Tag Archives: great filmmakers

The Wisdom of Jafar Panahi

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I attended a screening of Jafar Panahi’s latest film It Was Just an Accident at the Jacob Burns Film Center after which the director offered his thoughts on filmmaking and life. The experience has left me in absolute awe.

Mr. Panahi has directed eleven films over a span 30 years, a remarkable career not just for his masterfully inspiring work but also as he’s worked under an oppressive Iranian regime which has repeatedly interrogated and jailed him and then banned him from filmmaking for the past 20 years. And what did he do over these years? Made films.

Jafar Panahi, while banned from making films, made his film Taxi Tehran, telling the stories of an array of Iranians as he drove them in his cab.

It Was Just an Accident asks the question: “What we would do if we were able to capture our torturer. Would we berate them? Torture them? Kill them? Bury them alive? Let them go free?” It is a punishingly raw story, dotted with humor and revelation.

As in almost all Panahi films, a little girl speaks loud and true in It Was Just an Accident

Mr. Panahi’s humility is astonishing. He praises the people for sharing their stories and his actors for their bravery, claiming that he does little beyond frame the work. When asked why he does not leave Iran, he simply states that it is his home.

His strongest opinion is perhaps that there are two kinds of filmmakers: those who make films for the audience and money – some 95% – and those who tell their own stories and make the audience come to them. They’re now coming to Mr. Panahi; the Oscar extravaganza awaits. And little will he care. I just hope that he is treated properly when he returns home, and the threats abate.

When In Doubt…Turn to Herzog

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A couple of excerpts from a recent The New York Times interview with Werner Herzog:

Why are you inclined to interpret nature as being “monumentally indifferent”? I advise you to go outside on a clear night and look out into the universe. It seems utterly indifferent to what we are doing. Now we are taking a very close look at the sun with a space probe. Look at the utmost hostility of the hundreds of millions of atomic bombs going off at the same time in its interior. So my personal interpretation of nature comes from taking a quick look at the stars.

How do you derive meaning from life if life is indifferent? Life is not indifferent. The universe is indifferent. But just trying, itself, is something I should do.

Did you ever find out who shot you? I was shot at various times. You mean here in Los Angeles?

Yes. No, I wasn’t interested.

When you pulled Joaquin Phoenix from the car accident, did you know it was him? Yes, although he was upside down in this car, squished between airbags that had deployed and wildly trying to light a cigarette.

That could be an image from one of your films. I knew he must not light his cigarette, because there was gasoline dripping and he would have perished in a fireball. So I tried to be clearly commandeering to him and tell him not to. But I was worried that if you gave him a command, he would strike his lighter even harder. So I managed to snatch the cigarette lighter from his hand. Then it became completely clear that it was Joaquin. But I didn’t want to speak to him after. I saw he wanted to come over and thank me. I just drove off.

How do you see your relationship to Hollywood? I enjoy being marginally involved. Just a few days ago, I did some voice recording for a “Simpsons” episode, and I did it in such a wild way. So wild that the director and some people who sat with me in the room burst out laughing before I ended my line. I had to be relegated into the control room, because twice in a row they started laughing. I said, “Gentlemen, I have not even finished my line yet.” In a way, “The Simpsons” is a bold intellectual design.

Excerpted from New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/23/magazine/werner-herzog-interview.html?referringSource=articleShare