At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Mexican director Alejandro González I¤árritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) won the Best Director Award for his most recent film Babel. Often going against Hollywood conventions, I¤árritu's films are always out of sequential order and nearly every shot uses a handheld camera. Recently, I¤árritu spoke to Street in a roundtable discussion to talk more about Babel and his career.
You have been described as a self-taught filmmaker. Could you describe your learning process?
I¤árritu: I think film is an art of life. It's not a job. It's a whole attitude about life, and for me the tools first of all are life. My first film I did at 35, but I came from the radio. I started in radio hosting a three-hour show that was eclectic, playing the music I wanted. That gave me a lot of skills to entertain people with the imagination of radio, which is a fantastic thing. Then I went into advertising and I began to direct, write and edit 30-second and one-minute pieces, shooting 150 days a year, making a lot of mistakes. Then I studied two years of theater very seriously. I crossed the Atlantic two times working as a sailor on a cargo ship for two years... The sum of all those things gives me the opportunity to be doing what I'm doing. I don't believe in scientific cinema like something you can learn in a classroom. I think the classroom can shape skills, but if you don't have anything to say then you will just be an artisan.
Babel has multiple plotlines. Do you see one as being the central story or do you view each with equal weight?
AGI: I tried to make every story as important as the other ones. It's very United Nations. Nothing is more important than the film itself. There are no principal characters. It's not a film about poor Mexicans or powerful Americans or weirdo Japanese. I try to give the same weight to each character. No matter if they are poor, rich or whatever. I tried to maintain the humanity of the central theme.
Do you think casting Brad Pitt or Cate Blanchett causes the audience to see them as the main characters?
AGI: Maybe in a conventional perception yes, but I like the fact that people are surprised that Brad Pitt or Cate or Gael Garcia are not [central]. I like going against what you expect.
Many of the performers in Babel have no prior acting experience. Did you have any difficulty in working with non-professional actors?
AGI: It was a very challenging thing. It was the first time I did it. I did it because I didn't find what I wanted in the Moroccan actors. I decided 17 days before we started shooting that I had to find all the characters. It was really challenging - really, really challenging to find all the people in the streets, but it was one of the most rewarding experiences that I've had. To direct non-actors in a language you don't speak is something I wouldn't recommend. Unless you have suicidal thoughts, you should never do it.
Given the biblical title alluding to the Tower of Babel, is the lack of communication in the movie man's fault or God's fault?
AGI: I found the title a couple of months before I started shooting because I thought it could be a good metaphor to refer to one of the themes that the movie is about, which is the ability that we have as human beings to communicate. to relate not only between cultures but between husbands and wives, daughters and fathers... There's an absence of God in this film. It's about human beings that have been using the wrong methods of communication. The problem with human beings now is not that we can't communicate. The problem is that nobody listens.
In your past three films, you have used the cross cutting of stories. What inspires you to use that structure?
AGI: There are several reasons why I do this. First because Latin American writers like Borges, Cortazar. jump from the past to the future to the middle in a very natural way. My father, who was a great storyteller, always started with the middle then. the ending, then he returned to the beginning. I think that's a way to create tension.. Then the fact that I think I have attention deficit disorder really makes me curious about different things at the same time.. Every time I'm focusing on one character, I see another one more interesting than the other. It's that endless curiosity. I have nothing against chronological stories, but naturally I think these stories found a way to be told like that.
Will you continue using that form?
AGI: I don't know. It depends on what I'm working on. I would not use it as a brand, because I don't think it's something that belongs to me. It is something that has been used for a long time by different directors, in different moments, in different situations. Cinema itself is a very fragmented emotional experience, so I'd like to take advantage of that possibility of cinema. if the story needs it, I will use it.
Babel is already generating Oscar buzz. Are you hoping to win any awards?
AGI: I try not to think in those terms. I think every time you go into that game, you will always lose. There's no way anybody can win. It's like a consequence of something but not a goal. If you pursue that, you will never get it. It's like a lottery.
