00:00I
00:27mean, how'd you find him?
00:28How'd you learn about the theater of the ridiculous?
00:31I mean, you know, obviously he's a known artist, you know, in Argentina, but where was the
00:37where was the spark point of that?
00:39Okay.
00:40That's a nice question.
00:41I mean, as the movie shows, I be, I, I heard at the first time I heard of it, it was, well,
00:47through Leandro, I, I, I went to, um, there was this, um, they were showing his pictures
00:55of the theater, theater of the ridiculous.
00:58And I, and I saw these pictures and I, and I thought, well, this is an amazing approach
01:04and this is an amazing, an amazing archive.
01:05So that's when I began to think about making a movie with that archive, with that story,
01:12uh, unknown in Argentina.
01:15Um, well, and I, and I began my, my research.
01:18I mean, I, I came to the U S to New York to do some research in 2019.
01:24So, well, it took me a lot of time to gather all these, uh, objects and all these materials
01:31together to, to make a film.
01:34Whereas most of his, uh, material, like the peculiar, the, the films, were they all, did
01:40they need to be restored?
01:41Were they, cause I know you were talking, there was different formats, different things.
01:46What did it take to do that?
01:48Okay.
01:48Yes.
01:49There, uh, there were some archives that were not in a, in a very good form.
01:54I mean, there were some archives that we needed to restore digitally, restore, um, the colors
02:01of the, of the archives besides also the grain and the images weren't that good.
02:07I mean, there were other archives that Leandro, uh, had in a very good, uh, quality because
02:13he, he's trying to, uh, he's trying to restore some of, some of his, of his work, but other
02:21archives weren't that good.
02:22So we did some, this, this digital restoration for the movie is so, and we also work, uh,
02:30very profoundly with some archives, especially the one of the moon, the moon shots that were,
02:37that were from the seventies.
02:38They were, they weren't in a very good quality.
02:40Um, and also, um, let me think also some pictures we, we, we needed to, to arrange, but a little
02:51bit, uh, the brightness, uh, that kind of things, um, but we did a very, a very good job with
02:57Daniela Medina, which is the color grading, uh, the, the, the one that, that did that job.
03:03Um, and, and, and, and there was also a very, a very deep and profound work of, uh, of editing
03:11also behind all this.
03:13My encounter with the theater ridiculous was almost like an accident.
03:24It was a kind of a revolution manifest.
03:43It's also capturing through whiffs of, uh, of photographs and everything, a time that doesn't
03:54exist anymore.
03:55Um, you know, the thing is where this was on 42nd and I think 10th, uh, you said, you know,
04:01obviously that's been completely gentrified now.
04:04Um, could you talk about, you know, his memories, being able to capture the energy of his memories,
04:10the photographs are energetic enough, but, you know, when he describes the reds and how,
04:17you know, it wasn't really made for photographs, but yet that was it, you know, it's, you find
04:23these colors and this energy.
04:25I certainly did.
04:26Um, well, I think that one of the main ideas I wanted to capture was this technical imagination
04:34he has.
04:34I mean, he's very aware of the use of techniques.
04:37He's very aware of the use of photography as, as the movie tells, he was the one that
04:44took the pictures and then he did all the process to, to, to rep, to revelate.
04:50Is that okay?
04:51To reveal them, to reveal them, to reveal the images.
04:55Uh, so he is very aware of techniques.
04:57He was all his life was, uh, aware of these techniques.
05:02Uh, besides, I mean, a photograph, video film, uh, I don't know, filming.
05:10So, um, and I wanted to capture this balance between what was, uh, hidden in that images
05:19related to regarding the technique, but also related to this underworld, underground world
05:26in the sixties and seventies.
05:29I am fascinated by this kind of stories, uh, before Stonewall, before the, uh, identities
05:37became commodified, uh, in the eighties and nineties.
05:41And I also, uh, a fan of these stories of New York, uh, before the gentrification process,
05:47which before Giuliani's process.
05:50So for example, I had read when I was doing the film, I had read this book of Samuel Delany,
05:57which is a Times Square Red, Times Square Blue that tells the story of the, uh, pornographic
06:02cinemas in the 42nd street as, uh, and I also, well, I read other things related to that story
06:10and, and, and, and the story of Jack Smith as, uh, as an artist in, in that, in that period
06:16that was very, uh, mostly, but was very influential to theater, the ridiculous and, and, and Charles
06:22Lattlam.
06:23So I was fascinated by that, by the aura of that period.
06:27So that's, that's why the movie tries to, um, I don't know, tries to search that, that
06:36goes, uh, perhaps by, by the sound, by sound, the sound design and also by the reconstruction
06:44of these nights, uh, of, of the theater.
07:06Interview with David Johansson, September 29th, 2002.
07:13What's the script like?
07:14I don't see good, but this is nice that you got this thing like.
07:20I like the fact that you said the reconstruction of the nights, because it was all about, yeah,
07:24at one point, I think that, uh, Leandro says, you know, it's like a midnight mass after the
07:29films ended.
07:30Yes.
07:30The theater began, but I thought that was really great.
07:33But then you did, you did something very interesting is that you, you listed the tenants of the
07:39theater of the ridiculous, which was, I think, mechanical, sentimental, social, um, supreme
07:45and moral.
07:47Uh, and that really, for me defined that sort of idea because it was a Renaissance thinking,
07:54but thinking outside the box in a different world.
07:57Okay.
07:57I was trying to reconstruct or perhaps to, I don't know if it's fully reconstructed,
08:03but because you can't reconstruct the whole thing, but I was trying to, um, to give form
08:10to an, uh, to an idea of how Charles Ladlam thought theater, uh, as far as I know.
08:17I mean, I'm not, uh, I'm not, uh, I'm not a specialist of in his, in his theater, but I, but I try to,
08:24um, take some pieces that were, that, that were related to, to his thinking, for example, the
08:31diaries and, and the, and the money manifest, the manifesto.
08:36And also, uh, uh, these annotations he had, uh, related to puppetry or related to Artaud
08:44or related to Alfred Jarry, um, or Circus, I began to notice that he said, he had a lot of,
08:51uh, um, how do you call when he had a lot of influences, he had a lot of influences when he was
09:00trying to think theater, this idea of the chance.
09:03So I thought that it was not about only about, uh, sexual politic behind all this theater, but it
09:12was also a political imagination and a way of thinking and designing life and art together.
09:20Uh, they were, they were avant-garde.
09:22So that's why everything is combined in that, in, in that idea of, of the theater.
09:28So that was what I, what I was trying to, I don't know, to, to, to capture, but well,
09:35it's difficult to say that to capture because it's, it's, it's, I'm uncapturable.
09:40I mean, the first person from my group had days, 1980.
09:47Everybody's gone.
09:48The question from me is, I think, the theater of the Riddiculation of the theater is a kind of
09:57space in the area, the crater, which, to which I see in a moment, and, of which, eventually,
10:04I know that I can leave.
10:09leader.
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