Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Late last year, I was dazzled, charmed, and emotionally altered by black-and-white, French-language, hand-drawn animated masterpiece called PERSEPOLIS, co-directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. The story revolves around Satrapi's remembrances about growing up a girl/young woman in Iran during a time of incredible and painful upheaval for that nation. Her family was fractured; her life, tumultuous. But growing up until these circumstances turned her into the free-thinking, rebellious woman who went on two write and draw a lovely and moving, two-part graphic novel called “Persepolis.” Just days before I spoke with Marjane, PERSEPOLIS the movie was one of three nominated for an Oscar in the Best Animated Film category (the film was also France's official Academy Award entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category, inexplicably not nominated in favor of far lesser works).
Marjane is just about one of the nicest, funniest, and most brutally honest people I've ever spoken to. When I first saw the film, she and Paronnaud were supposed to come to Chicago for interviews but the plans were cancelled. Thankfully, Satrapi came back to the Windy City, and I jumped at the opportunity to talk to her about her work as an artist, an animator, a writer, and a leading figure in the efforts to end oppression in her homeland. I tried to capture her voice and exact choice of words here, so if her English isn't grammatically correct, remember that she is fairly fluent in probably a half-dozen languages. Enjoy…
Capone: I’m so glad that we got to do this.
Marjane Satrapi: Yes, I’m very glad, too.
C: First of all, congratulations on your Academy Award nomination.
MS: Thank you very much.
C: That was very exciting to see, even though I still think you were robbed in the Foreign Film category. But, you got one. That’s all that matters.
MS: Yes, exactly. I felt the same way, but after we were not in the Foreign movie, that was the place that I was the most positive about. And, then I say, ‘Okay, then you’re not going to get any nominations.’ So, I was ready to the idea that we wouldn’t get any, and then, at the end, when it was one, you know, that’s great. Yes.
C: But it’s got to be that being in the Animation category is a little closer to your heart then. I mean, the artist in you must feel good about that.
MS: I would have felt good in the other category, too, I decided. [laughs]
C: When we hear about any historical events, we so rarely hear about them from the perspective of young people, which is surprising because the impact on children--certainly in the events that you saw--are so often much more devastating and unfiltered. How did you put yourself in your 10-year-old mind again to write this story originally?
MS: You know, I don’t have so many great things [about myself], but something good that I do have is a very good memory. And, not only do I remember the things, but I remember the way I felt also. So, it was not so difficult to remember how I was, and what I remembered, and the way I felt, etc., etc., because basically, when we grow up, many times, you know, our feelings, whatever we think, etc., are pushed aside by the time that’s passed. We forget the things that made us enjoy, you know. We even lie to ourselves because we want to be respectable, grown-up people. This idea of growing up, if it’s to become a much more boring person, it doesn’t fit me, then I don’t want to grow up. So, probably I kept something of…not wanting to become a boring person and continue doing the things that I such like doing.
C: Yeah, well, mission accomplished on not being a boring person!
MS: Thank you, thank you. [laughs]
C: Obviously, the memories that I have of things as a child probably aren’t exactly the way they happened, but they’re much more vivid in a way.
MS: Absolutely. But the memory is never exactly the way it happened. That’s why when they tell me, “Oh, is it exactly the way it was?” I say, “First of all, it’s not a documentary about my life. It’s about also storytelling, but that is also the memory, the way it gets amplified in your brain. And, the main storyline that I was the only child of a family, I went to Austria, I came back, I got married, divorced… I mean this kind of thing, they’re real. But, then, exactly what my mother say or what another did. There are other things that are very uninteresting. What is much more interesting is the effect that it has on you. That is what you talk about the vivid memory is exactly about that…is the effect that it has on you, the way it changes you, the way it made you feel. That is, of course, for me personally, ten times more interesting.
C: I’m guessing that many of the young people who were separated from their parents the way that you were during this revolution never went back.
MS: Yes.
C: Why did you?
MS: I don’t know…because I had enough, because I was also living this…I lived a little bit of an extreme life [Marjane lived in Morocco for a time as a teenager before going back to Iran], and this is the moment that I was probably too broken, and you know, I mean…I had to go back. I didn’t have any way out. Either I had to stay in the street or go back,. That was the decision. I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s maybe also because I had too much of an alternative life. Many of the kids also, they stayed on the right road. I was lost so much on the right road. I don’t know. It’s choices that you make in life. I don’t know.
C: It’s interesting the graphic novel and the film make a point of mentioning your exposure to Western arts like music and film. What do you remember specifically about that time?
MS: As much surprising as it would be for you, my childhood was very much of an American childhood, because Iran was really Americanized before the revolution. Basically, I would go with my cousin to Big Boy, have a burger at Big Boy, and then we would go and play bowling. This is it. That is exactly like a childhood of an American, going to Big Boy, having a burger, and then going and play bowling. So, that was what my childhood was about. Playing bowling, making ice-skating, eating burgers and American pizza, drive through. All these kinds of things, watching American movies and all of that. So, it was the way it was.
And, then, at the time when the revolution happened, of course, as an adolescent, all want to listen to pop or rock music, I mean, that is not specific to one country. That goes for China or Japan or Malaysia or Iran or America. All the adolescents, they want to listen to the same music. The thing is that, for us, also it has an extra meaning, because this is after 1981, the borders, they were closed. We didn’t have any relationship actually with the outside world. Knowing what was the latest music, in a way, it was also for us to keep the connection with the outside, not be completely cut from the rest of the world. So, it became really something much more important than what it was. I mean, what I say in the book, which is not in the movie, that my parents took all this risk to bring this poster, you know, of these five jerks, you know, Iron Maiden, because it was just a question of equilibrium, because they knew that if I had those, I would feel really much better. In this country, during a war, when the only thing that you could do to make your child so happy, of course, you would do it.
C: And, they say that anything that’s forbidden immediately becomes desirable.
MS: Of course, of course. But, you know, this is the soul of the human being. God told them, “Do whatever you want. Just don’t eat this apple.” The first thing that they did is that they ate the apple. And, this is how this human being is.
C: Yes. Do you remember any specific films or musicians that you particularly liked that Western audiences would know?
MS: Oh, yes. Films, I don’t know if …I loved all the movies with Steve McQueen. Yes, he was a big deal. I was in love with Steve McQueen, I wanted to get married to Steve McQueen, I loved him, I loved him. I still do. Unfortunately, he’s dead, but you know…So, he was one guy that really, really I liked a lot. Then, I was very much in love with Clint Eastwood also. Very much so. And then, for the music, you know, as a child I loved a lot of Rolling Stones. I still do, yes.
C: Have you gone to see them?
MS: No, no. Unfortunately, never. And, I’m not very much of a concert person, where there is so much people. If I could be in a place like the Rolling Stones would only play for me, that would be great. [Laughs] But, if I have to be among 100,000 people and smell the sweat of everybody, no!
C: I understand that, yeah. It’s funny seeing your film in the same category as RATATOUILLE. There’s an age in animation where…
MS: Yes, but unfortunately you know, most of the people, they consider animation much like comedies, as a genre. It’s not a genre. It’s just a medium. It’s not because it’s drawing that it’s for children. It’s two big problems with the drawings: First of all the drawing, you know, most of the people, all of the people, they draw. But, most of the people, they stop drawing at the age of 10. Like 99 percent. So, for the majority of people, drawing belongs to the childhood.
Also, in our educational system, very quickly we know how to talk about the text--the author wanted to say that, the poet wanted to say this--but we don’t know how to talk about an illustration, about the drawing. I mean, what makes it that one drawing is good and the other one isn’t. So, we don’t have the tools needed to talk about them. So, it’s this lack of possibility to talk about the drawings, first of all, added to the fact that most of us we stop drawing. We consider the drawing for the childhood. And, from there, we consider that everything that goes with the drawing is for the children, and then we create the genre.
For me, drawing is just the first language of human beings. Actually, before writing, people, you know, human beings, they were drawing. So, it’s something extremely direct. The relationship that you have with drawing, you don’t have it with nothing. Even you don’t have it with a photograph, because a photo is the reality, when the drawing is the way as a human being sees the reality and transcribes it again. So, it’s closer even to the human being. There's something about that.
And, I never considered none of this media as genre. I always say, “It’s just a medium that I use.” And, you know, if you consider it as a medium, then it’s far West. It’s, like, you're a cowboy and you have the whole far West in front of you. You can just go for it, because it’s so many things that they have not made this way, that you have all the possibilities.
You know, the movie that we made…like, just take this scene, when she grows up and her nose grows, and then the breasts get bigger, etc. I mean, in real picture, how they want to do it? It’s impossible to make it. The fact of being able to have, you know, puppet scene, and then war scene, and family scene, and the meeting with God, etc., and all of that seems coherent, and at the same time is not, is just because it’s animation, especially the black and white. So, you know, it was extremely possible to make all of that just because it was an animation. It gave us a lot of freedom.
Of course, it’s not the same thing as RATATOUILLE, which is actually a great animation. But, that is not the way I think of animation. And, THE SIMPSONS is a good example also. I mean, THE SIMPSONS is not for kids, you know. I love THE SIMPSONS. [laughs] Yes?
C: Yes. I do, too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The point I was going to make is that it was strange seeing your film in the same category in the Academy Awards as the other two, because the…
MS: Yes, it doesn’t have anything in common…
C: …And, I almost am afraid that it will get overlooked, because it is hand drawn and it’s almost entirely black and white. It’s so beautiful. My question was going to be, Has that always been the style that you drew. Or, is that a style that you came upon when you were putting the story together for your first graphic novel.
MS: From the books what we kept, that was mainly the characters, because we wanted to keep them exactly their way. But then, you know, whatever was this background and all of that, it was the result of lots of research, how to make the background that wouldn’t look like too Orientalist. We wanted to be like background, it would be Tehran, but everybody could identify, too. Then, there is all this great texture, where you should put it, where we shouldn’t put it, which kind of texture should it be, etc. That was the result of lots of, lots of research, of course.
But, you know, the fact that it is hand drawn is not so much that that was a battle against the tri-dimensional, or we wanted to prove something. The thing was that we tried some scenes, like the scenes with the car. We tried to make it on the computer. The result was disgusting. It was so ugly you cannot imagine. So, we decided that we were not going to do it this way. We changed the way of putting the camera, and so we changed the whole mis-en-scene, and so we made it differently, and we draw it with the hand.
And also, it’s another thing also, is that neither [co-director] Vincent [Paronnaud] nor I, we are not at all technical people. We almost, none of us, knows how to write an e-mail, you know. It’s very hard for us. To write the scripts, we had to write it with a pencil, because we even don’t know how to type. But, imagine, you are the director of a movie, and you arrive in the studio, and people they are working on computers, and you don’t understand a fuck of what they’re doing. How are you going to direct them? Tell me. It’s impossible! [laughs] For us, the only of doing it was to make it as a drawing, because that was the only way that we could understand. And, you know, as drawer, as illustrator, we have a whole new relationship with the pencil and the paper and the ink. It’s the thing you are used to.
I mean, the way, you know, that they draw the line, they trace, for example, the thing, the animation, they do it with the same marker as I do, that is a very special marker that you can find in Japan. We had to order them, because they wanted to use the same marker that I used to make my book.
C: I have read the book. When I had first read it, I wondered if you had ever seen Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” stories? It reminded me of that.
MS: Yes, that was the first book that they gave me in France. And then, I was, like, why did they give me a comic book? Do they think that I’m retarded or something? That was what I thought. And then, I read the books really. It was a revelation in my life. That was exactly the idea, like, this is not a genre. This is so good. And, it’s incredible. And, more incredible than that is that many years after I became very good friends with Art. I got to meet him, we became very good friends, I know his wife and his children and everything. But, it was a revelation for me. I was, like, Ooooh. It’s a whole thing…I have a whole open space in front of me, and I can do exactly whatever. Because in literature, once you have read Dostoyevsky, you say to yourself, “It’s not a good idea to become a writer,” you know?
C: Yeah. Were you surprised when it came time to make this into a film at the caliber of the actors that wanted to do the voices, the French actors?
MS: Yeah. Well, I had my dream cast. My dream cast, I wanted Catherine Deneuve, I wanted Danielle Darrieux, and I wanted Simon Abkarian, and you send them the script and they say, “Yes.” That is your dream cast! For the English version, I wanted…my dream cast, I wanted Sean Penn, I wanted Gena Rowlands, I wanted Iggy Pop. I got them.
C: I heard that there was this English version. The version I saw was in French, but…
MS: Yes, but the English version is going to be released later. First, that is going to be this original version, and while they will spread it, the English version is going also to be released.
C: So, it’s not that, like, in certain places it’s in English. It’s just that it’s coming later.
MS: Yes, absolutely.
C: I do want to see it that way, because I am curious. I’ll see Sean Penn do anything.
MS: Sean Penn, he was great. He was great, yeah, I can tell you. At the same time in the studio that we were working, he was making the final mixing of INTO THE WILD. And, he would be between INTO THE WILD and, he would come, like, in one second, he would be in the role. That was just incredible. I mean he is so much talented, it’s unreal.
C: Does he play your father?
MS: Yes, absolutely. And, Iggy Pop plays my uncle Anouche.
C: Okay. When France selected your film as the official Academy Awards contender, did that make you feel more French?
MS: Yes, that was the first time actually that I felt French. Before that, I could feel Parisian, but never French. But, by this choice, I really felt French, you know, really for the first time, because I say…you know, because you don’t have the same problem in America. In America, everybody comes from somewhere. But, in Europe, the recognition that you can come from somewhere else and still you can be French, because, you know, France, they choose us, but Germany, they choose what is essentially a Turkish story [THE EDGE OF HEAVEN] that is as much a German movie as it is a Turkish movie, and there is this recognition that you can come from somewhere else, that you can have another luggage with yourself and still you can be French. So, I thought this was a great idea.
Unfortunately, we have not been chosen, but the only thing that I can say to myself, you know, not to be very sad, I will say, “You know, Cristian’s [Mungiu] movie, you know, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, AND 2 DAYS, that was not chosen either. Carlos Reygadas' SILENT LIGHT, the Mexican movie, was not chosen. THE EDGE OF HEAVEN was not chosen, THE ORPHANAGE was not chosen.
C: Especially THE ORPHANAGE and the Romanian film, I mean, these are all some of my favorite films from last year. And, I can’t believe none of them got picked. I've only seen two of the films that got picked, and I’ve seen a lot of movies in the last year.
MS: Yeah, so I am…it’s not surprising, I would say. I would have been really pissed off, like, if all the others, they were chosen and I was not, then I would be really pissed off, but the thing is that none of the movies [were] chosen. [laughs]
C: Right. Something this year is off.
MS: Yes.
C: When you look at the current situation in Iran, what goes through your head? Do you wish that you could be there to influence what’s happening?
MS: No, first of all, I don’t know so much, because I only have the second-hand information. But, it is the whole situation in the world that is very preoccupying for me. I don’t think that we can consider, like, Iran, “That is Iran, and then you have the rest of the world.” The thing is that it has gone so far, and it has become so global that if we don’t think differently for the world, we are going to be in big trouble. That is the whole situation that is extremely preoccupying for me.
C: You seem to relish addressing taboo subjects, or even maybe just taboo where you had come from. What’s the secret to doing that?
MS: You know what is the secret is? The secret is that one day in your life, you have to sit with yourself and you have to ask yourself the question, “Do you like everybody?” No, so there is no reason that everybody will like you. This is the biggest liberation. If you are not scared of people, they won’t like you because of what you say, if you don’t care about that anymore, then you can go into anything.
Before I was 30, I would do any sort of thing, it was almost looking like persecution, selling my soul to please everybody. I wanted everybody to say, “Oh, she’s this gorgeous, nice girl,” etc. And, I would think against myself…do things against myself and shut my mouth. Many times I did that. Until one day, I was, like, Do I like everybody? No, I don’t like everybody. Most of the people, I even hate them. Why should everybody like me? If you say things, and it doesn’t please the people, okay. That’s fine. This is not the end of the world, you know. If people that I like, they don’t like me, that is going to be a problem, but, you know, the rest of the people…I mean, if some idiot, they come and tell you that you’re an idiot, it only shows that you’re intelligent. That’s it.
C: Was it more difficult reliving and writing about the memories of your childhood, or was it more difficult doing some of the more recent things you’ve done that are sort of these emotional stories.
MS: No, no. The earlier work is more difficult, because in the human brain it's something, you know, that you want to forget about stuff, because everything in life is not so easy to handle. And, that’s the way we get along with that. But if you don’t forget anything to start with, like myself [laughing], it’s better to make something out of it.
C: I was going to ask you about co-directing. Was there a division of duties?
MS: No, no, no. You know what…the way we did…I mean, we wrote the script together. It was not like he would write the first version, and me the second version, etc. We really, really worked it together. And then, that was it. So, we really made the whole movie by acting it ourselves. Then, it was like everything we did, it was a big discussion. That was like…I would say something, Vincent would say something, etc., etc. That’s the layers. And, at the end, it was something coming out of that. So, of course, we were not like Heckle and Jeckle, you know, going to speak to everybody altogether. It was not like that. Of course, he would talk more to some people, and I would talk more to some other people. But, it didn’t mean that was his decision or my decision, because every time we say something to somebody, we have already discussed it ourselves. So, it was a real collaboration. And, believe it or not, we collaborated for three years, we even didn’t argue once.
We had lots of discussions, but never argument, because we like each other a lot also. We have lots of respect and admiration for each other. And, both of us, we know we have to love the egocentric, narcissistic, shit artists that we are, but at least, our ego is not situated in a bad place. It means that we are not there to be right, we are there to make a nice movie. This is it. So, if I have the best idea in the world, if it doesn’t have the rhythm of the movie, we just threw it away. And, it’s the same thing for Vincent. So, having this attitude towards work, it also made it easy.
C: I know you mentioned earlier about having to take certain things out from the original story. Was there a particular scene or part of the graphic novel that you cut that hurt the most?
MS: Yes, you know, that was…things like my friend that lose an arm and a leg in the war. Of course, I would like to say the jokes that he told me, because that really describes how you…when that is unbearable, the only way to treat the unbearable situation is either to laugh about them or you die from them. But, you cannot just sit and complain. You complain when it is still at the limit of being bearable. It was very important, but if he came to say this joke, you cannot just bring him to say this joke, and then he disappear, I mean, a character needs to live. You cannot just bring people and take him out like that.
Or the maid, I wanted her to be in, but then it needs more attention. Since actually, the axis of the movie was based on this nostalgia, it was created as this…that is really the memory of an exiled person, it’s made as a flashback, the turning point of the story is exile. Everything leads to this exile, and then, this exile justifies everything that happens next. We had to choose an axis, because otherwise, if you want to make 16 years of a life in a one-and-a-half-hour movie, if you say too much, you can find yourself with five movies, and, that is really bad. We always have to have an axis. In a book, you have all the possibility, you have all the freedom, all the time to write whatever you want. You cannot do that in a movie.
C: Speaking of laugh or die, one thing I don’t think enough people are mentioning: This is a very funny movie.
MS: Yes, it is.
C: I mean, there’s so much humor here. Is that part of what you’re saying, that the situation is so bad that the only way you can live through it is to laugh at it?
MS: Yes, it is bad, and also humor is a question of intelligence. You know, people with no sense of humor, they’re just stupid people. So, this is to start with. This life is so short, it’s so unbearable, we’re all going to die, so if you take it too seriously…I mean, it’s so serious to start with because you’re going to die. So, if you take it too seriously, then, what is left?
We need to take a step back. And, also, humor is the only way to have a right relationship with other one. On the contrary of crying that is a very instinctive thing, and everybody cries for the same reason, we don’t laugh for the same reason. But, if you start laughing with someone that means that you understand the spirit of this other one.
Capone: Marjane, I loved the movie, and I will go see it again in English just to see how that work. Thank you again for doing this, and good luck in your category.
MS: Thank you very much.
Capone
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