Fresh Air - Best Of: Alex Van Halen / Painter Titus Kaphar

Episode Date: November 2, 2024

Alex Van Halen has written a new memoir about forming the rock band Van Halen with his brother Eddie. It takes readers from their childhood to the wild ride of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Eddie Van Halen died in 2020. Alex talks with Tonya Mosley about his grief and reflects on their relationship. Also, artist Titus Kaphar talks about his new movie, Exhibiting Forgiveness, based on his life. It's about a celebrated painter whose world unravels when his estranged father suddenly resurfaces. Carolina Miranda reviews the new Netflix film Pedro Paramo Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Tonya Mosley with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Alex Van Halen. He's written a new memoir about forming the rock band Van Halen with his brother Eddie, who died of cancer in 2020. It takes readers from their childhood, discovering music through their jazz

musician father to the wild ride of sex, drugs and rock and roll, including some close calls on stage during their performance antics, like setting Alex's drum sets on fire. We kind of got down to a science and as we're doing it during the performance, the lighter fluid starts to come down my arm and then I look over and I notice my arms on fire. Also artist Titus Kaffar joins me to discuss his new movie based on his life. It's about a celebrated painter whose world unravels when his estranged father, a recovering addict, suddenly reappears. And Carolina Miranda reviews the new Netflix film Pedro Paramo.

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More information is at waltonfamilyfoundation.org. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tonya Mosley. And my first guest today is Alex Van Halen of the iconic band Van Halen. ["Jump!" by Van Halen plays.] Jump! was Van Halen's biggest hit, and it became an anthem when it came out in 1983, even though a record executive once said it sounded like the kind of music you'd hear between baseball innings. Alex Van Halen shares this story in his new memoir, Brothers, which he wrote after the

loss of his younger brother, Eddie, who died of cancer in 2020. Known for their extravagant, high-energy performances, Van Halen is credited with being one of the most influential rock bands of all time. The book covers the first three decades of Eddie and Alex's music career, which started from their arrival as kids to the United States from the Netherlands, Dutch jazz musician and the formation of the rock band in 1974 after meeting vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony. But most importantly, Brothers is a love letter to the music they created and Eddie, who has been called for decades one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Van Halen disbanded after Eddie died in 2020, but throughout their run Van Halen produced 12 studio albums Two live records and 56 singles. They were included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007

Alex Van Halen, welcome to fresh air. Thank you for having me Alex this Was a beautiful read and I feel like there is no better way to ground this conversation than to start at the beginning of this book because the way you write is so poetic and the way that both you and Ed talk about your relationship, which you use his words in this book, really gives us a grounding. And I want to read just this first piece that you have on the very first page. It says, without my brother, I would not be.

We fight, argue, we even argue about agreeing on things. But there is a bond and unconditional love that very few people ever experience in their lifetime. We're not a rock band. We're a rock and unconditional love that very few people ever experience in their lifetime. We're not a rock band. We're a rock and roll band. Alex is the rock. I'm the roll. And that was your brother.

He wrote that about the two of you. Did he write it or did he say that at one time? I'm not quite sure. But when I hear it, even though I've heard it a hundred times, when I hear it again, it brings a lump to my throat. We literally were yin and yang, the two halves of a whole, however it's been characterized. And it made the, when Ed says that even we fight when we argue, yeah, sure, Ed, my way, no, your way, No, both ways.

It bled into everything we did, whether it was writing songs, even though Ed did the majority of the music, you know, we all had a hand into bending and twisting it the way that we felt appropriate for what we were doing. Meaning that, you know, you can't have have a nine minute song on your first record. Well, you can, but it doesn't serve you well. So the constant juggling and adapting and I wouldn't call compromising, but blending is really the word that I'm looking for. It's kind of like making a soup. All those things kind of come together and then you walk away at

the end of the day with something that you say, okay, this is pretty good. Let's see what happens tomorrow. Because we left a lot unfinished. You left a lot unfinished. You spent your whole lives together. You're basically like twins, 20 months apart. How much of the music did you listen to while writing this book? I'll be honest with you. I went through a lot of emotional issues, but I basically had PTSD when he passed. I didn't know why I was yelling and screaming at people and

I was borderline violent. I didn't hit anybody, I don't hurt anybody, I'm too old for that. But the feelings of frustration and this inexcusable way of behaving to my closest friends and my family was all wrong, you know. So I sought help and found out what it was. Yeah. It was the pain of the loss of a brother. Yeah, it's indescribable. I had the pleasure and the good fortune of being close friends with the Procaro family. And Steve lost a couple of members. He lost two brothers. So after... I'm sorry, can you reference who the Pecaro family is, just so we'll have those who don't know? Well, they were probably the most famous studio musicians and later made a band called Toto.

I just thought to Steve, you shouldn't have called it Toto. What should he have called it Toto. Which it you've called it. I don't know. Well, the thing is, it's not really named after a little dog. The original name was for Entoto, which means in total. They were a band that did things in total. That was the Italian version of it. But anyway, so I went to visit him, because I really didn't know where to,

who to talk to, who I could relate to. It's difficult to find people your own age and your own musical history and background that you can communicate with. So I was talking with Steve, I'm laughing, because the punchline was at the very end, I leave and I'm maybe 15 minutes out from his house and he calls me and he says, hey Al, I just realized I never dealt with any of it.

Which I found profound because of indirectly because of Ed and my problem. He finally would admit that he, you know, it's not done yet. And that's, that's really what it is. You're never going to be rid of it. There's going to be memories, there's going to be people, there's going to be instances that whether it's smells or food or places where you've been together before, you know, obviously every time I hear some of our music that puts me right back there. Yeah. And that helped you in the writing of this book, but that was such a painful place to be. Because that is the basis, that's the core of you and your brother's relationship. It was fun to read about your origin story because it allows us to see how the two of you saw yourselves. Because at your core, you guys always seem to see yourselves really as

immigrant children from the Netherlands who fulfilled this American dream. Is it really true that you didn't even know English when you arrived in the States? That's true. Coming to America was such an overload, a sensual overload of colors and smells and the weather was different and the people were different and the cars were huge compared to What we had in Holland It was a lot to take in But I kind of I kind of rolled the wave so to speak, you know

It was very very sensitive in that in that way if not always So it was a good mix between the two of us. I kind of plowed ahead and then Edwards would analyze or be overwhelmed by things. But you know, it was a different time. It was 1962, I think it was. Yeah, and you were eight and he was six? Yes. With your mom being Indonesian and your father being Dutch, right? They were an interracial couple and you were mixed race children. Yes. With your mom being Indonesian and your father being Dutch, right?

They were an interracial couple and you were mixed-race children. Yes. Why did your parents choose to come to the United States? What were they fleeing from? There was a lot of political turmoil in Indonesia. And to put it simply, they wanted to be free of the colonial power structure. And they saw my dad as part of that because he was Caucasian. Our parents were already married, so the best thing that they could do, they thought, rather

than live in the middle of some place with conflict where you really are, the Caucasian people really were a minority at that time in Indonesia, even though they were the ruling class. They moved to Holland, which is my dad's home country, and there the shoe was on the other foot. Now my mom is the minority, and she's easily identifiable. I'm laughing because it's absurd what people do on this planet, but that's another story. So they moved to Holland and she was really, really got the brunt of racism, you know, all the time.

It was even as children we saw it happen. But you know, you can look back on it depending on how you navigate it. It could be a positive, it could be a negative. It never really affected me as much as it did Ed. It can either make you tougher or it can make you hate people or angry. I never had any of that. As a musician you welcome everybody. Why would you cut your audience? Let everybody come in. Let's go play. What was the choice for them moving to the United States? Was it because of what they

were experiencing in Holland around their relationship? At that time, my mother had a sister who lived in a city called Pasadena, and she kept sending letters and all these different communications of how wonderful it was and the weather is great. It's just like Indonesia. Oranges are a penny a piece, which is in Holland, you don't really get oranges. You get them once in a while and they ship them from Spain and they come elaborately wrapped. It's a big ordeal. But that aside, so oranges for a penny a piece was very attractive for my mom and us too

as well. How did your parents meet? The way my mom explained it was he showed up on his motorcycle and he didn't have any underwear on. That's a love story. You know, those kinds of stories, a little humor, I think, because, you know, living in those times, it was very, things were not secure. The Second World War had just ended and now everything's headed for another conflict and

another disagreement. And God only knows what's going to happen. So but my mom came from a very wealthy family in Indonesia. They owned a bit of a railroad piece or something and they were higher up the food chain. But to my mom, working in an office and wearing a suit and a tie, nothing was higher than that in her ambition. And for our whole life, that's all she ever asked was, Alex, Edward, please wear a suit. She had you guys playing classical music. Classical music was in the house 24-7, that and military marches, because my dad, to be

able to work in Holland, he had to join the Air Force. So they would do the dignitary marches and all that but yeah, basically it was As a musician, you know, you have to you have to look for opportunity and every musician knows that you Make do with what you got But being being in the military was I think very Indirectly was very much involved with how we were brought up. Being strict with the kids, there was no question about it. You know, you do it or you're actually going to get your ass beat and then they will never beat us a lot, but just enough. Just enough to get you in line. Bingo. You know, it was very normal. Corporal punishment was very typical at that time.

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Alex Van Halen. We're talking about his new memoir, about his life and his brother Eddie and the formation of Van Halen. We'll continue after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Well, we finally made it. Election week.

That is what this whole never-ending election cycle has been building up to. And what happens now will determine the future of our country. You can keep up with election news when it matters most with the NPR Politics Podcast. All this week, we're taking the latest stories from the campaign trail, swing states, and polling places to help you make sense of them and what they mean for you. Listen now to the NPR Politics Podcast. For a while now, you've probably been hearing about book bands, how they're gaining momentum everywhere in Texas, in Missouri, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

On the Code Switch Podcast, we're taking a look at why. Why are so many books suddenly considered so dangerous to kids? Listen to our new series on the Code Switch podcast from MBO. Numbers that explain the economy. We love them at the indicator from Planet Money. And on Fridays, we discuss indicators in the news,

like job numbers, spending, the cost of food, sometimes all three. So my indicator is about why you might need to bring home more bacon to afford your eggs. I'll be here all week. Wrap up your week and listen to the Indicator podcast from NPR. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tonya Mosley. Let's get back to my interview with Alex Van Halen from the rock band Van Halen. He's written a new memoir that covers the first three decades of the Van Halen from the rock band Van Halen. He's written a new memoir that covers the first three decades of the Van Halen brothers' journey in music, their childhood in the Netherlands

and later in working class Pasadena, California, meeting and working with frontman David Lee Roth and the creation of the Van Halen sound. The book is also a love letter from Alex to his younger brother Eddie, who died in 2020. Hot for Teacher was a song from your album 1984. It's one of Rolling Stone magazine's. It was on their list saying that this was the album that brought Van Halen's talent into focus. Let's play a little of Hot for Teacher. Oh wow, man. Wait a second, man. What do you think the teacher's gonna look like this here? Come on, man. Whoa! Oh yeah! Teacher, teacher, teacher, stop and scream it.

Teacher, don't you see? Don't wanna be no uptown fool. That was Van Halen's high school song. It's called, I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher.

I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher.

I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. That was Van Halen's Hot for Teacher from the album 1984. Also humor is a big part of your act. I wanted to say that. I mean, I know we've been talking about it not being an act. It's who you are, but yes. Yes.

But this album overall was pioneering because there's a lot of synth, which was a new sound back then. Yes. And we were always looking for the next, what's around the corner. And we heard a lot of synthesizer music. It's all this progressive rock stuff, whether it was Mahavishnu or Billy Cobham. And there were a number of people who used that sound quality if you will because I hate to use the word synthesizer because it conjures up a

certain image of certain things when you juxtapose that over a very simple pattern of something else it does become something else I know I'm talking literally in riddles but that's what music is it's a big riddle try to figure it out this song which came first the melody or the drum beat? Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um. Ed and I played so much all the time, it's hard to remember who, I think it was probably Ed who came up with the guitar lick. How did you get the idea to set your drums on fire as part of your act?

Uh, there were a number of people at that time who tried different versions of it. I've always been fascinated by fire because for me, fire represents the temporariness. Is that a word? Only the moment comes. The flame is there and poof, it's gone. So is life, right? So to me, that represented that. And it was an element of danger because we did it on such

an amateur level that any given night when we did it if my drum tech, Greg, an old buddy of mine, if he put too much stuff on it, it would leak. There were several times when... What do you mean by stuff? Like, yes. Oh yeah, lighter fluid. Yeah. Lighter fluid? What do you mean by stuff like oh, yeah lighter fluid. Yeah lighter fluid. Yeah My favorite memory of all of that was we kind of got in the down to a science and as we're Doing it during the performance the lighter fluid starts to come down my arm And then I look over and I noticed my arms on fire. So I'm thinking that that can't be good, right? and I noticed my arm's on fire. So I'm thinking that can't be good. So I look at Greg, who's, you know, in theory, he's there with a fire extinguisher so he can, so I look at him and

he's looking at me and he gives me the thumbs up. Looks great, man. I'll never forget that as long as I live. Greg, I love you, but man, put that damn fire out. Wait, did he? Do you have burns? What's going on? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we had, but it was very low-ditch, you know, we just used lighter fluid and you put a match to it and poof, there it goes. It's very uncontrollable. You're taking a risk every night, but you know, we were young, so it's okay. We're all right. I just want, did you end up having to get new drum sets every time? I mean, how did that work?

No, actually, it wasn't until the end of the tour, I got slapped with like, I don't know how much. All the microphones and the cords were fried, and nobody told me that when we were doing it. The drum set itself was made out of stainless steel. Ludwig was very accommodating. They made a stainless steel drum kit for me. It wasn't the only one, but they gave it to me. But it really goes to show you how at that age, you know,

the stuff doesn't really register in your brain. It turns out that the average male brain does not completely mature. Until the age of 27. I'm still waiting. You watch Spinal Tap, right? Oh yeah, yeah. That wasn't funny at all. And I saw it and we said, that's what we experience. That is really how things happen. It's mind-bending. The public doesn't really have any idea what goes on behind the scenes.

And I'm certainly not going to burst a bubble. But that movie, there were a lot of elements that were more true than they were parody. And of course, then they believed their own stuff and they went out and toured for the... Right, right, right. That was the ironic part. You and Eddie famously for a long time never recorded any music without each other until

a request from Quincy Jones for a little known song called Beat It. Let's listen. I'm gonna be a good boy That was a solo Eddie did on the iconic song It doesn't matter who's stronger, who's right. That was a solo Eddie did on the iconic song, Beat It, by Michael Jackson. And Alex, I think it was on the charts the same time as 1984, if I'm not... Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah. Why do you think Eddie went and did that without consulting you guys?

If I remember, Eddie did consult and we said, no. What are you gonna do? I'm not gonna make something. We really did not overthink anything, but I did want to kick his ass, you know. Why? Because our model was basically Led Zeppelin. The way that they structured their business, the way they structured how they played, who they played with. Led Zeppelin was Led Zeppelin. You couldn't get Jimmy Page anywhere else. You can only get him on Led Zeppelin.

Come to the show, that's it. You don't get him with Michael Jackson, you don't get him with so-and-so. But Ed violated that and it started a whole cascade of just bad, bad vibes. And I- And it's the beginning of the end for you guys as a unit.

In all fairness, it really was not the single thing because things were already starting to unravel. When we named the album 1984, it had nothing to do with the year. It had to do with George Orwell and the dystopia of what was going on. This band was so fractured. We barely ever played together anymore. And unfortunately, MTV became the predominant way of conveying all this, and Dave being the visual guy, naturally opted for more visual stuff. I don't blame him for any of it, but it's just too bad because we

were on the cusp of something really, really big. Ed, going and doing this song with Michael Jackson, if you guys had always said you wanted to be Led Zeppelin, what do you think it was that made him say, I want to do this anyway? I don't know. There's some aspects of his behavior, or even to me, a mystery. I just have to say to you, Alex, it also opened up another world to you guys. Not really. I mean, I'm a little black

girl in Detroit hearing that little solo from Van Halen, and it introduced me to you. That was the argument that a couple other people make, but I tell you, I don't buy it. My suggestion would have been put Michael on our record, okay? Then you got something. And people will say, are you out of your mind? Well, you can have guest people on your records. But am I angry? Of course not.

That's just posturing. That's what you do to your brother and your bandmates. Nobody fights better than friends. Alex Van Halen, this was such a pleasure. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Alex Van Halen is a founding member of the rock band Van Halen. His new memoir is called Brothers.

In 1955, Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo published a slim novel called Pedro Paramo about a man who goes in search of a father he's never met, only to discover that his father is dead and ghosts haunt the village he inhabited. Pedro Paramo changed the course of Latin American literature. Among the writers it influenced was a young magical realist by the name of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who went on to write 100 Years of Solitude, and who once declared that

Rulfo was as enduring as Sophocles. On November 6th, a new movie inspired by the novel premieres on Netflix. Contributor Carolina Miranda had a look to see how this cinematic interpretation holds up against Rulfo's timeless book. Pedro Paramo is not the sort of novel that's easy to turn into a movie. The plot, what there is of it, meanders constantly. Perspectives shift, the narrative jumps back and forth in time, strange things happen, and as you sink into the story, it can be impossible to tell what's waking life and what might be a dream. The novel is also hard to make into a movie because it's iconic.

Practically every school kid in Mexico reads it, and every student of Latin American literature has wrestled with its ruminations on betrayal, power, and death. Rodrigo Prieto, an Oscar-nominated cinematographer from Mexico whose past projects include Killers of the Flower Moon, has bravely chosen Pedro Paramo as the subject of his first feature film. The story kicks off as Juan Preciado arrives in the village of Comala to look for his father, a prominent landowner. In the film's opening scene, a camera plunges the viewer into a hole in the earth as we

hear Preciado deliver the novel's opening lines. Lines so famous, many Spanish speakers can recite them by heart. I came to Comala, he says, because I was told my father lived here, a man named Pedro Paramo. But as Preciado enters Komala, he discovers that the lush settlement his mother had once described no longer exists. The town is abandoned, its crumbling adobe houses occupied by the ghosts of his father's ruthless past. In the role of Preciado is Tenochuerta, best known for playing the ocean-dwelling Namor in the Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever. His performance in Pedro Paramo is far more restrained.

As his character is led by one ghost and then another ever deeper into Comala, Preciado learns about his father's casual brutality as well as the other children he'd fathered and even loved. The actor conveys these painful discoveries in flashes of quiet hurt and bewilderment. As in the novel, about midway through the film, the narrative shifts its primary focus from son to father, charting Paramo's rise as a landowner during the years of the Mexican Revolution. Paramo murders his advers a landowner during the years of the Mexican Revolution.

Paramo murders his adversaries and takes their land. He treats the town's women like a personal harem. He knows he can disobey the law because in this corner of Mexico, he is the law. What laws, he asks, will make the laws ourselves? Starring as Paramo is Manuel Garcia Rulfo, a Mexican actor known for playing the title role on the Netflix series The Lincoln Lawyer. Born in Guadalajara, Garcia Rulfo also happens to be a distant relative of the book's author, and to the character he brings the spoken cadences of Western Mexico where the novel is set.

But the actor's approachable good looks don't always jive with the merciless rancher described in the book. The bigger challenge facing any director who tackles Pedro Paramo is constructing a believable world. To read the novel is to get the sensation that you are being told a story by ghosts, as if you're hearing voices fade in and out. The author conveys these strange and terrible events in matter-of-fact ways. He doesn't sensationalize or overdo the suspense. Capturing the sensibility on film, however, can be difficult, and it's why it's been

a challenge to translate Pedro Paramo, as well as other novels by magical realists, into movie form. The literature has a very restrained approach to the extraordinary. On screen, however, things like violence can come off as lurid and apparitions can feel hokey. Prieto's film, for the most part, presents a convincing world. His transitions between past and present and life and death are seamless. Bleak scenes are portrayed with otherworldly beauty. And sound, which Rulfo describes with great care in the novel, is used in interesting ways.

At one moment, we hear the world through the partially deaf ears of an old mule driver. In another, we're immersed in the echoes of Komala's empty streets. The movie, however, has its awkward moments. A scene that involves a woman who turns into mud feels like an intrusion of CGI in early 20th century Mexico. And the same goes for a key death scene, of which I won't say more so as not to give away plot. Prieto's film is one of several inspired by Rulfo's novel.

A version from 1967 was more melodramatic. Another, released in 1977, had stripped-down spaghetti-western vibe. Prieto's version adheres most closely to Rulfo's text, and that can hamper the film's pacing. The frequent jumps between time periods, which give the book its sense of disorientation, become repetitive and extra confusing on screen. Though ultimately, being confused is part of grappling with Juan Rulfo's masterwork, a story about love, corruption, dominance, and the ways in which death comes for us all

in the end. JADE BADER GARDNER Carolina Miranda reviewed Pedro Paramo, coming to Netflix on November 6. Coming up, painter, sculptor, and filmmaker Titus Kaffar talks about his directorial debut, a new movie based on his life titled Exhibiting Forgiveness. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. On shortwave, we know the human body is this amazing singular thing, Shortwave, we know the human body is this amazing singular thing. Capable of facing down all kinds of infection and disease, from managing UTIs to cancer

to long COVID, our show is dedicated to destigmatizing our relationship to our bodies. Listen to the Shortwave podcast from NPR. I'm Rachel Martin, host of NPR's Wild Card Podcast. I've spent my entire career learning what kinds of questions prompt the most honest answers. What's the biggest sacrifice you've ever made? What's a belief you had to let go of? What's a goal you're glad you gave up on? Now I'm putting those soul-searching questions to guests like Jenny Slate, Bo Winyang, and

Chris Pine. Follow Wild Card wherever you get your podcasts only from NPR. Some of our favorite planets aren't even real, but could they be? Here on Shortwave, we journey to other planets, distant galaxies in our universe and in our favorite works of science fiction. Listen now to the Shortwave podcast from NPR. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my next guest is contemporary painter, sculptor, and installation artist Titus Kaffar. He's known for taking classical forms of

art and deconstructing them by cutting, crumpling, shredding, stitching, tarring, twisting, and binding to reveal hidden truths that challenge historical narratives. His art provokes, forcing the viewer to confront the erasure of Black Americans from our historical narrative. Take his 2014 painting Behind the Myth of Benevolence, a portrait of Thomas Jefferson peeling away to reveal Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman Jefferson owned. His 2020 Time magazine cover, Analogous Colors, depicted a mother holding the silhouette of a child, which Kafar created by cutting into the canvas. The image references

George Floyd calling out to his mother during his arrest and final moments. Kafar, whose paintings and installation art can be found in some of the world's most prestigious museums, has now taken his vision to the big screen, deconstructing his own life with his directorial debut, a raw and deeply personal film titled, Exhibiting Forgiveness. It's about a celebrated painter

whose carefully constructed world unravels when his estranged father, a recovering addict seeking redemption, suddenly reappears in his life. It's a searing exploration of forgiveness, asking us who deserves it, who owes it, and at what cost. Titus, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. If I'm not mistaken, this idea for the film

was originally a documentary, right? How did it turn into a feature film? The documentary happened because I was going back to Michigan, where I'm from, Kalamazoo, to visit my grandmother. And when I got to my grandmother's house, my father was sitting on the doorstep and I had my sons with me and my wife was with me. And they'd never seen him before.

My kids were probably about seven and five or something like that at that time. And I basically told him I didn't really wanna talk and that this wasn't a good time. So I walked up the stairs, walked into the house, and to my surprise, my father followed me in. Now, this is my maternal grandmother. And so as I was starting to get a little frustrated about the situation, my grandmother said,

baby, you need to talk to him. And I say this all the time, but when my grandmother tells you to do something, you do it, there's no question. I had a camera on my shoulder at the time because I was gonna take a photograph of her, I was gonna make a painting and drawing of her. And so, kinda on a whim, I said to my father, if you wanna talk, let me film you.

There's a lot to be accounted for. And I was hoping he would say no, but he said yes. He said, be in my house for 15 minutes. And that was the beginning of it. And the truth of the matter is that documentary felt wildly unsatisfying. I showed it publicly in the theater one time and decided I don't want that in the world like that. Why? What was it about it? A lot of it was just the fact that if it felt like it did a really good job of telling me where I was but not how I got there. It was me as an adult reflecting on these things as an adult. And there was no space for that child,

that child's voice in that documentary. And somehow that felt really necessary. So as I let go of the idea of the documentary project that I moved in to the idea of doing this as a feature film, I realized that it was going to be necessary for me to think differently about my father when I write him as a character. This changed your creative process because you were writing and also painting this story at the same time. This was the first time you had actually done something like this. Yeah, I mean the writing process was very different for me. And so what

happened is I'd wake up in the morning about five o'clock and I'd start writing for a couple hours, take my kids to school, and then I would go to the studio and I would start drawing or sketching from what I had written the day before. So I have this app on my phone that allows me to listen to text. So I was listening to that and remembering all of the things from my childhood experiences and just writing that down. And initially, I was writing this stuff for the purpose of trying to tell my sons a little bit about their father, me, about where I come from and why I don't like to talk about when I was a kid so much.

And for their whole lives, I've always said, well, I'll tell you when we're older. They would ask. Yeah. They would ask. Yeah. And so my oldest is going off to college now. So I think that's part of what initiated this whole process for me. And the painting aspect of it is so, that's so normal. That's my happy place. That's peace. I'm a pretty extroverted person, but that's only because I have

all of this time alone in the studio. So that part felt normal, felt right, and it made the writing process easier because the writing process was far more emotional than I expected it to be. Like the process of sitting down and writing made me remember things that I had pushed out of my mind for a long time. And I also, as I took it from reality and moved it into the script, it actually became more difficult when I was moving it into a script. Because if you are writing a character, you have to be honest about that character's motivations. You can't just say, this is a bad guy.

And as a young man, I would have told you that my father was the villain of my narrative. He was the bad guy. It wasn't until I sat down to write and I had to ask myself, no, no, that's not enough. Why is he doing what he's doing? What are the motivations for his actions? What are the broader context of the world?

Yes, that's right. You grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Yes, that's right. That was a place of industry, of factories, of businesses. And yes, that's right. By the time you were in high school, all of those businesses, so many of them had been shut down. And so there were no jobs.

There were few opportunities. And so there were no jobs. There were few opportunities. And yes, that's right. Crack cocaine came in right at that same time. So with context and writing and asking myself the motivation for this character, I gained a compassion, a sympathy for my father that I never had as a young man. Titus,

this story isn't completely autobiographical but there's truth, so much truth from your life in it. For those who haven't seen the film, can you say what the story is? Terrell is an artist living with his wife who is also an artist, a musician, and you have a young son. Mm-hmm. He has a young son. Terrell has a young son. I have too. You know, I think fundamentally this film is about one artist's journey towards healing. Of course, there's this question of this father who re-enters the situation and whether or not there will be reconciliation or forgiveness between them. And we go with this family on this journey.

The film for me is about generational healing. About how does this generation make sure that our children don't have to carry the same wounds and baggage that we carry? Is there a way for us to leave it here so that they can go on without that burden? And in the film, the artists, Tarell and his wife Aisha, they figure this out through their artistic practice itself. The thing that I'm most excited about is in the film, you see the practice of two artists connected, caring for one another. It's not generally the picture of an artist

that you see on film. There is such a vulnerability in this film. I mean, we are seeing black men emote and express and cry. And we rarely see that in film. Actually, we don't see that for men, period, let alone black men. What have been the discussions with your sons,

you writing this with the intent of being able to show them that, hey, this is what my life was before you were here? Yeah. I mean, there's a moment in the film where Jermaine, Terrell's son, runs in the house and starts jumping on the couch. And I love that scene.

Daniel, the young kid who played that part, he's extraordinary. And he comes in, he starts jumping on the couch, and I wish I would run into the house and jump on my mother's couch. I wish I would. That would be a very short scene. But Terrell, he walks in and he gently grabs his son by the shoulders and he looks him in his eye and he says, breathe. I want you to breathe with me. Let's take

a breath together. And what that's about is giving the next generation different tools than we had. We weren't told that it was okay that we could cry. That was something that we had to suppress. That was something that it was necessary for us to hold in. We grew up in a kind of rough spot. You didn't want people to see you weak That meant you were vulnerable. And if you were vulnerable the opportunity to take you was there and so That became another thing I began to understand. It's like even these things that feel

Harsh in the minds of our parents. This was for our protection. And I don't agree with doing that to your children. I have to believe that love and compassion and kindness and care, those things are the things that we offer to our children and that will bring them to a peace, a place of peace and wholeness. But at the same time, recognizing that the world that I grew up in, the neighborhood that I grew up in, was fundamentally different from the neighborhood that my children are growing up in. I understand why, why they made the decisions they made, why they did what they did.

It's interesting, you said it was kind of like therapy. You had a conversation with a couple of directors, producers, like just to get advice. You talked to Steven Spielberg, right? I did, yeah. And he said something to you about like putting your life on the page like this in the film. What did he tell you?

Yeah, first shout out to Kate Capshaw, his wife. She's a painter. That's how we met. So she came to the studio and we were just geeking out about paint. And, you know, I had these canvases there that I had been working on for the film. And she asked me, she said, so what is all this work about? This feels a little different from your other paintings. And so I had a script in my hand and I handed it to her, signed it and said, you know, thanks for coming to the studio. Appreciate you. And Kate and I have stayed in touch. And so she read the script in about 24, 48 hours and got back to me and said, this is something special. Do you mind if I share it with Stephen?

And I said, yeah, no, of course not. That's an insane idea. Right? Like what? What are you, nuts? No. I said, of course. And she gave it to Stephen and within a couple of days, he got back to me and he said, do you have something very special here? This is not the kind of film that Hollywood usually treats well. You have to protect yourself. It's going to be difficult and it is not going to fix everything. And he had just done his own family story. With the Fablemen's, yeah. Yeah. And so he also told me that I cried every day on set. And for me, I didn't cry every day, but there were many days.

You were on the other side of the project. To be honest with you, Kate and Stephen spoke to me about the project throughout filming. And so on the other side of the project, I would say, yeah, it's true, everything has not been fixed. But there definitely have been some revelations, like I said about Understanding the motivations of my father that has changed that has definitely changed for me I want to talk to you a little bit about Some of the other reasons why you wanted to make this film

You also made this movie Because while you document black life, black people by and large are not the ones consuming or buying your art. And in the short documentary that you did in 2022, Shut Up and Paint, you shared your struggle with the commodification of your art. You mentioned in there how you have family members who at least at that point still hadn't seen still still to this day yeah yeah has that ever made you question what you do well actually let me rephrase that it hasn't made me question what I do it's made me question where what I do goes so I don't question painting I love that

that's like in my heart it's the thing that I one't question painting. I love that. That's like in my heart. It's the thing that I, one of the things that I know that I was made for. But the reality is, as I said in that documentary, where I grew up, the place I grew up, does not look like the place where I am now. And the people who engage with my work often don't come from that world. And let me be clear here, I'm not just talking about race. I'm talking about class as well. I feel blessed to be able to do what I do every day. I mean, I make paintings and people pay me to do that. It's kind of ridiculous. It's like, let's just be honest,

let's just put that out there. It's kind of ridiculous. So I'm not complaining about that. But what I want is to figure out how I can get more access for folks. And you felt like a movie, you felt like visuals, and that way was more democratizing. Yeah, as I said, I think I said in the film,

the documentary film is a much more democratically accessible medium. You don't have to be a rich man to go to a movie. And nobody makes you feel uncomfortable when you walk into a movie theater. You can just walk in a movie, watch a movie. Or eventually, you'll be able to watch it in your home. So that was incredibly important to me

because as I went into more spaces, gallery spaces, I recognized how uncomfortable they are. This beautiful big white space where you are the only black face in that building, there is some fancy person sitting at the front desk and you don't know whether, do I need to pay to get in? Do I need to talk to them? Do I need to say something? And then you see these paintings on the wall and you're like, these are interesting, but

I don't know anything about them. them, you know, that kind of elitism that one feels when they're in those spaces doesn't help people connect to the art at all. Titus Kaffar, thank you so much. Thank you. Painter Titus Kaffar's new movie is based on his life titled, Exhibiting Forgiveness. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challener, Susan Yacundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Seward.

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