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- [00:01]
Mark Marin
Folks, I'm going to be in a lot of places around the holidays. New Mexico, New York City, New Jersey. And I'm sure a lot of you are traveling, too. While you're away, it's easier than ever.
- [00:11]
Brendan
To host on Airbnb because a co.
- [00:13]
Mark Marin
Host can do all the hosting for you. Get a high quality local co host to take care of your home and your guests. They'll create the listing for you, manage.
- [00:22]
Brendan
Your reservations, and take care of sending messages so someone else takes care of everything and you'll still make some cash while you're away. Find a co host@airbnb.com host hey, folks. Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. We've always recommended Squarespace as the best way to build your online presence. But now Squarespace comes equipped with design intelligence. Powered by cutting edge AI technology. Design intelligence helps you build a website perfectly tailored to your needs. Go check out wtfpod.com to see a website powered by Squarespace. Then head over to squarespace.com wtf for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code WTF to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com WTF offer code WTF. All right. Okay. Okay. All right. Lock the gate. All right, let's do this. How are you? What the. What the Buddies? What the Nicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Marin. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. Pretty great show today, really, honestly. How are you guys doing? Is everything all right over there?
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Mark Marin
I know I.
- [01:46]
Brendan
The last time I talked to you, it was Thanksgiving. I. Did you get through it? Is everything okay? In this weird time of traumatic transition into the great unknown that could be nothing but tense and possibly awful at best. Yes, I know. And Christmas is coming. And Christmas is. Hanukkah's coming. It's all coming. The last hurrah of the forced holiday spirit is upon us. Look, I don't know. I had a nice time in New Mexico. There's a heaviness there, obviously, because that's where I was molded. But seeing my father and his wife, Rosie, was good, man. Look, I've gotten some emails from people. Some people are like, wow, it's amazing you speak so nicely of spending time with your dad because of. In light of some of the things you've said. Look, I've busted my. My dad's balls for as long as I can remember having the guts to do it. And it bought me some space, folks. It bought me some space. But now he doesn't really remember that stuff. What a gift.
- [03:04]
Luca Guadagnino
What a gift.
- [03:05]
Brendan
There's always these moments when somebody has a. When their brain is addled with whatever and they're. It just becomes this bingo cage of memories. Some blank, some not. But there's still moments to be had where you hang out and it's surprising, and it kind of strips down the person to a point where. Yeah. I mean, they're not who they were. But, you know, the.
- [03:31]
Mark Marin
The.
- [03:31]
Brendan
The raw mechanism of it is sort of who they are. And you can still sort of see yourself in them and maybe work some stuff out. You know, it's a. It's still a time for connection. And I believe I'm getting something out of it. I know he is. I know his wife is. And. Yeah, so that was my Thanksgiving. Now I gotta somehow get down to Florida to see my mother. That's. That's next. It's. It's hard to even get her on the phone these days. I just don't think she has it with her a lot anymore. I have to call the caregiver to get through to the mom. Just to say, like, what's happening? What is happening, Ma? What's happening? So today. Look, today's a. It was interesting because, you know, I knew some of this director's work. Luca Guadagnino. I believe I'm saying that right. You know, I will. I will double check. I will. I will double check My. My point of reference.
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Mark Marin
Luca Guadagnino.
- [04:36]
Brendan
I did it. That's. It's Brendan. Brendan's sending me the pronunciation. Luca Guadarino. I had seen Call me by your name, and I found it moving and bold and poetic and provocative, sexy. But I didn't really know his other stuff. And, you know, the opportunity came to interview him. And I hadn't seen Challengers yet, and I didn't really know his work that well, other than, you know, call me by your name. So I had to kind of get into it. And he did this new movie, Queer, which I'd heard about. I knew Daniel Craig was in it, but I didn't realize it was an adaptation of the William Burroughs book. And I love William Burroughs. William Burroughs, for me, is like, this. Never. It's a chasm that, you know, narrows as it deepens. I don't. It's. It's just a portal into things that, you know, I can sometimes understand, sometimes I can't. But I've been fascinated with William Burroughs most of my adult life. And I've made attempts at reading him and I have read him and I've gotten through a lot of stuff, but some of it is very challenging. But I'm obsessed with William Burroughs. So when I heard that this movie was an adaptation of the William Burroughs story, I was like, holy shit. I had no idea. So it turned out to be a very engaged conversation. And I watched some of his other movies. I watched A Bigger Splash. I did watch Challengers, which is a great movie. These are the kind of movies that, you know, in the world that we're heading into, where the dominant culture is cultureless and you know, the sort of idea of the Western canon and what's important in terms of, you know, what builds a mind, what builds a life, what is art is just slowly, if not quickly being bulldozed by bullshit and thick headed momentum. You know, where do these movies stand? Who are they for? What do we do? Is art gonna save us? And you know, these are questions I've always asked. If not save us, does it us a lifeline to what is important or provocative or inspiring or moving in a bold and courageous way? You know, I fear for it because, you know, I'm lazy myself. I don't engage as much as I should. I feel like that I have to, you know, with the art. Go take it in. Go get, go put yourself in front of it. There's a lot of courage involved in this stuff. But the. I watched A Bigger Splash, which you should really watch with Ray Fiends and Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson. And it's like, it's kind of a funny, great movie. And I need to watch more of his movies. He reshot Suspiria, which I read about. I saw the original, didn't see his. But needless to say, by and large, when I talk to directors, because they are such, you know, fully rounded intellects, it's always an exciting conversation for me. So that's gonna happen in a few. I'm at Largo in LA on Friday, December 13th with the band with the comedy Sacramento, California at the Crest Theater on Friday, January 10th. Napa, California. I'm at the Uptown Theater on Saturday, January 11th. I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado at Lincoln Center Performance hall on Friday, January 17th. Then Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on Saturday, January 18th. I'll be in Santa Barbara, California at the Loro Theater on Thursday, January 30th. Then San Luis Obispo, California at the Fremont center on Friday, January 31st. And Monterey, California at the Golden State Theater on Saturday, February 1st. Go to wtfpod.comtour for all my dates and links to tickets. I'm going to be in NYC for a couple of days. I'm doing a little music show, a little kind of invite only benefit music show with Vivino and his fellows. It's going to be something a little comedy, a little music, going to play some songs. I guess Kingfish is coming down to do a few. It's very All I want, my friends, all I want is to experience something as being exciting and fun as opposed to something that I want to do and nervous and dreading to a certain degree. I I can't seem to switch the switch between like oh fuck and like yeah, I just can't seem to switch the switch so it functions properly. I'm gonna have a good time man, this is gonna be fun. It no, it's like, oh, I hope I don't fuck it up. I mean enough already. I'm old enough. I'm sure you put a lot of thought into gifts at this time of year, but I want to recommend a gift you can get for your whole family right now. The gift of peace of mind. Simplisafe is our choice for home security and you can still get in on their huge Black Friday deal. If you take my suggestion here, you'll get all the Simplisafe features that we've told you about over the years, as well as all the latest achievements in professional monitoring like the Simplisafe Active Guard Outdoor Protection. Simplisafe agents will be able to see suspicious activity on your property in real time and prevent crime before it happens. Hey pal, get away from the house. Black Friday might be over, but Simplisafe is extending its massive Black Friday deal for WTF listeners this week. You can take 50% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. This is your last chance to get their best offer of the year. Head to SimpliSafe.com WTF to claim your discount and make sure your home is safe this season. Don't wait. This offer won't last long. Keep your home, your family and your peace of mind protected by going to simplisafe.com WTF there's no safe like Simplisafe. Yeah, so look, William Burroughs. I don't even know you know where to start with William Burroughs. And as I said earlier, he's an endless fascination for for me in so many ways, just his whole being. And I can't say that I fully understand his thing, but I do remember the first time I saw him. I've talked about it a bit on this show at some other points. I remember I was a freshman in college, Curry College, Milton, Massachusetts. Lombard dormitory, Lombard hall, whatever, bunk beds. And I had a black and white TV set on top of a dresser. And I just met one of my best friends, Jimmy Loftus. And I had a coffee pot and we were making coffee. And I remember later that night I was hanging out. I can't remember if Jim was with me, but I was watching Saturday Night Live. So this must be 1981. And they bring on this guy, they go, please welcome, you know, William Burroughs. And he's sitting down at a desk with his hat, this old man. And I didn't know who William Burroughs was. I thought, is this the guy who wrote Tarzan? That's how like, fucked up I was in terms of what I knew and what I didn't know. Edgar Rice Burroughs. I thought he was dead. William Burroughs is on snl sitting there reading a passage from, I believe, naked lunch. The Dr. Benway thing. Dr. Benway, ship's doctor. Bring me a new scalpel, nurse. This one's got no edge to it. So I didn't know what the fuck to make of this guy. But I was in. I was like, it was hilarious. It was dark, it was fucking weird. And I just. I was like, who is this old man? And that began the fascination, you know, of, you know, reading Naked Lunch, of Reading Junkie, of trying to read some of the cut up books. There's dozens of books and he's written a few that aren't impossible to read. The trilogy, what is Cities of the Red Knight, Place of Dead Roads, Western Lands. Those are the last full novels I think he wrote. Queer was another one. The Soft Boys. I guess I could run a list of them, but there's a lot of experiments, the cut up method. Taking pages of text, cutting them up, rearranging them in a different way to sort of time travel and create magical poetry. You know, he did the Oregon box business. He was hanging out with Gyson in Morocco, I think, with the Dream Machine. I mean, he was a. You know, and he had this sort of Persona of hombre invisably. And, you know, he kind of had this secret agent thing going. He had, you know, it's a multilevel thing. He wrote a book about cats later in life. It's just the intellect, the humor, the experimentation, the art, you know, he deals, you know, he's a gay man who dealt very aggressively and interestingly with gay culture at different points in the history of his life. Which queer is one of them? One of the books and now the movie. There's a rare book that I'm sure is reprinted. You know, he does some. A lot of thinking about things about control. Needs control to survive. Control. Needs control to survive. What? But there's a book called William S. The Adding Machine. Selected essays that. I've just always been trying to figure this guy out. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. But I'm just reading these essays, just trying to get into the brain to talk about them. This is from an essay called the Limits of Control. A basic impasse of all control machines is control needs time in which to exercise control. Because control also needs opposition or acquiescence. Otherwise it ceases to be control. I control a hypnotized subject, at least partially. I control a slave, a dog, a worker. But if I establish complete control somehow, as by implanting electrodes in the brain, then my subject is little more than a tape recorder, a camera, a robot or a phone, maybe, huh? Consider the distinction and the impasse implicit here. All control systems try to make control as tight as possible. But it's the same time, if they succeeded completely, there would be nothing left to control. Suppose, for example, a control system installed electrodes in the brains of all prospective workers at birth. Control is now complete. Even the thought of rebellion is neurologically impossible. No police force is necessary. No psychological control is necessary other than pressing buttons to achieve certain activations and operations. We're there, folks. God damn it, I love this guy. This is from an essay called the Hundred Year Plan. Politics is the only area where stupidity and ignorance are brazenly preferred as qualifications for office. And so guided by the least intelligent, the least competent, the least farsighted and most ill informed. The species invites biological disaster. Other species have come and gone. Dig it? Then he writes about the dinosaurs. And then he's got this bit in here where. Fellow reptiles, at this dark hour, I do not hesitate to tell you that we face grave problems. And I do not hesitate to tell you that we have the answer. Size is the answer. Increased size. It was good enough for me. Parentheses. APPLAUSE Size that will enable us to crush all opposition. APPLAUSE There are those who say size is not the answer. There are those who even propose that we pollute our pure reptilian strain with mammalian amalg amalgamations and cross breeding. And I say to you that if the only way I could survive was by mating with egg eating rats, then I would choose not to survive. APPLAUSE but we will survive. We will increase both in size and in numbers, and we will continue to dominate this planet as we have done for 300 million years. Wild applause. He writes bits, man. He's a bit guy. A lot of bits. A lot of fucking interesting, dark, provocative stuff. And Luca has, has done it. Luca Guadagnino has taken on Queer and really kind of taken on Burroughs as a. As a person. And it's a very interesting portrait of him and it was a real honor to talk to the guy. The new film is Queer. It's now playing in theaters and it's a challenging movie and it's a trippy movie and it made me think a lot of things. But again, my fascination with Burroughs was kind of stimulated and this conversation was kind of lit up by that. This is me talking to Luca Guadagnino. Life is busy, people. And if you're like me, no matter how busy you get, you've got to get your fitness in. Peloton has a variety of challenging classes and programs that fit in into your schedule. Whether you're a new parent or traveling for the holiday or training for something big or just busy like everyone else. From four week strength building classes to running, cycling and everything in between, Peloton.
- [18:20]
Mark Marin
Can adapt to any goal and need.
- [18:22]
Brendan
During your busiest times.
- [18:24]
Mark Marin
Find your push, Find your power with peloton@1peloton.com.
- [18:40]
Brendan
So you.
- [18:41]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
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Brendan
You shaved everything?
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Luca Guadagnino
I shaved completely because I made a mistake with my mustache. I went too strong and now I'm growing back because usually I have very long beard.
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Mark Marin
I know. Isn't your hair usually a bit bigger?
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Luca Guadagnino
The hair too? Yes, yes. I'm a little bit like a crazy scientist for that kind of look.
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Mark Marin
It's funny because when you do make a mistake with the razor, you've got to adjust. You've got to accept.
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Luca Guadagnino
You have to accept what happened? Disaster. But in a way, my mom was happy because she always has to be. Shape shapes.
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Mark Marin
Oh, yeah. So. But I don't like. I'm shaved too, and I don't. You stop noticing it.
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
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Mark Marin
And then people feel a pressure to compliment you. Like, no, it looks good.
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Luca Guadagnino
You look 10 years younger.
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Mark Marin
Oh, that's a good one.
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Brendan
That works.
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Luca Guadagnino
Then I said to say, should I do some Botox here?
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Mark Marin
Oh, Botox. I've never done that. Have you done that?
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Luca Guadagnino
No.
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Mark Marin
Oh, no. You're not going to do it?
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Luca Guadagnino
Never.
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Mark Marin
No. Well, thank you for coming.
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Luca Guadagnino
Thank you for having me here very much.
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Mark Marin
I watch. I watch a few movies. I did watch Queer last night.
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Luca Guadagnino
Oh, wow.
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Mark Marin
Great. I watched it and I studied it.
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Luca Guadagnino
Great.
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Mark Marin
And then I watched whatever I watched I just want to make sure I'm honest with you in terms of. I watched Challengers.
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Luca Guadagnino
Great.
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Mark Marin
And I watched A Bigger Splash.
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Luca Guadagnino
Oh, wow.
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Mark Marin
Yeah. And I'm going to get into Suspiria, and we watched the original one.
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. So when did you watch the original?
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Mark Marin
Not long ago.
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Luca Guadagnino
Okay.
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Mark Marin
But there's something about, you know, even in some of the. In some Queer, there's something about those saturated colors that come out of Argento. Eh.
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Luca Guadagnino
Well, in Queer, I think for me and dp, my problem, we were really looking into the world of great British filmmaker Powell and Press Burger.
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Mark Marin
Oh. From Black Narcissists and Red Shoes. Red Shoes, yeah. Yeah.
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Luca Guadagnino
The treatment of color in those movies were, like, technical or more than Darius.
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Mark Marin
Just like colors. I can't even understand what he was doing, but it was something, huh?
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Luca Guadagnino
I have a theory about that.
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Mark Marin
Yeah. What is it?
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Luca Guadagnino
That he was trying to put everything out so that he could feel that he was kind of doing his job as making a horror movie.
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Mark Marin
So it's a practical thing.
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. It's a lot of color, a lot of sound, a lot of screams.
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Mark Marin
Right.
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Luca Guadagnino
And also, eventually, when you end up seeing the movie, you realize that it's not very scary.
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Mark Marin
No, it's not scary. It's. It's a little disturbing, maybe. But. But do you, like, what. What is it about horror in general? I mean, did you, like, when you were a kid, were you, like. I'm a horror guy.
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Luca Guadagnino
Big, big time. Yeah.
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Mark Marin
So, like. Because I. I mean, I can watch it and I can try to appreciate it intellectually. But what is it that resonates with that specific genre that kind of connects?
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Luca Guadagnino
I think for me, when I was a young kid, it was about the possibility of bending some kind of aesthetic rule.
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Mark Marin
Like. Yeah.
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Luca Guadagnino
The idea that you could break the bodies the way in the horror movie you do.
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Mark Marin
Yeah.
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Luca Guadagnino
Was kind of felt subversive to me.
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Mark Marin
Yeah.
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Luca Guadagnino
And then there is some kind of, like, idea of a heightened emotion. That is interesting.
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Mark Marin
Yeah.
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Luca Guadagnino
And definitely, you know, when you have a nightmare, psychoanalysis says that it's a way of relief. So in a way, horror is like a sort of, like, open relief for a collective relief.
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Mark Marin
So it's not really about fear and it's not about, like, what horror is now, which is just shocking, but there's something about the grotesque and the possibilities of that that seems human to you.
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Luca Guadagnino
I agree with you totally. I think all. Every generation, every moment in time in society express a different kind of horror.
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Mark Marin
Right.
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Luca Guadagnino
Like the anxieties of the Sevent for terrorism and the wars, like the end of the war in Vietnam, they were expressed by films like the Exorcist. Right, okay. Where you could feel that this kind of evil within falling out.
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Mark Marin
Yeah, yeah.
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Luca Guadagnino
Now it's.
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Mark Marin
Now the evil is here for good.
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. I'm sorry, guys. You know, we've been there before.
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Mark Marin
You guys, do you live in Italy now?
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
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Mark Marin
So. Okay, so give me a little some tips on living in authoritarianism.
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Luca Guadagnino
Well, I think your democracy is stronger than ours in a way. You have a much stronger way of control. You have. In two years, you have a new election for the two chambers. Yeah. So, like, I think that there will be a lot of trouble happening, particularly with the Supreme Court and with the way in which people will start to accept sort of deregulation in the morals.
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Mark Marin
This is the problem. Right.
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Luca Guadagnino
So you have to fear Trump. In you.
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Mark Marin
Yeah, in you.
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Luca Guadagnino
In your.
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Mark Marin
Well, I think that's because I'm a comic. So I've talked about it on stage, about how, you know, no matter what anyone's fears are, if they're leftists or they're liberals, that eventually people will adapt because it's the nature of people. And I wrote this line the other night. I said, you know, shut up and keep your head down. It's easy when you have a phone because you're already down.
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Luca Guadagnino
Because we have been given the tool that's right. To be down on with our head. And that's right. Not to worry.
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Mark Marin
Yeah. Or not. Think about it even worse. So, but. But in. In speaking about the arts, in relation to whatever you grew up in, in Italy, I mean, is, you know, there is this. I get this feeling because if you're an artist, you believe that the art has political purpose and possibilities for. For provoking change. But because of the nature of the technological environment, I don't know if that's true anymore.
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Luca Guadagnino
I don't think that we live in post political times. And then, you know, like, even the most mindless entertainment is apolitical. It's very. Political ideology is behind the corner everywhere reflects something. Always.
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Mark Marin
Yeah.
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Luca Guadagnino
So in a way, to be aware of that and to try to understand that a pure sense of entertainment is not existable, doesn't exist.
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Mark Marin
It's reflecting something, whether you're morally in agreement with it or not.
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
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Mark Marin
That is doing something. It is either in service of the ruling ideology or pushing back as a reflection of it in a critical way.
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Luca Guadagnino
Agreed.
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Mark Marin
Okay.
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
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Mark Marin
So when you do, like I was trying to find, you know, what is important to you when you're exploring human emotions, desires, the idea of love and that kind of stuff that seems to be the meat of what you're doing when you put people together.
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Luca Guadagnino
I would say it's about probably the way in which I love to see the clash of personalities happening in a given environment. I like to think that what I'm attracted by is the way in which we are all imperfect and we all are wrong and we are all right and we are all flawed. There is a line in that movie that was written by the great Dave Kajanik.
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Mark Marin
Which one?
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Luca Guadagnino
It says, you are bigger. Splash. Paul, played by Matthias Konart, says to Ralph Fiennes, you are obscene. And he replies, we are all obscene and we love each other anymore anyway.
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Mark Marin
Yeah, well, you have to. It's just the nature of people. It's why Jesus is so popular.
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
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Brendan
My God, that's why.
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Mark Marin
Yeah. Everybody's like, I'm obscene, but he'll take care of it. But so when you're making a movie like that, I mean, the Ralph Fiennes character, like. I mean, he seems to be based on a guy who is essential in music. A manager, a producer, the promoter. Yeah, the Stones. But the Stones are all over that thing.
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Luca Guadagnino
All over. They've been so supportive because the concept was. Let's make him like a sort of fictional manager of the Stones during the end of 70s, early 80s.
- [26:41]
Mark Marin
He reminded me too of that manager who was famous, the Led Zeppelin manager. That guy. I forget his name, but he was, you know, he was one of those characters.
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Luca Guadagnino
Okay. And I'm sure that the writer thought a lot about that.
- [26:51]
Mark Marin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, so you decided the stones towards the 70s when.
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Luca Guadagnino
So we really boxed ourselves into a trouble because he had to be a Rolling Stone manager.
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Mark Marin
Yeah.
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Luca Guadagnino
And so you had to make sure that you could have the Stone songs in the movie, because otherwise the movie felt unlegit, you know?
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Mark Marin
Yeah, but they were into it.
- [27:10]
Luca Guadagnino
They said, yes, but you know, it's very expensive. So we had to find a way to make a deal. They were very gracious.
- [27:15]
Brendan
Oh, really?
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Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
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Mark Marin
Well, I mean, it's not like you do nothing but celebrate the Stones to the point where emotional rescue is at the bottom of the pool for whatever reason.
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Luca Guadagnino
Yes. Who put it there?
- [27:25]
Mark Marin
Who put that?
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Luca Guadagnino
You know, who put it there?
- [27:26]
Mark Marin
Well, I would assume Paul. Right.
- [27:28]
Luca Guadagnino
Or for me. For me is Dakota's character.
- [27:32]
Mark Marin
Yeah, the daughter, because she saw the whole thing.
- [27:35]
Luca Guadagnino
I think she saw the old thing. She didn't move a finger.
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Mark Marin
I thought oddly, the most disturbing line in that movie Even though Tilda Swinton couldn't talk was her willingness to blame it on the refugees.
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Luca Guadagnino
Oh, my God. Yes.
- [27:47]
Brendan
Thank you.
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Luca Guadagnino
Thank you for that, Mark. Thank you. Because when we conceived the movie, this was 2013, so it's almost 12 years ago.
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Mark Marin
Right.
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Luca Guadagnino
And the crisis of the migrants in Italy was still strong, but it didn't became the trade of politics. It didn't became the way in which these people were like blowing fire over the fears of the citizens, you know.
- [28:12]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [28:12]
Luca Guadagnino
And so to have a character like that, Marian Lane, played by Tilda, to be the one, like a female Bowie. Yes.
- [28:20]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [28:21]
Luca Guadagnino
And she wants to preserve and collect her own privilege, her sense of elitism. And she goes so far to falsely accuse, even though she knows that they couldn't enter.
- [28:32]
Mark Marin
Her lover did it.
- [28:33]
Luca Guadagnino
Yes.
- [28:33]
Mark Marin
I mean, she pretty much knows that.
- [28:35]
Luca Guadagnino
She blames the migrants in front of the jail. Of the jail.
- [28:40]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [28:41]
Luca Guadagnino
It's so scary.
- [28:43]
Mark Marin
It's scary. But, you know, it speaks to class and it speaks to this sort of, you know, it's like. It's like that, you know, the Renoir movie. Right. The discreet charm in the bourgeoisie that you're kind of churning away with these mundane problems. And then, you know, when push comes to shove, you have no moral foundation.
- [29:01]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [29:02]
Mark Marin
Because you're protecting your own desires to. To maintain your life.
- [29:07]
Luca Guadagnino
Which is what you said before.
- [29:09]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [29:09]
Luca Guadagnino
Going head down on their phone.
- [29:11]
Mark Marin
That's right. Yeah. But we love that.
- [29:13]
Luca Guadagnino
We love the possibility that we were part of a collective.
- [29:16]
Mark Marin
That's right.
- [29:17]
Luca Guadagnino
And that we all work as a fun. In function of society. And there was an ethic.
- [29:21]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [29:21]
Luca Guadagnino
And there was a morality.
- [29:22]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [29:23]
Luca Guadagnino
Now, I feel like the movie shows that once your privilege can be touched, you will go very far in a dark place to blame other people who are.
- [29:34]
Mark Marin
Well, even now, you know, I talk to at least, you know, Democrats, you know, who are trying to sort of, you know, kind of process the Trump victory. And two or three of them have ended up. Well, my stocks are probably going to be better.
- [29:50]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [29:51]
Mark Marin
I mean, you know, after all, the.
- [29:53]
Luca Guadagnino
Day after the election, the stock went up.
- [29:55]
Brendan
That's right.
- [29:55]
Mark Marin
Like it's. Well, fascism is good for business because business doesn't give a fuck.
- [29:59]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [29:59]
Mark Marin
Right. Where the money's coming from.
- [30:00]
Luca Guadagnino
But everything was lost already when the Cheneys were supporting Kamala Harris. That was the moment in which whoever was supporting rightfully the Democrats in this election, it was a bad. They were a bit lost because, you know, we spent the last 20 years being completely against the politics of.
- [30:20]
Mark Marin
Well, Cheney was like Cheney was like, the devil.
- [30:23]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [30:24]
Mark Marin
At the time. It's just that he's been outdone as the devil. So I guess you pick the devil, you know, over this other monster to try. I mean, it was a bad campaign choice. But for you, when you're growing up in Italy, politically, how active were you? When did your heart break politically?
- [30:43]
Luca Guadagnino
I think I have a couple of big heartbreaks. One was I was growing up in Sicily, so Sicily is a very contrast country. And, you know, we have Mafia in Sicily, which is a big deal.
- [30:55]
Mark Marin
Didn't it start there?
- [30:56]
Luca Guadagnino
Exactly. And it spread from there. But the other thing is that they were also the beautiful champion of legality. Great judges like Falcone and Borsalino, these people got exploded. They really killed them by making them explode. And this was when I was like, 20 or something. And I was very, very harsh when I saw that there was a sense of loss of hope when even, like, there is no way in which if they can make people of the. Of the law who are fighting with their lives and they do it. And then. And afterwards, in the decades afterwards, you realize that that wasn't done just by the Mafia, but there was a collusion between Mafia and politics.
- [31:37]
Mark Marin
Sure.
- [31:38]
Luca Guadagnino
That is very dispiriting. And, of course, all the Berlusconi thing was kind of dispiriting.
- [31:42]
Mark Marin
Well, yeah. Well, it's sort of like Kennedy here. I think that, you know, once the 60s happened and it destroyed something.
- [31:49]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. The possibility of like a collective dream of reform and new society change.
- [31:59]
Mark Marin
Did that influence your work directly?
- [32:02]
Luca Guadagnino
I think. Right.
- [32:03]
Mark Marin
Yeah, but I mean. But. Well, you think. Sure. I mean, because as you said, if you're an artist and you're working in relation to or under the ruling powers that are antithetical to what you believe in is going to come out. But there was no sort of like, this. Is addressing this.
- [32:22]
Luca Guadagnino
Not in a sort of very direct way, except for a movie that I made called Italian Unconscious, where it's a documentary where I investigated with few intellectuals, the concept of the return of fascism after the actual historical fascism. And in that case, I tried to put some dots together from the 30s to the 2000s.
- [32:46]
Mark Marin
Yeah. And what was your. What was the first film that you made?
- [32:49]
Luca Guadagnino
My first film, feature film, was a movie called the Protagonist.
- [32:52]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [32:53]
Luca Guadagnino
That I shot in London with Tilda Swinton.
- [32:55]
Mark Marin
Why do you love her so much?
- [32:57]
Luca Guadagnino
Well, I met her when I was younger and I was a fan. She did some great performances in great movies like the Derek Jarman films.
- [33:04]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Yeah.
- [33:05]
Luca Guadagnino
Orlando. So I was Like a fan. And I. And I met her publicly and I went there and I said, hi, I'm a director.
- [33:11]
Mark Marin
I wasn't.
- [33:11]
Luca Guadagnino
I wasn't just a kid. I want to work with you. And she gave me her hotel number and she said, call me so tomorrow we can meet. And we met and we became instant friends. She's so generous.
- [33:22]
Mark Marin
She's like an interesting talent, though.
- [33:25]
Luca Guadagnino
Very much, yes.
- [33:26]
Mark Marin
And when you work with an actor, I mean, with somebody like her, who you can't really put in a box, you know, what's the collaboration like? Is there discussions?
- [33:38]
Luca Guadagnino
I think there is a lot of shared point of view on stuff. So we are, both of us, we love the idea of craft, and we love the idea of trying to do something that is maybe done rarely or for the first time and to have fun in doing that. So, you know, when we did Suspiria, she played three roles. One, and that it was so beautiful for, was very taxing because she was working every day a long time.
- [34:02]
Mark Marin
That's good, though.
- [34:03]
Luca Guadagnino
But at the end of the day, we were having fun because we were like kids playing with dough and making form out of something.
- [34:08]
Mark Marin
Well, what was it? Why did you want to re. Approach that movie?
- [34:12]
Luca Guadagnino
I saw the movie when I was 13, in the early 80s, and it made an incredible impression on me because I think Dario Argento's films, those kind of films, were engineered for kids. They're like almost like fairy tales for young people.
- [34:25]
Mark Marin
Sure, yeah.
- [34:26]
Luca Guadagnino
So it made a. I was the perfect audience for it. But there was something about the idea of this female group of witches and how they control other women that was really stuck with me. And in the years afterwards, I couldn't stop thinking how I would tell the same story from a different perspective. Instead of being out of history, I do it in history. So I thought about putting the story of the movie within the context of Germany in the 70s, in the post war Germany, and the generations that are confronting each other between their past and their present. And that's how with David Kac, the writer, we reflected on it and it was a. It was a way for me to own my own self, because I wanted to go back to the kind of emotions I felt when I saw the movie and try to as an older guy, though.
- [35:18]
Mark Marin
Yes, yeah.
- [35:19]
Luca Guadagnino
And to expand from it.
- [35:20]
Mark Marin
Yeah. So your interpretation, like with any good piece of work, kind of grows and deepens as you get older.
- [35:28]
Luca Guadagnino
I think so. And that's the same for queer. I read the book when I was 17 and I kept going back to the book for the following decades. And always I was thinking, I think I want to try to bring this to life. Of course, if I had done the movie when I read it in the first place, it would have been a.
- [35:45]
Mark Marin
Completely different movie because it spoke to you differently. Yeah, man. Burroughs is like a guy you got to go back to every few years just to realize you don't understand what the fuck he's talking about.
- [35:55]
Luca Guadagnino
Or you didn't understood then.
- [35:56]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [35:57]
Luca Guadagnino
And maybe now you are having a different approach that made you believe that you are understanding only to discover afterward that you didn't understood even then.
- [36:04]
Mark Marin
Well, I think what's all. I think he's very cryptic, you know. Right. Isn't that the word in that. In that, you know, you go, you. You go into it. So whatever spoke to you, you know, when you were 17 must have been part of a narrative structure, you know, about the experience of that character.
- [36:21]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [36:22]
Mark Marin
And then, you know, the other stuff, whether it's space travel or disembodiment or floating above whatever. I mean, that stuff is there, but that stuff is poetry. And you know, you're going to have to go into that at every different point in your life to try to navigate it. But because it seems like when you did the movie, that this was a story about a longing guy. A guy who was longing constantly and in a. In the predicament of gay men at that time, you know, not knowing, you know, whether or not someone is like minded and having to float in this zone.
- [36:55]
Luca Guadagnino
And even if he eventually come up with the possibility of a physical contact, yes, an emotional contact, he is still uncertain of the possibility of a real love between the two of them. And that is not because historically, in that context, homosexuality couldn't express itself fully, but more for the broader, for me at least, sense of difficulty in interaction between people. No matter what's the context.
- [37:26]
Mark Marin
Well, I thought you wove that together very well. Because you obviously knew going in. Because seeing Burroughs characterized. Anyway, I've only seen it a few times. I think that Cronenberg did make a lunch. And I think Ben Foster played him in Little Darlings, which was not a bad movie about the Lushenkar murder. And so I've been fascinated with him since I was very young with Burroughs. But to see him as a guy who was kind of a clown and kind of vulnerable, and then have this other mental and emotional life, but also the fantastic imagination that he had. But I think to speak to what you're talking about, about the nature of love, desire and true connection, you Know, when you have somebody who's fundamentally a drug addict that you. It's hard not to look at all interactions through that compulsion, right?
- [38:19]
Luca Guadagnino
Absolutely. And maybe that compulsion comes from a sort of like, fragility of accepting the pain in the search for contact. So he has to numb himself to survive that pain, right? Maybe.
- [38:33]
Brendan
Maybe.
- [38:33]
Mark Marin
Or he just like getting high. I mean, like, there's a lot of difference. There's a lot of reasons to get high. I mean, pain management.
- [38:41]
Luca Guadagnino
You know how we got into that in the dope? Yeah.
- [38:44]
Mark Marin
How?
- [38:44]
Luca Guadagnino
Because he was like 18 or 19 and he was. He was in love with this guy.
- [38:51]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [38:52]
Luca Guadagnino
And this guy, they had a relationship, then the guy left him for a woman.
- [38:57]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [38:57]
Luca Guadagnino
And he went on finding a sister. And he cut his finger out of, like a sort of feeling of dejection. And he did this.
- [39:07]
Mark Marin
He wanted to match the pain.
- [39:09]
Luca Guadagnino
He did that. Self harming.
- [39:10]
Mark Marin
Yes. Yeah.
- [39:11]
Luca Guadagnino
So they brought him to the hospital and this wound wasn't curing, so they put him on morphine and that did it. And that's when he started to become an addict all his life.
- [39:21]
Mark Marin
Did you ever see that animated piece, the Junkie's Christmas?
- [39:24]
Luca Guadagnino
No.
- [39:25]
Mark Marin
Oh, it's so good.
- [39:26]
Luca Guadagnino
Oh, no, that's the title. Junkie Christmas.
- [39:28]
Mark Marin
I think it's called the Junkies Christmas. And it's sort of done in almost that claymation thing, but it's just. It's a short and it's about a guy who's trying to score on Christmas, you know, Eve. And, you know, he's going to all the. It's a beautiful little movie. And I don't. We can find it after. But you should watch it because I think. I think Burroughs narrates the whole thing. And, you know, he's like a real comedian sometimes. Yeah, yeah. But in exploring this thing, because it seems to. Because I think I got it. It's not an easy movie to get because it's one of those movies where you're gonna watch it and you're not gonna get things, but you're not. Like, it's not gonna be a problem. I always blame myself, like, if I. Is this here for a reason or is this here just to provoke some sort of feeling? I guess that's enough of a reason. I mean, both. Right.
- [40:21]
Luca Guadagnino
I think a movie should be there to open up your mind and start to spring out from yourself a set of ideas and ideas of life and of yourself and then give you emotions. I love the idea that when I go to the movies, a movie is giving me the Possibility of being in interaction with it. Not to be under the command of.
- [40:43]
Mark Marin
The movie itself, but it's interesting and queer that he goes to a very long journey and great travail to connect with this nebulous thing which is love or eternity or something that exists outside of us, that connects us all even after we're gone. I mean, there's a lot of things that are explored there. Right. Because I think that the recurring thing about telepathy is really about connection.
- [41:12]
Luca Guadagnino
Totally. The anguish that he goes through is that he wants connection. He gets connection sometimes, but then he's lost. Connection is lost. And so he feels that is out of sync with this guy.
- [41:23]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [41:24]
Luca Guadagnino
And how come back? How can he come back to synchronicity with him?
- [41:27]
Mark Marin
But the reality frame of it is this guy, like, you know, ultimately, whatever Burroughs is going on about. And I don't know what he was writing at that time, but he'd certainly written a good deal, a good many books, so his imagination was completely unleashed. But in your movie, you know, this is a guy that seems to be, you know, on a human level, longing for something. And when you read his books without knowing him and even seeing him, you know, with his guns or doing a show, you know, I don't. I never really associated him as a sort of like. Kind of like sad, Ish guy, you know, full of longing and vulnerability. You know, I never pictured him that way. So that was kind of an interesting. Cause I think you're probably right.
- [42:12]
Luca Guadagnino
I'm right.
- [42:13]
Mark Marin
About who he is. Like when you were kind of. When you studied it.
- [42:17]
Luca Guadagnino
This book was written after John Key in 49.
- [42:21]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [42:22]
Luca Guadagnino
And it was reflective of his own feelings for another person called Lewis Marker.
- [42:27]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [42:28]
Luca Guadagnino
He didn't finish it, even though Ginsburg was looking at the.
- [42:32]
Mark Marin
Was that was Schwarzman, kind of Ginsburg, somehow.
- [42:35]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah, somehow. And, you know, Ginsburg was going in Mexico City reading the various draft of the book, and he was encouraging him, but Barros didn't want to publish it.
- [42:46]
Mark Marin
Okay.
- [42:46]
Luca Guadagnino
Because Queer.
- [42:47]
Mark Marin
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:48]
Luca Guadagnino
Because it was too close. It was too exposed. It was exposing for him. And then he went into the Cat up folding technique, Naked Lunch, Wild Boys and all these Geisen. This very. Yes. These very obscure books. Because it was, in a way, like his own Persona with this idea of the Ugly American and the comedic drooling kind of way. That was, in a way, a way for him to protect his intimacy.
- [43:14]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [43:14]
Luca Guadagnino
And so when I spoke to Oliver Harris, which is the greatest scholar of Burroughs, he said to me, you're right, Queer is too candid about what he felt and he had to hide it for 35 years. So I feel like. Yeah, I feel I'm right. I feel the movies, the movie being a love story and a love story that is not able to expand because of the feeling of asynchronously between these two characters. It is what the book is about.
- [43:43]
Mark Marin
Right. And then, but then like you were. You were pretty good at weaving in some sort of burrow isms that remain unexplainable. I mean, you know, centipedes.
- [43:54]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. For me, centipede. If you look closely, it's all. It's hanging on the neck.
- [43:59]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [43:59]
Luca Guadagnino
No, no, I see the guy crawling on the mattress, I think is in a way, I think bottom line, both men, William Lee, Daniel Craig and Eugene Allerton, Drew Starkey, they are both. They have the bug or the illness of repression. They are repressed.
- [44:17]
Mark Marin
So that's what it. Repressed.
- [44:17]
Luca Guadagnino
And they cannot find a way to give up complete repression and live their life together. So the centipede, in a way, is that repression that crawls constantly between them.
- [44:29]
Mark Marin
That's what you thought of it as. Yeah, yeah. Because there's a lot of bugs in burrows.
- [44:33]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah, true. He thinks that those are like the ultimate unhuman evil. Like kind of like being.
- [44:43]
Mark Marin
Oh, yeah. And he, you know, he spends a lot of time on toxins.
- [44:45]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah, yeah.
- [44:47]
Mark Marin
Like. Well, that. Well, to look at that as all a kind of a reaction to his own feelings that couldn't be expressed honestly is interesting. And I guess it makes it like the cut up method is incomprehensible most of the time.
- [45:03]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. But you have to surrender to it and maybe find some ways of understanding or enjoyment even though you completely are lost in it.
- [45:13]
Mark Marin
Yeah, I'm like, I'm a big fan of those last. That trilogy with Places of Dead Roads and Beautiful. That's the best. That Western is the best. And Cities of the Red Knight and Beautiful and what is it? The Dead Book of the Dead book. Western lands love those three.
- [45:31]
Luca Guadagnino
He wrote those three books and then he wrote the Cat in us.
- [45:34]
Mark Marin
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [45:35]
Luca Guadagnino
Those are the great one, is the most tender one. And then like the cat.
- [45:38]
Mark Marin
Yeah, well, yeah, because that's like, you know, at that age he's returning to, you know, whatever's left of what drove him in. Queer in a way.
- [45:47]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. In fact, we found in the journals of Burroughs, the last entry in the journals, it's a sort of mini poem about love, about the love that cats gives him. That is a love that is pure Love. About the centipede being the evil repression in between him and the love.
- [46:11]
Mark Marin
So that's where you got it.
- [46:12]
Luca Guadagnino
And the last line is love.
- [46:15]
Mark Marin
Yeah, love. He. So he got there.
- [46:17]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [46:18]
Mark Marin
That took a long time, huh?
- [46:19]
Luca Guadagnino
Long time. 83 years old.
- [46:22]
Mark Marin
Because I think you speak to that a bit at the end, right. That he's on the bed.
- [46:27]
Luca Guadagnino
But what is interesting is that Trent Fresno Eroticus Ross, who composed this amazing score, and I, we were chatting about doing an original song for the main. For the end title. This was way at the end.
- [46:38]
Mark Marin
Reznor.
- [46:39]
Luca Guadagnino
Yes. So this was like. Like 5 months ago, not long ago. So we had done the movie.
- [46:44]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [46:45]
Luca Guadagnino
The Centipede was already in the movie. So I asked my assistant and researcher Ben, find me anything about love in his writings. And he found this entry in the journal. I didn't know. And everything matched.
- [46:59]
Mark Marin
Oh, really?
- [46:59]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [47:00]
Mark Marin
So you went on your own little Burroughs journey.
- [47:02]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah, I think so, since I read the book when I was 17.
- [47:05]
Mark Marin
But you always read him. Yeah, or try.
- [47:08]
Luca Guadagnino
Since then, I kept reading it, reading it, reading it for the past. The one book that and also the other ones. But yeah, in my TV show, We Are who We Are, the character played by Jack Dylan Grazer Fraser in the movie. In the show, he reads Wild Boys in the first episode.
- [47:22]
Mark Marin
Yeah. It kind of, you know, and I don't want you to take this as an insult, you know, it kind of reminded me of Altered States.
- [47:30]
Luca Guadagnino
Oh, my God. That's the opposite of an insult. This is like the most wonderful compliment, that movie. Ken Russell. I love it.
- [47:38]
Mark Marin
It's the best.
- [47:39]
Luca Guadagnino
I think I really understood what I love about man being a homosexual man through that movie. Because William Hurt is always naked in that movie and he's so beautiful. And he does this experiment with his body that felt very like. Oh, my God. A pulling card for me. I love that movie. It's fantastic.
- [47:57]
Mark Marin
Yeah, I felt it really harkened back to that movie that was like.
- [48:01]
Luca Guadagnino
There was a great writer who wrote it. Right. I don't remember the name of the writer, but there was some.
- [48:05]
Mark Marin
The novel.
- [48:06]
Luca Guadagnino
The novel and the script was like someone legendary. But yeah, the movie's amazing, right.
- [48:10]
Mark Marin
Because, like, I noticed that when, you know, when you were shooting them on the age trip.
- [48:16]
Luca Guadagnino
Ayahuasca.
- [48:16]
Mark Marin
Yes, the Ayahuasca trip. And they're folding into each other's bodies. And you can see the hands.
- [48:22]
Luca Guadagnino
Mark. I spent the last 40 years thinking of remaking that kind of idea of the body melting.
- [48:28]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [48:29]
Luca Guadagnino
Through From Alter States was a forbidden movie. Because it was like an NC17 in Italy, so you couldn't see it. And I was like, I don't know, maybe. I must have been 10.
- [48:39]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [48:40]
Luca Guadagnino
And then when VHS came out, I found a way to get it, and it was my Forbidden Movie. Amazing movie. Ken Russell. Wow.
- [48:48]
Mark Marin
I'm glad that I noticed it.
- [48:50]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [48:51]
Mark Marin
Because. Because I really felt that in the. Like, in the end of Altered States where, you know, she's. He's madder and she's. Whatever was going on there for love.
- [49:02]
Brendan
To bring him back.
- [49:03]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [49:03]
Mark Marin
He had gone out there because, like, on the trip in Queer. I mean, they're out there in the same place.
- [49:09]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [49:09]
Mark Marin
Wherever that fucking place is.
- [49:11]
Luca Guadagnino
And he's amazing.
- [49:12]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [49:13]
Luca Guadagnino
And when. And when Dr. Cotter tells the boy, you have to stay and keep going, because that's the beginning of something amazing and beautiful. You should have seen yourself. And the guy says, no, I'm leaving. She says, what are you afraid of? That's the repression of the boy at play, of course.
- [49:29]
Mark Marin
And Karen Manville.
- [49:31]
Brendan
Is that her name?
- [49:31]
Luca Guadagnino
Leslie. Leslie.
- [49:32]
Mark Marin
Leslie, Leslie. She's so fucking good.
- [49:35]
Luca Guadagnino
Amazing.
- [49:36]
Brendan
She's always been good.
- [49:37]
Luca Guadagnino
But, you know, all these incredible actors who I've been privileged to work with in my life, and in this movie in particular, they're so generous.
- [49:45]
Mark Marin
I'll tell you, though, man, I've watched her in all the Mike Lee movies, and I watched her in Phantom Thread.
- [49:52]
Brendan
You got something out of her I never seen before.
- [49:54]
Luca Guadagnino
I'm so happy you say that.
- [49:55]
Brendan
I mean, and I love all these.
- [49:57]
Luca Guadagnino
Movies from Mike Lee.
- [49:58]
Mark Marin
Oh, they're the best. But. But. But she's such an amazing actress. And even that cute one where she plays a lady who gets to go to Paris and it was, you know, and buy the dress. She was. I don't remember what it was. It's a cute movie, and it wasn't too long ago, but, you know, she was doing this thing. What was it? Was it, like, Texan?
- [50:16]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [50:18]
Mark Marin
Who decided that?
- [50:20]
Luca Guadagnino
I think she decided. Of course. We worked with makeup artists. Fernanda Perez.
- [50:24]
Mark Marin
Where did that character come from?
- [50:27]
Luca Guadagnino
It came from the fantasy, honestly. It was the fantasy of Justin Kuritsky's the writer. Because the book ends with them meeting Dr. Cotter, which is a man in the book, and Dr. Cotter do not give them. And doesn't engage with them. Doesn't give them the yager and doesn't engage with them.
- [50:45]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [50:46]
Luca Guadagnino
So we had to continue the story. We had to see what happens if actually Dr. Cotter gave them.
- [50:53]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [50:53]
Luca Guadagnino
And that's the Beginning of our conversation with Justin, I think Justin was. We discussed about the idea of the mad scientist in the jungle. There was something about.
- [51:05]
Mark Marin
This is the writer, Justin.
- [51:06]
Luca Guadagnino
He wrote Challengers as well. He adapted the book for me. And Justin and I, we said, okay, let's think about the mad doctor in the jungle. And he cut a character on the page wonderfully. But then when.
- [51:18]
Mark Marin
Like the island of Dr. Moreau or something.
- [51:20]
Brendan
Yes, exactly.
- [51:21]
Mark Marin
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:22]
Luca Guadagnino
And when. And when. And when she came on board and she. I told her, she's a vessel of love. She's someone who wants the love for these two.
- [51:31]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [51:31]
Luca Guadagnino
She's not a destructive character. She's a proactive character.
- [51:34]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [51:35]
Luca Guadagnino
So she liked that very much. She came to Italy, we made all the makeup and stuff, which was beautiful and ridiculous at the same time.
- [51:42]
Mark Marin
Kind of amazing.
- [51:43]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah, amazing.
- [51:44]
Mark Marin
But like a truly American character.
- [51:46]
Luca Guadagnino
Truly American character.
- [51:47]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [51:48]
Luca Guadagnino
You know, like, in America, you have this kind of, like, cookie character that are, like, out there.
- [51:54]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [51:56]
Luca Guadagnino
That are, like, singular in the way they live.
- [51:58]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [51:58]
Luca Guadagnino
It's the frontier.
- [51:59]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [52:00]
Luca Guadagnino
The idea of the frontier.
- [52:01]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Yeah, I get it.
- [52:02]
Luca Guadagnino
She's in her own frontier in the jungle.
- [52:04]
Mark Marin
But she's got the gun. She's got the guns.
- [52:06]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [52:06]
Mark Marin
And it's part of her language, which is fundamentally American.
- [52:10]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. And she found the laughter. She found all this beautiful mimicry.
- [52:14]
Mark Marin
It's unbelievable. But that's. So. I think what it did for me as being somebody who's wrestled with Burroughs and also just. It humanized something about all his work, that at the end of the day, after they go on that ayahuasca trip, and whatever happens is that they both land in themselves, and the other guy goes, I'm not queer.
- [52:43]
Brendan
That he.
- [52:44]
Luca Guadagnino
Both of them says it. I'm not disembodied.
- [52:47]
Mark Marin
Right. But I felt like after a certain point, Burroughs is saying whatever's necessary, but.
- [52:55]
Luca Guadagnino
I think, okay, but Alderton says to Lee, I'm not queer. I'm disembodied before they fuse into one being. So he's actually. It's what I think. You know, I never think that when you say something, we say the absolute truth. Maybe sometimes we say the opposite of it.
- [53:13]
Brendan
That's right.
- [53:13]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [53:14]
Luca Guadagnino
So I think he's terrified.
- [53:16]
Mark Marin
No, I got that. Yeah. But I did think that the Burroughs character, Daniel Craig, was going to do whatever is necessary to maintain connection.
- [53:25]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. Everything.
- [53:26]
Mark Marin
Yeah. And, you know, and I think that other guy.
- [53:30]
Luca Guadagnino
What's his name in the actor.
- [53:32]
Mark Marin
Indeed, the actor, Drew Stark. What an amazing job.
- [53:35]
Luca Guadagnino
Amazing job.
- [53:36]
Mark Marin
I mean, it was mind blowing.
- [53:37]
Luca Guadagnino
Mind blowing. Beautiful job.
- [53:39]
Mark Marin
And were you. Did you. Did it exceed your expectations?
- [53:45]
Luca Guadagnino
I saw a test. He did, like, a screen test for another movie, and I found something irresistible in him. Then when he did my audition tape for this movie, he was perfect.
- [53:57]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [53:58]
Luca Guadagnino
So, of course, then one audition is something, but then the performance is something else.
- [54:03]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [54:04]
Luca Guadagnino
What I. What I was very much blown away by is how he embodied the movements of a man in the 50s. That was incredible.
- [54:13]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [54:13]
Luca Guadagnino
He studied. I think he must have seen so many movies. The way he moves the body, the ankles, like.
- [54:18]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [54:19]
Luca Guadagnino
So 50s.
- [54:21]
Mark Marin
It's. It's so, like, I really thought it was pretty. Pretty thorough and pretty beautiful in terms of, like, you know, the conversation starts with, like, really straight up, kind of, you know, Burroughs points of interest, you know, like espionage during World War II, you know, between them. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I'm like, all right, so this is Burroughs territory. But then you kind of peel away those layers. So you're saying that the book. Cause I don't know the book well, but, you know, it ends with Dr. Cotter. And then. Because in the end, when you have this Burroughs character aging and lonely in sort of a hallucinatory state, you know, in the motel, looking in the motel, you know, the sort of otherworldliness is that, you know, he's old and seemingly dying on that dirty hotel bed. And then you bring in, you know, the scene that took place with his wife in real life, the William Tell business. What was the discussion around needing to put that part of his life in the movie?
- [55:25]
Luca Guadagnino
Well, let's make a step backward for a second. The book has two endings. The main narrative ends with Dr. Cotter not giving them ayahuasca. So that's why they leave the jungle and they split, and then they don't see each other anymore. That's what happens in the book. So then there is an epilogue that happens in Mexico City two years later. And in that epilogue, Burroughs, Lee discovers that Allerton has been asking for him. So in a way, Allerton still wants him.
- [55:55]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [55:56]
Luca Guadagnino
In the book, Lee goes to sleep and has this vision of himself playing a secret agent and does things as a secret agent.
- [56:06]
Mark Marin
Hombre. Invisible.
- [56:08]
Luca Guadagnino
Hombre. Invisible.
- [56:09]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [56:10]
Luca Guadagnino
And so. And that's the book. In the book, Barros wrote also a foreword. In this foreword, it describes his life in Mexico City and the actual incident of killing his wife.
- [56:23]
Mark Marin
Yeah. So it's in there.
- [56:27]
Luca Guadagnino
Yes, but separated from the narrative. So with Justin, we felt what happens if the division between the two men doesn't happen because they did not got ayahuasca, but actually because they did get it.
- [56:40]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [56:41]
Luca Guadagnino
So because they open a door that shows the possibility. But maybe this possibility is too intense for both to sustain, which I think is one of our problems as human beings. When you are in an intense relationship with someone, maybe sometimes you can't bear to be so naked in front of the other and you have to run away from it.
- [57:01]
Mark Marin
What is that distrust?
- [57:03]
Luca Guadagnino
I think it's fear of contact. I think it's like fear of.
- [57:09]
Mark Marin
But. But it's because it's essentially the fear.
- [57:13]
Luca Guadagnino
Of seeing yourself reflected in the eyes of the other. Also losing yourself and losing yourself.
- [57:18]
Mark Marin
Yes, I mean, because that's really what it is. I mean, and really what.
- [57:22]
Luca Guadagnino
But the ultimate love is losing yourself, right?
- [57:26]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [57:26]
Luca Guadagnino
The romantic in me hopes that some people does lose themselves into the other, hopefully.
- [57:31]
Brendan
Sure.
- [57:31]
Mark Marin
But I mean, but I think that the risk of it is like you want to be able to come back. You want to, you know, be able to do, you know, you know, run errands and stuff and again, yeah.
- [57:40]
Luca Guadagnino
You know, it's important if you find love, that you understand that you still remain an individual.
- [57:45]
Mark Marin
Well, that's the trick, you know, because.
- [57:49]
Luca Guadagnino
If you find yourself into a codependent relationship, then it's problematic.
- [57:54]
Mark Marin
Well, you lose yourself and then you kind of disintegrate over time in service of the other person.
- [58:00]
Luca Guadagnino
But in this case, in the case of this movie, we go into a trip where he sees Lee, he sees Allerton again.
- [58:07]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [58:07]
Luca Guadagnino
And Allerton does what the wife did.
- [58:10]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [58:10]
Luca Guadagnino
He invites him to play William Tell with him. And like in the eternal line of Oscar Wilde that says each man kills the things he love. Lee fires at Allerton and kills him so that he can be eternally linked with him. And so when he's dying in his bed in the hotel, he's an old man. Allerton comes back and does what he did back many years before. Snuggles him by snuggling him and putting his foot on top of his foot, which is the ultimate tenderness.
- [58:42]
Mark Marin
That's right. Poetry, hopefully. But you obviously thought it all out. I mean, because even at the beginning of the movie where he's trying to. I don't remember which character was talking about the sort of all living things are ultimately the same. They're all connected.
- [58:58]
Luca Guadagnino
It's the Bobo, this guy who has this, as he says, this old queen who gave him advice on how to deal with his feeling of self loathing. Because of being homosexual.
- [59:11]
Mark Marin
Yes. And having desires that can't be fulfilled.
- [59:14]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. Or that cannot be accepted.
- [59:17]
Mark Marin
Right. So that's where that comes from. And that's really kind of what is what he's driving for almost the whole movie.
- [59:24]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [59:25]
Mark Marin
Is the acceptance and actualization.
- [59:28]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [59:28]
Mark Marin
Of we are all connected.
- [59:30]
Luca Guadagnino
Absolutely. And then no matter what the sexuality is.
- [59:32]
Mark Marin
That's right. And then you end up, you know, just sort of in this kind of beautiful hallucinatory state.
- [59:37]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [59:38]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Well, okay.
- [59:39]
Luca Guadagnino
Which is what the movies should do. Bring you to another world.
- [59:43]
Mark Marin
So go. So this is the same guy that wrote Challengers Now. Like, watching the movie Challengers, you know? Cause I actually watched it in pieces, which was interesting.
- [59:50]
Luca Guadagnino
Okay.
- [59:51]
Mark Marin
Because, you know, you do separate things into acts or pieces with the tournaments.
- [59:57]
Luca Guadagnino
I think the tournament was our framing. And then you had all the. Yes.
- [60:01]
Mark Marin
Yes. But the interesting. The thing I thought was beautiful is that there, no matter where that movie goes or in terms of how you're taking it in, that there is. There is a bookend to it that is a callback, you know, which is her. You know, her primal scream.
- [60:15]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [60:16]
Mark Marin
At the acknowledgement of love.
- [60:18]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [60:18]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [60:19]
Luca Guadagnino
And the possibility that this complex love can get them back to that beautiful moment of unity. That was when they met.
- [60:28]
Mark Marin
The innocence of her pulling out of the sexual escapade.
- [60:32]
Luca Guadagnino
Yes.
- [60:33]
Mark Marin
And they not knowing it.
- [60:34]
Luca Guadagnino
Yes.
- [60:35]
Mark Marin
But not willing throughout their entire lives to acknowledge the depth of the love.
- [60:40]
Luca Guadagnino
Absolutely. Again, it's a form of repression. I always think about that.
- [60:44]
Mark Marin
About repression.
- [60:45]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [60:46]
Mark Marin
But I mean. But is there a spectrum of it that's necessary? Like, is there, like.
- [60:52]
Luca Guadagnino
I revert the question to you. Do you think there is a spectrum of that that is necessary for me? I'm a Leo.
- [60:58]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [60:58]
Luca Guadagnino
And so I am someone who has to say everything and be direct.
- [61:04]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [61:04]
Luca Guadagnino
So for me, the answer would say no. But I'm interested in your answer because maybe I am wrong and maybe. Yes, there must be some sort of repression.
- [61:13]
Mark Marin
Well, I don't know. I think it becomes, for me, whether it's based in a real threat or something rooted in trauma. I think that repression is a survival tool of some kind.
- [61:32]
Luca Guadagnino
Sure. But sometimes this repression as a survival tool becomes a sort of escapade from feeling the joy. The joy of being completely connected with yourself.
- [61:48]
Mark Marin
Yes. Authentically, you.
- [61:52]
Luca Guadagnino
Exactly.
- [61:55]
Mark Marin
That's a terrifying thing to some people.
- [61:58]
Luca Guadagnino
Too many.
- [61:59]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [61:59]
Luca Guadagnino
To the majority.
- [62:00]
Mark Marin
But not to you.
- [62:00]
Luca Guadagnino
No.
- [62:01]
Mark Marin
No. But you always like that.
- [62:03]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah, I think so. I was like that because I was a solitary young kid when I was growing up.
- [62:08]
Mark Marin
Single child.
- [62:09]
Luca Guadagnino
No. Third. I'm the third of three.
- [62:11]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [62:11]
Luca Guadagnino
So, you know, when you are the last in a family, they give you. They leave you alone. So I could explore.
- [62:16]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Yeah.
- [62:17]
Luca Guadagnino
I could think. I could have fantasies. I could. I could be really, like, not feeling the pressure of doing things that they wanted me to do because already the first two were under that pressure.
- [62:29]
Mark Marin
Well, that's just interesting to me that I'm just thinking about it. That. And also I think shame plays into this idea of repression completely.
- [62:38]
Luca Guadagnino
It's all about that, too.
- [62:39]
Mark Marin
Yeah. And that, you know, shame as a driver, you know, you don't. You know, you're not in the cinema of that, but the struggle of religious shame and transcending it was a driver for a lot of filmmakers.
- [62:54]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [62:55]
Mark Marin
So, you know, when that shame becomes nebulous, for whatever reason, you. You've grown to decide that you yourself are not good enough or not, whatever. So you put that. That driver. And I got this all from. From a book on psychology, you know.
- [63:12]
Luca Guadagnino
Okay. But I like that.
- [63:13]
Mark Marin
Being. Dealing my own problems. It was an interesting idea, and I. And I never shut up about it by this guy Robert Firestone, who said that if you live in a. In a family where there's some kind of emotional abuse, either neglect or physical or verbal emotional abuse from your parents, that when you're a young person, your brain can't allow you to blame your parents because they're your parents and they're perfect. So you blame yourself and you install a voice in your head that is a surrogate parent that tells you you're shit.
- [63:44]
Luca Guadagnino
And still.
- [63:46]
Mark Marin
So that's the shame engine, which is.
- [63:48]
Luca Guadagnino
Triggered eventually for me by the idea of family.
- [63:52]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [63:52]
Luca Guadagnino
Family can be tricky.
- [63:54]
Mark Marin
Oh, yeah, Tricky. But I just think that the way shame and desire kind of coexist and confuse themselves is something that is not your experience. But I think that is the experience of a lot of people, and that.
- [64:06]
Luca Guadagnino
Is something that I like to investigate.
- [64:08]
Mark Marin
Have you done it?
- [64:09]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. I think even this movie is about that. Right.
- [64:14]
Mark Marin
Yeah, but I guess it's shame. Yeah. Right.
- [64:18]
Luca Guadagnino
You know when. When Lee puts his hand on the. On the back of his shoulder, he goes like that. That's right, his hand.
- [64:24]
Mark Marin
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [64:25]
Luca Guadagnino
That's so painful. Right?
- [64:27]
Mark Marin
It's painful, but it's. It. I. But is it shame or is it rejection?
- [64:33]
Luca Guadagnino
You know, that he feels shame of being touched by him in the public street?
- [64:38]
Mark Marin
Oh, the. Oh, the Atherton guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, he does, yeah. Well, yeah, he's Ben Burrow's. Not shame.
- [64:44]
Luca Guadagnino
No.
- [64:44]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [64:45]
Luca Guadagnino
No.
- [64:45]
Mark Marin
Interesting. So with challengers. You know, what's. What was the. What was the kernel of that movie? I mean, why.
- [64:51]
Luca Guadagnino
A great script by Justin De Ronald.
- [64:53]
Mark Marin
I know, but, like, how do you decide tennis?
- [64:55]
Luca Guadagnino
He decided tennis.
- [64:56]
Mark Marin
I know.
- [64:58]
Luca Guadagnino
He decided tennis was the perfect template to go and show the dynamic between these three kids.
- [65:04]
Mark Marin
Okay.
- [65:04]
Luca Guadagnino
How tennis. The geometry of tennis and the geography of tennis, the court, the balls going back and forth, the winning and the losing, and all the backhands and upper hands and all this dynamic of the technique of tennis somehow was reflecting every single emotional movements that these kids were doing, all the mistakes and all the triumph they were going through.
- [65:25]
Mark Marin
And all these characters were defined in a very specific way. The kind of sexy, not give a fuck guy. And then the more sort of practical, controlled, not as confident a guy.
- [65:41]
Luca Guadagnino
Perfect.
- [65:42]
Mark Marin
And then, you know, the woman who. She's an interesting character. Right.
- [65:49]
Luca Guadagnino
Because I like to think that she is both someone that is created by the two men.
- [65:53]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [65:54]
Luca Guadagnino
I said to Justin, she appears in their life probably because they need a female medium to. To make them go together.
- [66:03]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [66:04]
Luca Guadagnino
At the same time, she creates them. They are nothing without her.
- [66:09]
Mark Marin
Right. Because, you know, her character right out of the gate knows what's up, and.
- [66:13]
Luca Guadagnino
She knows what they have to be going through in order to win and to become right.
- [66:19]
Mark Marin
But at the beginning, when she says, I don't want to be a homewrecker.
- [66:23]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. She understands everything.
- [66:24]
Mark Marin
Yes. So, you know, she sets up the situation. But, like, I didn't get the feeling that was with the intent of making them better tennis players. Initially.
- [66:33]
Luca Guadagnino
That's a metaphor.
- [66:37]
Mark Marin
But I thought it was pretty. It was a very surprise ending because you don't actually know on the court who wins.
- [66:44]
Luca Guadagnino
No, you don't. You actually, if you count the points, they are very far from the end of the game.
- [66:49]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [66:50]
Luca Guadagnino
It's more about the trio triumphs because they finally are back together.
- [66:57]
Mark Marin
It's kind of an amazing ending.
- [66:59]
Luca Guadagnino
Thank you.
- [66:59]
Mark Marin
Thank you.
- [67:00]
Luca Guadagnino
That was something that Justin and I worked hard because how do you convince a studio to welcome an open end like that? So that can feel satisfying and fulfilling.
- [67:10]
Mark Marin
Yeah. And how has it gone over?
- [67:13]
Luca Guadagnino
Great.
- [67:14]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Great.
- [67:15]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. The movie was a big success.
- [67:17]
Mark Marin
That's great.
- [67:18]
Luca Guadagnino
The biggest success of my career.
- [67:19]
Mark Marin
Oh, that was. That's amazing. And what do you. When you think about queer and an audience for it, what are you thinking?
- [67:30]
Luca Guadagnino
I'm thinking of young people. I'm thinking of, you know, like, I see a lot of young people, the younger generations. I don't want to be generic, but I can See that there is a sense of fear in conflict and in the contact. So I think a movie like this can be for them a sort of interesting introduction to the possibility of conflict between people and contact and the irreparable anguish that comes with that so that they are not ready to embrace in their life. So it's a way of surrogating this fear that I think could be interesting. So I think, like, I think this movie can be very interesting for young people.
- [68:10]
Mark Marin
And when you cast Daniel Craig, what were those conversations like? He seemed pretty willing.
- [68:16]
Luca Guadagnino
It's amazing. Like he read the script and we had this beautiful conversation about the ultimate impulse of the book and the story, which was to portray love.
- [68:30]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [68:31]
Luca Guadagnino
Not unrequited love, but love.
- [68:33]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [68:34]
Luca Guadagnino
We agreed. And so he went, yeah, I'm in pretty early.
- [68:39]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [68:40]
Luca Guadagnino
And he was there with me throughout the entire process. He's a wonderful partner in this incredible actor to look at.
- [68:46]
Mark Marin
Yeah, yeah. It was just, it was definitely. There's a moment there where you're like, hey, James Bond's going a different way here.
- [68:53]
Luca Guadagnino
Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, he's been. It's iconic. I think what I love about Dana is that he's very iconic. Beyond the iconicity of that character he played for fans.
- [69:03]
Mark Marin
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [69:04]
Luca Guadagnino
He himself commanded your gaze in a way that goes beyond the character, but because of what he has inside, which make. Which is what makes him a great movie star.
- [69:14]
Mark Marin
What's inside that you can't quite explain.
- [69:16]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [69:17]
Mark Marin
That's the trick of movie stars.
- [69:19]
Luca Guadagnino
That's what they have. We don't. And that's why we love them.
- [69:23]
Mark Marin
And the same with Chalamet. You work with him. He seems to be some kind of.
- [69:29]
Luca Guadagnino
The first week of shooting, call me by your name, he was like probably 18, 19.
- [69:34]
Mark Marin
He's like from outer space.
- [69:36]
Luca Guadagnino
You could see this guy was commanding your gaze. Amazing.
- [69:40]
Mark Marin
Yeah. And he can do all the things, everything.
- [69:44]
Luca Guadagnino
He can dance and sing and divine.
- [69:46]
Mark Marin
Yeah. And you know, it took me a while to understand that, but there's this idea when you read these stories where you hear reputations about movie stars being difficult or whatever. It's not usually that one sided or that easy to understand the plight of somebody who is doing that job.
- [70:03]
Luca Guadagnino
You know, listen, I wanted to be in the movie business since I was born.
- [70:07]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [70:07]
Luca Guadagnino
I have dreamt since I was young that I was going to become a filmmaker and I fulfilled my dream.
- [70:13]
Mark Marin
Yes.
- [70:14]
Luca Guadagnino
And I'm glad and happy. And I could do this job forever without even being paid because that's my life.
- [70:19]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [70:19]
Luca Guadagnino
And I live in this. That's my substance. So the parameter through which people judge someone being difficult or not being difficult, it's alien to the moviemaking experience.
- [70:31]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [70:32]
Luca Guadagnino
And if someone is difficult, as they say, in a way, if they want to be, they should be because they are artists and they are human beings.
- [70:41]
Mark Marin
Well, that's what. That's.
- [70:42]
Luca Guadagnino
And that is what I love about it. And I never had experiences with great performers that I would describe as difficult.
- [70:50]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [70:50]
Luca Guadagnino
I only had difficult experiences with people that have no talent.
- [70:55]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Well, in what? In what? How do those manifest? What's usually the difficulty, like, I can't.
- [71:04]
Luca Guadagnino
Do this or I'm not going to like being diffident. Not being tuned to the. To the. To the music of the movie.
- [71:10]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [71:11]
Luca Guadagnino
And being judgmental and some eventually really holding terrifying by being terrified by their own insecurities, making everybody's life a nightmare. When you have complex people who are demanding because they are so generous in what they do, and they do go in very profound places with their performances, they can do whatever they want.
- [71:39]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Well, that's why you just give the talentless people small parts.
- [71:44]
Luca Guadagnino
No, I have been lucky.
- [71:47]
Mark Marin
Well, but I've noticed that, like, on movies and in general, that there's a lot of little parts that people who are just efficient can do.
- [71:55]
Brendan
Well.
- [71:55]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. Like, again, also, one other thing that I love about my work is the beauty of performance. And you can have performance from someone who walks in the scene for a moment and. Or Ralph Fiennes in the movie for like the police chief. Yeah. You know. Who's that? That is a great comedian, Italian comedian. Corrado Guzzanti. And I loved him.
- [72:17]
Mark Marin
He was great.
- [72:18]
Luca Guadagnino
Thank you.
- [72:19]
Mark Marin
And he was the guy at the table right at the beginning.
- [72:21]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah, that. Give them the table. He's a fan.
- [72:24]
Mark Marin
Yeah. It's great. So what. What are you doing? What's. What's the project you're working on now?
- [72:30]
Luca Guadagnino
I am making. I mean, I'm editing. Almost done with it, a movie called after the Hunt.
- [72:35]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [72:35]
Luca Guadagnino
What's with Julia Robbins and Andrew Garfield? Michael Stulberg.
- [72:41]
Mark Marin
Oh, you like that guy?
- [72:42]
Luca Guadagnino
I love him. He's fantastic.
- [72:43]
Mark Marin
And then can do anything, right?
- [72:45]
Luca Guadagnino
Anything. Chloe Sevigny.
- [72:46]
Mark Marin
Oh, yeah.
- [72:47]
Luca Guadagnino
And the great Ayo Edebiri.
- [72:49]
Mark Marin
Okay.
- [72:49]
Luca Guadagnino
It's a great cast.
- [72:50]
Mark Marin
Wow. What's it about?
- [72:54]
Luca Guadagnino
I don't want to say much, but I can tell you that it's a very surprising movie.
- [72:58]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [72:58]
Luca Guadagnino
And it's a. It's about a. What happens in the milieu of academia between Younger and older people and the idea of consent.
- [73:14]
Mark Marin
Wow. Another loaded.
- [73:16]
Luca Guadagnino
Very.
- [73:17]
Mark Marin
A loaded ensemble, I can tell you.
- [73:19]
Luca Guadagnino
That is very loaded. I can tell you that the movie is very provocative, but not in a stupid way, but in a. I would say in a very articulate way. It's a great script from this first time writer Nora Garrett. It's produced by Imagine by Brian Grazer and Jeff Brody and Alan Mandelbaum. It's mgm, Amazon. And you know, like, I've been a fan of Julia forever. Like, I'm a big fan. And that's another. That's another incredible movie star that she has, something that not everybody has. Working with Julia was a joy of life. And you'll see her performance is. I mean, I don't want to be presumptuous, but I feel that's her best performance.
- [74:01]
Mark Marin
Really?
- [74:01]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [74:02]
Mark Marin
Well, that was sort of like watching. Yeah. After a lifetime in the movie.
- [74:05]
Luca Guadagnino
And she's a great actress. Yeah.
- [74:06]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Leslie Manville in your movie. I was like, what? Yeah. Well, that sounds exciting. And it's a return to form. You get a bunch of people together to go at it with all their needs and desires. Yes.
- [74:16]
Luca Guadagnino
Yes. It's a movie. It's not about desire. It's not a movie about. About sexuality. Of love. That's one of my very rare movies where I didn't tackle that.
- [74:25]
Mark Marin
Nothing.
- [74:26]
Luca Guadagnino
No. But you'll see, it's about. It's about. It's about conflict.
- [74:31]
Mark Marin
Okay.
- [74:32]
Luca Guadagnino
Well, in a way, it's a very timely movie for where we are now, going back to the beginning of our conversation.
- [74:37]
Mark Marin
Okay. Yeah. In terms of.
- [74:39]
Luca Guadagnino
In terms of the society and the division in society and the extreme position that we can have vis a vis an opinion, in a way.
- [74:49]
Mark Marin
And belief.
- [74:50]
Luca Guadagnino
And belief.
- [74:51]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [74:52]
Luca Guadagnino
I can't wait for the world to see that.
- [74:53]
Mark Marin
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting in terms of. Too when you talk about young people and I can't. I always think about phones, you know, Like I, you know, I think they're very.
- [75:03]
Luca Guadagnino
A little bit of a plague.
- [75:04]
Mark Marin
Well, it's like the idea that our brains were in any way built to design. What that does to it every day is.
- [75:13]
Luca Guadagnino
I came here many years ago, like decades ago, and I went to the grove of the farmers market.
- [75:18]
Mark Marin
Yeah, sure.
- [75:19]
Luca Guadagnino
And you know, it's a sort of interesting idea of artificial European feeling.
- [75:25]
Mark Marin
Sure.
- [75:25]
Luca Guadagnino
But there is a sense of community too. So I remember when I came here and I was like seeing all these people coming and walking up and down the street.
- [75:32]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [75:32]
Luca Guadagnino
The little train.
- [75:33]
Mark Marin
The little train.
- [75:35]
Luca Guadagnino
I went back to the grove. And there was the same environment, but everybody was looking at their phone.
- [75:41]
Mark Marin
Right.
- [75:41]
Luca Guadagnino
There was not anymore the kind of idea of comparing community.
- [75:43]
Mark Marin
Well, yeah, it's just. Well, their phone plays a part in. In the bigger Splash too. Like, you know, there's two phone moments.
- [75:51]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [75:51]
Mark Marin
That I thought were great. That phone in the bag that wouldn't stop ringing.
- [75:55]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [75:56]
Mark Marin
That's. That's. That's what being dead looks like now.
- [75:58]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah.
- [76:00]
Mark Marin
It's a phone in a bag.
- [76:01]
Luca Guadagnino
Yeah. And we have another phone in the bag of Julia Roberts in the new one.
- [76:05]
Mark Marin
Oh, yeah, there's a phone in the bag. Well, great talking to you.
- [76:08]
Luca Guadagnino
Thank you, Mark.
- [76:09]
Mark Marin
Thanks for doing it.
- [76:09]
Luca Guadagnino
Thank you so much.
- [76:10]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [76:16]
Brendan
Wow, great. Great. Love talking to that guy. Queer is playing in theaters. And go check out his other movies as well. Hang out for a minute. Hey, folks, if you broke your regular WTF listening routine because of the holiday, definitely go check out my talk with Steve Fury that we posted on Thanksgiving Day. Some wild, wild stories on that one. People love the guy.
- [76:39]
Steve Fury
So I'm walking around, then this dude comes up to me. He goes, hey, you want. You looking for pussy? I was like, no, no, no. I'm looking for drugs. He goes, okay, I got one. And then he says, follow me. And this dude has LA tattooed across his face.
- [76:50]
Mark Marin
Oh, yeah, gang.
- [76:52]
Steve Fury
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm like, I'm here. Might as well dance.
- [76:57]
Mark Marin
Okay.
- [76:58]
Steve Fury
Where are we going, bro? Yeah, you seem cool. You're from at least la. I'm guessing. We kind of got a California thing. Don't kill me.
- [77:05]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [77:06]
Steve Fury
So he goes, follow me, man.
- [77:07]
Mark Marin
Oh, God damn it.
- [77:09]
Steve Fury
And he followed. And he goes. And he takes a turn down this little alley.
- [77:11]
Brendan
Yeah.
- [77:12]
Steve Fury
And this alley is pretty scary.
- [77:14]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [77:15]
Steve Fury
And I'm walking down, I see your pink shirt. I'm in a pink shirt, like the bell bottom seven jeans. Like just a mark. Like someone who needed to get robbed.
- [77:24]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [77:25]
Steve Fury
So I go down there. I'm walking by this, and there's like, these weird gambling dens. And then we get to this door.
- [77:30]
Mark Marin
Oh, my God. It's like Deer hunter.
- [77:32]
Steve Fury
Yeah, it's like deer. It's like a Mexican deer hunter.
- [77:34]
Brendan
Yeah.
- [77:35]
Steve Fury
We get to this door and it's blacked out. And he goes, it's upstairs.
- [77:38]
Mark Marin
Yeah.
- [77:39]
Steve Fury
He stands right behind me.
- [77:40]
Mark Marin
Yeah. It's never good.
- [77:42]
Steve Fury
And I'm.
- [77:43]
Mark Marin
Do you knew you were gonna get robbed?
- [77:45]
Steve Fury
Well, I didn't know what was gonna happen. I knew something wasn't good. What's. When I'm looking up this thing, I'M like, I'm in Tijuana. We got LA face behind me. No one knows I'm here because I'm dealing drugs. I'm want anyone to know here, this might be it. I'm going to die here. And I go, fuck it.
- [78:01]
Mark Marin
That was when it sunk in.
- [78:03]
Brendan
That's Steve Fury on the previous episode in whatever feed you're listening to right now to get all episodes of WTF ad free, sign up for WTF plus. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go. This podcast is hosted by Acast. Okay, here we go. Going, going, Gone. Damage Boomer Lives Monkey and lafonda Cat Angels Everywhere.