Interview with Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, directors of Persepolis and Chicken With Plums

The Iranian born Marjane Satrapi quickly became known as one of the foremost graphic novelists of our time after publication of her groundbreaking, autobiographical novel Persepolis and she went on to team up with French graphic novelist Vincent Paronnaud (aka Winshluss) who is known for his interpretation of the classic Pinocchio to co-direct the Oscar nominated animated adaptation which featured Sean Penn and Gena Rowlands vocal work on the English version. Their follow up, the live-action Chicken With Plums, adapted from another of Satrapi’s graphic novels and starring Mathieu Amalric and Isabella Rossellini opened on August 17.

Marjane Satrapi

At the time when your graphic novels came out, it was pretty rare to see a female graphic novelist and coming from Iran and it’s even more rare.

Well I think drawing has been for a long time a thing of distraction, you know, comics are for distraction. People read comic strips in magazines to get distracted but the distractions were for males because the women, they know how to sew and how to make the nice cooking and this and that. They were not supposed to be distracted so much, so if you don’t read something, then why would you make it? You know, I think the question of female/male isn’t a question of genes or anything. A hundred years ago, female, they have six point less IQ then the men, no kidding. Of course, because if you only cook and sew and take care of a baby and if you don’t study and use other part of your brain your IQ cannot go higher. Now, women’s IQs are higher than the men’s because we study more, make more stuff, etc, so it is the same thing, it’s like making comics, being funny, drawing, dedicating your life to your art, all of [these] things were just for men. If you will come to my Iranian side, I absolutely never got an education in “you’re a girl and because you are a girl you have to be pretty,” never, I mean the obsession of my parents would be that I would become an intellectual, that I would study, that I would be economically independent, that I could stand on my boots and fit myself, then, if I marry, ok but I was not supposed to be pretty and try to make the right marriage. The first time I married, I was 21, my mother was devastated. It was really not the best news she had in her life. She told me “if you were accepted in a really good school or if you made something, I would have been happy but you are marrying at 21 and you expect me to be happy for you?” So that was the way it was.

Well, you certainly must have made your parents proud; you certainly accomplished all the things they wanted.

Yeah, they are very proud, certainly, but they don’t talk about it with me. They also pretend that they don’t talk about it with anyone else, which is a lie because a couple of years ago my parents went on a trip to China and they were with a bunch of people and my mother was like “oh when we were taking the bus in this place everyone wants to take a picture with me because I was your mother” and I was like “how did they know you were my mother” and she said “they guessed.” Of course they didn’t guess, of course she said it to them but in front of me she pretends it does not exist because after all, I am her child, you know, famous-not famous, but I am sure they are very proud. They pretend like nothing has happened and that is very cute of them because they don’t add extra weight. It is very bad [if] you start impressing the people who are very close to you because it’s fake. You know, I have the same friends so I just want to have the same kind of relationship with them.

You came from a very tumultuous background and you understand fear and death in a way that other people may not. How do you deal with it?

I know the bad thing with the fear is that it paralyzes your brain. So the moment you are scared, you don’t think. In my country, they try to [create] a situation where everybody is scared of everything. That is the way you control people. Look at America after 9/11. The level is yellow, the level is orange, the level is red, now it is black. It puts people in the situation of fear, so what happens? George Bush he gets elected. That’s what happens when you are full of fear. So, you know, fear is, I would say a very natural, instinctive reaction but we have to learn how to live with it. It’s like when I’m walking very late in the street, I’m like, you know maybe someone like a psycho will come and stab me in the back, I freak out from psychopaths, but at the same time I say if he comes at me with a knife and he stabs me I will suffer a little bit- being like that before that happens means that I have to have a very pragmatic way, of course nobody comes to stab me but it is a very bad feeling. As you have said I have gone through lots of things and when you go through lots of things, you know, the war, that was one thing but when I was living in the streets of Vienna, after that you say to yourself what can happen to me? I have already lived in the street, this is the worst thing that can [happen] to a human being, being homeless, not having anywhere to go, being all alone like that, it really sucks and imagine [as a] 17, 18 years old girl it’s really not fun but once you have lived that, you are quite relaxed in life, worst thing that can happen to me is that I have to go back in the street and you still live.

It’s almost a freedom to hit bottom and know that’s the worst that can happen.

It is. [If] you are extremely over-protected and you don’t go through anything, then the imagination of fear is much bigger than the fear itself. When things happen, you are much less scared. It’s happened to me to be attacked in the street many times because I’m always in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong hour and you fight back and when you have fought 2 or 3 times then you are like, I can fight, no problem, so then you are not scared anymore. Now, of course, I’m still scared of the dark, like when I turn off the light, I don’t like it but I am scared of very childish stuff, like sometimes I go in my house and I’m sure it’s somebody hidden in my closet and then I will take a big knife and I see that there is nothing, but I’m scared of this nonsense stuff like oh, somebody must be under my bed but this is the fear that you have when you are 3 years old.

Well, those childhood fears are powerful ones. I understand totally, it’s funny.

I am scared you know of bullshit stuff. Like I am very scared of cockroaches. If I see one I almost faint but you know a big guy will come with [knife] I am like okay now, I have my bag ready and I am going to punch him in his face.

I work as a high school teacher in a pretty conservative area and your book is part of our curriculum. It’s kind of amazing. Look at how far things have come.

That makes me very happy. Truly, truly.

I was wondering what you would say to those kids, especially with the movie, there is the scene of the Americans that might make them question you?

Well, just consider that a human being in the world is a human being. The privilege of loving your family and being kids and wanting to eat ice cream and going to the movies is not only something you want. Everybody in the whole world, they want to have a peaceful life. We have some psycho people, you have them here too. They are everywhere, you know, they are like ultra-religious or whatever. You have a few of these guys, but unfortunately if they are crazy you hear them much more, than the other ones. From the second that we consider that the “other one” is a human being just like us and that it’s not an abstract notion, you know, “Middle Eastern, Muslim, Axis of Evil” then it will become very difficult to bomb these people. Just consider that the “other one” is just like you wanting to play, wanting to go to the movies, wanting to have, you know, the latest t-shirt that is very much in fashion, listen to the music, falling in love, if they consider that, then you know, this is the only thing that I can say, I don’t have any pretension that is more than that.

That’s terrific. I wanted to ask you, I heard you are working on the new movie The Prophet.

No, I am not doing it. I was supposed to work on it but it was a totally completely different story, then the production decided to make it in another way and in this other way I didn’t see myself beiing part of it.

Oh, that’s too bad. I love Kahul Gibran. What about The Voices?

The Voices is a very cool thing because you know it’s the first time I will be making a film I have not written myself, the story but for me it’s extremely cool and a big intellectual and artistic challenge.

We are coming up on an election here. I don’t know how much you follow American politics, but I was interested in your perspective.

Jesus Christ! First I have to say, for 25 years, you are still going to be the biggest power in the world, until the Chinese take over, still you have for 25 years, the decision of the United States of America effects the whole world so I propose that everybody in the world should be able to vote for the election of America because America makes the decisions for all of us. This is to start with. Then obviously, I cannot be a republican. I cannot be someone who thinks that general health system is not a good idea, someone who is against abortion. I don’t respect that, anyone who is against gays, I cannot respect that, someone who thinks war is the solution to the problem, I cannot respect that, so whatever republicans say I think they all suck, you know, I hate all their ideas so there is not one single idea that I can agree on. The democrats, you know about Barack Obama, I know you can make a lot of criticism but he has inherited a country after 8 years of George Bush and believe me, it’s hard. You know the damage that George Bush has done? You need a century to get over it so 100% Obama, for sure.


Vincent Paronnaud

I found your collaboration with Marjane really interesting because you have very similar content in your work but your style is actually very different, so how did you marry those two?

What interests me is not people who do it the same way I do, it’s the differences. I’m more intrigued and enthralled by a filmmaker or a writer that brings me a new vision or a different vision and Marjane brings me to a universe that is not at all my universe. It’s very different, it’s more naïve, it’s sort of honest, rooted in her culture.

I understand. One of the things that I think is particularly interesting is the mixture of the animation with the live action in the new film. Did you always plan on having animated sequences in the film?

Not really. We had thought it was going to be completely live action but then when we were looking at a scene in terms of sets, it was going to be very expensive and that’s when we thought, hey maybe we could do this in an animated way. But that’s not a problem, I mean I am used to working under certain constraints so if you hit, you know an issue like that then it’s just a question of finding a solution and then applying yourself to making that solution as perfect as possible.

Yeah, well that’s what being an artist is about. The trouble is the fun part to find a solution. You and Marjane worked together on two films, what did you take away from working with her?

Patience (laughs).

So how did you feel when you began working in animation, because you started out as a graphic novelist without any film background right?

No, I started off with no background as a graphic novelist or filmmaking.

Oh, ok nothing?

I was a bad student.

Did you go to art school?

No.

Wow, you just did it, that’s terrific!

I was kicked out of school when I was very young.

So when you started your first graphic novels, you had no background in it, how did that come about? Did you read others and just start doing them yourself?

Yeah, when I was in France I read an enormous about of comic books and I drew, my entire childhood I drew, so I drew and drew until I was 20 and then I stopped drawing for years because I was doing music and I thought I had nothing to say, no stories to tell. I didn’t think it would be interesting and then, you know, I said okay let me give it a shot and it was a long process, you know you have to learn to work, my life at that time was more like staying out all night until 5, it was a long process.

Do you find that you have more focus in your work now that you have gotten older?

Sure. What I mean about learning how to work is that you do one band and then you say, okay, I did one, I can do two and then okay, I did two, I can do more and then say, oh, I did a book, I can do another and it’s that sort of discipline. You know Pinocchio is a very big book and when I started it I was thinking 200 pages and I thought like that because I’ve done a lot of other things so 200 pages is possible so it’s kind of just saying I’m going to go over there and then you gotta go.

So what are you going to work on next?

I am working on a book on the old and the New Testament.

Oh wow, cool! Did you see R.Crumb’s version of Genesis?

Yes, I am not like that, not old enough (laughs)!

For: Short & Sweet NYC