An Interview with Abel Ferrara

The following is the transcription of a question-and-answer session following a screening of ’R Xmas at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris on 9 April 2003. Ferrara appeared with his producer and frequent collaborator, Frank DeCurtis. Jean-François Rauger is the director of the Programation Department.

ABEL FERRARA: All right, so, I hope everyone enjoyed the film. So, speak, talk, somebody …  

JEAN-FRANÇOIS RAUGER: May I start? I think that the film is very close to Bad Lieutenant, because it’s about good and evil, and the fact that you may do wrong things, but you cannot know that you are wrong. Am I right?

AF: Right! [Gestures to the lights in his face.] Kill it, man, please! [Lights go off.] All right, yeah, what does everybody think? Does anybody have a reaction to that? Don’t be shy! Somebody, somebody break the ice!

SPECTATOR 1: I would disagree with Jean-François’s comment …

AF: Stand up so we can hear you! What’s your name? Talk to everybody. Don’t be shy. Speak in French, somebody can translate.

S1: What struck me in this film is that you’re coming much closer to the reality of social life.

AF: And how does that make it cinema? I mean, if we’re filming …

S1: No, no. What you are doing here, what strikes me rewatching it, are the continuous dissolves and fades, which bring the film closer to The Addiction, with its theme of vampirism. But I’m not a critic.

AF: It’s okay, we’re all critics. Well, the point is, this is the other side of King of New York. Here, one gunshot goes off and he shoots the basketball, as opposed to God knows how many gunshots were fired in King of New York. We make these films, all these people getting killed, and maybe we’re not feeling what we should be feeling. It’s not a film about gunshots but about the reality. If a gun went off, in the reality of this situation, everybody would be hiding under their cars and not coming out of their houses for weeks. Friends of mine couldn’t stand the film because the hero of the film, Lillo Brancato, was afraid. He was scared. He gave up the information right off the bat. Which is somebody I could relate to a lot more than I can to Larry Fishburne or Frank White in King of New York. That makes sense, but is it cinema? So, what do you guys feel about the film? Would you rather see King of New York, or this, or something different?

S1: May I go on?

AF: Keep going, baby! Please, please. We’re here for four or five hours. I’ve got a two-hour speech.

S1: I would like to compare the film to Body Snatchers in their approach to consumerism and society. But also, you’re focusing on the emotions between the principal characters.

AF: Right! Very good!

FRANK DECURTIS: Very well put!

AF: [Picks up the microphone.] Yo! HOW’S EVERYBODY DOING? ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE GHETTO! [Laughs, puts microphone back.] So, somebody in the back, ’cause I know people in the back always have the most wonderful things to say.

SPECTATOR 2: Are your films about redemption?

AF: Well … redemption is a twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week process, I mean, who wants to be redeemed? I think these people … we put “to be continued,” or “to be cunt” [laughs], “cont. …” [He points at DeCurtis.] That was his choice of words. In the end, I think these people needed to be educated before they could be redeemed.

JFR: But there is no difference between good and evil in your films. God is not watching, he’s blind.

AF: God is blind! God wears sunglasses! [Laughs.] God’s not blind! He’s all-seeing and He’s all-knowing. And He made the trees. … For Ice-T there is a God, that’s what he feels, he’s telling her [Drea de Matteo] she’s feeding drugs to children. I think he is speaking for a very … you know … moral high ground. He’s saying that what you’re doing is a hundred percent wrong. She’s confronted with the fact that she’s doing wrong. She’s trying to deny what she even does. Nobody even takes drugs in this movie, you don’t see anybody doing drugs. She’s blind, and all she wants to know about is the money. And in her mind, well, she’s helping people go to school, she’s helping this, she’s doing that, she’s like the Godfather, she’s like Brando. That’s why she’s so protected. The same way that they could never get close to … Escobar, someone like that. But still, she’s denying what she’s doing. And now, what is she gonna do when she confronts it? That’s why it’s “to be continued,” because we’ve only led them to the point of, okay, this is what’s going on, this is what’s happening. They’re pushed to the wall on all phases of their life. Now what’s going to happen? I mean, we couldn’t end the film like that. It’s “to be continued.” [To the audience:] Hello!

SPECTATOR 3: I’d like to ask …

AF: Stand up!

S3: Is there a subtext about the social politics developed by Giuliani?

AF: Yeah, of course … [He mumbles with DeCurtis.]

FDC: The rules have changed.

AF: He’s talking about the difference between Giuliani and … and …

FDC: … anybody!

AF: Well … when he came in … at that point, believe me, the cavalry came into town. There was no more dealing on the street, there was none of this even considered anymore. Not that there were any more or less drug dealers or drugs in New York, but … not like that! And the main point is, the police here realized there was no way they were gonna get any help from the justice system if they arrested these guys, so they had to take it into their own hands. After this, today, believe me, these guys would have been arrested, they would have been run right through the system, and they would have been in jail. … The Rockefeller laws are still intact. From 1970, ’73. I mean, there are mandatory sentences for drug dealing. Which puts a lot of pressure on the drug dealers, and puts a lot of pressure on the police, and … who are they gonna arrest? Because in terms of sentences, it’s a very heavy deal. I’ll tell ya, I have these horrible fucking nightmares of the way we watched the military going into Iraq. What if they let these guys loose back at home in New York and said, “We’ve just got rid of the Iraqis, let’s get rid of the drug dealers!” How would you get any drugs with all those guys walking around in their outfits? For Giuliani, that would be the ultimate world—zero freedom. Anyway …

SPECTATOR 4: To date, ’R Xmas is one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen about a woman loving a man.

AF: Oh! That’s so sweet! [Laughs.] I can’t believe it. That’s fantastic! About her, that’s the bottom line. Because in that situation, that machismo of the Latin culture, she had to support Lillo. Even though she was the strength, she was the power. It was her. You see, the story that continues is that Lillo was tapping the bags, and he did have a habit. That’s why he’s reluctant to go to the Bronx with the black group. Those were his friends. The street people, the Puerto Ricans in that street, the daytime street dealers, they were her relatives of some sort, and they were doing the right deal, they were taking care of business and making the money, and she was with them. These guys in the Bronx were tapping the bags then trying to … you know … create some smokescreen to deny it. He … when he’s giving all these raps of [imitating Lillo’s accent], “I wouldn’t know, I do the bags, I do ’em all the same, I’m at the table myself”—he was robbing the stuff and doing it himself. So we find out when we start chapter 2 here that he has a habit, and he’s supporting this habit, and that’s what is leading to his downfall. And now he has seventy-five thousand dollars he owes the Colombians, or wherever the priest gets that cigar box, and those people want the money. So it becomes an interesting story for the continuation. Very interesting. I mean, I hope everybody followed that. Anybody else?

SPECTATOR 5: Abel, when you go to the video store and there are no more Godard films left, what do you look at?

AF: People are making films, films that are out there. … I don’t know, y’know? I’m into more or less taking chances. I wouldn’t go to a video store, but … I mean, there’s like thirty, fifty television stations. My kids have got cable, so whenever you turn it on you see all kinds of interesting films.

S2: Who are the filmmakers that move you today?

AF: Well … while we’re here, I’d say it is not just Godard or Jean Vigo, but the ones they loved. You know, Joseph Losey, Nicholas Ray, Robert Aldrich was on the plane. … What is the name of the film? The cowboy movie with Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper?

FDC: Vera Cruz [1954].

AF: Yeah, there are so many … Hitchcock, John Ford, Pasolini, Fellini, Rossellini [laughs], Bertolucci. … You can’t name them, we keep watching movies.

FDC: If you make a film, we’ll watch it. That’s what we do!

AF: I see so many great films, bits and pieces. Stan Brakhage, Michael Snow, you know, all kinda screwy stuff, documentaries, Wiseman, the Maysles brothers, I mean, Orson Welles. … That’s a funny question, there are so many great films, great documentaries, everything … and free baseball.

S1: I’d like to free you from that list and move back to the film.

AF: THANK YOU!

S1: Could you tell us about your collaboration with cinematographer Bojan Bazelli? What is he doing now?

AF: He shoots commercials.

FDC: He’s making big bucks!

AF: [Laughs.] He’s making the big money. He went for the swimming pool! I mean, Bojan is a fantastic DP. We’ve never worked together, me, Frank, and Bojan, but we work with Ken Kelsch, and he’s like an ex-Vietnam Green Beret. He can just pick that camera up. Ken is a big, big dude. And it’s all the marbles, it’s all at stake. He never not brings his best game to the table. And he has his group, and he has his truck, and he has his … y’know what I mean? If worse came to worst, we could, like, go to war with his equipment.

FDC: I don’t know if Bojan could have shot ’R Xmas.

AF: The thing is, I don’t know, he’d have to change. I mean, with Bojan, it was about the shot. And then there’s about giving the actor the freedom to work. Y’know, you go for the shots, you go for … to make it beautiful in a certain way. But you’ve got to allow the actor to be free. It’s a fine line. And in this film you get the feeling that you’re a fly on the wall. But it’s not a fly on the wall, ’cause first of all this was shot in June, so this Christmas bit was in summertime. And you can’t imagine how many trees … I cursed every tree in New York. [Laughs.] Because everything is designed, everything, even if we leave it alone, it’s designed in the fact that we left it alone. It was all brought … which is what you want to do. I mean, you have to bring every element to the thing, and every frame has to be there, y’know? And then the actors have to … We started doing this film with Annabella Sciorra and John Leguizamo, and both of them … we had a very not-good relationship. We rehearse a lot to get to the point where we feel that we can feel like … you have to really feel comfortable and feel like you have it all in front of you—the lines, where to go, everything—then you can, you know, improvise it, to get to where they can be free within the frame. But Leguizamo and Annabella could not liberate themselves, whereas Lillo could. I mean, Lillo’s a dear friend, but we’re having a lot of problems with him lately. He’s been rebellious!

FDC: A maniac! [Laughs.]

AF: Yeah, maniac, he doesn’t take to unemployment well. … Anyway, I thought he was very brilliant in this. And Drea … it’s a woman’s film, man! It’s like Ms .45 or The Addiction. I mean, without her you had no film. And Annabella is brilliant and great at all times, but she wasn’t then, she wasn’t there for us. And this girl … she’s like Kim Novak in Vertigo, nobody looks like that, smoking cigarettes like that. But what does everybody think about her? [Long pause.] Is everybody stunned into silence by this movie? I mean, come on! Somebody say something!

SPECTATOR 6: It reminds me of Scorsese who, like you, still makes gangster movies. What do you think of his films?

AF: Scorsese? Well, he’s a fucking genius, I mean, he’s the man! But what do you think of him? How many people have seen Gangs of New York [2002]? … Keep your hands up. Now, how many liked it? … Oh, no! Well … we all have our bad days! He had a bad two hundred! [Laughs.] Like I said before, ’R Xmas is the opposite of King of New York, which is a make-believe version of how to deal drugs in Manhattan, where you take over the Colombians in three days and you’re carrying around fifty-gallon drums and you’re having car chases with the cops. It’s a game, it’s cinema as metaphor. Whereas we’re attempting here to do another thing, you know?

S6: I think this movie is more intimate, and King of New York is more …

AF: … entertaining! The point is to be intimate and entertaining. I mean, how important is entertainment to everybody here? I’m just curious.

S6: I would disagree with you, I think King of New York is perfect …

AF: … as entertainment. But it’s not intimate, is it?

JFR: There is some intimacy in the film, in the relationship between Christopher Walken and his buddies.

AF: Yeah … his boys! [Laughs.] I mean, the intimacy is between Chris Walken and the audience, that’s the intimacy in King of New York. There was a gangster, Notorious B.I.G., who checked into hotel rooms as Frank White. He saw the movie a thousand times. That’s the intimacy in the film. You live and die with Christopher. Here, at least somebody feels we captured the relationship between a man and a woman. The great thing about making movies is that you can make one like this, you can make one like that. One of the great things is that now we can do something different than either one of them. I mean, hopefully. Although I would really like to go back and do the sequel to this. And we’re doing a prequel to King of New York. Back to the beginning. Which is not necessarily about Frank White. But the guy’s name is Frank.

FDC: We’re doing a prequel, then we’re doing a sequel! [Laughs.]

AF: Yeah, it’s a prequel, and then we’ll do the sequel. [Gets up and addresses the crew.] Alright, so where is everybody going? Let’s go party! What movie’s playing tomorrow? Ms .45? Oh my god, we have a dedication to Zoë [Lund], our girl, who came to France … and you guys killed her! I’m only kidding. [Applause.] Just a final word. It’s a very historical place here, and you have to support cinema, man! ’Cause film is twenty-four frames a second, and when you sit in a room, between every fucking frame is a little bit of black. So, at the end of the fucking hour-and-a-half movie, everybody here sat in the dark for maybe thirty minutes. When you watch tapes, it’s a constant obliteration of your mind. In these thirty minutes of darkness, there is a symbiosis between the audience and the film. That’s when you make your own film. And you also watch a film with everybody all around you, everybody here at the same time and that’s not like watching video, man, even if videos saved our lives. Anyway, support the Cinémathèque.

Recorded and transcribed by Charles-Antoine Bosson; revised and corrected by Brad Stevens.