\n
\n
THE PARATEXT<\/strong><\/P> JM<\/strong>: There is something I\u2019d like you to change in the interview. On page two there is my line, \u201cI never watch my movies.\u201d I\u2019d like to change that to \u201cI don\u2019t watch all my movies.\u201d I mean, I don\u2019t come home on Sunday night and say let\u2019s watch a movie with me, shall we? You don\u2019t mind changing that, do you? Hello? ***<\/p>\n June 20<\/strong><\/p>\n Memorandum Enclosed are copies of the NEW BIC Forms. The BIC is a research review board and its mandate from the Federal Government is to review research proposals so that research participants will have their rights protected.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I don\u2019t do behavioral research,\u201d I tell the Graduate Director. ***<\/p>\n July 16<\/strong><\/p>\n Detroit, MI<\/p>\n Dear Mr. Malkovich,<\/p>\n I hope you\u2019re in a good mood when you get this rather surreal document. In case you\u2019re not prepared to sign the bit about the collection of blood, hair and nail clippings (I went easy on you, didn\u2019t I?), please sign the enclosed Consent Form.<\/p>\n Thanks.<\/p>\n D.S.<\/p>\n P.S. I\u2019m going to Chicago next week to see a play at the Steppenwolf.<\/p>\n INFORMED CONSENT RELEASE FORM ***<\/p>\n July 31<\/strong><\/p>\n United Artists Corporation LTD Dear Dayana,<\/p>\n I was amused in all ways by reading your piece and I hope it does well for you and that I\u2019ve proven to be a not too tiresome a subject. I look forward to meeting you sometime. Have a pleasant trip to Chicago.<\/p>\n Regards,<\/p>\n John Malkovich<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n September 5<\/strong><\/p>\n I keep the signed copies of the Consent Form on my desk. Nobody has asked for them yet. I keep them to remind myself that soft-spoken villains are, at times, the most perfect of gentlemen. The play at the Steppenwolf was exceedingly bad.<\/p>\n September 6<\/strong><\/p>\n I have reached the end of an intellectual adventure, a little frivolous, perhaps, a little self-indulgent, but mostly elegant and affectionate. I wonder if Malkovich is ever going to read the final version of this piece in his self-imposed exile, in another time zone, in his garden of freshly planted daffodils. Maybe not. But now I believe (together with Abel Tiffauges and Peter Greenaway) that things do happen for a reason, that Malkovich\u2019s divorce from Hollywood was not an arbitrary gesture, that it had to happen for me to establish a connection between the life of Joseph Knecht, Master of the Glass Bead Game, and the career of this formidable actor who, like the Magister Ludi, has many lives to live and many deaths to conquer before the final and eternal swim. THE INTERVIEW<\/strong><\/P><\/p>\n It is therefore the game of the world that must be first thought, before attempting to understand all the forms of play in the world.<\/em> Jacques Derrida<\/P><\/p>\n Talking to John Malkovich is like having a private conversation with a chatty Devil. Anything is possible and everything is allowed in his world where God is not dead, but simply not interested.<\/p>\n Between the actor\u2019s quick changes of mood and opinion and his characters\u2019 suave duplicity, however, lies an uncharted territory, a safe and solitary space of clever speculation that defines politics as dogma and semiotics as narcissism.<\/p>\n Once inside the actor\u2019s \u201cstudio,\u201d I realized that our dialogue was taking place within the realm of that unnamable difference Derrida talk about, inside \u201cthe non-full, non-simple, structured and differentiating origin of differences.\u201d True to the nature of that difference, the uncomfortable phone conversations undermined my carefully guarded affection and demanded excessive framing and infinite paratextual speculation. If there is no \u201creality\u201d to our dialogue, no concreteness, no heart-felt exchange (despite the actor\u2019s generosity and patience), it is not John Malkovich\u2019s fault. It isn\u2019t my fault either. We could, perhaps, blame Derrida for emphasizing the \u201cgame of the world\u201d which Malkovich rejects while practicing.<\/p>\n Our discussions did not enhance the field of semiotic possibilities surrounding the actor\u2019s films. They did, however, have an unexpected side effect: they sketched the portrait of a different kind of reader, the opposite of Quijote. As a despotic reader of things, John Malkovich is the absolute and transparent center of his busy intellectual empire. In his world of well-put contradictions, windmills are spotted and eliminated, not confused with dragons. Armed with formidable yet shifting insights and definitive truths, John Malkovich is the perfect Master of Ceremonies of Derrida\u2019s \u201cplay,\u201d the only Magister Ludi capable of paralyzing the signifier.<\/p>\n Consequently, what follows is not a dialogue but a framing of a Glass Bead Game of elegant articulations, a \u201ctrace\u201d which could have been significant and touching, had it allowed for less precaution, if only for a moment. THE GLASS BEAD GAME<\/P> I.The Call<\/p>\n If we have, nevertheless, persisted in our endeavor to determine some of the facts about the life of Ludi Magister Josephus III, and at least to sketch the outlines of his character, we believe we have done so not out of any cult of personality, nor out of disobedience to the customs, but on the contrary, solely in the service of truth and scholarship.<\/em> The Glass Bead Game<\/em><\/P><\/p>\n Why are you writing a dissertation on movies?…Not to be critical, but I find it strange\u2026kind of useless. But what do I know? I\u2019m a poor boy from Illinois. For me acting is a job. That doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t do the best I can. Do you know that song, Je suis venu te dire que je m\u2019en vais<\/em>? It\u2019s something like that. Great song. You should listen to it sometime\u2026I received your letter a while ago, but I was on my way to London. As a matter of fact, I took it with me, I don\u2019t know why. I would be delighted to answer any questions you might have, although I don\u2019t understand people\u2019s fascination with movies\u2026The Sheltering Sky<\/em>? No, I don\u2019t particularly like the book. I prefer Let It Come Down<\/em> to The Sheltering Sky<\/em>, but that\u2019s Paul Bowles for you. He lacks humanity in a very primitive way. I think Paul acts as if feelings are foreign and messy, untidy, inelegant. Something to be ashamed of. There is a way to do a story very deeply, and The Sheltering Sky<\/em> could have been that, maybe, but Paul is ashamed of emotions and keeps his distance from everyone and everything. When he published his autobiography called Without Stopping<\/em>, William Burroughs suggested that, knowing Paul, the book should have been called Without Telling<\/em>. The great writers never impose the distance you feel in Paul\u2019s books. Faulkner, for example, never kept his distance. But Paul is wounded and damaged and, I think, that makes him unable to feel. The only time Paul was funny \u2013 he did not intend to be, it just happened \u2013 was one evening when I asked him when he realized that he no longer lived in America. And Paul said that he was still thinking about it. Bertolucci, on the other hand, is the life-affirming Italian: incredibly narcissistic, charming, funny, but quite afraid of death and emptiness. I think he was afraid of the material and that\u2019s why he brought Paul in as the narrator of the film. It gave him a sense of security. The Sheltering Sky<\/em> is about emptiness; about lonely people, unhappily married. The desert? No, it didn\u2019t mean much, not to me, not then. It did not change anything. The Sheltering Sky<\/em> is about these two people who think they need the other\u2019s love to survive; they feel that\u2019s what\u2019s sheltering them, when in fact that\u2019s what ultimately destroys them. And I remember Bernardo telling me he wanted to cut from the film the scene in which my character is dying, because it was too gruesome and too sad. And I said, \u201cBernardo, in my modest opinion that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re here for; surely not to make a pleasant film about death.\u201d So I guess the scene is back in the film now. I wouldn\u2019t know. I don\u2019t watch all my movies\u2026I just made a film with the director of The Tin Drum<\/em>, Volker Schlondorff. It\u2019s called The Ogre<\/em> and it\u2019s about this guy who wants to become a good Nazi and fails. That movie, I saw more than once. I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll have a chance to see it. I don\u2019t think it will come to America. Americans don\u2019t want to know. It\u2019s not that they don\u2019t know: they don\u2019t want to know. They\u2019ll see The Ogre<\/em> as a faintly pro-Nazi movie, and it\u2019s not. But if they want to deal with the Nazis they\u2019ll do it their own way: they\u2019ll watch Schindler\u2019s List<\/em>. I told a journalist here, in France, that sometimes when I look in the mirror I see a Nazi. He didn\u2019t know how to take that, it was a scandal. The character in The Ogre<\/em> is fascinated by the Nazi order. He doesn\u2019t know what they\u2019re about, but they\u2019re an alternative to chaos. He loves children and believes that Nazi schools are safe for them, so he brings the children to those schools\u2026Yes, my characters share a certain duality. Living in the modern world, we should admit to a certain duality or we should not be living in the modern world, don\u2019t you think? The ending of The Sheltering Sky<\/em> doesn\u2019t work. Why do you have to die? If I were to make that movie I would change the ending. I would like to think the contrary. Where are you from?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n My god, how odd you must feel living here.<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n That\u2019s a long way from here.<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t say that. I just said it was a long way from here.<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n I will call again. It was my pleasure. Take care. A shudder came through Fritz when the Magister, for the first time, addressed him that way. From Knecht\u2019s look, it was clear that this remoteness and objectivity were not pretense, but uncannily genuine, and the man before him with his matter-of-fact courtesy accompanied by intense intellectual awareness, was no longer his friend Joseph, but a teacher and examiner, entirely Master of the Glass Bead Game, enveloped and isolated by the gravity and austerity of his office.<\/em> The Glass Bead Game <\/em><\/P><\/p>\n Archival Notes (AN)<\/strong>: John Malkovich interviewed by Paul Young, 1994, my italics. \u201cI\u2019d have to say that the only political act I\u2019d ever be guilty of is curiosity. I mean, you\u2019ll find over the course of my career that I\u2019ve worked with just about every kind of person and I have just about every kind of person as a friend, and I have almost nothing political to say<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Q<\/strong>: Your films and plays betray an acute interest in politics. I\u2019m thinking of Heart of Darkness<\/em>, Empire of the Sun<\/em>, The Killing Fields<\/em>, The Ogre<\/em>, Libra<\/em> \u2013 which you adapted for the stage and directed in 1994 at the Steppenwolf Theatre. The Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, Imperialism, the Nazis\u2026Even Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons<\/em> and Jekyll and Hyde in Mary Reilly<\/em> deal with certain political attitudes \u2013 sexual politics, but politics nevertheless. Still, you claim you have nothing political to say. How do you define politics, then? AN<\/strong>: Magister Ludi\u2019s take on Curiosity mirrors a trend in postmodern British fiction which considers history, theatricality and curiosity irrevocably linked. The history professor in Graham Swift\u2019s Waterland<\/em> says: \u201cCuriosity, which with other things, distinguishes us from the animal, is an ingredient of love \u201c (51); \u201cHistory begins only at a point when things go wrong\u201d (106); \u201cReality is when nothing happens. How many of the events of history have occurred, ask yourselves, for this or that reason, but for no other reason, fundamentally, than to make nothings happen? I present to you History, the fabrication, the diversion, the reality-obscuring drama. History, and its near relative, Histrionics\u201d (40).<\/p>\n A<\/strong> (cont.): But what people think of politics generally falls under the heading of dogma. You know, it\u2019s Marxist dogma or conservative dogma, or feminist dogma \u2013 some set of beliefs shaped and misshaped and pulled around to fit into a system of beliefs. I just don\u2019t have that. AN<\/strong>: Is contradiction a form of curiosity? If so, does it become political? Is the lack of a system a system in itself? If so, can we trace it throughout the Magister\u2019s statements? Consider the following: c.\u201cIn my modest opinion, that\u2019s what we\u2019re here for; surely not to make a pleasant film about death.\u201d Q<\/strong>: The parts you choose to play seem to represent various stages in the development of a single type of character: a dual, dark, fascinating personality like Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons<\/em>, Gilbert Osmond in Portrait of a Lady<\/em>, Jekyll and Hyde, the assassin from In the Line of Fire<\/em>, to mention just a few. Are you attracted to these roles because of this duality? Is that how you choose them? AN<\/strong>: The film chooses its actor the same way the disease chooses its patients. See the cases presented in Mann\u2019s Magic Mountain<\/em>, Hamsun\u2019s Hunger<\/em>, Giono\u2019s Horseman on the Roof,<\/em> and so on. Cinema as quarantine. Movie theatres as giant sanatoriums. The connection between film and disease has already been established: \u201cPeople who love movies are sick people\u201d (Francois Truffaut).<\/p>\n A<\/strong> (cont.): The only film I\u2019ve ever produced was The Accidental Tourist<\/em>. I didn\u2019t produce any of these other films, or write them or direct them. I\u2019m chosen for some ability or quality [the people involved] believe I have. AN<\/strong>: Even the most casual survey of the history of thought shows that the great ages of culture have never been adequately explained by political conditions. Rather culture, or mind, or soul, has its own independent history \u2013 running parallel to what is generally called world history. Our Order deals only with this sanctified and secret history, not with \u201creal,\u201d brutal world history. It can never be our task to be continually taking soundings in political history, let alone to help shape it. (The Glass Bead Game<\/em>)<\/p>\n A<\/strong> (cont.): It\u2019s not a political book. In fact DeLillo says very well what it\u2019s about, in the book. It\u2019s about \u201cthe seven seconds that broke the back of the American century.\u201d And that was my interest in it. Also for me\u2026for me as a young child, that was the beginning of nihilism in the country because it gave you this intense realization that things really weren\u2019t well; and no matter how rich you were, and how powerful, and what you\u2019d achieved, and what you\u2019d struggled to do, and how elegant you were, or how funny \u2013 things could be taken away from you in a second. And that was the beginning of nihilism in America which, as you know, is a much more European thing. I mean, the existentialists really didn\u2019t fly here.<\/p>\n AN<\/strong>: If we consider the Ludi Magister\u2019s statements from the inside of his (lack of a) system of beliefs: Then:<\/p>\n a.Does it follow that the (temporal) connection between JFK and the American nihilist philosophy is apolitical? Or is it, au contraire<\/em>, acutely political, a result of curiosity? Maybe not.<\/p>\n Q<\/strong>: Existentialism brings me to the issue of the anti-hero. There is a tremendous difference between the American and the European anti-hero. The American anti-hero is a young man set for success who ends up failing miserably in all areas. The European anti-hero is Joseph K. An internal exile. Do you agree with this distinction and, if so, where do your characters belong? AN<\/strong>: In the eyes of the Magister Ludi, my inclination to talk about all his characters as variations on a theme is a degrading reduction of his work, a shameful and pointless generalization. But, whatever their goals and beliefs, can his characters not whisper at some point, together with Dostoyevsky, \u201cI am a sick man; I am a lonely man; I am an unattractive man; I believe my liver is diseased?\u201d And isn\u2019t there great beauty to that?<\/p>\n Q<\/strong>: In Michel Tournier\u2019s The Ogre<\/em>, a sentence is repeated throughout the book: \u201cAll is sign.\u201d How do you understand that? AN<\/strong>: I find a lengthy explanation of the Eco-system pointless. What should I tell the Magister, over the phone? That with Eco anything is possible? That sometimes character, narrative voice, Model Author and Empirical Author are one? (see the end chapter in Six Walks in The Fictional Woods<\/em>). I believe Umberto Eco thinks he\u2019s very important. I believe Umberto Eco doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s very important. Eco, the (Empirical) Author talks about Eco, the (Model) Reader. All the lines are blurred and everything is separable. As I have suspected, contradiction takes us nowhere.<\/p>\n Q<\/strong>: How did you play Abel? (Pause)<\/p>\n A<\/strong>: It is, in a literal and figurative way, a story she doesn\u2019t belong in. Which is something I don\u2019t think we did well in the film. I defend the film a lot, but \u2013 <\/p>\n AN<\/strong>: Excerpt from a 1995 interview: \u201cMary Reilly<\/em> was not a happy experience. There were problems with the story that were never solved. I\u2019ve done better work because I\u2019ve had better things to work with. The power has to be with the story, not with the actress or the director.\u201d<\/p>\n A <\/strong>(cont.): I defend the film a lot, but it should have been a film more about her looking around the corner, not a film about what she sees when she looks around the corner. AN<\/strong>: \u201cI have heard,\u201d he said with seeming jocularity, \u201cthat you have become something of a diplomat. Not really a very nice occupation, but it seems our people are satisfied with you. Interpret that as you like. But if it doesn\u2019t happen to be your ambition to stay in this occupation forever, then be on your guard, Joseph. I think they want to capture you for it. Defend yourself: you have the right to.\u201d (The Glass Bead Game<\/em>)<\/p>\n Q<\/strong>: Last time we talked you called Mary Reilly<\/em> a fascinating failure. Why? By the time you hear this it will be over\u2026I wonder, did you kill me? Who won the game? Not that it matters. For, among friends like you and me, it\u2019s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game, and the game is done, and it\u2019s time to get on with your life. But I worry you have no life to get on with. You\u2019re a good man, and good men like you and me are destined to travel a lonely road. Good bye and good luck.<\/em> In the Line of Fire<\/em><\/P> THE PARATEXT May 3 JM: There is something I\u2019d like you to change in the interview. On page two there is my line, \u201cI never watch my movies.\u201d I\u2019d like to change that to \u201cI don\u2019t watch all my movies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21927,21930],"tags":[22034,21942],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1975,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/1975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMay 3<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nI<\/strong>: No, I don\u2019t mind. I\u2019m just a little surprised, that\u2019s all. You said you never read your interviews.
\nJM<\/strong>: Well, yes. On the first page, when you mention the song, the title is Je suis venu te dire que je m\u2019en vais<\/em>, not J\u2019ai venu<\/em>.
\nI<\/strong>: Sorry. I used to speak French before I moved to the States.
\nJM<\/strong>: What\u2019s that supposed to mean?
\nI<\/strong>: Nothing.
\nJM<\/strong>: And, the last correction. On the last page, Jekyll says \u201cThere is a fraction in my soul\u2026\u201d Fraction not fracture. Pity about this one. Fracture does indeed sound better.<\/p>\n
\nTo: Investigators Utilizing Human Participants in Behavioral Research
\nFrom: Dr. Peter A. Lichtenberg, Chairman
\nBehavioral Investigation Committee
\nSubject:New Behavioral Investigation Committee Form<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI know.\u201d He sighs and offers me a piece of candy. \u201cCan you deal with it? Otherwise they won\u2019t let you use the Malkovich interview in your dissertation.\u201d
\nI leaf through the BIC form. It reads: \u201cCollection of blood samples by venipuncture, in amounts not exceeding 450 milliliters; collection of both supra and subgingival dental plaque; collection of hair and nail clippings in a nondisfigural manner; collection of excreta and external secretion including sweat\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cAre you sure this is for the English Department?\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s for everybody,\u201d the Graduate Director sighs.<\/p>\n
\nOver the past year, I conducted a series of phone interviews with John Malkovich. Prior to these conversations I informed Mr. Malkovich of my intention to use the material for my dissertation Death of the Reader: Theories of the Hypergenre<\/em>, a project which deals with contemporary fiction and film. Mr. Malkovich agreed to answer my questions and was sent a transcript of our conversations which I had recorded with his consent.<\/p>\n
\nThe Man in the Iron Mask
\nLes Studios d\u2019Arpajon
\nLes Cochets \u2013 91180 St. Germain-les-Arpajon
\nParis<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\nA tentative sketch of the life and opinions of Magister Ludi John Malkovich<\/p>\n
\n
\n\u2026<\/p>\n
\n
\nII. In Office<\/p>\n
\n
\nA<\/strong>: How do I define it or what is it?
\nQ<\/strong>: How would you define it?
\nA<\/strong>: I would define politics as the art of problem solving. I think curiosity is a political act because curiosity is the beginning of understanding. Because if you can be curious about something then you can understand it, and if you can understand it, then chances are that you can solve whatever problem there is.<\/p>\n
\nQ<\/strong>: A system of beliefs?
\nA<\/strong>: Yes, you can almost say I don\u2019t have a system of beliefs. I certainly don\u2019t have a system of dogmatic ones.<\/p>\n
\na.\u201cSometimes when I look in the mirror I see a Nazi.\u201d
\nb.\u201cPeople think it\u2019s a pro-Nazi movie and it\u2019s not.\u201d (There\u2019s a Nazi in all of us?)<\/p>\n
\nd.\u201cBut why do you have to die? If I were to make that movie, I\u2019d change the ending, I\u2019d like to think the contrary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nA<\/strong>: I don\u2019t choose them, I am chosen.<\/p>\n
\nQ<\/strong>: But you do agree to play these parts. You could refuse.
\nA<\/strong>: Yes, but then I wouldn\u2019t work. I often do refuse. But I don\u2019t choose things because they adhere to a specific set of guidelines, whether it would be about duality, light and dark, anything. There are things that, in fact, you are chosen for because the people who do the choosing believe you possess a certain quality they are looking for. I would agree that the quality they are looking for when they are employing me is a kind of duality, usually.
\nQ<\/strong>: What about Libra<\/em>? That was a deliberate choice.
\nA<\/strong>: Absolutely. Don DeLillo is a friend of mine and Libra<\/em> is a book I read a decade ago, on my way to China, a book I really loved. And this was around the time I was ready to produce The Accidental Tourist<\/em>. I really thought about, and should have done, Libra<\/em> then, long before Oliver Stone got this idea to do JFK<\/em> which \u2013 offensive \u2013 was a kind of ripped off and intellectually bankrupt version of Libra<\/em> reprise with all of Oliver\u2019s Vietnam paranoias and things. But Libra<\/em>, I think, is a great book. I don\u2019t see it as political, though.<\/p>\n
\na.\u201cthe seven seconds that broke the back of the American century\u201d (history and humiliation)
\nb.JFK<\/em> (history and confabulation)
\nc.Nihilism
\nd.\u201cno matter how rich you were\u2026how elegant you were\u2026\u201d (theories of class, taste and individuality)
\ne.\u201ceverything could be taken away from you in a second\u201d (the \u2013 borrowed \u2013 existentialist flight)<\/p>\n
\nb.If so, isn\u2019t Oliver Stone\u2019s version of Libra <\/em>the result of (his) curiosity, a (fictional) solution to the problem at hand?
\nc.Should we recognize in the words of the Magister Ludi an American dimension we thought he lacked, a success story prefaced by an acknowledgment of his modest beginnings? (\u201cI\u2019m a poor boy from Illinois\u201d)
\nd.Should we understand his fascination with the last spasms of the American century as an erasure of boundaries and categories?
\ne.Or should we read it as a foreshadowing of his restless travels, from Christopher, Illinois to Provence, through China, Tangiers, Los Angeles and London, while carrying, as a true Master of the Word, student letters in his pocket?<\/p>\n
\nA<\/strong>: It depends on which one you talk about. They\u2019re all pretty different. The character in Of Mice and Men<\/em> has a different goal than, say, the character in Death of a Salesman <\/em>or either characters in Mary Reilly<\/em>. Or in, say, Les Liaisons Dangereuses<\/em>. They all operate from very different world views. So I couldn\u2019t answer your question phrased like that because each character exists in a different place, I think. Many of them not even American. Would I say they are anti-heroes? Yes, sure. But they are very different. There are some who are incredibly nihilistic, some who are very existential, there are some terribly damaged, some who are quite malicious and narcissistic. There are some\u2026What does the guy say in Mary Reilly<\/em>? \u201cThere is a fraction in my soul\u2026Something which left me with a taste for oblivion.\u201d I think that\u2019s pretty well put. And that\u2019s certainly something I would say, in all humility and fairness, that I would share with those characters. Yes.<\/p>\n
\nA<\/strong>: All is sign. It\u2019s a kind of failure in our film which I hope you get to see some day, because I think Volker\u2026I think we did not go far enough. It needed to be more like a Herzog film\u2026When the character in The Ogre<\/em> says \u201call is sign\u201d he believes, as most people do, that he has this incredible destiny that\u2019s really rather important. And normal people, to me, rather idiotically, believe that everything happens for a reason\u2026I don\u2019t believe that at all. But the character, Abel Tiffauges, believes in that because he has such an inflated sense of his own destiny\u2026that being in a way a metaphor for the Great France, which is what I think he is, in a way: a metaphor for his own country. He has these delusions that everything means something \u2013 he\u2019ll meet someone and that, in his mind, has incredible repercussions. A ball rolls out in the street and for him that\u2019s just an unbelievable happenstance of extraordinary importance.
\nQ<\/strong>: In a recent interview Tournier said he would like to rewrite the book, strip it off everything that does not refer directly to the character and the plot, and turn it into a children\u2019s book.
\nA<\/strong>: He would have a better book if he did that. He\u2019s the kind of Derrida-influenced French intellectual who has a lot of literary references and conceits that aren\u2019t highly effective literature\u2026Because in the end, literature is story-telling. The great ones can do a lot of other things, but they always take care of that first. And that isn\u2019t fully taken care of in The Ogre<\/em>, which is what keeps it from being a great book.
\nQ<\/strong>: Why, because it\u2019s partly a fairy-tale?
\nA<\/strong>: No, no. Because it\u2019s not enough of one.
\nQ<\/strong>: Could you make a comparison between Hesse and Tournier? I\u2019m thinking about the system of signs in Demian<\/em> and the University in The Glass Bead Game<\/em>: the place where one plays with all the intellectual values\u2026
\nA<\/strong>: I\u2019m not a huge Hesse fan, despite the name of our theatre. Of course, I know the usual suspects, Steppenwolf<\/em> and Siddartha<\/em> and so on. Hesse wrote more simply and, obviously more metaphorically. They\u2019re not dissimilar writers, though.
\nQ<\/strong>: It was not the Steppenwolf theatre that made me think of Hesse, but The Ogre<\/em>. After reading it, I realized I hadn\u2019t read such a profoundly semiotic book since Demian<\/em>.
\nA<\/strong>: That\u2019s probably very accurate. The character takes everything as a sign. But people who think they\u2019re very important do, don\u2019t they?
\nQ<\/strong>: Umberto Eco doesn\u2019t.
\nA<\/strong>: Neither does Tournier, but his characters do. It can be something present in the books that is not necessarily present in the authors\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n
\nA<\/strong>: Mostly like a character who tried to be a good Nazi and failed.
\nQ<\/strong>: But my impression was that Abel lives inside a Nazi world of his own making and realizes what is happening only at the end, when it\u2019s too late.
\nA<\/strong>: Yes, as the world did, in a way. The Nazis seem to Abel rather interesting with their uniforms, and how well they\u2019re organized, and how fantastic they are, like some sort of Teutonic Knights. And he becomes a fairy-tale ogre who\u2019s running around kidnapping little children. And I played him\u2026I played him as not very smart.
\nQ<\/strong>: I\u2019d like to ask you something about Mary Reilly<\/em>. In Stevenson\u2019s book Hyde is described as \u201cpure evil.\u201d For me, at least, that means he\u2019s better than Jekyll because Jekyll has something to hide, he\u2019s not \u201cpure.\u201d On the other hand, you could say that Hyde\u2019s purity, like that of Abel, is a sign of \u201cmalign inversion\u201d \u2013 Tournier\u2019s words, I believe.
\nA<\/strong>: We made a decision in Mary Reilly<\/em> that may or may not have failed. I\u2019m not a fan of Jekyll and Hyde, myself, but I thought that the conclusion we reached, that Jekyll was worse than Hyde, was more interesting than the original premise. In the novel and in Chris Hampton\u2019s screenplay, Jekyll was always referred to as this sort of avuncular figure, gentle and kind and such. And somehow it came to Stephen Frears that, in a way, he\u2019s worse than Hyde whom he manipulates and uses. I thought that was really interesting. I don\u2019t know if it helps the film, in fact it may have ruined it, I really don\u2019t have an opinion. If you got to do it on stage it would be just something that you tried one night to see if it worked, but when you do it as a film you kind of go through with it and that\u2019s how it becomes frozen in time. I think Hyde was intended as evil but in the Victorian age that translated into \u201canimal.\u201d You know, he eats, he fucks, he kills. I mean, what\u2019s wrong with that?
\nQ<\/strong>: For the Victorians? Everything.
\nA<\/strong>: No, I mean we say now, but you have to understand that\u2019s a rather limited perspective. Whatever we\u2019ve gained by saying \u201cit\u2019s wrong to say \u2018he kills, he fucks, he eats, what\u2019s wrong with that?\u2019\u201d we\u2019ve also lost. I don\u2019t think we can make a mistake about that. We\u2019re not meant to be like we are, surely. I\u2019m not making an argument for going back, I\u2019m not a druid myself, but surely one can see that it\u2019s not necessarily the best way. When we look at a character like Hyde we\u2019re looking through a Victorian prism. Or a Victorian prison. And, of course, Stephen is saying that there are all these so-called dark things in our nature, well, I don\u2019t think there are dark things in our nature, I think there are things in our nature. People kill people all the time. Today, yesterday, last week, 20,000 years ago. It\u2019s not news. A character like that is more difficult to play now because the real life versions of him are everywhere. And they\u2019re much more spectacular; it\u2019s the great American quality: serial murder\u2026our soul remaining the thing we still lead the world in\u2026Now we have Jeffrey Dahmer, what do care about Hyde, really?
\nQ<\/strong>: When Hyde tells Mary at the end, \u201cI always knew you\u2019d be the death of us,\u201d do you think he means that Mary Reilly, the character, is an intrusion in the world Stevenson created and, in a way, kills the story? Cherchez la femme<\/em>?
\nA<\/strong>: Yeah\u2026Yeah\u2026Always. I mean, that\u2019s the problem with girls, isn\u2019t it?
\nQ<\/strong>: You should know\u2026<\/p>\n
\nQ<\/strong>: Part of the problem, I think, comes from the way Mary Reilly\u2019s character is constructed. It makes you wonder where she gets her answers from. Everything she tells Jekyll is a bit too clever.
\nA<\/strong>: I really couldn\u2019t comment on it. Not because I\u2019m afraid to or something, but because it\u2019s very hard. When you do a piece of work you do it with the person you do it with. In fact, I never imagine it with somebody else. If that person is terrible, let\u2019s say, then that\u2019s the reality of what you deal with, what your work is, what you\u2019re faced with, what you\u2019re blessed with, whatever the case may be \u2013 that\u2019s all I know. It very well could be that it would be a better film with a different person performing that part, or a different person performing my part or anybody else\u2019s. But I couldn\u2019t say. Although I certainly wouldn\u2019t say that that\u2019s unlikely.<\/p>\n
\nA<\/strong>: Because I would have made a film about a woman who\u2019s where she is now, but who would have liked to have sex with her father.
\nQ<\/strong>: How would that have changed things?
\nA<\/strong>: It would have made her not a victim. It would have made her very strong and very sad. Because, you know, we\u2019re not meant to have sex with our fathers. Otherwise one gets involved in this victim thing, don\u2019t you think? But, again, that\u2019s my opinion. There\u2019s not necessarily any validity to it. It\u2019s just a theory.
\nQ<\/strong>: I noticed that, throughout the movie, Hyde changes physically. For instance, at some point he doesn\u2019t walk with a limp anymore. Is that because he is the stronger of the two and can now change his appearance?
\nA<\/strong>: Our opinion was this: that there was\u2026
\n(Long pause. With reconsidered, and much appreciated honesty)
\nI was really weary of doing the kind of Spencer Tracy version where one fellow talks like this
\n (The Magister affects precious Oxbridge accent)
\n\u2026and the other kinda\u2019 talks like this,
\n(Nasal, furtive cockney)
\nyou know, all the RSC bullshit. So Stephen and I saw it like this: there was a Jekyll, there was a Hyde, and there was a Jekyll and Hyde. So that in the end they\u2019re mixed together. Let\u2019s say, by<\/em> the end.
\nQ<\/strong>: Speaking of the end\u2026why did you end the film like that?
\nA<\/strong>: How did it end?
\nQ<\/strong>: With the special effects, Hyde turning into Jekyll under Mary Reilly\u2019s eyes\u2026
\nA<\/strong>: I don\u2019t know. I think the last third of the movie doesn\u2019t work. In the end she is, she remains, a victim. And we looked a lot at what she looked at, not at her looking. She is a victim up front, and I think once a movie becomes that obvious\u2026
\nQ<\/strong>: One last observation about your characters. They seem to be best contained by certain spaces: the laboratory, or the desert, for instance. Spaces of the mind. They also are, for the most part, by themselves in films of their own. In the Line of Fire<\/em> is a perfect example.
\nA<\/strong>: I think we\u2019re all in little films of our own\u2026so I find it natural.
\nQ<\/strong>: Once William Burroughs was asked if he needed the reader. To paraphrase: do you need the spectator?
\nA<\/strong>: No. Maybe on a primitive level, yes. In the theatre, trying to connect, in the company of strangers, surrounded by perfect darkness, maybe. They come up, and you commence this shared and collective voyage. As an actor you\u2019re part of all that. But on another level, no. I do not need the spectator. No.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\nDayana Stetco<\/strong>\u2019s plays have been produced in her native country, Romania, the U.S. and the UK. In 2001 she founded the interdisciplinary physical theatre ensemble, The Milena Group. Her book, Seducing Velasquez and Other Plays<\/em>, was released by Ahadada Books in 2009. Her fiction has appeared in various journals including The Means<\/em>, Emergency Almanac<\/em>, mark(s)<\/em>, Interdisciplinary Humanities<\/em>, Metrotimes<\/em>, Gender(f)<\/em>, and Dispatch<\/em>. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where she teaches Creative Writing, Literature and Film. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"