ANGER

Interview transcript

German television commissioned seven women from around the world. Really, they were basically the European mafia of women filmmakers, and Bette Gordon and myself. I say that because…to direct Seven Women, Seven Sins. It was seven international women directors interpreting the seven deadly sins. So each filmmaker was allowed to interpret the sin however they wanted, and a number of them did narrative shorts. A couple of them were experimental. Helke Sander, Ulrike Ottinger, and Valie Export, who's also known as a videographer, did quite experimental films. And I was the one documentarian.

I actually originally had a hard time figuring out what the sin of anger meant because I always thought it was good to express yourself as long as you weren't hurting yourself or other people - that's how I decided it was a sin.  But I know these seven deadly sins sort of had this religious overtone.

“It's a virtue if one can transmute their anger, not that they shouldn't feel it and not that they shouldn't understand it, but to get stuck in it, to hurt oneself or someone else, then it really is a sin.”

I tried originally to interview an archbishop because I couldn't get the Pope, and a rabbi. The closest thing I came to a rabbi was Jackie Mason. I don't know if you know who he was, but he was a comedian that was an ordained rabbi. He was like a Borscht Belt-- he came from the Catskills, a Jewish comedian that was very funny. I originally interviewed him. Anyway, it didn't work, so I put this ad in The Village Voice and responded to the people who answered my ad, looking for angry people.

I gave anger an enormous amount of thought because it was not an emotion I have a lot of experience with. I've been able to transmute or transform my energy of anger into something else, which I think is always a good idea. Actually, now in the time of COVID, it's a virtue if one can transmute their anger, not that they shouldn't feel it and not that they shouldn't understand it, but to get stuck in it, to hurt oneself or someone else, then it really is a sin. It's not good. It's not healthy.

This couple who have separated or who seem to hate each other for real estate reasons because of money, or they say that's why, they are stuck in the same apartment. But actually, in the time of COVID, people who are living together are stuck in the same living situation. A friend of mine said last night, "There's going to be a lot of divorces after this," after COVID. In a way, you have to look at it as a mirror. To have it be a value to you, you have to really study it. And it's good if you have another room. If you're in a studio apartment, the bathroom is your only refuge. I do think that it's really valuable. I mean, I notice when I feel angry, or any number of feelings that are not good, let's just say they're not good, I have to really look at, "Why am I feeling this? Where did it come from?" Because usually, you're upset in the moment, but it's usually because of something that was really triggered from really early on in your life.

I feel it was therapeutic for some people because they needed to be heard and not to be dismissed, not to be unseen. To be invisible is painful.

This probably is more than you want to know, but after I got divorced, or while I was going through a separation and a divorce, I read all the literature about marriage - a little too late. One of the things that Harville Hendrix and his wife say, they do couples therapy with people, is that at one point, everything that you loved about someone that attracted you to that person, you're going to hate, and that the difficulty that you have, the other person has to just hold space and kind of hold your hand as you go through that crucible alone because it's really dealing with your own stuff. That's the thing when you're in a relationship because people tend to blame each other. The thing is to really sit down and look at your own stuff.

This is really interesting. A year or two ago, I got a call from one of the producers from This American Life, from the podcast, and he was doing a new podcast for Gimlet called Heavyweight. He called and he said that 25 years ago, when he was in college, he saw this film and it was seared into his brain, and he couldn't let go of it. He asked me if he could find the people in the film, to go back and see where they are today. He was particularly moved by a hermaphrodite that's in the film. He went back and he did find the daughter that sat there while the mother told this very disturbing story. If you go to Heavyweight, it's their third podcast called Tara, which is a follow-up to anger.

"You can tell the same story a million times, and you still get into the emotion."

I was surprised that people were so willing. This predated all that television where people were so confessional. Louis Eppolito, the cop, nobody would listen to his story. He was obsessed by feeling like he was wiretapped and wrongly accused. How could the mafia that he turned his back on, which the mafia had a code of honor and brotherhood, and here, he turned his back on the mafia to become a cop, and that was his brotherhood, how could they betray him? I tried to get him to go into therapy after that because he just wouldn't let go.

It's so interesting because I pre-interviewed everybody. I didn't know if it could work. With a very inexpensive video camera, I actually met people, and I videotaped them. Then I had them all come on a day with a good camera, good lighting to shoot. I thought, "Is it going to work? Because they've already told me their story once." This is when you're angry and you can't get rid of your anger. You can tell the same story a million times, and you still get into the emotion. That's really what happened.

I feel it was therapeutic for some people because they needed to be heard and not to be dismissed, not to be unseen. To be invisible is painful. It's hurtful.

“I never thought I would actually see the moment where it was that difficult to know the difference between what's true and what's not.”

What I think is different about this time is a couple of things. The mystery of it is so profound. We don't really know what we're dealing with. I got sick from COVID, but then you read about people having permanent conceivable damage. You think they've discovered everything. Then, you see their COVID toes. Then, these children, which is the most disturbing thing to see.

The way this is morphing and what can happen because of it is more frightening because the other events-- like Sandy was horrible. It really destroyed many people's lives. Then, what you have to deal with is, how do you recover? How do you recover financially? How do you get back on your feet? I know people who lost their businesses. This is true again now, but it doesn't seem as finite.

I never thought I would actually see the moment where it was that difficult to know the difference between what's true and what's not. This is the good news, and I feel a little bit guilty about this. This is like the artist's retreat I've been wanting for a long time. I've been very happy, to be honest, to have this quiet time and to have so much time alone.

“To start a movement, you go on Instagram.”

I've been trying to find time within the last decade or two decades to finish writing work over the last, really, 30, 40 years. I'm doing that. For many years, I just heard this guidance that I should write and paint. I've been spending time. I've been making a film, I'm still doing my work, but I'm also writing and painting and photographing.

I was working on a very ambitious art installation before this that could cost millions and millions of dollars. I'm not sure that money is going to be around. It deals with water. The crisis of climate change is going to be here after COVID, the issue of water. Even right now, I don't remember how many hundreds of thousands of people on the globe don't have clean water. What's the most important thing we have to do? It's wash our hands.

I have taken this time which I've been considering for the past four or five years of starting an Instagram account. I hate doing social media, but an Instagram about a movement in water because I have been working on this major project called A Movement in Water. To start a movement, you go on Instagram.

A lot of the photographs that I've been taking, I've been writing and finding the voice that goes with them. I'm doing that in this time because I do feel-- This is one thing. The two projects that I've been working on before COVID, the two big projects, the two big film and art projects will be highly relevant after, and one has to do with water, and the other has to do with Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca for PTSD, a lot of people will be seeking it.

“One of the things about photography is really that it says as much about the photographer as it says about the subject that you're photographing.”

There are projects that are actually happening now that I'm very moved by. I don't know if you've seen JR has put these big photographs of frontline workers up all over. That really acknowledges them. Just even that seven o'clock clap, that kind of creativity, and banging and music that happens at 7:00, that's a piece of creativity everybody can participate in that unites people and acknowledges the people who have really had to struggle the most with taking care of people.

Also, there's a project of people making posters or artists making posters for frontline workers. I'm impressed with people who have figured this out. What do those three projects have in common? They all acknowledge the people who've been taking care of people during this time. It makes us all more aware of them, and it's a gift of gratitude to them.

Good art, good photography comes from two things. One, it comes from some innermost place, some place in the unconscious we sometimes don't know. One of the things about photography is really that it says as much about the photographer as it says about the subject that you're photographing. Sometimes, the way you find out who you are is just by the discovery of after X number of pictures, you say, "Oh, I have this body of work," or, "I'm looking at this all the time. Why am I looking at this?"

I do a lot of street photography, but if I look at the pictures that I have, and even during COVID, most of them are my photographing other people's creativity because I'm always moved by people's essential creativity. I'm shooting the walls that people are painting, those JR photos, and homeless people, like how they're setting themselves up because I think how tragic it is that they're on the street. I also see they're building their homes. They're creating these habitats.

I think that we can't turn a blind eye on them. I'm really afraid of what's going to happen to the city with rich people moving out and more homeless people on the streets. I hope that we have a world that's peaceful with clean air and clean water. That's my greatest hope and that we have a world in which everybody can realize their true authentic selves. I suppose if I think about myself personally, it's the same thing. I want to have clean air, clean water, deep inner peace, and be able to actualize my deepest soul.

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