Mo Scarpelli: "It’s a film which is the truest reflection of my way of seeing things, than anything I have ever made"
visions du reelCLAPPER: What was your starting point in creating this film? Was there a specific idea that you wanted to jump off of?
MO SCARPELLI: When Jorge Thielen Armand decided to go back to Venezuela to make his film LA FORTALEZA, I asked if I could come along. (Jorge and I are partners; that’s not explicitly clear in the film.) I wanted to meet his family, to get to know a place I had secretly been dreaming about going to since I was a kid, to learn Spanish, to see how he ran a narrative film set (I had never been on one; my docs have had fictional elements but never film “sets”). Jorge asked, since I was coming anyway, if I wanted to shoot a “making of” of his film production, as it had many precarious elements: securing uncontrolled locations in illegal gold mines; working in Venezuela when the country was experiencing a complete economic collapse; filming with his enigmatic and unpredictable father. I loved Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, so said, sure, maybe I can make something in that spirit, a making-of about man versus jungle. But when we got to Venezuela, I found I was completely bored by the external dramas of making a fiction film, and also that the jungle was made quite tame by a film set. All the focus for the people became the lights, the schedule — a job. I thought “Shit, I signed up to make this thing for six months… and now I don’t really care about any of this.”
Then I met Father. He didn’t care about that stuff either. But he did have a lot of pent up emotion to share with his son, and in a different way, with me, too. Father started training to be the lead actor. I watched as him learn to channel his real emotions into scenes his son had written, I saw and felt a deep unrest inside him which he seemed ready to explore, to put out there for the sake of his son’s film — only then did I see the film I actually wanted to make. One focused on a father/son relationship which has been flipped on its head by the cinematic process, and how far they would take one another in that, and what that would might reveal to me about the human being as well as the use — and limits — of cinema to forge/reforge a relationship.
What was your general approach to filming this movie? Did you record all the time or were there specific moments when you decided to begin filming?
I recorded all the time. Every film I make is different but there’s always one constant - the good stuff happens when you put the camera down. So I didn’t, really, until I had what felt like the film. Of course, there were entire days when I didn’t film anything; but I had to be ready to, and when you’re literally sleeping with the director, and you’re making a film about small notions meaning so much when we really study them … well, it meant that I never stopped listening, waiting, being attuned to Jorge and Father’s voices and their looks, and guessing what is going on in their head and what could happen next. It was a deep dive, exhausting one, but that’s what filmmaking is to me, in the way I do it. I want small things to become big things, so I have to really watch for them.
When did you decide in your life that human cinema was what you wanted to do?
My first film was an awful process, to be honest. I didn’t like making it - partly because I was so unclear about what I wanted to do, how to do it, etc., and also it was co-direction wherein I never really felt the process was organically unfolding for me. The film went to something like 80 festivals and won a bunch of awards. I thought, “Well, that was interesting and probably something I should be proud of but it was horrible, I don’t want to do that again.”
Then I kept on, partly because I felt I wanted to prove to myself I could enjoy this thing, and I had a camera; and because I got curious about something no one else cared about —this empty condominium in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of all things — and in a vacuum, that’s kind of where I can most be myself, in my work (when I’m left alone, the weirdo in the corner just watching things and studying things and seeking meaning it all without explanation). There at that condo in Addis, I met this 10 year-year-old kid. He’s an old soul; I don’t really even like kids, so I wasn’t looking to make a film about one, but this kid was very emotionally turbulent, and I was drawn to him strongly.
We made some rules. I would watch him; he’d try to not look at the camera; I’d indicate my interest by watching him more, which validating some of the things he wanted to do that no one else really cared about — like search for hyenas in the forest near his house, or make helicopters out of trash he found in the condo, or transform into a lion with a yellow mane made out of a flour sac. We didn’t talk; I just watched. And I found myself in him, and he found trust in me, and we formed this special thing. I started to see someone deeper than I usually can in a normal daily life, even people I love and think I know so well.
The edit of the film (called ANBESSA) took this further, the story becoming more subjective in order to be more “true” (honest). I found there exactly what kind of films I want to always make. In my first film I think I was concerned with some even-keel representation of a person — “here’s the good, here’s the bad, aren’t they human?” — a character who is a kind of trailer of a human being. I now am a bit embarrassed by the simplicity of that practice. The thing about human beings worth filming/watching is instead what kind of vast contradictions they inhabit out loud, and to themselves. I prefer to just dive into that, wherever it takes you. Most people aren’t good or bad, they’re complicated, and so my narratives (in ANBESSA and EL FATHER PLAYS HIMSEF) are about exploring whatever that means, and allowing whatever that means to bubble up as honestly as I can, in the narrative. . So that you watch a person with many layers - even if for a short time, the film could be one day of their lives - but the film allows you to scratch into something unknowable from the start. Sorry, this is quite long - but I suppose where I knew I wanted to make human cinema was where I realized I am most alive, I am most in tune with the world when I’m staring at a human, watching the internal hollowness or inferno be revealed in small notions for them, and then I make a movie out of that so as to stay in that inferno.
Who would you say are some inspirations you have for making the types of filmes that you craft?
Poetry, always poetry. Tiny things become vast in poetry, it’s the purest way of seeing (far purer than cinema). Also, books, novels - for EL FATHER PLAY HIMSELF, I was greatly influenced and inspired by Romélo Gallegos’ Canaima, an incredibly dense and poetic book about a man who goes to the very jungle we did in Venezuela, and succumbs to it. Father is very much like that character.
Film-wise, I have many inspirations, it depends on the film I’m making and what kinds of forms I’m trying to explore. Lately, I have been inspired more by Jean Rouch as I’m looking at my next project being more fictional but revealing the filmmaking within itself, as he did so brilliantly. Miguel Gomez is giving me ideas, too. Otherwise, in a general way, I’m greatly inspired by the tender intimacy of Roberto Minervini, the patience of Abbas Kiarastami, and the intrepidness of Carlos Reygadas.
In your director’s statement, you say that El Father Plays Himself is meant to be fear and love colliding. What caused you to decide to create a film based on that idea?
It’s what these men had - fear of loving, fear of not loving enough, and just pure love, for one another. And their endeavour to make a movie together brought these things to the fore.
In the movie, there are a lot of sudden cuts to different scenes. How do you decide with the editor when those transitions should be and what made you decide to have your film edited like that?
A film starts to talk to you in the edit. Juan Soto, my editor, is very intuitive. So, we started by just watching footage together, kind of editing in our heads. It was obvious which scenes were saying what — then we figure out the how and the why in a rough cut. Then the rough cut turns into a thing that tells you each time you watch it through how you fucked it up; where you need to get out of the way of the material, where you need to give it more, less, etc.
Where would you say El Father Plays Himself stands amongst your filmography?
It’s a film which is the truest reflection of my way of seeing things, than anything I have ever made. It’s a film without my face (except one small shot in the mirror) but has more of me than anything I have done so far. It’s the most honest film I have made. Is that what you meant? Haha.
What do you want your audience to take home with them after they see your film?
Whatever they will, the film should speak for itself.
The film does, I believe, but I do think the internet makes cinema difficult to engage with, especially patient cinema, so I would only say “keep watching, turn everything else off, stay the course… and then let it be whatever you think it was/is, to you.” You don’t have to say that to someone sitting in a theatre, but here we are online with this virus keeping us out of those theatres for now.
They say to never work with family, and here you are exploring deeply personal relationships from your life, was it difficult to put such openness in the world?
Ooof, no one in Latin America says that! Haha. It feels like every film there is made about or with family.
It was difficult, yes. But Father and son were willing to “go there…” so I had to, too, no? They wanted to push each other, and I have brothers; I’m not unused to being around men who kind of shove on another in order to feel closer to one another… in this case, there was a complete emotional stripping happening between them because this moviemaking was bringing all the raw things out. I opened my film with a quote from Gallegos, the author I mention above, which says (English translation) - “the important thing is to know how to look without turning away.” That was my job, no matter how difficult. Many have suffered worse. I just had to keep watching, so as to try to see deeper, to try to see Father, to try to more fully understand Jorge. That was my job, and I stayed committed to that even when sometimes things felt a bit close to the bone.
This film is clearly very deep and personal to you. Are you planning on further exploring the themes of migration, separation, and family after this?
Perhaps! My next film is so far about a girl who stays put, and faces a conflict in her own community. But I’m always looking for exterior pressures with the films I make, so as to crystalize something about them when they butt up against an existential obstacle… the world is really full of people who have lost so much, either a physical home or a culture or a family, because the world pushed them around in the name of “change,” “progress,” and “making your life better.” I’m eternally sceptical of this narrative of betterment being outside of what you already are/have, so I will likely revisit this theme somehow in all my work.
What kind of movies are you planning on making after this? Are you going to continue down the human documentary route or is there anything else you would like to do?
My next film is more fiction, though it makes a “switch” into the fiction part very clear; using cinema-making in the film itself to provoke questions around power and representation and who owns the story. It will have “real people” ie non-actors, but very much a structured narrative arc. At least that’s the plan right now. I’m going to try this out, though I know I’m going to need to impress as much as I can anyway my way of watching and building a relationship with the character vis-a-vis our stupid little device (a camera) which generously brings us a way to see deeper in one another and ourselves. My challenge and goal then now is to work more narrative ambition in with that way of filming a documentary. My editor and I have a saying: “cheating is caring.” I have to find the best way to cheat so as to take care of the story, in this next one; perhaps a new way of cheating.
EL FATHER PLAYS HIMSELF premiered at Visions Du Reel and is awaiting international distribution. Read CLAPPER’s review here.
