PASSAGES — Ira Sachs's "endless circle of desire"

"Let's just say I wanted to make a liberated film. I felt like...am I allowed to say 'f*** it?' Like, 'f*** it.'" So says legendary indie filmmaker Ira Sachs about PASSAGES, his seriously sexy Sundance hit about an insatiable artist in a messy modern love triangle.

In this special episode, Sachs tells host Rico Gagliano how his all-star cast (Ben Whishaw, Franz Rogowski, and Adele Exarchopoulos) liberated their characters, and why he and Hollywood are on the outs.

PASSAGES opens in theaters on August 4 in New York and Los Angeles and arrives in cities nationwide throughout August. Coming soon to theaters in more countries as well, including Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany, LATAM, and more. For tickets & showtimes, visit: mubi.com/r/passages

MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI makes, acquires, curates, and champions extraordinary films, connecting them to audiences all over the world. A place to discover ambitious new films and singular voices, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. Each carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.

Transcript

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Heads up, this episode includes spoilers. So your main character is a guy who can't settle down. Yes. He's got two lovers and he can't decide between the two of them. I know you are now in a monogamous relationship, but is this something you struggled with? Why did you want to explore that? No, that's... I'm much more obsessive. I'm more single-focused, I would say. But I have thought about the fact, this film is a love triangle, so it's a triangulation. And there's something about any kind of triangulation which creates really interesting dynamics, even in the most simple fashion. Once there's three people, there tends to be like conflict, in some ways, there seems to be tension, and there also often leads to a kind of obsession because something is unattained in a triangle. So on that level, I relate to kind of the endless circle of desire that is between these three characters. But but I wouldn't say I'm a two-timer. That is indie hero filmmaker Ira Sachs. And his new feature, <i>Passages</i> is about a fascinating kind of two-timer. The character's name is Tomas, the brooding artist who's married to another man, Martin. Until that is, Tomas falls for a woman named Agathe. And then ping pongs between the two lovers, never satisfied. At one point, even trying to have them both. We can do this together.- We can do what together?- We can be family. I thought that you were in love? I'm confused... Until it dawns on everyone, except maybe Tomas, that even the both of them won't be enough for him. That maybe nothing will ever be enough. I'm Rico Gagliano. Welcome back to the MUBI Podcast. MUBI's the streaming service that champions great cinema. On this show we tell you the stories behind great cinema. Season five is coming soon. Meanwhile, here is one of our special episodes to tide you over. It's my interview with Ira Sachs about<i>Passages,</i> which hits theaters in L.A. and New York this week, August 4th, and then rolls out around the world. It is a seriously sexy, brutally funny, and finally kind of mesmerizing portrait of a self-centered man and the people who just can't quit him. It was a huge hit with critics at Sundance, and it's the kind of movie that begs to be read as autobiographical. After all, the character of Tomas is, guess what, an art house filmmaker. And he also wants to raise a kid with both his gay partner and a woman. Something Sachs admitted right off the bat is indeed a situation pulled straight from his own life. In truth, that is what my family is like. I have a husband and we raise our kids with two women who live next door to us. So we are a kind of happier version of what is attempted in <i>Passages</i>. I mean, I was aware of this, by the way, about your life, so I'm glad that you brought it up. But I will, let me put it this way, I saw a thing that you did where you were talking about Fassbinder's movie, <i>Fox and Friends,</i> there's a video of you talking about that. And you said that it was almost like he was, this is a quote that you said,"Apologizing for things in his own life that he was conflicted about." And that came to mind while watching this movie 'cause this echoes your life. It's clearly not exactly like your life'cause you're the happy version of this.- But...- Well, you don't know that. But I will vouch for it. I'm happier than I used to be. Let's put it that way. Sure, based on what you've just told me, I'll just take you at your word. Ok. But are you then maybe working out conflicted feelings, even though you're having a happy version of this story, where conflicted feelings are working out with us? Yeah, I mean, I also want to be very clear that my filmmaking in general, is not a form of therapy, like, it's a form of storytelling. It's eventually it's like, it's a good story and the story has suspense, and the characters have complexity and complication. And I feel like that's what really what drives me. Once I have an idea. And then I mine what I know. So this character, I don't even, it's... people have asked me, you know,"Why a filmmaker?" There wasn't even a second he was anything but a filmmaker. I always knew he was some version of me. But that's also because it's the thing that I know the most about. You know, you and I can talk. I can talk for a long time about filmmaking. But if you asked me about, like, the state of the Middle East, I would have a much harder time to be articulate and thoughtful and knowledgeable and have more information than some other people might. Around filmmaking I'm very, it's 35 years of work and life, so I'm very versed in that, which gives me a kind of leg up when I'm creating a character. Well, let's talk about that character a little bit. I mean, it's interesting that what you're painting here, if you ask me, is a portrait of a narcissist. And not long ago, I talked to the director, Todd Field, about his portrait of an artist who's a narcissist, the movie <i>Tár</i>. And I'm seeing this also in TV and streaming shows. There's the series <i>Fosse/Verdon,</i> which is really about a toxic relationship between two narcissistic artists. Why do you think this is a time that we're exploring this so much? I don't actually consider Tomas the character played by Franz Rogowski, a narcissist. Possibly a sociopath. Because in every scene in the movie, both the character and the actor playing the character is incredibly interested in the other people in the room. Like all he's doing, except for some brief moments, he's always trying to seduce. And the seduction is a process of making people feel good. In a way, he's a pleasure giver. That being said, he clearly believes that the rules that are made for other people are not made for him. And I think that's the liberty which allows him to be an artist, but it's also the liberty which allows him to be... irresponsible to the effects of his actions. So that being said, I was writing this film under the cloud of Trump, and part of my feeling was what it was like to live under that cloud. But also then to see myself in that, and particularly during the pandemic, where I felt like I was a man who had a lot. Who didn't have as much as I wanted, and what that felt like. And that felt like something that was almost unlivable. And I think in this character, Tomas, there's an infinite gap between what he has and what he wants. Yeah, right. So in a way, you are both Martin and him. Yes... I think that <i>Madame Bovary, c'est moi,</i> which is my badly pronounced version of the fact that in some ways for me to understand characters, I need to see myself in them. And also, I loved all three of these actors so much when I was making this film. And I think that's part of the, for me that seems to be part of the texture of what the audience experiences, which is a sense that it's a film with a lot of pain and there's a lot of bad behavior, but there's also a lot of joy and pleasure. And I think those things come through partially because I, as the camera, felt a lot of joy and pleasure watching these three actors. Let's talk about pleasure while we're at it, then. I think this is, maybe you could say part of another trend, if you want to call it a trend, it's something that I'm seeing out there in the world of movies and TV series, that at last aren't afraid to explore sexual relationships. You've got just this year on the festival circuit. There's your movie, there's Joanna Arnow's <i>The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed,</i> Molly Manning Walker's<i>How to Have Sex,</i> and I'm not the first person to know that art in general, like popular in any way, really hasn't seemed as interested in portraying sexual relationships for a long time in any serious kind of intimate way. There's not, yeah... And first of all, I want to wonder if you have an idea why you think that is, and then what's happening that's changing that. Well, I think the problem, I mean, I'm out in L.A. right now, I'm recording this here and I'm thinking about the fact for the last seven years, I haven't really been here professionally. Maybe ten years, I haven't come out here for work. And I was sort of like,"Oh what's changed in my life or my career that I don't come out for work?" And a friend of mine who's a film director said, "It's not you, it's..."what's happening out here"is changed so fundamentally that there's not a place for the people like..."There's not a place for people who are trying to tell personal stories."There's not a place in which the detail of everyday life,"the specificity, the kind of like, literally the plot of land that I stand on"as a director is not that interesting to people in Hollywood."And instead, there's this kind of broad, nonspecific"world of global marketability." So, of course, where's the room for sex in that? It's not necessary. Everybody's going for four quadrant, as they say in the business. Movies that appeal to like every possible demographic and age group. And what's really happened is they've turned, I mean, I remember when I would look at like cartoon movies and I would say those are for kids. They're not for adults. Now that we've just flipped that around. Now all movies are cartoons, and adults have just decided that it's okay to think cartoons are high art. Or, who needs high art? I mean, that's why theaters are going down around the country. That's why, you know, a lot of things are happening. The value of art in this culture in general is diminished. So that means what happens intimately between people in their houses, in their homes, their bedrooms is just not valuable. That feels right to me. But I'll also say that even the indie world for a long time felt fairly sexless, like it wasn't necessarily that it wasn't intimate. There were stories about relationships, as you're speaking of, but this feeling that I got that, like, we're not really talking about sex right now. Do you think that's true. Or am I just not seeing those movies? No, I mean, I think we all exist. We make things that we believe will be accepted within the culture at the time that we live. And so that's why to make this movie, I had to go back and look at movies from the seventies. I had to go back to like '72 and look at Chantal Akerman <i>Je tu il Elle</i>. And I had to go... that wasn't '72, but it was early seventies. I had to go back to early eighties and look at <i>Taxi zum Klo</i> a very explicit, honest film out of Berlin about a gay man, and his sexual life and experience. I had to go back to Passolini, like you think <i>Salò</i> would be made now? Like there's a way in which we have to say like, "Oh, we can create those images."I didn't know that that was allowed." And on the reverse of that, we have like this film being, the MPAA saying this is an NC-17 and no one under 17 years old should be able to see this movie. So we're going back to the Code. Like, I want to make Pre-Code movies. And, you know, Hays and the whole Code that came out in the thirties, which repressed cinema in America, was founded by the Catholic Church. Like the Catholic Church are the people who created those codes. So I think that... I mean, I don't want to... I'm going to get off my, what's it called, soapbox.- I'm going to get off it...- Soapbox. I think it's called the soapbox. Let's just say I wanted to make a film that was as... I wanted to make a liberated film. I felt like, am I allowed to say "Fuck it?"- Sure.- Like, fuck it. Like... I just didn't want to. I wanted to make what I wanted to make. And I felt like I, for a moment, had the ability to do that, which is rare, and particularly rare for gay people in our culture in terms of money and possibility. And so I tried to make as free a film as possible. Do you think that's what's happening? Because the flip side of my original question was that I do see a bunch of indie movies now that are tackling these subjects. Do you think it's just a pent up, you know what, fuck it. Like everything's going to hell anyway. I'm just going all the way. I think that in some ways I wish that I felt, if I saw a trend I would, like, where I felt really challenged recently was from and so maybe this is what you're saying, like, I saw films coming out of Brazil under Bolsonaro. By filmmakers like Gustavo Vinagre and Fábio Leal, who are like making these incredibly free or if I see Sebastián Silva's film <i>Rotting in the Sun,</i> you know, that's a free film. You can maybe even say <i>Bacurau,</i> maybe.<i>Bacurau,</i> you know, I mean, then we could start to say,"Why don't you say <i>Bacurau</i>?" just, I think,"Oh, I'm just talking about good films." That's really what I'm talking about. They don't even need to be free, they just need to be good. And then I'll feel inspired and challenged and try to... and I think that what I do, and I'm sure there's there's a lot of good films being made now, but for me, if I can, I continue to watch Chantal Akerman, and continue to watch Maurice Pialat and continue... I just saw <i>Love & Basketball</i> the other day and I had never seen that film. It's so inspiring. Gina Prince-By the wood, her film, it's like, that is such a, like, detailed, human-specific, sexual film. So in some ways, I guess I just need to see more movies because that's where you get inspiration about what's possible. I should say by the way, since we're on the subject of sex just in general, that actually what stood out for me in this movie, maybe this is part of the liberation that you're talking about is less than the way that sex is shot in the movie is how the characters deal with their sex lives. They are incredibly open and enlightened, I would say about the the hero's shifting sexual desires. They're all pretty willing at least, to consider the nontraditional family roles that you mentioned earlier. Breakups aren't easy, but they're not portrayed as like explosive end of the world, things are all dealt kind of with an attempt at least at honest conversation. But it doesn't seem to matter... Like, they're still miserable. What are you saying with that? Well, I... there's no... there's no answer. It's just people, I mean, the history of literature and art is just basically it's hard to be alive, and it's hard to be close, to other people, and it's hard to be an individual within a couple. And I, you know, what's interesting to me about the making of this film is I think as a nearly 60 year old man, I had one idea of what the film would be about. And then when it was played by people who were a generation younger than me, it was a different film because I think the actors have a different idea of identity than I do.- Given their age.- How did it change? I just think the question of like labels and sexual identity don't exist with these three people and these three characters. It's not part of their dialog, It's not part of their... what they know, either as characters or as actors, which doesn't mean, like, I mean, I'm not anti-label. I think there's reasons people choose to identify themselves, but I think something about these three actors and the world that they live in comes through the film and is different than if it was 3 sixty year olds, let's put it that way. Was dialog or story changed according to, you know, their input? Or is it just kind of the texture that feels different than you thought it would, because of them? I'm talking about texture. I think I'm talking about texture. I'm specifically talking about like a man in a in a marriage to another man who then chooses to be with a woman. And I think, like, maybe the change would be there's no sense if it's the first time or the last time or if it happened before, if it didn't. There's no... and if it was me, it would be the first time.- So it'd be a bigger deal.- That's exactly what I'm talking about. Like in a previous era, there would be scene after scene where the initial couple, the gay couple, would be like, "Wait, what?"You went outside the relationship to a woman? What?"What's going on? Who are you?" And in this film, it's just accepted. It's like, "Yeah, that happened." Well, as you're talking, I realized this film is like an inverse of <i>Making Love</i>. Do you remember that movie? It was with... there was a movie that came out in probably the late seventies. It was with Michael Ontkean and the third Charlie's Angel, Kate I forgot who... So it's a woman in a relationship... Jackson! Jackson. Kate Jackson. Michael, I think, Ontkean. Someone's going to say "You got that wrong!" And they were in a couple. And then he falls in love with another guy. Harry Hamlin was the third guy. Yeah, yeah... And I remember the poster. And so it was, you know, in a way, this is like <i>Making Love 2023</i>. I want to get a little bit into the weeds on your technique. There's a moment in this movie that I really admired where there's a scene where it's sort of suggested that maybe Tomas and Martin could kind of raise a child with Agathe. And in almost the very next scene, we see the three of them are hanging out together and you get the sense that they're going to try this very unorthodox kind of relationship. But you don't include the scene where they talk about it and decide that. So tell me when and why you made that decision. It's funny, again, it's like certain... certain things are so instinctual that it didn't even occur to me. Because this... I think I'm interested in creating scenes that you always feel like you're somehow dropped in the middle. And I think the challenge is to give the audience enough that they don't feel that they've kind of being knocked around. They have to have enough information to be able to follow the plot and the emotional shifts. But I find the gap between chapters and specifically I would say the gap between chapters in novels, so incredible. Like what happens between two pages that we don't read. And I think that's one of the most powerful things that narrative can do, which is to jump... to something where you put the pieces together as you're entering. And that's true. It definitely involves you more as a viewer, because you're like, "Oh wait, I guess they already"had that conversation and now we've moved on." So you are kind of involved a little more, but it does seem like you're almost on purpose denying yourself a moment of high drama. I mean, like that would be the most dramatic thing. Now you're going to go and ask your female lover"Hey, you want to raise a kid with my ex?" Why deny yourself that? I mean, to me, that doesn't seem... there's enough high drama to come.- You can't hit it all.- That's true. And I guess I'm... you know, I'm figuring out which moments I think are most interesting. And that one... 'cause it wasn't. Last question. In the end, Tomas, is... he's rejected by both of his lovers and we see him biking through Paris. And you leave us with him and not his victims. And why is that? Well, I don't call them victims because. Well, you know, that's a terrible word, you're right. Well, ah, no, I'm just saying, actually, everyone has a choice in this movie and everybody's acting on their own impulses equally in a certain way. I mean, Agathe enters this relationship with Tomas knowing that he's a married man who has another home and another life. And... but she decides what she wants is him. And I think, you know, to me, this scene when you talk about <i>Fox and His Friends</i> the scene in the country house where Tomas and Martin invite this woman into their house as if to kind of start some new family life. That scene is like a horror movie to me. It's like there's so little care by the two men for the woman in their midst. And I think that to me is a very <i>Fox and His Friends</i> kind of moment. What do men do? What does the culture of gay men, what do they do? How aware are they of this woman, and what her feelings might be? And how respectful? So everybody... everybody acts. But to me, it was very clear that this was a film that began with a man on a pedestal and ended with him on the floor. It's a portrait film. I was thinking of him like, I'm always thinking of Henry James. It's like, this is a portrait of a man. And there's other major characters in the film. But I always knew that the protagonist is Tomas. Do you think he is going to learn? You said earlier that he was a sociopath, which almost by definition means it's very hard for you to ever learn. You know, I don't think a movie is very interesting unless there's change. I mean, I actually... years ago, I wrote a movie called <i>Forty Shades of Blue,</i> and Julianne Moore was going to star in the movie and in the last scene, it was like the two characters were stuck, like nothing was going to change, like these two characters. And she said, "I don't want to do this movie if that's how it ends." And so I was like, "Okay, I want Julianne Moore to do this movie." And so one of the characters got out of a car, like, that's all she did, like shoot that... She got outta the car and she started walking and she was walking who knows where. But it was different than when she was staying in that car. And then Julianne didn't do the movie, and I kept that ending. Because I thought dramatically, it's more interesting to see change. That is fascinating. And this movie ends with him on a bike. He's not walking, but he's riding somewhere. I know. I mean, I have... there was a retrospective in Paris of a few of my films, and it's... I suddenly did notice that all of them end with people walking, or on a road, or on a bike, or on a motorcycle. But I'm thinking of the movie that I'm writing, and I don't think it's going to end that way. So that's... change. Ira Sachs. Walk, run or bike to see his movie <i>Passages</i> when it opens in New York and L.A., August 4th. By the way, the sex scenes in this movie, they are smoking hot for sure, but also artful, necessary and hardly all that explicit. Despite what the MPAA says. It'll hit cinemas around the world over the next month. Check the show notes of this episode to learn where and when it is coming to your hometown. And speaking of hometowns, if yours happens to be Los Angeles, put this in your calendar on Wednesday night, August 30th. I will be live at the Arrow Theater in Santa Monica to present a screening of Wong Kar Wai, a stone cold Nineties classic, <i>Chungking Express</i>. You might have heard our episode earlier this year diving into the movie's great soundtrack, especially Faye Wong's Canto-pop cover of The Cranberries' <i>Dreams</i>. Now is your chance to hear that song through the Arrow's Most excellent sound system. We're doing this in partnership with the good folks at the American Cinematheque. As part of their Friends of the Fest Festival, programmed by podcasters just like myself. Get your tickets at AmericanCinematheque.com, that is AmericanCinematheque.com Hope to see you there. Till then, this episode was hosted, written and edited by me Rico Gagliano. Our producer is Ciara McEniff, booking was courtesy of Jo Dumitrescu, mastering by Stephen Colon. Our theme music was composed by Yuri Suzuki. Thanks this week to May Tsehay, Michael Lieberman, and Helen Wigger at WESA Pittsburgh. The show is executive produced by me, along with Jon Barrenechea, Efe Çakarel, Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca. And of course, to stream the best in cinema, just head to MUBI.com to start watching. Thanks for listening and may all your cinemas this summer be air conditioned.