Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Alejandro G. Iñárritu is a five-time Academy Award-winning director, writer, and producer. Iñárritu is known for his emotional explorations of the human psyche. Some of his most renowned films include Babel (which received seven Academy nominations), Birdman, which won the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography and for which Iñárritu won Best Director, Co-Writer and Co-Producer; and The Revenant., for which he won his second Academy Award for Best Director. In 2019, Iñárritu served as President of the Jury for the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. He released his latest film in 2022, BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.

Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton. We came here and said, okay, you know, I think let's take a year. And at the same time, it was an adventure to go out and explore creatively a way to make a film with no comfort of my country and my language and all the things. Because I could have become a very comfortable artist being in my own ranchito in Mexico.

But anyway, so it was different things never planned to be so so many years but then it happened any idea what in your life in your upbringing allowed you to have the freedom you have in the way you approach your art because you feel completely free free there's a certain innocence i guess because i do not come from academy and none of my family were in the art business let's say scenery there there's no i'm like the black sheep let's put it that way and uh so suddenly i'm like a autodidactic, self-made, savage, naive, if you like, or innocent kind of guy that in a way the only way for me to be, you know, basically trying things and not thinking rationally. I will say I have learned to get some principles that I learned that you have to have as an artist, but not rules. I never learned rules, let's put it that way. And I think that liberates me a little bit, you know.

It's amazing. It's amazing to see. And that's why I feel so, I feel there's a, I feel sympathetic with you. Like, I feel like somehow we ended up in this place. I don't really understand how, but I think I get the feeling both of us feel free to see the world that we see without any conventional anything.

Like all the convention is out of it. Exactly. I think actually, you know, I have been now a lot into the neuroscience and meditation and things in the last years. And I think that has had a huge impact in me because at the end, what I have learned is that we create our own reality. Yes, it's a projection. It's all a projection.

It's all made up. It's fascinating. So that has encouraged me to go further and further with no fear of not being, let's put it this way, to have the courage to be disliked. Yes. And that I found it liberating. But you're making something, I imagine, you're making something that you love. Yes. you're making something that you love.

Yes. And that I am absolutely interested to say, to feel, to approach, to explore, to solve. And that's the only way I do what I do. There is no other reason I could. Because I think it's okay to make, I will say, a film by many reasons, right? Even to get money. If you need money, well, that's like a guy who built a table as a carpenter. You do it because you need a job and it's a craft and you need to feed your family.

And that's fantastic. As you know how to make films, that's your craft and you do it that's right that's absolutely dignified and honorable but for me i think that beyond that i need to have a very profound reason because for me the exploration is a journey that demands me enormous amount of energy and not necessarily pleasant all the time. I have been learning how to make it more pleasant and be a little bit more confident or allow it.

And talking about Birdman, the film that you expressed that you have liked, that was one of the first films that I enjoyed making it, that I laughed making it. I understand you laughed making it. Do you think of it as a comedy? Yes. Yes, I want to laugh about the stupidity

that our lives normally are about, our dramas. You know, every time that we make a drama, it's an ego, it's stupid. We create that. There is no reason. So the drama of this character, which I identify enormously when we make dramas about the narrative of stories that we made in ourselves,

it's a little ridiculous and pathetic. And at the same time, I feel empathy. I mean, I'm not saying this like I'm detached from that, but it's to learn about, I wanted to explore that from the humor, from the sense of humor, not from the pain. Yeah, I'll tell you, I'm shocked just because I don't see it as a comedy at all no i see it as a

i see it as deadly serious it's funny and ridiculous but i don't see it as a comedy at all yeah i think that the the drama on the the the dilemma of of reagan thompson that is called the character that Michael Keaton plays is a very serious thing because he wants to revalidate himself. He wants to feel appreciated. He wants to feel loved. He wants to validate himself. And who doesn't want that? All what we do, I always said what we do,

no matter what, is to be loved, to be understood. And I think as this monk that I like, he said, understand is the other way to say love, is the other word of love. And so he wants to be understood, but obviously looking for it in the wrong place, in the wrong way. On the surface. On the surface. Committing the same mistake by wanting something very profound and very valuable and very needed. He goes to the wrong execution, let's say.

So that's what makes it funny. But as you said, yeah, it's a very profound wound. And seeing him go from, he's in this pressure-filled situation, and it seems like everything is going wrong in making this dream happen. And then on top of that, the ex-wife comes, the pregnancy, the threat of pregnancy, the daughter. Like the combination, it's like from every angle, the, the oppressive nature of life is just smothering him. It's wild to see. So that's why maybe it's, uh, it's funny in how

extreme it is, but I felt all of that. It made me very uneasy. It made me... In which part you connect with that? You, personally. Did you, have you felt that things, I mean, if it affect you, it was reflecting or it was projecting something personal? I know how my state of mind is so important to the work that I do. Like if I have a critical listening to do, if I'm in a bad mood or not feeling well, I won't do it. I don't want to bring any personal baggage to my work unless that's what it's about. You know,

if it's about that. Um, but from a, to be in an even enough place to really take in what's happening. Um, it doesn't always come easy. Sometimes it does, but not always. And I try to live in a way, I spend most of my time in the jungle of either Kauai or Costa Rica and see very few people. I have my little family unit.

We all stay together. We all travel together wherever we go and live a little bit of a monk-like life. You know, never do anything social really. It suits my temperament. It suits my temperament. And some of your earlier films, the more aggressive ones, I was wary to see.

I remember trying to watch 21 Grams because it seemed so interesting to me. And I watched maybe the first 10 minutes back when it came out and I felt like, I don't think I can watch this, it's too much. It's too much. It's too much. I felt the same way about early Tarantino movies.

It's like it didn't, and now both of you are probably my two favorite directors. I would say my two favorite directors. And I think it's because you're you're you're allowing to go past reality and it's thrilling to me i had a i remember when i saw birdman right when it came out a lot of people i i don't watch so many movies funny because i have a degree in film and television from nyu i studied film um but for reason, I feel like most movies are not for me. I don't like mainstream movies.

I don't like seeing violence. I don't want to feel bad. And the nature of, even if it has a happy ending, the dramatic arc feels bad. And most of the time, I just don't want to go through that. I don't like going on roller coasters. I don't like adrenaline yeah i like peace so i i feel like it's few and far between that a movie speaks to me and i remember when i saw bird man very quickly it's not the opening shot but the opening shot of our of our lead actor he's uh levitating but i didn't realize he was levitating right away

because it's such an ordinary environment i don't know anything that's going on it was just a a strange sensation of is he levitating you know it was more of a question and um and it's one of the things I wanted to ask about in particular. I remember there's a scene that since the first time I saw it, I wanted to understand it, which is after he floats and flies, and he goes into the theater, there's a taxi driver who goes in after saying, hey, you didn't pay. So is that telling us everything that we've seen is imagination or does it just open the door of possibility that that's what it is?

No, I think I deliberately put that, I planted that seed to really do not make cheap tricks, I planted that seed to really do not make cheap tricks, meaning it's obvious that the guy has been going there with a taxi. But he thinks that he got there flying. And that's the delusional mind of the ego, right? The ego does not like to be in the present moment and the reality. So ego take us always to the future and what we will achieve, what we will do, what we are missing, and how we're going to get that. Or to the past, our judgments, who we are, what we did wrong.

So in a way, this guy is all the time battling trying to be present and he can't and that was a hint for me to other people to understand that all these beautiful flying thing that he has these almost um and again and maybe betraying what some people felt or thought it's okay but but that. But that for me was a very honest way as a filmmaker to not mislead in a, again, in a cheap trick, but there's planted seeds, but it's good that they are not, are always, I try to execute it,

not in your face, but that you are navigating to say, I have been there too. I sometimes have feel things that I feel that are so real that I'm sure that they are real. And maybe they are not, doesn't matter. All our perception and our experience in life is created. And this guy was creating a whole idea of who he was,

who he should be instead of who he was. Amazing, amazing. And when I saw it, first time I saw the movie, I was, I questioned it. This time I saw it, I watched it two nights ago again. And I feel like you did it in a way where it's not important at all. Do you know what I'm saying? That event? Yes, that event.

The taxi driver coming in, hey, you didn't pay. Even the way it's blocked, he could even be talking about someone else. We don't see anyone else. But I think I live so far outside of reality that I was almost more upset at the chance that he was in more upset at the chance that he was in the cab.

Exactly, exactly. But all the people, and actually, actually in that same scene, he said to the car, to the taxi driver, stop the music. Yeah. And the music stopped. Yes, I remember. He's talking to me, he's talking to you.

But we don't know that he's talking to the taxi driver no he's talking he broke the wall yes and he is the owner of your imagination and my imagination and now we are in his own world and we belong to that fiction that i create and that's the power we're experiencing through his experience exactly i did that in order that now we are in his own experience we are flying with him we are in his own mind and and that's what in a way this was about uh and and i was trying to get layers more profoundly about that we all have been there in a way and and it's beautiful to be there absolutely and uh and or you way. Or when he's going to the stage and there's a drummer playing, if it's there or not, I don't care. It's just how he's feeling.

And it's a feeling. And life is how you feel about it. It's not what it is. It's what you made about something is what really counts. So the same experience, the same reality can be lived completely different by two persons depending what you make about, what music you hear in that moment that you are living.

And all the behind the people is asking me, is Emma Thompson looking and he's flying or he die? And I don't know that answer. I don't know that answer. I don't know that answer. And I don't want to answer because honestly, I change my mind depending on what mood I see. If you see the movie in some mood, maybe it will tell you something or will make you feel that he did something. And maybe the next time in 10 years, you will feel different about it. For the ending, I don't have any conclusion, you know, even myself.

Yeah. How close is the film to the script it was uh very close very close it took me a lot of time it took me like for me and Nicolás Giacoborni, Alexander Dinellaris and Armando Boll like four years to really put it together it was it it became it was shaping every time differently And I have a lot of challenges because it took me like three years to find money to get it. And because the budget, I shot the film in 19 days, which is crazy. And the reason is because obviously I have to really shape it to the possibilities, economical possibilities, the physical possibilities.

So the script was changing and changing. And as you know, I shot with very long takes, so there was no many possibilities to change things. So there was no, it was like a long spaghetti. I could not cut it, you know? So it has to be very well planned. So yeah, it was very, very close to what really was written. plan so yeah it was it was very very close to what really was written i i again i couldn't improvise because every shot was pre-planned and and has to be uh the way it is to to to

to stitch it you know what i mean how different can the movie be from the same script does the script tell you one movie or could you make five different movies from that you can make 300 movies it's like if you and i if you and i have the same script yes you there is no way you and i will do the same movie because that movie will reflect who you are it's the moment that you choose a face an actor an actress when you choose the color of a shirt or a pant, the style of the wardrobe, the makeup and the hair, the attitude of the character, the pace of it. Even I have a theater teacher that said, you know, a director's life, he always was smoking

a pipe. Ludwig Margulis was a Polish guy, a genius. He was saying, a director's life is always depend in three question. Are the actors sitting? The actors are laying down or the actors are standing up? That's the question.

And if you think about it, it's true. It's like the music. It's like, what is the key? what is the space and what is the intensity? I mean, if you have a scene where two guys are talking and you have one guy washing the plates, looking, you know, giving the back to the camera, washing to the window, and the other guy is just sitting in the table with a long separation, that tells you a lot of things. The dramatic tension is immediately, you read what's going on with these two guys. Instead of these two guys standing up in front one to the other, or the two guys sitting in the table, you know, and the distance between them,

and if they, or one guy is just in a couch and the other guy is, i'm saying the physical position and the distance in a way that tells you so much everything it's like it like is so you will direct this and you will say okay i want these guys sitting here and then you will find a kitchen what kind of kitchen it will be a wood kitchen and all what i'm saying is incredible that there is no way to hide when you see a film you see who the person is because all the decisions that are there every 100 000 decisions that are in one single scene even when there is no a lot of action the frame where you put the camera the amount of light again the actress or actor that you choose that who you are and that show your response to the sensibility and i can hate it

yeah or i can love it and said oh i love and i think when the musicians arrive to your studio in the moment that guy arrive and give you a chord of the guitar you said oh that's it and then maybe there's other ones that you hear one album and if i always said that now when in 30 seconds you know where where you where hands you are in nose i mean you know you a wine you don't have to drink the bottle you just sip and they say oh my god i feel like sometimes you can hear it in the first two notes that's great it's a crazy thing to say i agree for you yes it feels it feels almost like an energetic reaction. Like I'll hear something and the way it comes in, either I lean forward or I lean back.

It's incredible, right? I agree. I always said to the guys, the young filmmakers, I said the most important thing in a film is the first two minutes. And the first two minutes because in the first two minutes, you know basically the DNA and the code of something. And this is for me, or this is not for me. In the first two minutes, and that's why the first scene,

the first image of anything is so important, because it's your presentation, it's your facade, if you arrive to a party with a fucking face of you don't like nobody, it's just that first impression. It's a lot about, and the music, as you know, if you arrive to a party with a fucking face of you, you don't like nobody, it's just that first impression. It's a lot about, and the music, as you said, two notes. And for you, I know that it's one or two notes you will be identifying and say, okay, this is, for me, it's maybe 20 seconds, but yes,

I mean, you hear something and you say, oh my God. You feel something. Something. And it's not the notes. It's something else. It's something else, right? What is that? I don't know.

Nobody will know. I think our brains... I don't think we can know. I had a big discussion the other day. There's this guy that is called Blaise Aguera, which is basically the guy who is in the artificial intelligence in Google, one of the most smartest guys that I have met. And there was a talk with Lawrence Weschler and him about the AI, which I'm fascinated and I'm very saying where the fucking art is going now with all these Dali and all these applications and in music now.

I mean, there's going to be a lot of AI music. I don't know what you think about it or what you have been thinking about it. If it will be a good tool, if it will be a good collaborator, if it will be a disruptor or all the above. But the brain that these guys now are basically all the psychology, all the medicines for psychiatric and mental health issues are designed based on the way a computer works. So there's a great article that a great neuroscientist said, guys, fucking brain does not work like computers. So I mean, in every generation, when the hydraulic thing was the big thing,

they thought that the brain was like hydraulical similar. In the industrial thing, they thought that our brain was kind of mechanical now is kind of a digital thing but this guy was saying guys our brain does not storage data we don't storage nothing the fucking computer is storage data tons of data memory and then binary kind of relations between one and zero, and then they arrive to that. But it's about that. Our brain does not have nothing about that.

If you open the brain of Mozart or Beethoven, you will never find music. Or any trauma that you have, you will never find it. It's nonexistent. Nobody knows where the relation between an experience and a sensation is. It is in the body, in the brain, the nervous system. And that sensation that repeated trauma or an experience that triggers that or vice versa is a fucking mystery. And this guy said that it will take maybe 100 years to start to understand where is that? Where is that emotional thing that what we were talking about?

Where is that? Like what make that note hits you in a place and that is the Beatles why the Beatles did what they did and why that music is so fucking and why why it speaks to everybody or 90 percent what is that they were not kind of academic musician they what they? When I was seeing you talking with Paul McCartney, the way Paul McCartney drives himself with such a simplicity, and this is my perception from seeing your show, that he does not consider himself a genius in a way. I mean, he just kind of...

He's just doing it. Exactly. He's just doing it. Exactly. He's just doing what he does. Yeah. I mean, even he makes me feel as if he actually is not actually giving credit or he actually does not write how big they are. I mean, he knows, but there's something very liberating.

He knows, but he knows he doesn't know how. You know, I don't think he could feel like, if anyone could take credit for it, he could. And I don't think that he feels like he can because it's bigger than him. And do you think that the generations, for example, I mean, talking about like how these musicians in a way come to that or a film that's only start and you say, where did that come from? And this process of thought because nobody of us i think can plan it or i mean you cannot control that there is no formula there is no nothing because i mean it's just come from some place but these musicians today do you think

that differently from the musicians that you work at that time in the 80s, or now that you have all these friends, like from the Beatles to in the 60s and all that, the difference of this consciousness or self-consciousness that these musicians are now exposed to so much millions of social media and they are their own entrepreneur and all that. Do you think that has changed the way of creating or not necessarily? I would say technology has definitely changed it so in so many young artists don't play a physical instrument anymore they're programmers and the difference

between the virtual version and the physical version in the room seem to be different to me i'm not even saying one's better than the other. I love Kraftwerk, they use machines. When I hear Kraftwerk, I'm hearing their point of view. And with all the musicians that I love, I'm hearing their point of view. And I don't think AI has a point of view. Like you said, if you had the same same script you could make 500 different movies i don't think that ai can do that i heard i heard something on a um on a business podcast was very interesting

saying if all of the ais that are the different ai companies that are competing with each other start with the same database which is basically everything that's on the web exactly as they get better and better when you ask any one of them a question they'll all spit out the same answer that's not true in art i have a friend uh bennett miller as a director which is great he did uh capote and Foxcatcher. He's an amazing director. And then he has just spent almost a year in his home with a program that is called Dali. And he started guiding this AI machine, which translates words in images. And you said, I want a cat in a Catholic church in the medieval time with a pinky sky and a woman crying with a red coat

in the Vermeer style. And the fucking thing in 30 seconds give you something like that, okay? So it's kind of impressive at the same time, very basic in the beginning but then he started trying to crack the code and understand how to get it a little bit more elaborate and more anyway and now he's doing an exhibition in the next two weeks i want to try to jump in in new york with the gagoshian gallery because he did this prints that is like all daguerreotypes

with depth of field of an incredible girl of nine years and is ghostly and his dress and imagine that you are seeing a picture from 1894 in boston cabins i mean like or in a river with an indigenous people with the hat and some kind of ghost coming i mean but it's it's literally the texture the depth the definition is a daguerreotype kind of thing and and big format i mean big format and it's artificial intelligence creed you see the eyes of these people and you swear they exist these people did not exist ever but you feel a melancholy and you feel something happen and it's the memory of something that never exists and it's so fascinating for me to say and i asked him how you how you work it's not that you said oh i wanted aguero type with a nostalgic you know he spent six months kind of the computers that you have to be guiding

editing stripping out putting in and i always said well all the synthesizers and all the fucking machines that we count now they are guided machine but you need a point of view and you need an artist to be feeding that and your taste your sensibility and what is in there and what is not so he spent that months and you see that work so nobody will be able to do exactly what he do so that's why i'm saying and in the music i don't know exactly what's going on i'm curious but if it would be a good collaboration say, give me a beat like James Brown in the 63 song with a little Marvin Gaye beat, syncopal. And maybe it will be a piece of shit, I'm sure. But probably by guiding it little by little and said,

you add a fucking Fifth Symphony, Mozart, blah, blah, blah. And I don't know if that will be a valid or fucking outrageous thing or not but i think it's here to stay and it will never be the same the world it's gonna be this guy i'm curious to see how it unfolds i don't know i don't feel like i know enough i i know i agree me neither but what this guy told me blaze he told he told me, Alejandro, in less than seven years, the world as you know it, it does not exist. The whole thing. Wow.

But I think it's always that way, no? A new technology comes. But not at the speed that we are living, because before there was one technology that changed maybe every 100 years. Now, you and I have lived in the radio, TV, cell phones, computer, artificial intelligence. Look, in our lifetime, we have changed the world three times. We have seen three times the world change.

And it's just going to keep speeding up. And our kids, your kid, six-year-old, he will, the world, I mean, the cell phones for him in seven years will be like that. You remember the bricks? Yeah, because it will be embedded in us. And those changes were much more, and the impact, and the democratic they are now. So according to this guy, this AI thing,

it's going to be something that will really change forever. The thing that maybe you and I will see. We see. Who were the filmmakers that you saw over the course of your life that gave you the permission to do this? I think that the great masters that has, in a way, great masters that has in a way show us that cinema it's too a road to explore yourself deeply and share it which i think is actually subscribed i mean it's in the essence of even the first cave men that put their hand full of blood and or paint and they leave their hands there as a

testament of her existence and try to project themselves in some way or in the painting is a tradition that you know the painters do an auto painter uh how you call it, self-portrait, or a memoir, or a journal, any self-reflection that invites you to not only observe exteriorly the world as I have done in all my films, but suddenly there's a moment that you need to go inside and allow yourself to do that. It needs a time and it needs a moment in life, which I found it at this moment. But the teachers, I think, that were the masters that has showed the way to do it,

I think was Alejandro Jodorowsky, for example, that he really goes deep in the unconsciousness, I think. I think it's Tarkovsky, I think it's another great director that everything that you see, it belongs to in an interior reflection of a soul, a point. There is nothing more than something clearly interior. And obviously Federico Fellini, it's another one that he was capable to laugh about himself and about all his interior demons and contradictions so just to name uh i will say

a few uh well i will say that another master of that is luis buñuel for example so luis buñuel for example is one of my favorite directors and i I think Luis Buñuel always was going through this very deep understanding of first, what a kind of an x-ray of yourself in order to project what you perceive and what you are building in reality. So that ability to do that, I think those are, I would say,

some of the masters that I think. Yeah, I remember when I first saw Bunuel in film school, I took a Bunuel class. So I saw all the Bunuel films and I remember feeling broken open. Like I feel like this is a new, this is a doorway to what's possible. And when I say that, it's not like

we can make things like what he made. He's giving us permission to go further than we have seen before. Exactly. I think that there has been many examples, you know, this Polish director has, what was it, has, has amazing films that are so profound psychologically, or a man with a camera, these Russian films that, you know, is just an exploration of what you are seeing and how it's impactful.

So what I'm saying, the history of cinema is full of this, you know, and I will say Truffaut, who in a way, Truffaut is playing with his own mind and exercising and exploring ideas in cinema, which, you know, is very intellectual, but at the same time is deep in their mind. I think Bergman too, in a different way, in a still way.

But absolutely, I think in persona, you persona, persona means in Latin, mascara, a mask. That's the word person, a person or persona is a mask. So suddenly to allow yourself to take out your mask, because we have this public figure you are a public for you have a public persona i have a public persona i'm a persona to everybody i have a mask but then we have this intimate private space that we built our life in and and suddenly to take out that that's what i attempt to explore in in in barago you know i to say, okay, whatever you think, this is what really is going inside. And it's a vulnerable place.

It's a fragile place. It's a scary one. And it takes time to really go and try to be the possible honest, the best way and honest way for you to do that. But I found it incredibly liberating and a privilege and a pleasure to really just go there and take out the mask how how is the alignment between your inner self and your outer self i think depending who i am i think I have some mechanisms that are triggered by different circumstances where I can immediately find myself repeating or playing things in a way that every time I have been closer to be conscious about things that I don't like,

that I do or I say, or, you know, that is not correct, it's not me as I should be or I would love to be. And that's what I think conscious, in a way, meditation give you. That's only you observe yourself. You are a little bit separated. But I think, yes, I think think I play I'm a different person sometimes if I am in a in a set for example when I'm directing a film I become so focused and so isolated that I need to the all the process of making something like that it demands you all your focus and your attention. And suddenly I'm a

little detached of the reality. So that person is not me now, which I'm completely, you know, fully, you know, here. Or in a public event where you have 2000 people, you know people listening or a social party. So yes, I think in a way we all have different persons. Based on the condition. I love this. I think it was Orson Welles that he said something very, very wise and funny that says, everything that has been said about me at some point is true. That's great.

In a way that, yeah, yeah, this guy is an asshole. Yes, that Tuesday at 6 a.m., I was maybe an asshole. Oh, this guy is so wonderful and generous. Yes, that Saturday I give a big tip to that guy and I was in a good mood. What I'm saying is the perception of our persona is so fractured and fragmented depending on which day and who experienced and where you were you that it's almost impossible to not have probably this kind of multi-fractured thing. Am I right?

No, absolutely. Absolutely. It's just the nature. I always made it a point when I would meet an artist, let's say an artist was on tour, and they were, I can remember the one not long ago where the artist was playing at Hollywood Bowl, and they asked me to come backstage after the show

to meet with them, and I refused. And I really want to meet with them. But imagine your state of mind after coming off stage with 20,000 people screaming, how grounded will the conversation be? How present can the person be? And I wanna see who they really are, not who they are right after 20,000 people,

because it's a completely unrealistic, it's an unrealistic situation to be in for anybody being in front of 20 000 people and 20 000 people listening to you and cheering for you it's funny that you mentioned that because one of my i'm a super fan of tom york right and i was And I was here in a concert in LA like three, four years ago. And I think it was Paul Thomas Anderson who invited me to go to the backstage to meet him. And obviously, I would love to meet Tom York, but exactly because the same reason you have just said, I rejected the idea. And my son was with me. My son is a musician. He said, dad, I said, I don't want to meet him in these circumstances because I know how he feels in a way. I'm not a rock concert, but I know that

when you have a public event, your mind is rambling. You're not yourself. You are not yourself. You're not yourself. It's funny. And then I regret, but then listening to you, I said, I felt it. I know that people is not in their minds. So that's why you said how aligned. In my case, it wasn't a rule. I just, the first time that it happens, like it was a feeling. Just this doesn't feel right. I know this person isn't going to be themselves.

And I want, and I really want to see who they are. And this is a chance to, this would undermine that. What kind of circumstances make you feel that you are not in that state? I mean, have you had this, I mean, in a concert or different artists or different environments make you feel that you are not regrouping as you would like to be or the one that you want to? And that give you kind of a different persona? I would say if I went out to dinner with more than four people,

I would not be comfortable. I feel like I couldn't be myself. I can remember going to a dinner with maybe 20 people with a friend that they were invited to and they invited me to come. And I remember sitting at the table and I ended up hurting my back at the dinner because I was trying to shrink myself to become invisible

because I was so uncomfortable with that many people. And his nervousness or what you feel. I don't know how to describe it. Yeah, it's just like you feel fragmented. Because I feel like when I'm with someone, when I'm talking to you, we're connected to each other and I feel like what you're saying and what I'm saying are directly related to the fact that we're here together.

Yeah. And when there's 20 people it's it you don't have that feeling you don't have that sense of connection and i i love that um and and i'll say also even in a one-on-one situation until there's a sense of some thread of common ground on anything it's really awkward for me just because i feel crazy you know i feel like i don't relate to how many people relate to the world i i completely understand i becoming that way too i think that these dinners no these these dinners of more than eight eight people for me is kind of the maximum and And now, as you said, four is perfect. I can handle four, six people, like two couples more.

My wife and I, two couples, that's more than enough. To enjoy it and to get something about it, to grow to whatever, to get like the sensation. Not to just waste time. Exactly. And you know, maybe it's the age, because now I need to understand that I don't need to spend time with people that I don't want to spend time with. Absolutely. Same here. And I think we're both 1963 people.

Yes. Which one? I'm in March. Which day? March 10th. So Friday. Wow. 60. Yeah. Wow. And what's interesting about it. How do you feel?

How do you feel? Fine. No thoughts? No like, oh, holy shit. I usually don't think about numbers. So when you say it, it's like, wow, that's interesting. But I don't think in those terms. I have never been hit by any decade.

I don't know if the 30s, 40s, 50s. This is the first time. And maybe because many things has been aligned with this in a funny way. I have just finished a movie, and it's a very personal movie, and the classic baby blues that when you finish something, there's a space that is left, and that space has to be filled. So I have been here many times, but anyway, there's a space, and I'm trying to understand again who I am

after a movie that I was so busy mentally and physically. And now it's this ordinary time. Okay, let me reorder. Let me find myself again who I am. It's very strange. It's happened to you? Absolutely. Absolutely.

I start producing my life. If I'm not creatively producing in the studio, I get home and start moving the furniture around. I'm very, uh, I need to keep myself occupied. So in a way you never have emptiness. I do because sometimes everything sort of finishes, but for the most part, I like the idea that there are many balls in the air because the fun for me, the fun part is like

solving the problem of it. Cracking the code of making something new is so exciting i love it and it could be with an artist it could be with my favorite artist it could be with an artist that i don't listen to but hearing what they want what they're hoping to accomplish and listening to it and listening to what's going on inside of myself and helping them find the best version of themselves. And it's really fun. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And I think that, well, talking about age that I was telling you about,

that is the first time for me is different because I have a kind of a process where differently from yours, so differently from yours, I suddenly find myself inside a project where I cannot leave. And I need to work 24 hours, days, and years in. Obsessively. Obsessively. Which sometimes can turn wrong or right. It can be either way, but not necessarily is a pleasant one. Understood. And now hearing you in a way. But I'm not saying it's right.

No, no. I'm saying it's right for me. Exactly. And I would say whatever it's right. No, no. I'm saying it's right for me. Exactly. And I would say whatever you're doing, do it. It's working. No, I think it's working. That's what I'm saying. It sometimes can be right or wrong.

A film can be better or not, or people can like it or not. The results, honestly, is something that you don't control. So I try to avoid thinking about it. Honestly. Same. I mean, I hate when people say, no, honestly. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And especially it doesn't matter because even if it matters, you cannot do nothing. Exactly. Accepting that you have no control gives you the confidence to make the thing you want to make. Exactly. want to make exactly so anyway i but the right or wrong is not about that is that i find myself obsessively with one thing to make it let's say perfect which doesn't exist and then when it finished there's a big boy you know as big as the project absolutely so that's where I am now. And so that's why the 60s with that.

And then my son, Eliseo, has just go to London. He's doing music, by the way. And now is the empty nest kind of moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm surprised you didn't do music instead of film. I envy you guys so much because it's like, yeah. I mean, musicians, I always said, you are flying and we are crawling in our fogging cameras. My big joy in life is to hear music.

Because, I mean, there's nothing more I can enjoy more in my life. It takes me away. I close my eyes and I'm in the music. I love it. The thing is that, as we said, it hits you and you don't have to intellectualize. And the body doesn't lie. So when the frequencies hit your ear and your body, you are there, it's presence and there's no lie, no intellectualization.

And it's just so... Again, it's because you don't think. And that's what I think is the reality. The unconscious is trigger and memories and all that is. And I think that the joy of music is, I think compared to the cinema, is nothing. But I feel that in your work. It feels like it's images, but it's music. You're not telling us too much.

You're not telling us what to think. You're inviting us to participate in this experience. That's how I feel it. And I think the way I approach films musically is very musical because I always, when I'm writing a film, I'm listening to the same album over and over again. So I need to understand how a film sounds and what is the kind of a genre. If it's like Amores Perros, my first one was like sticky fingers rolling.

It was like gritty and raw and rock and roll. Does the score end up being similar to the music or not necessarily? Not necessarily. It's just the texture of some particular album end up being kind of something that I need to understand. It goes with that. It goes with that. Whether that's the music used or not doesn't matter. It's not the music that I would use or even the score.

It's just I need to understand the skin, the texture of that musically and rhythmically. Because I think when we born, the first thing, the first thing we hear when we born is a beat, right? It's our heartbeat. It's the fucking drum beat. That's the first thing we come to life. Probably our mom's heartbeat first.

Exactly. Exactly. Then ours. So now you have a fucking drum beat now in synchronized or in harmony or not. And then the last thing we end up hearing in our bed, if we are lucky enough to die a peaceful death, is the last drum is when we go. And so our life is defined by a beat or a drum beat or a heartbeat and a rhythm.

And I think that has to do a lot with the way we conceive things. So I try always to understand what is that heartbeat or what is that drum beat that will define the rhythm of that. Because rhythm is God. I mean, without rhythm, there's nothing. There's no architecture. There's no universe. There's no nothing. architecture there's no universe there's no nothing so yes i tried that birdman was like a thing that i need to find and i invite uh uh uh uh you know uh uh my friend antonio to play the

drums and we he he he play it and i have all these tracks and even i play play watching the movie or no no he played first i i i asked him to say you know antonio antonio sanchez i said let's go to the studio so we went to a studio new york and i was kind of reading this thing and say okay this is a moment that script is done the script is done so and i kind of knew because again i have a good musical ideas and i have a good ear but i'm a terrible player. And so I knew exactly kind of the things that I wanted in terms of, let's say, beats or rhythm or, you know, speed. So I was describing him, you know, this is a scene that he will arrive and his daughter is there and they start discussing.

So it has to be gross. So he was like, OK, what about this? OK, syncopa. Or, you know, let's go a little bit more funky or a little bit more jazzy. So he was incredible. He's an incredible, incredible drummer. So we were doing tracks and I was just imagining how the actor will be and how the camera will be moving behind because it was continuous movement, continuous rhythm, and those tracks were incredible.

It was the bluff of the film movement and the sound. Did you listen to it on the set when you were filming? Sometimes, when I need it, I said to the actors, to Edward North or these guys, okay, look at this, this is going to be here. So it was helpful for them to understand the pace and for the camera. That's what I'm saying.

So that film was very musical. Had there ever been a film before with just a drum score? Not that I know. Not that I know. Maybe, yes. It's so radical. It's so radical. And it's loud.

But you know what you know i remember that the academy members of the the you know the oscars and the academy members they did not consider that was a score and i said guys so you are telling me that drums are minor than a guitar or a piano this is a fucking instrument and it has but it was funny that they considered that like, okay, it's drums, it's not a symphony or whatever. Well, in the old days of hip hop music, when I started doing hip hop music, the powers that be didn't acknowledge it as music. The hip hop.

Yeah. So they thought, oh, this is just beats. They don't even know what it is. It's like, why do people like it? It's not music. That was the conversation. But that was in the 70s. Now we are in the 2020s and it was the same kind of like, yeah.

Just the arrogance, the small-mindedness of thinking they knew what music was. And the same, I remember, you know, there's an anecdote of Gustavo Santolalla, which is my friend, and he did the music for the first four films of mine. And Gustavo doesn't read music. He's out of the didactic, but he's one of the best musicians because wherever he played the finger in a rock or in a guitar or whatever, he composed. He's just beautiful and spacey and musical, but he's not an academic. Yes, beautiful. And there was this kind of oomph that he played in Babel. And it was a couple of notes. And again, the guys struggled so much to accept his nomination because it was like, how? This guy is not a musician. There is no score.

There is no violins, there is no score, there is no violins, there is no orchestra. So it was like if it was a minor expression, when I said it's not about the amount of instruments and if a horn or a violin is superior to a drum. So I mean, you know what I mean? Again, this is exclusion or perceptions of... One of the things that you said earlier,

Gustavo's helping me on my project now. No. Yes. Whoa, that's fantastic. He's amazing, right? I mean, he's incredible. Amazing. But he told me, I will not say the name,

one of the most, you know, he said that he was so excited to arrive to this dinner of the Academy Awards. And he saw one of these very venerated musicians, old guy with all the awards and work, and he didn't even give the hand to him. He was like, oh, I love your work. And the guy didn't give the hand to him,

like saying, you are not a musician. And I said, wow, you know, that's- So sad. It's sad and funny. Sad for them, not for him, not for Gustavo. For Gustavo, that's... That's so sad. It's sad and funny. Sad for them, not for him. Not for Gustavo. For Gustavo, it's funny. Exactly.

But sad for the person who refuses to shake somebody's hand. Exactly. But I feel that, you know, every instrument, right, is so powerful. Again, like that discussion of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Nobel Prize of Korea about the dignity or the consciousness of a plant or a human. Why a human is bigger than a tiger? It's ridiculous.

Ridiculous. Absolutely. So you mentioned earlier that you made Birdman in 19 days. Now looking back, if you had all the money in the world and forever to shoot it would it be a better film no i think the restrictions that i had were so important because i mean i have to say that this script it start getting tighter and tighter because the need yeah and i start getting out all what it was not absolutely necessary. There is a moment that is dangerous. I remember that there was kind of a moment that even with a very restrictive budget and the film got to a place that it was what it is now,

but there was like $1 million that was out of budget. And I remember one executive of the studio told me, Alejandro, what about if you take out the flying scene, for example, so then you will save that. And I said, oh, fucking God, this is what it's about. So just for you to understand that if you don't know what the film is about, or if you're a director that you are vulnerable, or you don't understand rightly

what, where are the fights to be fight, that you have to fight, it can be destroyed. So the limits of what is necessarily is delicate because you can sometimes strip out something. As long as you know what it is. Exactly, but it was laughable for me to say to this person, you don't understand what the film.

So by saving the 1 million, that film will be destroyed, will not exist. But at the end, by saving one million that film will be destroyed will not exist so but at the end i have to recognize that um yes i i think restrictions creatively are very healthy i really learned a big lesson there because to have all the freedom and all the money normally i will say something in the rena all these Renaissance painters were there. They have patrons, which was unfortunately the church. That was they were just painting church things. I would have loved to see all these guys painting ordinary life at that time, but they didn't.

But the restrictions and the timing and the budgets were very constrained. They were kind of they were in a way employees with tight. Yeah. And they flew and they were restra constrained. They were kind of, they were in a way employees with tight. Back. Yeah. And they flew and they were restricted as hell with limits and things, not necessarily smart sometimes,

but that make them and they recognize them. They could not conceive to be free and with all the budget and it's about me. No, they were doing things for goth. Yes. They were not important.

Yes. And they were restricted and look what they did. Amazing. So I think every artist needs a little bit of that. And I guess that you as a producer, you do that with musicians, right? Absolutely. You have to restrict sometimes. Absolutely.

I believe less is more. You know, I like the least amount of information to get an idea across usually sounds the best and carries the most emotion. If you have one guitar, if you have Gustavo playing his guitar, that's got an emotion in what he plays, the simplest thing.

Exactly. If you have 20 people playing guitar together in unison, it's like a wall of sound. There's no per- it's the part- you may understand the part better from that, but you don't have the feeling of the connection to the music. You don't hear the fingers. You don't hear the personality of the player.

It's just the melody. I agree. It's personality of the player. It's just the melody. I agree. It's one of the things we do in the recording studio. It's not uncommon in a chorus to double the lead vocal. And what happens when you double the lead vocal, it reinforces the melody. And it sometimes can make the words seem less important. It's like a, it's a balance.

I agree, I agree with you. And what you are saying is funny because I seen so many great musicians that start with the first or second album and are really in this space where it's about their voices, the lyrics, the needed thing. And then they start being produced, wrongly produced and overproduced.

And that's the tragedy. I mean, how many, no, I mean, I've seen so many people overproduced that it's only, it's about everything but about, and that happens a lot. Absolutely. And now technology has changed where when I first started, there was 24-track recording,

so you couldn't have more than 24 tracks of music unless you had two big machines, which not a lot of people had, and then you were limited to 48. And in one of the studios I worked at, we only had 16 tracks, and some studios, we would take the 16-track machine and put an eight-track head on it because you only had eight, but they sounded would take the 16 track machine and put an eight track head on it because you

only had eight but they sounded better than the 16 because it's like uh going up in resolution in your film you know you have more exactly you're using a bigger footprint of the information um I remember I would sometimes print the same track when I had 24 tracks on my first recordings I might put this the kick drum on six of the 24 tracks even though it's just the same kick drum but sometimes when you mix them together you could get it to sound more powerful but it was always just like trial and error try to find what makes it sound louder what makes it sound more, what makes it sound more original, what makes it sound crazier.

And what is scary now for me too in the music that I hear a lot is that everybody's sounding the same. Don't you think? Because they use the same software. And it's, so now, to finish the point about how many tracks you have now, with Pro Tools, you have infinite tracks. So there's no reason to think in terms of conserving,

because it's free. I could just do another one. I could just do another. I could just add more. I could add more. And then you start having hundreds of tracks. And fixing it and editing, and then it lost the whole thing. Yeah, all the humanity goes out of it.

In the film industry, for example, in ourself, I used to edit still in tracks, and to edit was a very difficult thing. Now, obviously, with the technology and the Avid, again, give you 1,000 possibilities in one second. Or color correction, for example.

I will put you the classics. You arrive to do the color correction of a scene and you can really, the contrast, the highlights, the bluest, the pale, the tint. And you can easily fuck it up, the whole thing. Because I mean, by doing it, if you spend too much time, then you get lost and the spend too much time then then you get lost and the i get lost and then you don't know anywhere where you are and then you arrive

the next day and said am i an idiot what i was i mean it's so easy to get into a truck i mean what i'm saying is having all the freedom and all the choices i think is the most difficult thing much more difficult than to have the restrictions. I will say this. I always said this to the young filmmakers. I said, you have to have a principle, not rules. I hate rules because rules seems like restrictions. But for example, the principle of Birdman was very clear. It was one take and the restrictions were very clear.

So there was no way to get out of those principles. I cannot. And that principle saved my ass because then I had to solve things in this principle. And it's fun. It's like the rules of the game. If there is no rule, then there's no game. So that principle of a game,

and I see now a lot of, I will say, albums or films that without that, not a lot of budget or not a lot of- They don't have a point of view. It's just like a smorgasbord. That's the thing. And what I see in the music is like what you were saying about the voices,

like there's great singers, but they just sound the same. I remember at the time of the d7 you remember the yamaha d7 or all the things that were in the in the but now every singer sound like i said can they feel that they they they sound exactly the same as the other person that some of them want to some of them think oh that's what works that's what some of them really like oh yeah this is this is the sometimes sometimes like this is the sound this is the sound now and i've always been i always feel like that's the sound now that's the last thing i want exactly exactly that can you imagine that all these young guys will be trying to find their own sound it will be amazing and that's what i found sometimes when i feel or hear some fearless musicians.

In the London scene, for example, there's these jazz guys that are trying a lot of things. There are these cats that are like saying, wow, these guys are sounding now with kind of a mix of the old jazz with maybe old microphones, but with a little synth that is now super cool. You know, that's where suddenly I found incredible combinations, but it's hard to find. What are they called? The Comets? Is that the name of the group? No, no, no. Is that the one?

No, no, no. I can't remember the name. There's a jazz group now that's like, it's more like a collective. I can't remember their name, but there's the collective and then there's all the offshoots, but they're like the happening jazz guys in London now. It's supposed to be incredible.

I think there's a freedom, but they don't care about the Grammys and all that thing, you know what I mean? I think that's the triad now about how many likes you have or how many followers and all that shit. But I think there's a lot of things happening, I have to say. and all that shit, but I think there's a lot of things happening, I have to say. How surprised are you in the success you've had? I will say that the first thing that I felt when I did Amores Perros was super surprising because I never expected that film

would be as successful as it was. It was a dogfight film with a crash and it was very in Spanish and no stars. And actually it was a film that was rejected in the Cannes Film Festival competition. And they said it's too long. It was three hours long and it's too violent and nobody wants to see it.

And then we end up in this kind of other, smaller kind of venue in Cannes. And we won. That was the best. Again, the best thing that could happen was that we were not accepted in the official competition. And then in the Semana de la Critic, which is not even an official kind of section, we were accepted. We won. And then from there, we start kind of really really having a lot of

success in every festival we won the awards like we won like 160 awards in the world i mean it was kind of a crazy and honestly and i tell you this seriously i not only did not expect it but actually when i was receiving praise or i felt that journalists wants to interview me and all that, I have kind of a section in the New York Times magazine inside that was like a big deal. of the directors, because at that time, again, there was not many films being produced as now, I thought, you know, everybody will have a share of a little fame and I'm just going into a normal tour. Yeah, your 15 minutes. Yeah, exactly. Which I said, I think will be kind of normal that you'll get interviewed by this magazine

or that you get a good review. I said, well, for me, it was kind of a normal, normal not normal but i didn't expect that it can go absolutely wrong and it could be completely different yeah and it could have and the next one could have it could have every time can be bad and i have had bad experience but in a way i was naively taken by surprise and i'm glad and i my father and you will see this scene in uh in in bardo my father had a very very particular relation with success uh because he never had success and at the same time his theory which was very well intentioned not i don't know the execution, but when my father saw somebody doing something right or good or excellent, he never praised you, never. And the reason was that he said that when

you praise somebody, you will hurt him and you will in a way help him to believe or be self-conscious and then he will start not doing that. and you will damage so for example i have a niece uh the nephew that was incredible in football he was like eight years old he was a fucking rock star and my father loved football he never said to him something nice and why and then he told me this story so my father never praised me about nothing ever he was very kind and nice but he was never he deliberately do that yeah and he thought he was protecting you protecting me and at the same time in the catholic thing to be successful and especially in hollywood is an open door to lose your soul And it's almost like a pride scene. So people that are successful can lose

their own minds. First of all, you can lose success. So it's a possible way to lose something. Or you can lose your soul because then you will have a lot of pride and then you will be tempted by a lot of things that are wrong. So in my upbringing and my conception, are wrong. So in my upbringing and my conception, have success was very contradictory because it was something that you want to have, you wish, you would like to be appreciated, you would like to be successful like every normal human being. But once you have it, you have to feel fear to lose it, fear to be tempted, fear to all those restrictions and guilt. So I navigate that. And my father had a line that always repeated, that is in Bardo that says,

remember that to success, he said it in Spanish, so I will do my best translation. Remember to success, give it a sip, you know, taste it, give it a sip, do the gargle and then spit it. Because if not, it will poison you. So my father always, I mean, he was obsessed with it.

And my father said that the worst thing that he sees in human beings is when they were successful. There was a football player that was very successful that went to Spain and he won like five, blah, blah. And he always spoke in third person of himself. And my father said, when somebody starts speaking in third person, they lose their mind. You never want to be that. Anyway, so in a way, my father, despite so much success, that he impregnated me always a fear and a doubt. I always was, I will say, conscious of never believe it. So if you ask me, I will say the first success that I have

took me by surprise because ignorance and naiveness or innocence. And then as I have been sometimes more successful, I always remember that. I try to really put my feet on the ground and I have never believed it. I have imposter syndrome, let me put it that way. Yes, it is. I believe it. Have you had the imposter syndrome?

I don't know if I've had imposter syndrome, but I'm always surprised when anything's successful. I don't expect it ever. I never expect it because I know that's not in my control. There's so many things have to go right for something to be successful that all happen after I say, okay, let's put it into the world. And then you have a surprise. Yeah, then whatever happens, happens.

And usually I'm making something else by that time anyway, and I don't even look back. And let me ask you and be honest with this. When there's a disappointing result of something that you love so much, and you put a lot of energy or life or whatever that you love, and there's a disappointing, or the reviews, I don't know in the music how the reviews are, if they are really cruel or they are tough,

or have you been exposed to bad reviews or critics and absolutely and now i wrote this book it's the first time i wrote a book and i worked on it for eight years and it's the first thing i've ever put out with my name on the front because usually my name is on the back the artist name is on the front so it's more personal than usual you're exposing now absolutely and uh and i'll say it's more personal even though i don't talk about myself at all in the book it's personal in that it's uh how i see the world it's my it's very much my perspective and um and i read many reviews some very good many very good and some bad and when i read the bad ones i just laugh because so it's clear the book's not for them do you know what i'm saying it's like i don't think everything

is for everybody so there's one person who's saying you know i'll read this book every day for the rest of my life and someone else will say this is nonsense like this is i want my money back and and i love that and one of the things i say in the book is that the best art divides the audience it's like if everyone likes it yeah you didn't go far enough if you really are walking the tightrope there's going to be a bunch of people who love it and a bunch of people who hate it or don't get it otherwise it's conventional probably or or um middle of the road and and and did you did you read the good and the bad reviews you yeah you get it all yeah and and and but in the albums for example has been an album that you put your soul with an artist

and suddenly it was not as you expect the result and you feel sadness? I don't think so. No? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's more just this like, wow, that's how they heard it. That's interesting.

And then the next, that's it. Yeah, I'm always on to the next. I think that's a and then the next that's it yeah i'm i'm always on to the next i i i think that's a wise thing i think i i learn i think especially in funny enough in this film that you will see bardo i i open myself and and that that's the first film that i have done with uh i always said that i have done the other films with my eyes open. And this one I did it with my eyes closed. So I look inside and I took out what I saw and what I felt that was, again,

is not at all biographical because who cares about my life? Even I don't care why the people, but there is like very particular things that I have felt, that I have reflected, that I remember that in a way went through my life, that has been emotional events that I fictionalize, but in a way it's a trace of things

that in a way are very close to me and the way i see the world the way i feel the world the way i experience the way there's a navigation of themes like life or death or fear or doubt or parenthood or adolescence or or or dementia or or lost somebody or art and love. So there is no stories. It's just a walk in the consciousness, a walk in the dream of somebody in a very particular state of mind that you will see. So the first reaction of people sometimes was like,

where is the story? Where is the beef? I mean, there was not rational to grab from, you know, like if you are looking for a plot point or first act, second act, there was nothing of that. I was just exploring trying to be some cinematic sound and sight experience to fly with the consciousness of that and feel it and it was funny because when people was looking right to to have a rational experience and there's another book that i love that is called the master and his emissary i don't know if you have read that book it's an an amazing book about scientific study about that life is perceived completely different. You can understand who are your best friends or the wars of the world of countries, collective kind of reactions, depending in the right hemisphere of the brain or the left hemisphere of the brain and we conceive the world and depending in which one you are kind of uh more

towards you construct the life absolutely absolutely different that the same thing is absolutely different so i could see the reaction of people that were very left brain side rational trying to say what the fuck is this this doesn doesn't make sense. This is stupid. This is pretentious. This is narcissistic. And the other people that I always invited, it was funny. In the moment that I learned that, that I felt, okay, I understand. There's people that are approaching this very rationally, and they are demanding a reason of every thing,

they will be irritated, and they will they will be obviously fighting with the film. So I invite in some of the screenings that I went for people to turn off the rational co-pilot and just allow themselves to feel and experience and fly. So I said that. You said it before the film started. Yes. And I said, please, just I invite you, don't think about it. There's nothing to think. There's a lot to feel and a lot to laugh. And turn off your copilot. Do not demand reason to a dream.

Because it's a dream. So if you demand reason to a dream, that dream will be fucked. So just dream with the dream. Fly. that dream will be fucked. So just dream with the dream, fly. You can't imagine how many people after those screenings thanked me because I gave them a cue and a clue for them to understand. It was just a little guidance, and it was so important.

They said, if you should not tell me that, I probably will be fighting with the first 20 minutes. Then their people survive it or not, but it was a difficult kind of thing. Yes. And it was amazing that that little warning thing was enough for them to allow themselves to liberate from the rational mind demanding thing.

And then the people love it and they were floating and they were connecting. Okay, the next question i have based on that is is there a way to visually make that invitation in the beginning of the film i'm i don't mean you out there talking i don't mean uh how would what would we see that would give the audience that understanding without you having to say it? I thought that I had done it, but I'm now sure that I did not accomplish what I wanted. And it didn't work.

Because, of course, many people really struggle with that rationalizing of the film and trying to understand it but the film if if the film start with a shadow being projected in the desert and and you see this shadow it's it's like if you are standing in the desert with the sun behind you and your long shadow is projected and these shadows start running and then the shadows start flying. So it's a radical point of view from the head and the eyes of somebody that you have not seen actually is you. is you become this shadow flying, struggling to go and then landed and then walking and then running and then take off again and then again cannot and is trying to fly, trying to get out of the gravitational kind of thing that he can.

And finally, the shadow is just above, and then suddenly there's a till-up, and then you see the huge horizon, and then there's this long corridor with the sun, and there's this... So it's very oneric and very... The point of view is radical. You have never seen a film start like that.

I think it's one of... This is my favorite opening scene of my films by far, but what I'm telling to the audience is let yourself being in this character, mine or in your own dreams. And how many times I don't know if you dream that you fly, but I I dream a lot that I fly and I fly that way very low to the ground. Yeah, I don't I don't have flying. No, that's funny because, you know, I have seen like, yeah, like

many people, many people do. flying dreams that's funny because a lot you know i have seen like yeah like 50 of the people many people do so i'm inviting the people with this image to let themselves be that person i mean it's the shadow projected of whoever wants to take that position and say okay go and leave that but obviously it was not enough it's interesting though isn't it it's like we can never know we can never know what what what someone understands or what they don't it? It's like we can never know. We can never know what someone understands or what they don't, and whether it's important for them to understand it or not. All those things.

I saw that scene, because I watched the first 20 minutes, as I said, and I thought it was beautiful, but I didn't necessarily understand the metaphor. Exactly. And more than a metaphor, it's just like, obviously, kind of a weird kind of state, but it's not necessarily...

It did feel dreamlike. It felt like I didn't understand what was happening. It forced me to pay attention because when you don't know what's happening, I get more alert. when you don't when you don't know what's happening you get i get more alert you know when when something's all laid out before you something i say aloud like i don't feel the need to hold the audience's hand and walk them through you know like if they get it they get it if they don't that's fine it doesn't i don't think it really you i think you will enjoy it if you now that you know how to navigate that because the film is not... I'll enjoy it anyway because I felt like from the first time that I saw Birdman, I had that feeling of,

in some ways, the invitation in that one is levitation. Exactly. It's clearly mind game because he's levitating, Michael Keaton is levitating, and then the camera, if you remember, I start pushing in the camera. And then I arrive to his back. You know, you see him full. And I arrive to him.

Then the computer sound, he turns. And then he stands up. And now he's in his weenies, you know, naked. And the trick was that you never know if he was floating or not because then when he stand up yeah it's clearly that he was just meditating in his fucking you know with his ass in the floor but he thinks that he's floating so i make you i start the game at that moment to say this is how he feels but reality is not but it's It's very subtle, so I never really do it very obvious. It's always subtle, and I play with you.

As much as I love the movie, I didn't know that. My takeaway was, wow, I wonder what reality is like in this movie. That was my feeling. Exactly. I actually more went along. I didn't fight it i went along with it's like oh this is a movie where he can he has special powers that's cool yeah no i i i i agree with you but i think that's the important thing because i think it's always very surprising what

people taste what not sometimes you fail i have failed many times to connect or try to make a point and you don't do it and try to connect in some way. But I think, again, as we were talking, it's not in our hands and everybody has their own, depending on where you live, your cultural background. What do you have breakfast that morning? And there's people that, in a way, are very obsessed to get what they know already and what they expect i always when i see a film a new film i always want to see what film that filmmaker wanted to do not the one that i wanted to see yeah you know i think that's very important that you suddenly say i want to see what is that film that he wanted to do and and i and i try always to celebrate

that kind of thing but then if my mind and i find myself now against the film and that obviously i know that it has to do much more with me than with that guy because or that woman or that whatever because obviously they want to make that and connect that. Now, if I get it or not, it's not their fault. It's my own limitations or my own habits. And I don't even think it matters. Exactly. Because it's like if you read a poem, you might not have the same interpretation

that the poet had when they wrote it. You either like it or you don't. And you bring all of yourself, the listener, the reader, brings all of themselves to it. And I love that conversation between the maker and the audience where you're inviting, I feel like you're inviting the audience to participate in this movie. That's the feeling I got.

I got the feelings like I don't know what you're thinking, but I know this is not regular. The situation's not regular. I'm not sure what it means, but I'm excited that it's not regular because I'm excited for an exciting journey. You know, like this is gonna be an interesting, where's this going to go?

Now what's going to happen? Exactly. And it's, yeah. And I think that, you know, I try now very, very consciously because of that, because I cannot control the results. I now deliberately try that what I'm writing, what I'm doing, what I'm writing what I'm doing what I'm shooting

I love it I make sure that I love it because I know that I'm not a martian I know that if I love it there's going to be a lot of people like me with my sensitivity my whatever principles experience or whatever is that that they will respond to that because i always said to the young guys that now with the social media and all that they are terrifying to be accepted to be to be liked and how many followers and all that which i and you never born with that and the new generations it's a very terrifying paralyzing possibility to to say, you have to be liked, you have to be blah, blah, blah. And they make decisions based on that, which is insane. And that's what I now radically, I said, you know, I would like yours to,

I always said that you cannot write a film thinking in an audience. I cannot find my audience because the audience is an abstract thought. I don't know what is audience. When we said the masses, it's an abstract thought. The masses for me is a different concept than for you. And I don't know these people. But if I like it, the audiences will find the movie.

Well, you know at least one person likes it. And if you're making it with someone else in mind, it's possible nobody likes it. I completely agree with you. And I know that this film and all the films has found the tribe. I said, I have my tribe. I belong to a tribe.

And now you and I are connected. I have the privilege and honor to be with you here because I found that you are part of my tribe. I never thought about you, but you find the film. A million percent, I am in the tribe. And I'm ecstatic. And I'm so happy the tribe exists because I don't feel that connected so many things.

So it's really, it means a great deal to me. I have a bad news for you. We are a tribe in extinction. It's okay. It's okay. deal to me. I have a bad news for you. We are a tribe in extinction. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Do you know what, though? The things that we make are going to inspire someone to make something amazing.

Yes. Can't help. Can't help it. I agree. And honestly, I couldn't be more happy. I don't know what happened to you, but maybe the albums that probably has been maybe the less successful commercially are the ones that you feel more proud about.

You know, and this for me, because the tribe get a little bit even more radical and more exquisite. Yeah. No, when someone comes up and talks to me about something I worked on that other people don't come and talk about, it's always like, really?

That's the one that's supposed to and talk about. It's always like, really, that's the one that that's. As it's always interesting like that. That's a great feeling to find the tribe like like that is fantastic. But I have to say another thing to that. You know what I did this time for? You know, I have been doing it, but this time I did it radically. And I so glad that I did. I did not read any review, not the good ones, not the bad ones.

And let me tell you, it was the most amazing, you know, I was not intoxicated. Exactly. My heart was not- You made the thing you love, and you freed it out into the world, and now it's gonna go do its work. Suddenly-

Beautiful. Suddenly I felt that if I will be jumping into it, really the good ones are the bad ones. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. First of all, it will not change the outcome of the film. The film will not be better or bad or worse. No. And my heart, I will put my heart in the hands of people.

And I said, no, my heart belongs to me and I cannot be. And in that moment, I was so liberated and not intoxicated. It's beautiful. I have to say that without that, I think I will be fucked. You know what I mean? Because it's what the kids now

with all the critics in the Instagram, which I don't have. It's exactly. I said to the kids, if I will have an Instagram with 1 million followers and I read what you read, I will kill myself. But for me, it's inconceivable. Sometimes I cannot understand it even.

But I'm wrong probably. But it's just for me something that is creating a lot of anxiety in people. Because I will be anxiety about to be judged every day when I wake up to see what people think about me. But you always have the opportunity to turn it off. To turn off. You don't have to decide to be the most popular kid in school. It's okay. I completely agree.

The thing is that then sometimes when I have had young people to say I did it, but then I couldn't keep doing it because the way my generation communicates and exists is this. And if not, you do not exist. So now it's becoming a very radical thing because even access to everything, to information, to your bank accounts, I mean, like suddenly get out of that is actually.

I had a conversation with a basketball player, one of the Golden State Warriors, serious basketball player, serious team. And he was saying he's so frustrated that the owners of the team are so insistent that the players spend all their time on social media and that they're always followed by cameras. And he said, it really gets in the way of the game

it's like with i did this because i love basketball and now all of this other stuff even from the people who want us to play basketball the powers that be in basketball want to commodify the long tail of everything else around it. And he's saying, I can't focus. I can't focus on the game. It's all distraction. Wow. It's interesting.

Super interesting. You remember this documentary of Gianluca Goddard about the Rolling Stone Sympathy for the Devil? You remember that documentary. One of the things that was very funny for me to find. Once I have the opportunity to met with Mick Jagger in a party. And I have just seen that. This was like 10 years ago. And I have just seen the Godard where where it was amazing for the people that

hasn't seen it you know it was incredible again the the the sensitivity of godard to record the process of that song being made in the studio when who will know that that song will become and a mythical song like basically one of the most important songs in the rock and roll history, why he choose that one and not another one anyway. And obviously he's recording the whole process and the song, how different the song start being, right? It started immediately. There was no like, no, it was a start all full instruments.

It was much more noisy. It was another song. And the camera of Goddard and the presence of Goddard, who was a rock star at that time, obviously started affecting the whole behavior of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. And they start kind of getting along not very well and all the comments. And they were kind of showing off who was the smartest guy in the room.

And funny enough, it's clearly how the camera was affecting their behavior, personalities, and actually the participation in the authorship and the ideas of the song, which funny enough, ended up being very good, by the way. I mean, they start stripping out a lot of things, which was very interesting,

the chemistry about it. And then at the end, the most funny thing for me was when they were now, the process has been finished and they will record the song the next day and Godard said, I'm done. I'm not going to shoot the recording of the actually real song.

He saw the process. And then that's it. And he didn't want to show the process. So I have just seen that documentary and I went to a party the next day and I suddenly find out Mick Jagger and I'm a big fan of him. I said, oh, it's a pleasure to meet you, great honor. And we spent like 30 minutes talking about it. And I told him, you know, I have just seen this documentary.

It was amazing for me to see that this guy didn't record, didn't document the recording. And he told me an anecdote that I found it amazing. Because he said that when Godard said that, all the other members were kind of, we need a camera. Like what you were saying, you know, like suddenly when you are being observed and being judged, it can go either way. Either way. You can become a great, a better person conscious of your actions and suddenly you become aware in a good, positive way. Or you can become a fucking, you know, selfish, self-conscious, pretentious or whatever.

It can go either way. So suddenly they felt that they need that. It was almost like, wait a minute, where is my social media? And it becomes a kind of a crisis. And so some of them want it, some of them not. They start kind of fighting. And then the producer of the documentary was said to Gianluca, Gianluca, what do you mean that you will not come tomorrow?

Tomorrow is the ending of the whole thing. We have been here for two weeks or whatever. No, I just want the process. What minute and they start fighting and he mick jagger told me that suddenly he said are you fucking crazy i'm paying this fucking thing you will document the whole thing no i don't want to i i know what i know and they start fighting feast fighting fighting, fist fighting in the studio. And they were rolling bloody nose and Godard hitting the producer. The producer said, you're an asshole. I will cancel that. And the Rolling Stones just seeing these two guys fighting

and Godard defending his concept that he knew very well that that was it. That's it. That's enough. And the other guy thinking in the money saying, no, you have to fucking have the result. And he didn't. They fight. They blow up and everything.

And that's the end of the story, which I found was fascinating. Absolutely. Especially the thing that I didn't know, that some of the guys wanted the fucking camera to keep with that kind of stamina and adrenaline. And then fucking Godard putting the limits of his principles which was the principle is the process not the end result i don't care about the result which is fascinating absolutely right i feel sometimes when i have done i always laugh when i go to a tv show or something one one of those programs that are like a tv i always laugh that the the host uh

and sometimes they are really nice people and very normal, and they arrive and say, how are you, Alejandro? I love this, and how are you doing, and how is your wife? Whatever kind of personal thing, and they're very kind of nice and quite normal. And suddenly, okay, camera's rolling, and then when the camera's rolling, hello, friends, we are here. This is Friday morning, and we have Alejandro González. And suddenly he become another person, loud and completely artificial.

And then he brought me to this thing that I have to suddenly start dealing with somebody that I was so nicely. That happened in a second. It's a transformation with the camera rolling action at good you goodbye yeah i think that's something though that um professional actors can overcome i mean again seeing thomas hardy and seeing leo in revenant it doesn't look like they're concerned about the cameras no no it's it's it's something that i don't know how the actors do it or the actresses you know like people like uh kate Blanchett or Sean Penn. I remember in 21 Grams that you mentioned he was doing a guy that is dying from lung cancer and, you know, and he's barely walking with fucking oxygen in the thing.

And he, you know, you put the camera. I remember that Rodrigo Prieto, my my DP and I the first scene that was my first American movie the first scene that I shot was Sean walking in his apartment you know struggling with some little kind of thing with his oxygen and barely can walk and breathing with a little and okay camera roll and I was so excited to see in the screen to Sean I said I'm shooting fucking Sean Payne and he was okay action and he was just excited to see in the screen to sean i said i'm shooting fucking sean payne and he was okay action and he was just walking and doing it perfect because i mean it was like like fucking wow like if you said to uh miles davis you know okay rolling and miles i mean it was like just to hear one of those you say it's it cannot be better how How incredible is that? So it's that sensation. I said, oh my God, look at that.

And suddenly, okay, cut. And I'm telling you that scene or one that he was just crying or shouting, whatever, and then cut. And in some moment, the guy just, you know, straight up, started smiling, making a joke, having a fucking smoke, telling me some anecdote of her blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Okay. Ready? Ready.

Okay. Rolling. Take action. And suddenly, plunk, that fruit full of life and, you know, soul and soulful and the eyes. And suddenly the eyes were death. Wow. I mean, it was like a magic. It's unbelievable.

Unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I cannot understand how was like a magic. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I cannot understand how they can do that. I love that you fought for it. That's great. You had to. No, no. Because you understood.

I mean, it's always the notes normally. And I would use. I mean, when somebody gives me a good note, a good idea, I'm thirsty for that. Absolutely. I love that. Absolutely. I love that. Absolutely. I cannot celebrate more.

It's just when somebody doesn't understand, then that's the problem. Well, my friend, it has been a pleasure, Cameron. Beautiful conversation. I love sharing the space with you and seeing where it goes. Well, thank you very much, Cameron. It has been a pleasure to meet you.