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1. ‘It’s kind of crazy to shop at Target, watch Netflix, drive a Honda, and still have a husband.’ Marriage falls into a specific category
Take ROMEO AND JULIET, for example. Baum argues that the play’s lasting role in culture is evidence that readers recognise the teenage lovers as modern – they want to see the tragedy as related to the world they know. For culture to mirror our experiences, to teach us something about our lives, we have to read its products with modern eyes.
Bookcover for “A piada judaica”, Devorah Baum, https://ayine.com.br/catalogo/a-piada-judaica/
"A piada judaica", Devorah Baum
Muito mais do que uma mera coleção de gracejos, “A piada judaica”, de Devorah Baum, é uma explosiva e perspicaz exploração sobre o que reside no coração do humor, da identidade e da própria condição humana. Com a acuidade de uma psicanalista e a sensibilidade de uma crítica cultural, Baum desvenda as camadas de humor, dor, inteligência e autoanálise que se escondem por trás das gargalhadas. Este…
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The Jewish Joke: A Short History? with Punchlines by Devorah Baum
The Jewish Joke: A Short History? with Punchlines by Devorah Baum
Comedy is full of famously funny Jews, from Groucho Marx to Sarah Silverman, from Larry David to Jerry Seinfeld. This smart and funny book includes tales from many of these much-loved comics, and will appeal to their broad audience, while revealing the history, context and wider culture of Jewish joking.
The Jewish joke is as old as Abraham, and like the Jews themselves it has wandered over the…
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Feeling Jewish (A Book for Just About Anyone) by Devorah Baum
In this sparkling debut, a young critic offers an original, passionate, and erudite account of what it means to feel Jewish—even when you’re not.
Self-hatred. Guilt. Resentment. Paranoia. Hysteria. Overbearing Mother-Love. In this witty, insightful, and poignant book, Devorah Baum delves into fiction, film, memoir, and psychoanalysis to present a dazzlingly original exploration of a series of…
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MEET THE PROFESSIONALS - Josh Appignanesi (Part 3)
MEET THE PROFESSIONALS: JOSH APPIGNANESI ON DOCUMENTARY FILM-MAKING
Josh Appignanesi is a filmmaker, writer, and director, who has taught and mentored at the London Film School, Arista, Script Factory, Film London’s Microwave, Guardian Masterclasses, and the Met Film School among others. We recently spoke with Josh about his latest feature, THE NEW MAN, co-directed with Devorah Baum - read the interview here - and his work at the LFS (read the interview here). In this next part of our Meet the Professionals interview series, we asked Josh about the practices, creative processes, and practicalities of making and releasing a documentary film.
What first led you to make a documentary film, after working primarily in fiction filmmaking?
I’d been thinking for a while, could you not just make films out of your life, or something close to life, and how would you do that? And it doesn’t necessarily have to be autobiographical – it could be about somebody who isn’t you, but is near you, or someone close to your life. And if you tell that story, is that a documentary? Does it have to be a documentary? Is it a fiction, is it a sort of ethno-fiction, docu-fiction, quasi-fiction, whatever it is… How do you tell a truth in that way?
Can you talk a little bit about the creative process of making a documentary film about your own life, and the decisions that had to be made as you progressed?
There was a sort of privacy questions of how far did we want to take this, how much would we show, how much did we want to reveal… That was a big question, especially as we realised it wasn’t just a playful experiment; that it was something we actually thought might have a life for audiences – and that wasn’t instantaneous. At a certain point Devorah, the co-director and my wife, came on to formally co-direct it with me, and edit it with me, and then just make the film together. So then we were working out these questions of how much we actually wanted to show of our private lives… You know, it was tough, to figure those things out. There’s some quite intimate things in the film, and equally there’s a lot of things we don’t show.
And as far as choosing when to film and when not to, it was really in bouts. I’d have months where I just went into a psycho state where just filmed everything, basically. Not everything, but if people came round for dinner, I’d put the camera on, if I went to see someone I’d take the camera with me…You know, it was a burst of a month or two at a time. And then things got difficult in our lives, with the pregnancy, which went wrong – it’s all in the film, but it got really serious. And there was a break for a while, while we got our heads around that. And then it started again, almost as a sort of survival mechanism.
I think with creative practise, with art, whatever you want to call it – filmmaking, writing, all of that – there’s a level at which you can be hired to do a job, of course, but there’s also a sense in which with creativity you’re not really in control of the process. It’s just something you have to do, you’re driven to do. And clearly, most people working in film and the arts don’t make very much money, so they can’t be doing it entirely for the money, they must be doing it for something else. Some kind of need to express, and I’m not sure it’s really a choice in that sense.
We spoke before about how you approached distribution for THE NEW MAN – has it been a very different experience from your previous experiences with fiction films?
Yeah, basically. We did a few screenings and we tried to find out who might be interested. I mean, you invite distributors as well, because you just don’t know what they’re going to think of it. You invite press, to get a couple of early write-ups, but you’re also inviting exhibitors. We’ve had quite an uncommon route, in that normally you’d wait to get lots of film festivals lined up, and international film festivals, and that – you sort of have that as a sort of pre thing that puffs up the film, and get other people interested. We didn’t really do that, partly because we had an offer from cinemas, JW3 in London, and then Picturehouse also saw it and really liked it too. Once we had those sorts of offers on the table, and the timing was here, we just decided to go for it in the UK; to do it that way around, because it’s such a small film, and we could see we’d get some nice press support.
These days, there are more releases than ever, but unless a film is likely to generate a certain level of income, it’s hard for a traditional distribution route to get involved. Why would a distributor spend money on something that probably isn’t going to make a lot of money, you know, it doesn’t make sense – so for a lot of smaller films, particularly documentaries, this is the kind of release you’re likely to get. Or actually quite lucky to get, really – you have to build it yourself, that’s the model now, finding stakeholders and partners from all kinds of places. It’s inventive and it enables quite interesting niche films to be seen, but it’s a lot more work for producers.
For more information about Josh’s workshop at the LFS, click here. THE NEW MAN is on limited release now and available on-demand from January 23rd with a countrywide screening at Picturehouse Cinemas on January 24th. Connect with Josh at @JoshAppFilm and his website.
Written by Laura Nucinkis.
Photo Credits: The Creative Life Film Co.
MEET THE PROFESSIONALS - Josh Appignanesi (Part 2)
MEET THE PROFESSIONALS: JOSH APPIGNANESI ON TEACHING, LIVING, AND WORKING IN LONDON
Josh Appignanesi is a filmmaker, writer, and director, who has taught and mentored at The London Film School (LFS), Arista, Script Factory, Film London’s Microwave, Guardian Masterclasses, and the Met Film School among others. We recently spoke with Josh about his latest feature, THE NEW MAN, co-directed with Devorah Baum - read the interview here. In this next part of our Meet the Professionals interview series, read on to hear more about his work at The London Film School and his take on life as a filmmaker in London.
Can you tell us a little about your involvement with LFS, and what drew you to teaching?
I started doing a workshop there a few times a year, must be over five years ago now. It was Ben Gibson who got me along – he’s now the director of the Berlin Film School (DFFB), but at the time he was the director of The London Film School. I’d done some teaching before, at different institutions and training things, and this was a little workshop I’d concocted after my last film (THE INFIDEL) came out. It’s really nice to teach, in little bits. Particularly when it’s practical teaching, it’s not long-form teaching where you have to assess things over numbers of weeks. it’s really fun, as a teacher, to just jump in and do two days with some really interested, excitable students who want to be there, who have chosen to be there for that weekend. And it’s a really diverse workshop, as well, because it’s not just filmmakers – you get artists, you get graphic designers, writers, journalists, people from the corporate world, people from advertising and commercials…. All kinds of people show up at all different levels. Some are really experienced as well, people who’ve made features before, or have made documentary features and are kind of transitioning into fiction films.
The workshop is called Visual Storytelling, and it’s sort of how you tell a story through pictures. Over the last few years it seems like more and more people from diverse walks of life want to know about that, you know. Maybe they make music videos and they want to get into kind of proper storytelling, maybe they make documentaries… It’s a really cool course, it’s gotten really fun. And that was the main thing - I’ve done a few other things in the past, and I might look to teaching some new stuff at the LFS, but the visual storytelling one seems to go down quite well. It’s just a really vibrant, fun place to come and do a couple of days, it’s very practitioner-led, and it’s good to do.
Did you go to film school yourself?
I actually didn’t go to film school, no, I just sort of started doing it. I do sort of slightly regret, now, not going to film school – I did apply to a couple of film schools, I didn’t get in, I think what you’re supposed to do is just keep applying, but I just went, “I’m too cool for school, I can just do it myself.” I guess it all worked out in the end, but what I miss from not having gone, I suppose, is this sort of sense of a cohort and an institution that’s behind you, a sort of peer group around you. It was something that I had to build myself, and I think it maybe took a little bit longer to do that. So no, I didn’t have that formal training. I did do quite a few long form courses, particularly in screenwriting, that gave me a kind of formal grounding, particularly in the screenwriting side.
And where did that training take place, where were your earliest filmmaking experiences?
There was a course called North by Northwest. It was brilliant, it was a residential course in Denmark with all these tutors from USC, which is a great film school in America, I learned a lot from those Hollywood guys. And then there was another course here which was called Arista, which was again a residential 1-week writing workshop, that was really great. I actually ended up being a tutor on Arista – it’s sadly gone now, but it was one of the best in the UK. Those are the two main ones. Someone should definitely try to resurrect those kinds of medium-length writer training, it’s invaluable, there’s a gap. But otherwise it was just me and friends making shorts and trying to get bits of funding…
What advice would you have for anyone graduating soon from LFS, or has maybe already graduated, and is looking to start making their own films, collaborating with other people…What advice would you have in terms of the early days?
It was hard when I started out, and it certainly hasn’t gotten any easier. It’s different. My very early career was, I wouldn’t exactly say pre-internet, but it wasn’t the world it is now, social media and the web being everything it now is. Which obviously makes some things easier, we couldn’t have made this last film (THE NEW MAN) without what the internet allows you to do in outreach and speed, and what new technology allows you to do. But on the other hand, it was a bit quieter, in terms of your own internal noise and headspace. Still, I think the advice is the same. Everyone knows the basics: you keep trying to make your stuff, collaborate with people you like, find your voice, reach out to people... You have to keep trying to promote yourself, unfortunately, which is a horrible bit of it, but it is part of it. And to be honest, it never ends. I guess the one bit of advice I’d say is that there is no place that you finally get to, where you feel secure about your career and you feel that everything’s working brilliantly. It’s always ups and downs, and sometimes it can feel like it’s mostly downs. And that includes questions like, how do you make money? Which is a really tough one, and one that most people I know working in media and the arts don’t really have an answer to. Sometimes you get some money, sometimes you don’t. So I don’t know how helpful that is, but it’s my experience, anyway.
Outside of THE NEW MAN, what projects are you working on currently?
I’m working on far too many projects, actually. Several new script ideas… most advanced is the film that I’ve actually now shot most of, working with a producer called Jacqui Davies. It’s a film that we shot around Tate Liverpool, around an art show – it’s a quasi-fiction, it has sort of documentary elements in it, but it’s basically fictional. Kind of an artist’s film – it has one foot in the artist’s film camp, one foot in the fiction film camp. And it’s pretty bonkers, it’s a romantic thriller at heart, inspired by the work of Leonora Carrington. She was one of the great surrealist painters of the 20th Century but isn’t as well-known as some of the others, mostly because she was a woman, and also because she lived in Mexico. She died recently, but 2017 is her centenary year, and there’s quite an effort to rehabilitate her. This film features her work and is inspired by her, although it doesn’t focus on her life. It focuses on the life of a writer called Chloe Aridjis, who is the star of the film but she’s normally a novelist, by no means an actor, which makes things interesting. She’s a Mexican-American novelist who lives in London. It’s kind of a gothic romantic thriller set in the art world, and shot on these beautiful antique video cameras I’ve resurrected… Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. That’s my next project that’s coming out. The rest is all script ideas, in development. Most of the ideas that I’m having at the moment are me trying to get a handle on the incipient fascism that seems to be just bubbling out of every orifice of the world right now, in this really depressing way. Maybe I need to make a comedy about it.
In terms of balancing new projects with promoting THE NEW MAN, how do you manage your own time?
I have no time. I’ve had no time for a few years now. No, I don’t find it easy to manage anything, it’s just all a massive, endless spiral of stuff coming at me, and I’m just about keeping my head above water. But that’s a good place to be! It’s tough juggling all this stuff, for sure, but I wouldn’t want it any other way, really.
What first inspired you to make films?
Well, I’ll tell you when I first fell in love with films – obviously it was a gradual process, but there was this one particular incident. When I was about 16, I got home really late from this night out, and I turned on the TV. And there was just this completely hallucinatory film, I’d never seen anything like it, and it was weird, and I wanted to go to sleep but I just couldn’t stop watching this crazy film… It just haunted me, but I never found out the title because I’d missed the beginning, but it stayed with me for years. And then a few years later I discovered it was THE SACRIFICE, Tarkovsky’s masterpiece, and you know, I was then a huge Andrei Tarkovsky fan…
But the mystery of that film, in a way that can’t quite be repeated now because of the internet, all the information is just out there. Back then I would have had to go out and buy a copy of yesterday’s newspaper to find out what the film was, or something, and that was sort of too much research for a 16-year old boy to do… I think the mystery of those times, and the mystery of that film, somehow combined in that moment. And I feel like I’m trying to get back to that sublime experience, but who knows if that’s possible?
What inspires you about working and living in London?
It’s obviously a really buzzing, inspiring place full of interesting people doing great stuff… To me, it feels like it’s not a choice, really. I couldn’t constitutionally survive outside of a big metropolis – maybe New York, I could do, maybe Paris, a couple of other cities, but… it’s basically London and New York for me, given that I’m English language-speaking. And now, more than ever, in this political climate – I just feel like big diverse cities are a question of the survival of humanity, without them we’re really not in a good place. I’m a city snob, I love cities. And then mountains.
What is the most challenging part of your job, and what are your processes for working through it?
Just sort of…self-doubt, or something. Not to just sink into total defeat, and self-hatred. I think that’s the most challenging part, and I think I just… rant. I think I rant, and then maybe have a drink, or something? I don’t know, I don’t have the answer to that. I seem to keep going anyway, so there you go.
Who, living or dead, would be your dream collaborator?
God, that’s impossible. My dream collaborator… I very much like Tilda Swinton at the moment, I guess you could say her. Yeah, I’m really into Tilda Swinton at the moment, just really impressed with what she’s doing. She’s fantastic.
For more information about Josh’s workshop at the LFS, click here. THE NEW MAN is on limited release now and available on-demand from January 23rd with a countrywide screening at Picturehouse Cinemas on January 24th. Connect with Josh at @JoshAppFilm and his website.
Written by Laura Nucinkis.
Photo Credits: The Creative Life Film Co.
