00:00I think my father was working with Maurice Sendak in some capacity and many, many, many years later
00:07I stumbled across a copy, my copy clearly, of Higgledy Piggledy Pop from when I was a child
00:14and I opened it up thinking I should read this to my daughter and there was a drawing of a sheepdog inside it
00:19and it said, Rebecca, I hope you enjoy this Maurice Sendak.
00:25And then I felt very starstruck in that moment knowing that I would have met Maurice Sendak at two years old
00:31and he had drew like a little wild thing's crown on it.
00:34Oh my God. Is it on your wall?
00:36Yeah, no, it's not. I mean, the book is in a case.
00:40In 1974 there was a conversation between a woman named Linda Rosencrantz and her friend, the photographer Peter Hujar.
00:51She had an idea to write a book about artists' daily life and she invited a number of artists over
00:57to speak to her about what they did yesterday and she recorded those conversations
01:02and then she very proceeded to lose the audiotapes of all the conversations.
01:08But this particular one she had transcribed and typed and she, and then it disappeared.
01:14Fifty years later it was found in the Peter Hujar archive at the Morgan Library by a young archivist and historian
01:21and it was published as a book called Peter Hujar's Day.
01:25And I read the book while I was working with Ben in Paris on passages and thought, you know,
01:33really like on the last page I was like we should make this as a movie.
01:36It was as one, like that Ben and I should make a movie of this material.
01:41And we share, I would say, a love and interest in Peter's work
01:47and also in queer life and queer creation in New York in the 70s and 80s,
01:52which for me has been very inspiring as I try to continue,
01:57like to see what those artists did and what they did during that time
02:01and how they did it with a certain kind of freedom and risk-taking
02:06has been very inspiring to me.
02:08Peter had no money, that we definitely know.
02:12When he died he was really penniless.
02:14Everyone was kind of horrified that he had really nothing at all.
02:18So that's obviously not good.
02:19But I think there's a freedom that comes with the situation that they were working in
02:27and a kind of radical, a radicality that was possible.
02:32And it's mixed, I would say.
02:35Yeah.
02:36It's one thing I'm thinking as you talk is the nice thing about being together
02:41is you actually learn from, like as you're describing Peter,
02:44I think I need to keep this in mind for myself,
02:47that not having money for creative things is positive,
02:51that it gives you actually attention.
02:54And yeah, that's a beautiful way to describe it.
02:56I sort of always thought that it would be a good idea
02:59to actually, you know, write to a filmmaker when you enjoy a film
03:04and say, I really love that film.
03:06But I often sort of chicken out of it
03:08because I'm like, oh, that seems, I don't know, too much.
03:11Why would they want it?
03:11I don't know.
03:12But in this instance, I did it.
03:14And I was like, more than write to Iris X,
03:16I'm going to set up a breakfast in New York City.
03:21And did and was able to just express what a fan I was of him.
03:27Like he said, he did offer me a job and I was actually very disappointed
03:30I couldn't take that job because of scheduling reasons at the time.
03:33And I just wanted to sort of know him and be in his orbit
03:37and have an opportunity to work with him.
03:39So when this came up, when he suggested this,
03:41it was really exciting to me for all the reasons that you said.
03:45You know, I live in New York.
03:46I have done actually for many, many years now.
03:48And I also have a fascination with that era.
03:53I think a lot of people do.
03:54But there's something, there is, it's easy, yes, to romanticize it.
03:59But I think there is a good way to romanticize it
04:01in the sense that there was a sort of, there was a community
04:05and there was a sense of striving to create and stick it to the man,
04:12I guess, that I think is very different to the place
04:16that artists find themselves in now.
04:18Where, you know, that there isn't really any counterculture in a way.
04:23There is only culture, which is good and bad.
04:25But the sort of sense that there's no, that these,
04:30that these were people who were just creating art for art's sake
04:33and not thinking about the commerce angle or the,
04:36yes, they needed money desperately, but that wasn't their sort of,
04:39they weren't thinking about how to do something that could be,
04:42have integrity to them and make money or be a brand or whatever.
04:46And I think for me, what was interesting about the text
04:51and what I imagined and what has sort of developed with these two
04:55is also a story of a friendship.
04:58And I think that is really the unexpected part of the film
05:01and the part that makes it actually seem in the present.
05:04Like you try to make a film, it is maybe a period film,
05:07but you want that period nature to disappear.
05:10And I think that's what happens because of kind of the emotional life
05:14between these two people, Ben and Rebecca,
05:17and also through these two characters, Peter and Linda.
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