't go far enough. If you really are walking the tightrope, there's going to be a bunch of people who love it, and a bunch of people who hate it or don't get it. Otherwise, it's conventional, probably, or middle of the road. And did you read the good and the bad reviews? You get it all.

1:13:40But in the albums, for example, has been an album that you put your soul with an artist and so on, it was not as you expect the result. And it, it, it, it, you feel sadness. I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's more just this like, wow, that's how they heard it. That's interesting. And then the next, that's it. Yeah, I'm, I'm always onto the next. I, I think that's a wise thing. I think I learned, I think especially funny enough in this film that you will see Bardou, I opened myself and that's the first film that I have done with, I always said that I have done the other films with my eyes open and this one I did with my eyes closed.

1:14:30So I look inside and I took out what I saw and what I I felt that was, again, is not at all biographical, because who cares about my life, even I don't care so who are why the people, but there is like very particular things that I have felt, that I have reflect, that I remember, that in a way went through my life, that has been a then emotional events, that I fictionalize, but in a way, a trace of things that in a way are very close to me and the way I see the world, that a way I feel the world, the way I experience the way there's a navigation of themes like life or death or fear or doubt or parenthood or adolescence or dementia or loss somebody or art and love and you know so there's no stories is just a walk in the consciousness a walk in the dream of somebody in a very particular state of mind that you will see.

1:15:38So the first reaction of people sometimes was like, where is the story? Where is the beef? There was not rational to graph from. If you are looking for a plot point or first act, second act, there was nothing of that. I was just exploring trying to be some cinematic sound and sight experience to fly with the consciousness of that and feel it. And it was funny because when people was looking to have a rational experience. And there's another book that I love that is called The Master and He's a Miss area, I don't know if you have read that book. It's an amazing book about scientific study about that life is perceived completely different.

1:16:28You can understand who are your best friends or the wars of the world of countries, collective kind of reactions depending in the right hemisphere of the brain or the left hemisphere of the brain. And we conceive the world. And depending on which one you are kind of more towards, you construct the life absolutely, absolutely, that the same thing is absolutely different. So I could see the reaction of people that were very left brain side, rational trying to say, what the fuck is this? This doesn't make sense. This is stupid, this pretentious, this is narcissistic. And the other people that, you know, I always invited, it was funny in the moment that I learned that I felt okay, I understand there's people that are approaching this very rationally and they are demanding a reason of every thing, they will be irritate and they will be obviously fighting with the film.

1:17:26So I invite in some of the screenings that I went for people to turn off the rational copilot and just allow themselves to feel and experience and fly. So I said that and I said it before the film started. Yes, and I said, please, just I invite you, don't think about it. There's nothing to think. There's a lot to feel and a lot to laugh and turn off your copilot. Do not demand reason to a dream because he said dream. So if you demand reason to a dream, that dream will be fucked. So just dream with a dream fly. You can imagine how many people after the screenings thank me because I give them a cue and a clue for them to understand, you know, it was just a little guidance and it was so important.

1:18:21They said, if you should not tell me that, I will probably be fighting with the first 20 minutes. Then there are people who survive it or not, but it was a difficult kind of thing. And it was amazing that that little warning thing was enough for them to allow themselves to liberate from their rational mind and the man thing and then the people love it and they were floating and they were connecting. Okay, the next question I have based on that is, is there a way to visually make that invitation in the beginning of the film? I don't mean you out there talking. I don't mean, how would what would we see that would give the audience that understanding without you having to say it?

1:19:12I thought that I had done it, but I'm now sure that I did not accomplish what I wanted. And he didn't work because of course, many people really struggle with that rationalizing of the film and trying to understand it. But the film, if the film starts with a shadow being projected in the desert and you see this shadow is like if you are standing in the desert with the sun behind you and your long shadow is projected and these shadows start running and then the shadow will start flying. So it's a radical point to view from the hair and the eyes of somebody that you have not seen, actually is you.

1:19:59So, is you become the shadow flying, struggling to go and then land it and then walk in and then running and then take off again and then again cannot and is trying to fly, try to to get out of the gravitational kind of thing. And finally, the shadow is just above. And then suddenly there's a till of, and then you see the huge horizon. And then there's this long corridor with the sun. And there's this, so it's very onyric and very, the point of view is radical. You have never seen a film start like that. I think it's one of, this is my favorite opening scene of my films by Far. But what I'm telling to the audience is let yourself be in this character, mind or in your own dreams.

1:20:52And how many times, I don't know if you dream that you fly, but I dream a lot that I fly. And I fly that way very low to the ground. Yeah, I don't have flight homes. That's funny. Because a lot, you know, I have seen like, yeah, like 50 % of the people. Many people do. So I'm inviting the people with this image to let themselves be that person. I mean, is the shadow project that whoever wants to take that position and say, okay, go and leave that? But, obviously, it was not enough. It's interesting, though, isn't it? It's like we can never know. We can never know what someone understands or what they don't.

1:21:28And whether it's important for them to understand it or not all those things. I saw that scene because I watched first 20 minutes, as I said, and I thought it was beautiful, but I didn't necessarily understand the metaphor. for. Exactly. And more than a man for it, just like it's like, obviously, an or near, kind of a weird kind of state, but it's not necessarily, you know, it's not necessarily. It did feel dreamlike. It felt like I didn't understand what was happening. It was, uh, it forced me to pay attention because when you don't, when you don't know what's happening, you get, I get more alert.

1:22:05You know, when, when something's all laid out before you, something I'd say a I was like, I don't feel the need to hold the audience's hand and walk them through. You know, like if they get it, they get it. If they don't, that's fine. It doesn't, I don't think it really matters. I think you will enjoy it if you, now that you know how to navigate that because the film is - I'll enjoy it anyway because I felt like, from the first time that I saw Birdman, I had that feeling of, in some ways, the invitation in that one is the levitation. Exactly. It's clearly my game because he is levitating, Michael Gitton is levitating, and then the camera, if you remember, I start pushing in the camera and then I arrive to his back.

1:22:50You see him full and I write to yeah, then the computer sound, he turns and then he stand up and now he's in his winnies, you know, naked. And the trick was that you never know he was floating or not because then when he stand up, it's clearly that he was just meditating in his fucking, you know, with his ass in the floor. But he thinks that he's floating. So I make you, I start the game at that moment to say, this is how he feels, but reality is not, but it's not, it's very subtle. So I never really do it very obvious. It's always subtle and I play with you. As much as I love the movie, I didn't know that.

1:23:32My takeaway was, wow, I wonder what the reality is like in this movie. That was my feeling. Exactly. Like I actually more went along. I didn't fight it. I went along with it. It's like, oh, this is a movie where he can, he has special powers. That's cool. Yeah. No, I agree with you. But I think that's an important thing because I think it's always very surprising what people taste, what not. Sometimes you fail, I have failed many times to connect or try to make a point and you don't do it and try to connect in some way. But I think again that we were talking is not in our hands and everybody has their own depending on where you live, your cultural background.

1:24:16What do you have breakfast that morning? And there's people that in a way are very obsessed to get what they know already and what they expect. I always, when I see a film, a new film, I always want to see what film that filmmaker wanted to do. Not the one that I wanted to see. I think that's very important. Absolutely. I want to see what is that film that he wanted to do. And I try always to celebrate that kind of thing. But then if my mind and I find myself now against the film and that Obviously, I know that it has to do much more with me than with that guy because or that woman or that whatever Because obviously they want to make that and connect that now if I get it or not is not their fault Yeah, it's my own limitations.

1:25:08Yeah, or my own or and I have it and I don't even think it matters It's not because it's like if you read a poem you might not have the same interpretation that the poet had when they wrote it, you either like it or you don't, and you bring your all of yourself, the listener, the reader, brings all of themselves to it. And I love that conversation between the maker and the audience where you're inviting, I feel like you're inviting the audience to participate in this movie. That's the feeling I got I got the feeling it's like I can I don't know what you're thinking But I know this is not regular the situation's not regular.

1:25:53I'm not sure what it means But I'm I'm excited that it's not regular because I'm I'm excited for an exciting journey, you know like this is gonna be an answer. Where's this gonna go? Now it's gonna happen Exactly and is yeah, and I think that You know, I I try now very very consciously Because of that because I cannot control the results I now they'll leave a lately try that what I'm writing what I'm doing what I'm shooting I Love it. I make sure that I love it because I know that I'm not a martian I know that if I love it there's gonna be a lot of people like me with my sensitivity, my whatever principles experience or whatever is that, that they will respond to that because I always say to the young guys that now with the social media and all that they are terrifying to be accepted to be to be light and how many followers and all that which I and you never born with that and the new generations, it's a very terrifying paralyzing possibility to say you have to be light.

1:27:04you have to be in love and they make decisions based on that, which is insane. That's what I now radically, I said, you know, I will like yours too. I always said that you cannot write a film thinking in an audience. Also, I cannot find my audience because the audience is an abstract thought. I don't know who what is audience. When we said the masses is an abstract thought, the masses for me is a different concept than for you. And I don't know these people, but if I like it, the audiences will find the movie. Well, you know at least one person likes it. And if you're making it with someone else in mind, it's possible.

1:27:49Nobody likes it. I completely agree with you. And I know that this film and all the films has found the tribe. I said, I have my tribe. I belong to a tribe. And now you and I are connected. I have a privilege in order to be with you here because I found that you are part of my tribe I never thought about you, but you find a million percent. I am in the tribe and I'm ecstatic And I'm so happy to try to exist because I don't feel that connected so many things so it's really It means a great deal to me. I have a bad news for you. We are at tribe in extinction It's okay, it's okay. It's okay. Do you know what though?

1:28:30The things that we make are going to inspire someone to make something amazing. Yes. Yes. I can't help it. I agree. And honestly, I couldn't be more happy, I don't know what having to do with maybe the albums that probably has been maybe the less successful commercially are the ones that you feel more proud about. And for me, because the tribe get a little bit even more radical and more squissit. Yeah, no, when someone comes up and talks to me about something I worked on that other people don't come and talk about, it's always like really that's the one that's supposed to always interesting like that.

1:29:09That's a great feeling to find the tribe like like that is fantastic. But I have to say another thing to that, you know what I did this time for, you know, I have been doing it But this time I did it radically and I so glad that I did I did not with any review Not the good ones good not the bad ones and let me tell you it was a must -amazing You know, I was not intoxicated exactly The hard way the thing you love I'd be freeed out into the world and now it's gonna go do its work Sonny, beautiful. Sonny, I felt that if I will be jumping into it, greeting the good ones out the bad ones, that doesn't matter if it's good or bad.

1:29:50First of all, will not change the outcome of the film, will the film will not be better or bad or worse? No. And my heart, I will put my heart in the hands of people and I said, no, my heart belongs to me and I cannot be, and in that moment I was so liberated and not intoxicated. It's beautiful. I have to say that without that. Yes, I think I will be fucked You know, I mean, no, it's what the kids now with all the critics in the Instagram which I don't have Exactly I said to the kids if I will have an Instagram with one million followers and I read what you read I will kill myself but for me so uncomfortable sometimes I cannot understand it even but but but but I'm wrong probably But it's just for me something that is creating a lot of anxiety in people because I will be anxiety about to be judged every day when I wake up to see what people think about me.

1:30:44What's the mean? But you always have the opportunity to turn it off. To turn off. You don't have to decide to be the most popular kid in school. It's okay. I completely agree. I think that sometimes when I have had young people to say I did it, but then I couldn't keep doing it because the way my generation communicates and exist is this and if not, you do not exist. Yeah. You know, so it's now is becoming a very radical thing because even access to everything to information to your bank account. I mean, like, suddenly get out of that is actually I had a conversation with a basketball player, one of the Golden State Warriors, serious basketball player, serious team.

1:31:28And he was saying he's so frustrated that the owners of the team are so insistent that the players spend all their time on social media and that they're always followed by cameras. And he said, it really gets in the way of the game. It's like, I did this because I love basketball. And now all of this other stuff, even from the people who want us to play basketball, the powers that be in basketball want to commodify the long tail of everything else around it. And he's saying, I can't focus. I can't focus on the game. It's all distraction. Wow. It's interesting. Super interesting. You remember this documentary of Jan Luco about the Rolling Stone sympathy for the devil.

1:32:24You remember that documentary, one of the things that was very funny for me to find. Once I have the opportunity to met with Mick Jagger in a party. And I have just seen that, this was like 10 years ago. And I have just seen the Goddard video where it was amazing for the people that hasn't seen it. It was incredible, again, the sensitivity of Godad to record the process of that song being made in the studio, when who will know that that song will become a mythical song, like basically one of the most important songs in the rock and roll history, why he choose that one, and not another one anyway.

1:33:11And obviously he's recording the whole process and the song, how different the song star being, right? It was a... It started immediately. There was no like that. No, it was a start, all full instruments. It was much more noisy. It was another song. And the camera of Godard and the present of Godard, who was a rock star at that time, obviously start affecting the whole behavior of kid Richard and McGagher and they start kind of getting a long not very well and all the comments and they were kind of show enough who was the smartest guy in the room and funny enough is clearly how the camera was affecting their behavior personalities and actually the participation in the authorship and the ideas of the song which which funny enough end up being very good, by the way.

1:34:07They start stripping out a lot of things, which was very interesting, the chemistry about it. And then at the end, the most funny thing for me was when they were, now the process has been finished and they will record the song the next day, and go that said, I'm done. I'm not gonna shoot the recording of the actual real song. He saw the process. And then that's it and he didn't want to show the process. So I have just seen that documentary and I went to a party the next day and I suddenly find out me, Jagger and I'm a big fan of him. I said, oh, it's a pleasure to meet you, great honor. And we spend like 30 minutes talking about it and I told him, you know, I have just seen this documentary.

1:34:50It was amazing for me to see that this guy didn't, didn't record it in the documentary. They're recording. And he threw me an anecdote that I found it amazing. because he said that when go that, it said that. All the other members were kind of, we need a camera. Like what you were saying, you know, like suddenly when you are being observed and you just, it can go either way. You can become a great, a better person, conscious of your actions and suddenly you become aware in a good positive way, Or you can become a fucking, you know, selfish, self -conscious, pretentious, or whatever. It can go either way.

1:35:34So suddenly they felt that they need that. It was almost like, wait a minute, where is the, where is my social media? Where is the and it becomes a kind of a crisis. And so some of them wanted, some of them not, they start kind of fighting and then the producer of the documentary was said to Jan Luke, Jan, look, what you mean that you will not come tomorrow? Tomorrow is the ending of the whole thing. We have been here for two weeks or whatever. No, I just want the process. What do I mean? And they start fighting. And he made the other told me that suddenly he said, are you fucking crazy? I'm paying this fucking thing.

1:36:14You will document the whole thing. No, I don't want to, I know what I know, and they start fighting. Feast fighting in the studio, and they were rolling bloody nose. And Godard hitting the producer, the producer, you are an asshole. I will cancel that. And the Rolling Stones just seen these two guys fighting. And Godard defending his concept that he knew very well. That that was it, that's it, that's enough. And the other guy, thinking in the money, saying, no, you have to fucking have the result. And he didn't, they fight, they blow up and everything. And that's the end of the story, which I found was fascinating.

1:36:54Absolutely. Especially the thing that I did know that some of the guys wanted the fucking camera to keep with that kind of stamina and adrenaline. And then fucking go that, putting the limits of his principles, which was the principle is a process, not the end result. I don't care about the end result. which is fascinating. Absolutely. I feel sometimes when I have done, I always laugh when I go to a TV show, or I mean one of those programs that are like a TV, I always laugh that the host, and sometimes they are really nice people, and very normal, and they arrive, and say, how are you, Alejandro?

1:37:29I love this, and how you're doing, and how is your wife? Whatever kind of personal thing, and they're very kind of nice and quite normal. And so all you okay, camera's rolling, and then when the cameras are, hello friends, we are here. This is Friday morning and we have, Ali. And so you say the heat become another person loud and completely artificial. And then he brought me to this thing that I have to suddenly start dealing with somebody that I was so nicely, that happened in a second. Is it transformation with the camera rolling action? Good, you're good by. I think that's something though that professional actors can overcome.

1:38:13I mean, again, seeing Thomas Hardy and seeing Leo in the Revenant. It doesn't look like they're concerned about the cameras. No. It's something that I don't know how the actors do it or the actresses. People like Kaden and Shet or Shumpen, I remember in 21 grams that you mentioned. He was doing a guy that is dying from a long cancer. and you know, and he's a barely walking with fucking oxygen in the thing. And he, you know, you put the camera. I remember that Rodrigo Prieto, my D .P. and I, the first scene, that was my first American movie. The first scene that I showed was Sean walking in his apartment, you know, struggling with some little kind of thing with his oxygen.

1:38:55And barely can walk and breathing with a little... And okay, camera roll. And I was so excited to see the screen to Sean. I said, I'm shooting fucking Sean Pan, and he was okay action. And he was just walking and doing it perfect. I mean, it was like fucking... Wow. Like if you said to Miles Davis, you know, okay, rolling and Miles... I mean, it was like just to hear one of those... You say, it cannot be better. How incredible is that? So is that sensation? I said, oh my god, I'm... Look at that. And suddenly... Okay, cut. I'm sorry. And I'm telling you that scene or one that he was just crying or shouting whatever and then cut and in some moment the guy just straight up, started smiling, making a joke, having a fucking smoke, telling me some anecdote of her blah blah blah blah blah.

1:39:46Okay, okay, ready, ready, great rolling, take action. And so many, look, that fruit full of life and soul and soulful and life. The eyes and suddenly the eyes were death Wow I mean it was like a magic Unbelievable I could I cannot understand how they can do that. I love that you fought for it That's great. We had to no no you understood mean mean You know it's always the notes normally and I agree I would use I mean when somebody give me a good note a good idea I'm very thirsty for that I love that. I cannot celebrate more. It's just when somebody doesn't understand then that's the problem. Well my friend has been a pleasure, Karuna.

1:40:34Beautiful conversation. I love sharing the space with you and seeing where it goes. Well, thanks very much, Kamal. I've been a pleasure to meet you.