English Summary
Solnze sound
Interview with Oleg Tarasov
of Solnze Records, Russia
txt: Morten
Messer für Frau Müller is probably Solnze’s commercially most successful product. How have you met them?
In 1991 I got their first hometaped demo album from my friend in Leningrad, I was very impressed and when I came to Leningrad again few months later I met guys from Messer für Frau Müller. By that time they were recording their first LP Senjors Crakovjak and then they had their first German tour with 17 gigs. Few months later they’ve split but we were in contact and each new album was interesting too... Gitarkin stayed often at my place in Hamburg and at one moment I’ve decided to manage him professionally.
How did you start a record company?
I lived in Germany between the years 1991 and 2000 and all the time I worked with music — as a DJ and distributor of Russian music in Germany. MFFM has been one of my beloved projects since forming in1991 and I was interested in bringing these original musicians on international stage/market etc. I met few people from different labels and some MFFM tracks were released on different compilations. In 2000 the release of MFFM Allo, Superman? on German label WSFA followed. By the same time both members of MFFM began to work solo — Kostrow has recorded some soundtracks for theatrical play and Gitarkin started his project Messer Chups. I was very impressed by Messer Chups and when I realised nobody at German labels was interested releasing them I decided to go to Moscow to release it myself. By the same time I found the situation in Moscow more interesting than the situation in Germany. After one crazy party where bulls (policemen) stole all my documents, money and everything I had (except for my mobile), I felt happy, because without papers, going back to Germany was impossible. Now, for 4 years I haven’t tasted cocaine or any other serious drugs. My artists’ music is crazy enough. Olegs from Messers are very productive brains, they produce a lot of good and relatively different music and it’s very interesting for me to work as a label and tour manager for Messers and MFFM.
Have Messers met with a success in USA and Germany?
Messers have played in USA for the first time in 2000. In May 2000 I met an American (ex-soviet) guy David Gross in Moscow. He has organized many Russian rock/underground concerts in USA. He told me he is a true fan of MFFM. That night we took a train to St. Petersburg — the next day he met Gitarkin. It was in bar during big Music festival SKIF. Messers have played there too, at 4 o’clock, Monday morning. David was very impressed and invited MFFM and Messers to NY. The Messers line-up in years 2000-2002 was Gitarkin + Vdovin and right after the third trip to NY Vdovin left Messers and began his solo career more seriously. Last year he released his solo album Gamma, really good album.
Was the strange style of MC acceptable for audiences at gigs you did?
It was authentic at club concerts, but not on these open-airs among those poprock bands They Might Be Giants and Mouldy Peaches with their terrible fans. This open-air was for free and there was everybody. Not some special public :-( But anyway it was interesting to play there too. Next gigs, in Central Park — Joe’s Pub in NY, Gigs in Chicago and Washington were in more authentic lounge atmosphere.
Is it difficult to live out of a label in Russia? Do you need some other job to stay alive?
No, Solnze is my main thing, I sold my flat in south of Russia and invested all the money in this music project. It’s quite hard, but possible — we have many people abroad. But like other labels we have a lot of problems with piracy, mp3s etc. Interest from other countries help us, we tour heavily...
How does the Russian underground look like these days?
It’s possible to call Solnze an independent or underground, but I prefer to describe it as DiY label because we do it all on our own. In Russia there are many independent labels nowadays and each band can start their own label. We also have our major labels and distributors, who’ve grown out of black market in the 90s. These distributors are very powerful; they control 90% of music market.
Have you tried to sell Messers to global major labels such as Universal or EMI?
I want to stay independent. If some of these monsters of show business would be interested in us, they’d have to accept our conditions, not otherwise. But I can’t see it happening in near future. Last year Russian Sony took 1 MFFM’s CD and 1 Kostrow’s CD to exclusive distribution on Russian territory, but it’s ended as a flop, because they were no professionals at this Sony filial. Solnze have sold much more CDs than SONY, he-he ;-)
Are there any signals that Messers would become interesting as a mass product in Russia?
Music of Messers has been used in advertisement spots of Orbit and other products, Olegs have written music/jingles for few FM radio stations, TV programmes, theatre plays... I don’t want to be underground for the thing’s sake, but I want to work with music I like and if it happened to be popular — it’s normal! If more people would listen to better music — the world could be better and more interesting
;-)
What about other artists in your stock?
Besides MFFM/Messers/Oleg Kostrow I can’t find many interesting names in Russia, but I have released CD of our friends from Finland — Aavikko, I them met 1998 in Germany, they’re very similar to MFFM/Messers... Other new name: young band Kim and Buran from St. Petersburg. 3 students about 20-22 years, similar to Messers and Aavikko. In few tracks they use samples from old soviet cartoons, but many tracks they play live without use of samples. They are excellent melodists and some of their twists are popular right now, even if the CD hasn’t been released yet. You can find a few musicians that play similar music everywhere. We have few friends in other countries — Tipsy in US, Aavikko in Finland, People like us — in UK...
see page 44 - 45
UDO
Interview with Udo Kier, who was born a comedian and a vampire
txt: nanoru
Translated by Ladislav Nagy
This man (a dramatic pause) has been everywhere (emphasis on everywhere and let it sound properly, expression in your eyes that will persuade everybody you are absolutely serious about it and that the person you’re speaking to should run into library to admire how much the ‘everywhere’ overcome their ideas of ‘everywhere’). Udo Kier is, in other words, a history of the Euro-American creativity in the late 20th century. The German New Wave (Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders), Italian horror (Dario Argento), the American avant-garde (Paul Morrisey), Hungarian philosophers (Gábor Bódy), the American independents (Gus Van Sant), the American dependents (End of Days, Armageddon, Johnny Mnemonic, Blade), the European club scene (von Trier). The war, history of the post-war Germany, ecstasy of the 70s (soft-core art porn Histoire d’O), perestroika, the TV of the 80s (Red Shoes Diary), realism and blockbusters of the 90s, showbiz of the third millennium (music videos, games)... “Hollywood was not the last chance. Perhaps I’ll go to India, will do 25 films per year, the same costume, the same studio...” Architecture, art, pop.
Our interview, the shooting. The next day another shooting, with Aňa Geislerová. “Marilyn Monroe and Hitler” Udo said. “At this festival, I got another proof that people either love or hate Lars von Trier. After several white Russians yesterday, however, I discovered that even hatred is a form of love.” Another interview for an Italian TV, this time with five caffeine bombs: “Ruuth! Koffi!!!!”
Connect three points: Vampire, My Own Private Idaho (Udo IS Hans) and the devil in the form of an overgrown baby from The Kingdom. Then you have a triangle with whose old-world grace we ran along the Thermal corridors and scared the visitors of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2003. The man in the IT centre where Udo responded to chat questions was sweating: “Calm down. You’re sweating terribly. Perhaps I am too fast for you, even faster than the Internet! Write: I am sweating because yesterday I drank too much alcohol and beside me there stands Udo Kier and a beautiful actress he met yesterday, who, he thinks, should be the next president of this country, but I don’t give a shit. Why aren’t we doing this over the phone? It’s much easier!”
Aňa translated, Adam made pictures, Udo addressed the passers-by flamboyantly, with his comedian half-irony responded to questions he asked himself and presented himself and his wolfish eyes. Udo is above all an actor and knows his role by heart.
He loves attention but also is bewildered by its absurdity. An ageing homosexual Udo is not sad. And he’s always damn sexy.
(Adam: I’ll shoot while you talk if you don’t mind.)
No, but could you possibly efface the scabs on my face?
(Adam: I like them.)
What happened?
A friend of mine had his 50th birthday, we kind of lost control, there was a dog fighting a cat, I tried to pull them apart. The cat ran over my face, very quickly, unbelievably quickly. Oh, how much blood there was! It was so traumatic. It was a terrible cat. It doesn’t matter, however, as long as it’s interesting.
With Franka Potente you have-
I wanted to call my Dogme 7 film Roll Lola Roll, because it’s about wheelchair bound trans-sexual called Lola, who makes his living by offering sex over the phone and is the president of the club Outsiders on Wheels. It’s a similar story.
When are you going to finish it?
Who cares? Perhaps it will be no good. I will burn it and will make a film about burning this film.
Do you spend much time in Europe?
This year I made five films. I began in Spielberg’s production with Ben Affleck and Catherine O’Hara in Surviving Christmas. I played the priest in the film Sawtooth in Idaho, then in Bucharest with Deborah Unger One Point O. Three days ago I finished Modigliani with Andy Garcia, also in Bucharest. I play the poet Max Jacobs, a friend of Jean Cocteau in the 1920s Paris. Eva Herzigová takes part in that movie... oh, a beautiful girl. Beautiful! Now I am going to Berlin to meet an Icelandic director. I will play a ghost that visits his 16-year-old son. Time to time he pops in to tell him to be careful. Then I will go home. I am looking forward so much to work in my garden again. When I was a little child, my aunt used to send me postcards with palms in them. Sadist! Now I have palm trees in my garden. This is the way it should be. From a postcard to reality. I also need to paint my flat.
You seem to paint quite often.
I paint all the time. It’s a form of relaxation. Everybody should do such things. Most of the men never washed windows. Let’s wash windows. You can’t imagine how much such an activity says about you. For me, to water the flowers is a form of meditation. I take my hosepipe and water my garden. Why should I be buying any technical equipment? I like my hosepipe and want to water everything with it. I have just bought a small building from Palm Spring library and want to turn this building into my new home. I collect furniture: I have a whole collection of Eams and Mies van der Rohe, as well as other furniture of the 1950s.
Have you been to the Tugendhat villa in Brno?
No, I haven’t but I know everything about it. Architecture is my love. I love the books and I like to walk and have a look at the houses. My new house has been built by Porter Clark, a colleague of Albert Frey, the Swiss collaborator of Le Corbusier, who emigrated to America. A famous building it has become. I want to move in right now. I haven’t done anything during the whole year, because I had to work. And now it’s so hot in there, about 44°C, nobody will work for me. I’ll have to do everything myself. I am looking forward to it.
The German accent is a very important aspect of your playing. Do you work on it systematically?
I am losing it! In Dogville I speak American. I have only one sentence there but it was funny when I watched Dogville in Cannes festival — when I work on a film, I never watch my performance on the screen, because it always makes me angry, I always think that I could have done it better. Anyway when I watched this film in Cannes and heard that sentence I turned to Lars saying: “You dubbed me?!” I could get rid of my accent, but there are people like Arnold, who have much stronger accent despite being with us for years.
It would be a terrible shame to lose that accent.
Well, I get jobs because of that accent. I would never get those roles if I were born American. I played the Russians, bosses of KGB with Russian accent... This is a part of acting. The voice is 50 per cent of the personality. And in comedies, they want me as German as possible.
(To Adam): Why do you shoot me from profile? Why don’t shoot me enface?
(Adam: I prefer shooting from the side.)
OK, but if the photos are no good, I’m going to kill you.
Oh, you’re really a bad guy.
I don’t have to be beautiful; I just want to look OK.
Do you do some exercises for playing bad characters?
I always say that to play a devil you must first be an angel. No one likes good guys. They are boring because they simply have to be good. Evil, on the other hand, has no limits. But what is evil? Evil is what I see in newspapers that a woman kills her children, puts them in the fridge and eats them out of the very fridge for the whole year. This is evil. Criminal evil. And then there is evil we all like — vampires, evil gangsters... Sometimes it’s more evil to kill a fly than to kill a man. If you do it right and if you shoot it right.
Is there any difference between playing the real evil guys and those fantasy ones?
Look, a KGB boss was not evil, he just did his job. Naturally, it’s different when you look today on CNN news and you see more blood and evil than wherever else. It’s horrifying; I don’t want to take part in this. But to be dressed in costume in a studio, masked as a vampire who wants to bite a young girl as he needs the virgin blood...
You’ve played alongside many sex symbols: Pam Anderson, Brigitte Nielsen...
Because I love them. I love tall, long-legged blondes as Brigitte, Madonna and Pamela. They are figures, not actors.
Cartoon-
No, not cartoon figures. I have to be careful about this. Once I said something like this about Pamela and she got terribly pissed off. She is not a cartoon figure, but a real personality, like in Barbarella. Jane Fonda was also a figure, albeit she’s a great actor, she fulfilled her role at that time. Pamela is great in Barb Wire. It was just great — “Don’t call me babe”. If she played like Meryl Streep, that would have been horrible. Can you imagine it? It just wouldn’t have fitted at all. And when I got this offer to play at the Philippines and my wife was to be played by Brigitte Nielsen, I knew what the job was. I knew very well I wasn’t going there to win an Oscar.
It’s fun. It’s always fun. I knew why I accepted Ace Ventura. Even the book Sex with Madonna — you don’t calculate, you just do things that won’t do you any harm. Perhaps I’ve done more bad films than the good ones but who cares? I am lucky in that I don’t have to prove anything to anybody, I can choose.
To divert yourself after exhausting sessions with Lars von Trier.
They are not exhausting in the least! People don’t understand this. If you’re lucky as an actor and you can work with Lars, you realize he’s the coolest man on earth. Only once he told me what to do. That was fifteen years ago when we shot the first film, Medea. I played Jason, I had armour, there were all those kings. It was the very first scene of the film; I was washing my hands and suddenly hear: “Stop!” I didn’t understand and he said: “I forgot to tell you: don’t act. I gave you a horse, a symbol of masculinity, two large dogs, so don’t act.” Since that time I have done eight films with him, I don’t use make-up, as he hates it, he believes an actor must be himself, must be real. He hates actors who act. Well, he hates the actors generally. It’s difficult because we actors always act. You have different roles, including those in your private life. Which one of them is me? I have done over 140 films. It’s very difficult for me not to act. I act every movement here. But Lars told even Lauren Bacall and Ben Gazzara not to act. He didn’t say: do it like this and this, but simply: don’t act. We have a very good script; we’ll try to use it as our departure point in order to get to the truth as close as possible. Listen what you partners say to you and respond most sincerely.
After the year playing the evil guys you must know everything about evil.
Again, the question is: what is evil? In Breaking the Waves I say two sentences, wave my knife behind her back and all the journalist in Cannes said it was the biggest evil they had ever seen. I told them: No, you are evil, because you didn’t even saw her coming to the board and who’s done it. It depends on the director how well he plans it. And Lars is a true master. So far he is the only director in the world who can tell me: In my film, you’ll walk in front of the camera from left to right, and I will do it, being certain that he would put it in such a context that people won’t forget this scene. That’s why I always emphasize that it’s not that important how big the role is. I prefer those films in which I have only one scene, but a one that’s interesting. For instance, now I have been offered a role of a barbarian leader. The film is set in the period shortly after Christ. The character figures in one single scene, but it is so powerful: the barbarian leader with a strange accent cuts the throat of a horse and... No one is going to forget this. This is all you can ask from a movie. Not to be forgotten. I hate being a friend of the main character for the friend never gets as much attention as the main hero. He is, after all, the main character. Some actors perhaps want to be on screen all the time — I like being on screen when I’m doing something, I hate just being there. In Germany I could be playing main character, but when was the last time you saw a German film? Where do they send them? To Goethe Institute in Congo?
You’ve done different things in your movies, played with rotten meat...
When I had that meat in my hands, it wasn’t rotten. It rotted within five minutes. When I played Frankenstein (Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein) I had to operate a female monster. They brought me real liver and other organs, animal ones, naturally. I was to take those things out of the body and pretend an orgasm, it was terribly hot there and the stench... Horrible. But this was not my action, this was action of nature. Raw liver naturally rot immediately. But that’s part of the fun.
Eh...
You don’t find it interesting to pretend an orgasm achieved from rotting meat? Well, you must be really perverted to be able to do this. Paul Morissey once wanted me to puke ten litres of blood. At the same time he forbade me to eat, so I was that weak that I couldn’t stand. Dracula was funny, and very poetic too, that’s another side of the film evil. The poor vampire is cheated, comes to Italy because he believes the Italians are God-fearing people. But he finds only sluts! He cannot find a single virgin and is more and more sick. Someone is always quicker than him.
A Marxist service man is always quicker! It’s great. Do you have any limits? You have once mentioned you were afraid of snakes.
Sure I am afraid of snakes! But I played in films where I have huge snakes round my neck. In End of Days they asked me whether I was afraid of snakes. Naturally every actor you ask such a question will tell you: No! Can you ride a horse? Yes! Will you jump? Yes! Can you pilot a helicopter? Naturally, my father was a pilot. In the beginning, every actor can do anything. So they asked my manager whether I had any allergies, whether I was afraid of snakes etc. My manager of course knows I am afraid of snakes, but he told them I just loved snakes. So I went to the studio on the first day and there was this ambulance. I ask: Why the ambulance? And they say: Oh, you know, just in case. The snake... If it bites you... They sewn its mouth and gave it some drugs... And I even touched it. But then they cheated me. When I shot that scene I had to focus on language, I had to talk in Latin, which is not my mother tongue. And they put a normal rattlesnake there, a wild one. In that scene a child reaches for a drawer in which there is a snake which I grab by my hand... When I opened the drawer I heard that sound. I grabbed the snake behind the head and the snake did all it could to bite me. They clapped their hands, praising me how brave I was and I went: No, no, no, you’re bad! I am not brave at all. If that snake bit me, I would be dead now. You gave me a much wilder snake than that I saw before. His mouth was sewn, true, but if it broke the sewing, it would have bitten me dramatically. Arnold also said how brave I was and I told him: Well, that would have been the largest promotion, wouldn’t it? A German actor bitten by a snake on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s setting? Well, it doesn’t matter, it’s just a film.
Do you often come up with your own ideas?
A bit, I could never do just what is written in the script, that would be boring. I always feel I need to bring something of my own device; within the framework of the story, naturally. To put something exciting there, something coming from the subconscious.
Perhaps in My Own Private Idaho the dance with the lamp was your idea? You’ve written that song?
Yes, but not for the film. There are two of my songs. I had this moment in my life when I was tired by film and perceived myself rather as a performer. I went to the Olympic stadium in Moscow and performed some of my songs. With the largest ventilator in the world and the international press — Gorbatchev did not like it; I was putting a dirty garbage bin over my head, the one I took in the street of my native Cologne. I put my head in that filth and sang. I told about this to Gus Van Sant, he asked for the music, then went home and came to me the next day: Could you sing? First, I refused. Then he suggested the lamp. I protested that the lamp is too big. He argued that if I danced with a small lamp, it would look like Freddie in Blue Velvet. I don’t come to the spot with clear ideas... It’s always a kind of born by creation of the director...and me. I want to be part of the creation.
This scene is one of my most favourite in My Own Private Idaho.
Many people say this. It’s very difficult when you shoot Armageddon. The director of Armageddon Michael Bay — with whom I shot several commercial spots — called me: Look, the casting people don’t think you could play one of the doctors. And I said: Oh how dramatic! Someone fainted, someone dies, oh heavens, save his soul... He said: I have a gift for you. I’ll give you all my actors for an hour — make them nervous. Improvise. You are the psychiatrist and you can talk to them. So I talked to Steve Buscemi, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Michael Duncan, all of them. It was great to see them improvise. The camera was behind me so it was all up to me. Michael just wanted some of their reaction. When I no longer enjoy doing what I do, I will quit.
Were you using some of you teacher experience that you had from Germany?
I was just to make them nervous. Many American actors are afraid of improvisation. They need to hold on to their lines which they learned by heart... In America, they select types, in Europe they always choose good actors who will shape that character. In Europe, anybody can play any role and create the character by acting. I was there to throw them off balance. For instance, a guy came and threw everything from the table. I said: You’ll pick it up. He didn’t want to. But I was adamant: You’ll pick it up. Now.
Did he?
Yes, naturally. It was Steve Buscemi, one of the best improvisers, great actor. This is absolutely amazing to watch. In every film there are one or two actors that I like. Otherwise you see a lot of snobbishness, efforts to survive in the business... But this I ignore. I don’t care what people do. But often those who keep their mouth shut and are quiet are the best ones. Not the ones that boast: When I worked with Ingmar Bergman...! I did this! It’s all I, me, mine... How boring!
Then you’re going to like this question. Can you tell us something about your relationship with Fassbinder before you started shooting?
It began in Cologne, in Germany. At that time I used to get 2 dollars of pocket money per week, he too. We met in a workers’ bar — we really were to become heroes of the working class lately — he was 15, I was 16 and we talked. Naturally not about film. During the weekend we had fun. Then when I was 19, I left for London to learn English and one day I saw a photograph in the newspaper with a headline: Alcoholic and Genius. At that time I got my first film role in England, I didn’t know there was something like zoom and they put the camera in distance in order not to make me nervous. I kept searching for the camera. The critics wrote about my intensive expression but I was just looking for the camera. I never learned to act, not even later when they made me a professor.
Fassbinder...
And I say to myself: Look, Rainer is a director! I met him in Berlin which was not very good, as he had all those friends and slaves around himself and I didn’t fit in, because I knew him from other times and were he to try something like that on me, I would have told him: “Hey, slow down.” Then he offered mi the first film, Fox and His Friends, and I refused. He never forgave me but I didn’t like the story. Now I regret. But at that time it was a good decision, because then he offered me Stationmaster’s Wife, in which I play a heterosexual who finally gets his woman. Had I taken the first role I would have got into a kind of cliché and would have played those roles for ever. Then we worked together, we became friends... Sometimes I helped him as assistant director, for Lola I even worked as an architect which is something I am never to do again — so much work and for nothing. You work on things that never appear in the shots. Well, who cares? In times of Lili Marleen we lived together, but then I left because I felt this would have led him to destruction. And me too. With him, everything was on edge. I didn’t want to take part. Naturally, he threw my bags out of the window because he didn’t want people to know it was me who decided to leave. But it was me who left. I left very quickly, because my bags were in the street much quicker than me. Two months later he died (Ruth, who takes care of Udo in Vary, arrives).
Don’t tell me we’re finished. We’re not in America. We have time.
What did you do in Cologne at 15?
I went to school. I was born at the end of the war under most unbelievable circumstances.
You were born on October 14, 1944. While your mother went to hospital, the bridge collapsed in front of her so she took another one. After your birth the babies were collected by the nurses but your mother asked them whether she could still keep you for a while. That night a bomb hit the room, in which the babies slept. All died except your mother and you.
You know the story? So I won’t narrate it. It was very dramatic. Perhaps that is why I became an actor. My mother wanted me to work in the office. My father was already married with three children, which my mother didn’t know. We could not count on him. We had no hot water. Three years I spent in job training and it was hard time. It was the only period in my life I did something I did not like. Then I met Fassbinder. I worked as an accountant for three years and did not earn a dime. I had something like fifty dollars a month, absolute nonsense. Then I went to work in Ford factory, to earn some money. My mother had a heart attack. In Ford people told me: Why do you hate the office work? You could work in the office here. I didn’t want to. I preferred to work with the Turks and the Greeks. This slave labour was the only way to earn money. I worked as a slave for three months, saved some money and went to England. I am glad I managed to leave, to live in Paris, Rome, London. I was glad to get out of that depression. I might have stayed in the office and got married. Now I am in America. I have always been attracted to America as I used to get American chocolate...
Let’s get back to you being a professor.
I didn’t want to do it; I just wanted to make the opening lecture. All the professors always come to have a look, for ten minutes. In my lecture, they stayed till the very end. I was speaking about peeling of the potatoes — for three hours! How you can analyze a man via a knife and a potato. The wild ones will make the potato into a cubicle, the sensitive or superficial always peel only the skin — or they are mean! It was strange but ultimately I got that job. I began by buying wine and taking students to forest. I told them to dig some soil and to smell it. It was something new for them. At the end of the lecture I asked them: Did you see that bird nest? It was damaged. They didn’t. How can they shoot film? Then I worked with them on small stories. In one of them I had a flower shop. I called myself Florian Gray, stood in front of the class in a black dressing gown I bought for seven marks, in jeans and boots, with a wig on my head. And pearls, I had pearls. I stumbled around the bathroom, revealed my body, smeared the lipstick over my face and sang... Only in this way was I able to communicate to them the essence of this profession.
You spent some time with Martin Landau in Prague.
Yes, I liked Prague. I like towns like Prague or Budapest. Budapest was the first socialist city I was confronted with, in 1979 or 1980. I worked with the great Hungarian director Gábor Bódy, unfortunately he committed suicide. I like their mentality. I wish those people had more money but they are very strong. When something is forbidden, people are more creative. Amazing (whispering): When something is forbidden and you just need it, in club, secrecy, you have your ideas, people whispers the news.... This is more interesting. Several years ago I went for a prize to Budapest with Tony Curtis and all those Hungarians. I am the only German who received that prize for what I have done for their country. I went to visit my friends there and they still whisper! Why do you still whisper?, I asked them. Are you neighbours curious?! You are free! Speak up! I know they need some time to adapt. Well, I liked that time, not politically naturally. I like that people gathered in clubs, young actors, underground, they were creative, made photos that were very underground. I had white face and red lips as a vampire and with all those workers in Budapest underground... We made an exhibition of those photos. I also visited a psychiatric clinic and shot a little film, forbidden, there. I drank and had that knife... Great times.
Even many of the films you did in the West were censored, forbidden or had problems with distribution.
But that was great. People want things that are forbidden. For instance I did Histoire d’O, the most erotic film of all times. I think it’s just boring, but if you heard those people in Paris — it was shown again and again. People from all over the world came to see it. It’s just natural that p
