Documentary filmmaker Ondi Timoner has a unique gift of making scintillating films that take years to produce and are often on subject that others have found too complex and scary to tackle. Her films also tend to involve subjects who egos and personalities are almost too big for the big screen. Watch works like DIG!, about the friendship turned rivalry between bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols; WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, regarding the social experiments of dot-com entrepreneur Josh Harris (both of these films won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for documentaries, in case you were wondering); or COOL IT, which looks at global warming from the perspective of environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg.
Timoner also produces and hosts a fantastic web talk show called “BYOD (Bring Your Own Doc),” which focuses solely on documentaries. But none of these other projects seems as painstakingly birthed as her latest film, BRAND: A SECOND COMING, about the British comedian/chat show host/activist/personality Russell Brand. The film went through a host of directors before it landed in Timoner’s hands, and she worked in total cooperation with Brand throughout the process. Then, on the eve of the film’s world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival, Brand not only announced he wasn’t attending the event but that he no longer supported the film, making it clear that Timoner was a great collaborator, but that his interest in the project has dissipated.
Purely as an admirer of Brand’s work, the film is the complete package, touching on his early life as a UK MTV host, drug addict, stand-up comic, actor, and the list continues to expand. For those whose sole pop culture intersect with Brand was when he was briefly married to Katy Perry, she’s well represented here as well. My conversation with Timoner happened during SXSW, just a couple of days after the big Opening Night debut of the movie, and when one walked into the room where she was waiting, there was something unexpectedly electric in the room, and it was an energy that she was willing to capture with her bare hands and hand over a portion to me during our interview. That’s the only way I know how to describe the experience. Please enjoy me highly charged chat with Ondi Timoner…
Capone: So, since we saw the film on Friday, have there been any developments?
Ondi Timoner: No. You mean between him and me?
Capone: Yeah. Do you think there will ever come a time when he probably will be able to look at it a bit more objectively?
OT: I hope so. Maybe when it comes out. Already the way audiences are responding is so positive, from people who were dismissing him and are now just totally turning their head around because of this. They want to read the book, they wanna see the “Trews” [Brand’s YouTube series]. That’s the reaction. That is like 90 percent that I’ve seen, and the press is great, the reviews are good. I don’t know how much he’s looking or how much he’s avoiding it. I have no idea. And I’m giving him his distance, which I think is important too. He wanted that distance, so I’m not going to disrespect that.
Capone: I’ve been a fan of his for a very long time, and one thing that opened my eyes to his belief system was his TV show that he had on FX here for a couple of years, which fascinated me, because I thought it was going to be a straight-up comedy show, and every week it was something that challenged political beliefs or spiritual beliefs. I learned from your film, that that was a full-time lifestyle for him.
OT: That that was happening. Yeah. I don’t know that a lot of Americans know that. They saw him on MSNBC, and that’s when they realized he was clever, right?
Capone: I’m glad you just let that run.
OT: Rosie’s in the middle. What does she say? “No one sets out to be insignificant fluff.” I love the way she delivers that line. Yeah, that’s one of the laws of fair use is having some kind of commentary on the footage. That’s not why I put Rosie in. I liked what she said. I like the way it cuts back from her saying “He cut right through that” to him cutting right through that, and that makes the audience laugh every time. The show is longer than what we included in the film by quite a bit. But, it is a very long segment to put in the film, especially when it’s a film that covers so much terrain. It’s jumping, jumping, jumping, then you sit in MSNBC. It’s a great scene.
Capone: It makes you pay attention because you’re like “Wait, we’re lingering here. Something’s about to happen.” And it does. There’s a tonal shift from that moment on.
OT: He takes over the show.
Capone: I think a lot of people will see him as less of a clown.
OT: But I think you’re right. At MSNBC, we learned he was clever, but many, many people are learning something that they never knew about him, which is how dedicated he is to the mission he’s on right now and how much of a move he makes. I don’t think anybody realized he left the business.
Capone: I don’t think I knew it was as formal as it was, that he was just abandoning show biz for a time.
OT: Well, never say never, but he’s not been here for a while, and he’s building a network over there. He’s finding a headquarters. You saw him do that in the film. He’s going to be there for a while, testing out social experiments. He reminds me of Josh Harris a little bit in WE LIVE IN PUBLIC.
Capone: You’ve said before that you are drawn to stories of visionaries.
OT: Impossible visionaries.
Capone: All men, by the way. So far, at least.
OT: Nope. Amanda Palmer. There’s a new film that I made last year that premiered at Tribeca and won Sheffield that you should see. The reason I say this is because you’re right about the proclivity of me telling stories about men who are impossible visionaries. But I loved being able to tell the story about Amanda Palmer. She had the biggest Kickstarter in music history and came under huge fire for that. And I made a film called AMANDA FUCKING PALMER ON THE ROCKS.
Capone: Oh, yeah I saw that. I didn’t know what that was.
OT: Yeah, it’s actually at www.CEAbundle.com. You can see three shorts I made about what I called Chief Executive Artists, people who are artists that are using technology to redefine the rules of engagement and take the power. Shepard Fairey, Amanda Palmer, and Russell Brand. And the short about Russell is he goes to Twitter headquarters to perform, and you get to see his mind deconstruct Twitter. It’s pretty funny.
Capone: There’s a scene in the film that really stood out, and I think it was a sign of trouble to come. The one where you were in the car with him, and we actually hear you talking to him and he gets a little abrasive with you.
OT: Feisty.
Capone: I wondered why you included that scene, because you pretty much stay out of it up to that point.
OT: I mostly do, as you know, stay out of my films. He breaks the fourth wall. You think about my other films, none of them are famous first. Here’s a guy who is famous. I didn’t pursue him; he pursued me for this film. But telling the story of somebody who’s already used to navigating the press as well as he does and people in general. He is a master at dominating a room instantly. He can just move it around, anything. He’s got great power and energy and intelligence that he carries with him. So I love the fact that, at the same time, he is trying very much to take those gifts and use them for good. But there is this question I have throughout the film that is, how much of a role do ego and narcism play in the lives of anyone who is going to really impact the world? Who’s going to stand up, not just quietly feeding the homeless, but even Mother Theresa or Gandhi or Che Guevara or Russell Brand, as he would like to probably become someone who is immortal in terms of being remembered forever for having a major impact on the world. I think that undeniably he wants that. And I don’t think it’s the only reason he wants that. I just think it’s a motivating factor. And I just wonder, if that is essential.
So when I saw him with Helena Norberg-Hodge on the “Trews,” I know he has a lot of respect for her as an economist, yet she can’t get a word in edgewise most of the time. He is a walking contradiction in a lot of ways, and I feel like we all are, but my characters, as you know, tend to be hyperbolic. In [Brand’s memoirs] “Booky Wook 1” or “2,” the forward, the first page is a quote: “The line between good and evil runs through every human heart.” I think Russell struggles with this all the time. I think Russell simultaneously feels that he is a super, uber talent, and also not worthy of anything. An equal with everybody else—we’re all one energetic field, we are only separated by our egos. Egoless and completely ego-driven. It’s right there in front of you.
I wanted to push him a little bit. What I like about that scene, and the reason I kept the question in, well first of all, he doesn’t incorporate the question into the answer, so you would have no idea. It’s not like I like the sound of my voice. But I like that he looks up at me, reading the paper, I’m on tour with him to make this film, but breaking that silence to talk to Russell Brand is already an affront. Yet, I am making a documentary about him because he asked me to come on board and save a film he was trying to make that was not going well, that wasn’t about him. But to actually explore the themes that that film was about, I said I needed to make a film about him. He agreed to do that. We went off and did that. Here I am trying to ask him a question, and just the look, the look upon hearing my voice is probably why I include that scene. I feel like that sums up a big challenge that he faces every day. I think that’s what he works towards.
That’s what he says. He says “Some days I feel like this, but other days…,” and what I know I want to work towards, is not that. And then he ends and I say, “Well, you better stop shopping.” He said, “Yeah, I’m going to end up in a blanket, aren’t I? I’m really close.” And I like that too, because I feel like that allows us to hear directly from our character of where he thinks the end point is. It’s not going to end with him with his Converse sneakers on. It ends with him in a robe in a blanket. And I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I think that maybe he grapples with the fact that can he really be true to the ideas that he has if he doesn’t give everything up and leave the modern world that we live in? But then what use is he changing the modern world if he ups and leaves? We need him here to continue to disrupt politics and work for the ordinary man, because he’s got such incredible following that grows by leaps and bounds, and he’s doing great work in the world right now. So more power to him, I say. Hope he doesn't put on a blanket that soon. I hope that answers your question. I feel like I didn’t answer the other one because you told me it was mostly men, so therefore I didn’t answer you question. If you want me to I can.
Capone: That was basically it. It seems like you’re profiling people who are really hard to nail down and who can get aggressive. You choose the hardest guys to hang around with for years.
OT: I know, and it just keeps happening. I don’t know if I pick them as much as they pick me. But I do say yes. I do then become so impassioned about them and telling their story that I’m willing to hang on to the tiger or ride the horse for the whole ride
Capone: That sounds exhausting.
OT: It’s crazy. DIG was what? Seven years. WE LIVE IN PUBLIC was ten. They were overlapping. I’m not that old or crazy. This one was a healthy two years, but it was two solid years—day and night, day and night. I think I’m just really, really excited about my way of contributing to our culture; my way of trying to change the world is by affecting individuals with my work to empower them to step out of line in their own lives, and I’ve had a much richer life for the fact that I’ve held a camera in my hand. It’s been a bridge for me into worlds I otherwise could have never entered, to living a life of depth and meaning. I see too many people wasting their chance in this life, and we all suffer from that.
Everybody who’s unhappy or doing something that’s half-assed, or working some 9-to-5 job they can’t stand is not helpful to society. So I feel like telling these stories will hopefully empower people and inspire them to step out of line next time they step out of that abandon building and think, what could happen in there?
I have this thing called atotaldisruption.com that is all about telling the origin stories of entrepreneurs and innovators, and they all were ridiculed for it, or nobody believed in them. It’s not easy to be an impossible visionary. There are hundreds of episodes of this thing, but the bigger ones, the more complex characters that have truly epic stories that unfold over time, those become feature films. If it’s a shorter film, a shorter piece like OBEY THE ARTIST with Shepard Fairey, but it’s still that same thing. They all take different forms. Moby I sat down with, and that turned into MONDAY’S WITH MOBY. For 11 weeks straight, you woke up to a minute and a half with Moby in the morning on Mondays, just to set the tone for the week, realize maybe you should try other models of putting your work out there.
I’m always trying to get people to follow their passion. Wouldn’t the world be such a better place? Seeing somebody like Russell Brand totally upend all our expectations of what he would do, of what fame is. He had the brass ring, according to mainstream culture. He had it all. Great looks, he’s a great looking guy, handsome as heck, incredible standup comedian, being paid multi-millions of dollars, married to the biggest pop star in the world. Should be pretty happy, right? He’s like, “F this. This isn’t it. I’ve got to do more with this. I can’t sit behind these gates any longer.”
Capone: You mentioned that there were things in the film that he objected to to some degree, and you attempted to appease him to same degree…
OT: I worked with him. The hardest subjects for Russell are Katy [Perry] and his father, hands down. Those are the two areas that are just hot buttons.
Capone: It’s interesting watching those scenes with her in your film, from his point of view, because we get her point of view in her concert film.
OT: He’s very protective of her. By the way, that’s the only reason I knew who he was. I had been in consideration to direct the Katy Perry film, so they sent me a DVD, and I’m like, “Who’s that guy?” “He’s Russell Brand. He’s a comedian.” Then a month or two goes by and they're like, “There’s a project on Russell Brand they want you to try and save.” And I said, “Isn’t that Katy Perry’s boyfriend?” Because in the movie, I didn’t realize they were married. I must not have not been paying much attention. Boy, am I glad I made this film other than that one. That would have been… Can you imagine? Me making that film?
Russell Brand and me were a pretty good match, I think. We’re similar in some ways in our natures. We’re very intense personalities. I think his manager said at one point, “You’re getting such incredible stuff out of him, but I can’t stand to be in the same vortex as both of you for more than a week. This has got to end soon.” Because it’s just very charged. You read those transcripts, and it makes the hair on your arm rise up. So that little taste you got in the car is just the tip of the iceberg. But I did work with him, because I have an intense respect for him and admiration for him as a human being, and love for him. I have to love a subject to finish a film about them, because if I don't love them and build in all sorts of corridors for the audience to love them. If I don’t, then the audience won’t be able to relate to them, and the film will be no good.
I love grey area and I love questioning the protagonist, and I don’t like straight-ahead heroes. I think that really allows the audience to feel engaged. They’re the jury and they’re charged with understanding this puzzle and working it out for themselves. I don’t want to make dumbed-down stuff. This is perfect for me, but I had to protect the integrity of that and not simplify that. And I did that. I followed an ethical line. There is no hand book for this. These last couple of months were a lot of checking my gut: “This feels right. This feels wrong. This can go. This is a column of the house.” It’s funny, it’s not stuff you’d expect. Things like, “I can not cut this part. If I cut this part, the house will fall.” It’s not connective tissue. Sometimes it comes down to like a puppy dog; it can come down through anything.
Capone: Having sat through your last few films, it’s like we’re following in your footsteps into complete emersion. It really does feel like it’s all around us in the end.
OT: That’s great. Welcome to my life!
Capone: I would collapse after the first couple of weeks.
OT: [laughs] I might. Would you mind if I just fall into that corner and take a nap right there? I think the access I’ve been allowed, to ask anything I want of some of the most fascinating people on earth has been such a gift. I just try to appreciate it and rise to the occasion. I personally jumped in and edited thousands of hours of time on this project because I love it so much and I care about it so much, and I know it’s irrational because it’s just a movie, but it’s a movie that has the potential to impact millions of people. For young people, maybe they can avoid some of the pitfalls that Russell jumped into because he bought into a lot of the myths he’s trying to wake up people around the world, to be aware of now and to avoid themselves.
He’s trying to cut through the distraction, and there’s a lot of it. And I think this film may help him do that. I hope so. I think that’s where our goals are aligned. We have very different feelings on what filmmaking should be, maybe, or what this film should be or could be. He has enough respect for me to have allowed it to happen here [at SXSW]. Who knows what he could have done. I had creative control, but you never know. But he came to peace with it somehow. He didn’t come to peace with it enough to come here, but he’s allowing it to happen.
Capone: Some people reported that he attempted to have it pulled from the festival, but I didn’t get that sense at all from his statement
OT: No. I think people took my words out of context at the premiere. I’d be glad for you to set the record straight on that. That’s not what I said. When he first saw the cut that was submitted to SXSW, he definitely panicked to some extent, and we had a conversation that was pretty intense, and one thing he said is, “I’d say, ‘Great fucking film, mate.’ Except it’s about me. And I never wanted a film about me.” As he was going through the things that he was desperately uncomfortable with—and I’ve not told anybody this because I just remembered right now—he said, “By the way, if you think any of this is fair, it’s not.” I was quiet, and he kept saying, “Are you okay?” And I just said, “I’m devastated. I’m devastated.” Because I had shown him at least an hour’s worth of scenes along the way, just to continue to have his trust, because he kept doing things. He came out with the “Trews,” then he came out with a book [“Revolution”], then he marched on Wall Street, and I’m like, “I’ve got to go film him more,” and he’s not somebody who wants to be filmed more, though he likes me personally, he would prefer to not be filmed more.
So it’s like, “Well, show me what you’ve got.” So I’d show him stuff, and he’d be like, “That’s awesome.” And then I’d film more. So it was very surprising to me his reaction to the film. I thought he was on board and loved my filmmaking, which he does. He likes my filmmaking, that’s why he asked me to do this. And he liked the scenes, but when the scenes were all put together, it was too much for him, and I was crushed by that phone call. I felt like a ton of bricks landed on me, because I put so much effort into this film, and I felt it was so beautiful in mid-January. Then the last two months was about working to protect the integrity of the film while honoring the trust that my subject had in me. That was a fine and delicate dance. I learned a lot from it.
He’d mention things like, “I’d rather this never see the light of day.” This is months ago, though. “I don’t want it playing at SX.” “What if we just test it at SX?” “I don’t want anyone seeing this…” kind of thing. That’s the place he was upon seeing it, and to his credit, he did a lot of work on himself in relation to this to let go and practice what he preaches, because that’s something he’s been working on his whole life. This is the transformation that we’ve seen, from a person that couldn’t let go of drugs, of sex, of fame, who couldn’t let go of so many things. But he needed to let go of this film, and that wasn’t easy to do.
But Janet Pierson [head of SXSW Film] did stand by me, and that’s what I was saying on the stage. She allayed my fear that this would never see the light of day, because she said “we stand for freedom of speech and expression.” But Russell didn’t call SX and try to pull the film or anything like that. That should definitely be clear. That’s not true. It’s fun when you see the press get things totally wrong. It’s a lot of fun. It’s great we’re having this chance to set it straight here.
Capone: Ondi, best of luck with this. Thank you so much.
