So, Andre, in 2021 Variety awarded an important prize to Alberto Barbera, stating: 'We have never honored a festival director or film festivals before, but it is entirely legitimate that Alberto Barbera and La Biennale are the first to receive this recognition.' Now, within Homte we have already honored festival directors like Emanuela Martini, Daniela Persico, Mauro Gervasini, and Giulio San Giorgio. So the question is: is Homte the most revolutionary of Variety?
Oh, absolutely, always, always. Of course.
The vanity of the house! [laughter] Let's get the theme and start.
The password is coffee.
Welcome to the new episode of Hometake, the podcast of Long Take. Today we have the director himself, Alberto Barbera. Thank you.
Welcome, thank you so much. He always participates willingly in our mornings; this is the fifth or sixth time he comes to visit us. So truly many thanks. The password to enter.
Coffee. Why coffee? Because we discovered he has an abundance of it.
It's true, I love it so much. I have to hold back or I'd drink it constantly.
But the director who is the protagonist of today's episode often has his characters drink coffee in his films, right?
No, and there's a title in a film, right? It's in a short and then in a film, so we're waking up the name of a director who is...
Jim Jarmusch, the last Golden Lion winner chronologically, at least until today, clearly at the Venice Film Festival. We'll talk about him soon. But before we get to the director, a question that has nothing to do with it, dear Alberto: why this beautiful volume that we recommend? It's a kind of Bible that anyone passionate about cinema must absolutely recover, browse, and study. It tells about all the Venice festivals from '32 to '22. Reading the chapters about your tenure, we notice how much the Venice Film Festival has changed, and especially that the director's role is not just about choosing films. Do you agree? What is your view?
That is the most obvious thing to everyone, because one selects films, puts their face forward, takes responsibility for invitations or missed invitations, which sometimes gets reproached. But that is the tip of the iceberg. The director has to do many other things. Even though I am only the artistic director, which is an advantage because I don't have to deal with administration, accounts, or setups except to ensure mistakes are avoided. But then there is building the juries—huge, complicated, difficult work. You need to find 23, 24, 25 people, and I have to make maybe 200 invitations because many are on set, busy, in post-production, or writing films. You have to compose a jury that comes from different countries and represents different categories: directors, actors, critics, cultural personalities. Since they come from different experiences and cultures, they don't always understand each other. Finding common ground is crucial, and the role of the president is fundamental because they mediate. So you start with choosing the president and then build the jury around them. Then there is communication work, because you are the spokesperson. I do the interviews, I don't write the press releases but I have to read, approve them. Then there are trips—I do fewer now. In my first years of this term, I went to Paris, London, Hong Kong, but I realized it's a big waste of time. The films arrive anyway, so it's more comfortable and emotional to stay in Venice, wait for the films to come, watch them, and make decisions. Crazy world. We inhabit it from afar, not too much because during the two weeks we are there. Very lucky.
Exactly. Andre, let's move on. Jim Jarmusch.
Jim Jarmusch. A name I love so much, a director who was very formative for me personally. Jarmusch is one of those great revolutionaries of postmodern cinema who changed genres, mixed them. He makes films where you think one thing and then it flips. I think of Down by Law, a prison movie where you see everything except the escape; at a certain point they've escaped, but you don't know the plan. Dead Man, the first black-and-white western since The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, with an antihero arriving in a town where there's no frontier, only chimneys. Ghost Dog, which mixes gangster movie, hip-hop, samurai culture, Kurosawa—a great minestrone that later influenced Tarantino, Tim Burton, the Coen brothers, and him too.
Of course. I had never met Jarmusch personally, but I knew all his films. I saw the world premiere of his first film at Cannes—Stranger Than Paradise, more than 40 years ago. I always followed him, liked all his films except one, the penultimate one—it's bad. Even on Long Take it's the only film voted badly. That one really missed the mark. Opening the festival with it was a huge mistake because it was demolished even more than it deserved. We all make mistakes; I've made many. But apart from that film, all the others are beautiful, interesting. There are wonderful films. Another extremely underrated one is Only Lovers Left Alive, a great fantastic love melodrama with Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. Beautiful. This latest film I received before Cannes because Cannes was hesitating. The film's producer called me and said, 'Look, Cannes is hesitating; I'll show it to you. If you like it, I'll pull it from Cannes and send it to Venice.' I saw the film, fell in love—everyone does, it's beautiful, also a bit underrated. So I invited it immediately. As soon as the film finished, I called and said, 'Competition, no doubt.' And the jury agreed and awarded it. He has this style of subtraction, pursued from film to film, never accumulating, leaving much unsaid. Here he reaches a level of refinement that is extraordinary. The first two episodes are hilarious, with a surprising Tom Waits. The second has three actresses competing in perfection. The third episode is an unexpected emotional turn. So the film offers the best of Jarmusch's universe but also something new. I'm curious to see what he does next. He's hinting at another European film, tired of America.
Speaking of which, I'll tell you: every year at Venice, the Long Take editorial team arrives a day early. We have a dinner on the day before the festival opens where we share our prejudices about the films. This year we bet on Jim Jarmusch's Father Mother. I always get it wrong, but I thought, 'Has Jarmusch's time passed?' Then Alberto chose it for the Golden Lion, and indeed.
I liked it, yes. Only after the previous one, my prejudice was strong. And Alexander Payne thought the same, right? So in that dinner I thought, 'Gosh, Andrea, last year won Pedro Almodóvar, another director off contemporary radar.' Very forward-looking.
Another question: music in Jarmusch's films. I met him this year at a concert in Milan where he performed live with his trusted musician for some 1930s French films. It was immersive, and you can see his passion for music in his films.
His music is never predictable, very refined, a really important component of his cinema.
In Only Lovers Left Alive, the music is hypnotic.
Since you've met him, what is he like as a person?
[laughs] He's a closed, very reserved person, speaks very little and slowly. He doesn't give himself too empathetically, so it's not easy to get in touch with him. Also, during the festival I have very little time to relate to actors and directors. I go to greet them at the press conference for five minutes, see them on the red carpet for ten minutes, just a few words. With those who return, like George Clooney, it's easier—we exchange emails. But I refused a couple of his films, and we're still on good terms. It varies. I've told the Lady Gaga story many times; she was very emotional on her first visit. But generally, everyone is very kind to me. The problems are usually with publicists or agents making absurd requests. I recall Madonna asking for 200 bottles of mineral water. What do you do with 200 bottles? But the stars themselves are always polite and available. It's the role that sometimes forces them to be brusque.
