Description
Alejandro González Iñárritu is interviewed by Lourdes Portillo at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood on September 2, 2016. It is a co-production with the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative and is part of the project From Latin America to Hollywood: Latino Film Culture in Los Angeles 1967-2017.
Iñárritu begins by discussing his childhood in Mexico City. He talks about his position in the family as the youngest of five siblings, his rebellious nature and his early schooldays. He reflects on his relationship with his first childhood friend, Pelayo Gutiérrez, whom he credits for sparking his curiosity about cinema and introducing him to the worlds of Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel and Andrei Tarkovsky. He reminisces about seeing films such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and Melody (1971).
Throughout the interview Iñárritu shares his most life-changing and life-affirming experiences, including his first romantic encounters, sailing across the Atlantic on a cargo ship, his days as a radio host, the years he spent working in commercial video production and his move from Mexico City to Los Angeles. He speaks about his passion for tennis and the importance of music, which he describes as his “life-blood.” He discusses the Mexican films that he found especially impactful: Antonio Serrano’s Sexo, pu-dor y lágrimas (Sex, Shamed and Tears, 1999), Alfonso Cuarón’s Sólo con tu pareja (Love in the Time of Hysteria, 1992) and Y tu mamá también (2000).
He shares how he came to collaborate with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga on Amores perros (2000). He remembers the trials and tribulations they faced in the making of the film, along with the exhilaration they felt when it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, won Critics’ Week at Cannes and won 10 Ariel Awards including Best Director. He touches upon the positive effect the film’s success had in gaining international interest in Latin American cinema.
Iñárritu recounts his experiences working with a number of the most influential names in Mexican cine-ma: director Alfonso Cuarón, director and writer José Luis García Agraz, cinematographers Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki and Rodrigo Prieto, production designer Brigitte Broch and sound editor Martin Her-nández. Films addressed at length in the interview include 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) and The Revenant (2015). As the first Mexican director to be nominated for an Academy Award (for his work on Babel), Iñárritu shares his thoughts on what it means to be associated with his Mexican nationality and how this has shaped the trajectory of his career. Regarding the prejudice against Mexicans in North America, he concludes the interview by saying he hopes that the increasing exposure people have to cinema, art and literature from outside of the United States means negative stereotypes, xenophobic attitudes and gaps in human knowledge and understanding can be overturned.
(jtakahashi 7/21/17)
