Sunday 28 August 2011

Auteur

Interviewer: We're here in Café Diavolo with noted Auteur Joaquin Felther, who is currently holding a barrista hostage. Joaquin, is this behaviour entirely normal?
JF: Who's to say what's normal? These people, here, they say that it is not normal to want coffee as black as the souls of men, and they insist on adding milk to it. I will hold out until I receive my coffee the way I like it.
Int: Well, there is some frenzied activity behind the counter now, so perhaps they're seeing to it. The reason we're meeting here today, of course, is not so that I can witness you flirting with arrest, yet again, but to talk about your career to date and your new film.
JF: Ah yes, my new film! Love-song for an Elder Horror. It drove part of the test audience mad, you know.
Int: There were stories to that effect, certainly. Do you think it might be a little irresponsible to release a film that has been shown to induce insanity?
JF: People must always make the decision themselves. I do not conceal the nature of the film, and I make no recommendation that people of a susceptible disposition, or the feeble-minded, should go and see it. Indeed, I feel that these are people who very definitely should not see this film. Or any of my films. I despise these people!
Int: Well, you're no stranger to controversy, certainly. You notably once wrote a love letter to Gabriella Puccilini and published it, if that's the right word, by printing it onto banners that you hung in every public square in Trento.
JF: Yes, it was a beautiful letter and I meant every word of it.
Int: The imagery was stunning, certainly, and led to your arrest and subsequent trial on a charge of 'causing decent people to think indecent thoughts and to suffer a loss of innocence.' You plead not guilty at the time–
JF: And I would plead not guilty now! I did not make people read these words, I offered them up only as an honest depiction of my feelings and let people decide for themselves the truth of my emotion. I stirred the anthracene souls of men and women and invited the noxious vapours of self-awareness to rise.
Int: Gabriella Puccilini had been dead for thirty years when you wrote your letter. There was a discussion during your trial of whether you intended either necromancy, necrophilia, or both.
JF: And as I said at the time, my words do not advocate these things! If this is how you feel after reading my words, then you must ask yourself why you want to do these things.
Int: And recently there has been a repeal of certain laws regarding necrophilia in a number of municipalities. Do you feel that you are somehow contributing to moral decay and turpitude?
JF: Of course not!
Int: You are also famous, of course, for your interpretation of Snow White, in which you cast a prostitute as Snow White and found seven young men whose upbringing had resulted in stunted growth. The film was set in a truly brutal concrete housing estate, and Burberry sued you on release of the film for bringing their brand name into disrepute. What are your feelings about this?
JF: That was the cheapest film I ever made. The dwarves all lived in that housing estate anyway, so much of the action was shot in their own homes, and the prostitute gave us a discounted hourly rate when she realised how many days we were booking her for. Our biggest problem was her insistence on seeing other clients when she wasn't in the scene, but we solved it finally by breaking open an abandoned flat and letting her set up shop there.
Int: Critics suggest that a prostitute cannot truly be 'Snow White' and that you might have got your characters mixed up.
JF: We did consider calling her Rose Red for a while, but then we'd have had to cut the scenes with the apple.
Int: Which caused religious riots due to the biblical imagery....
JF: Hah! The symbology of the scene says even worse things, but only fusty academics noticed!
Int: Ah, your coffee has arrived. Will you let your hostage go now? It's time to conclude this interview anyway; thank-you for your time, and your typically indiscreet comments.

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