A Conversation with
Director Jason Apuzzo
Jason Apuzzo
Director-Writer-Producer
KALIFORNISTAN
Jason Apuzzo is the writer-director of KALIFORNISTAN. Previously, Jason co-founded The Liberty Film Festival (LFF), and co-founded, wrote, and edited the LFF's popular blog, Libertas, which was voted the #3 culture blog on the internet in 2007. Jason has appeared on Fox News, CNN and other networks to discuss film, and has written on film for The LA Times, Townhall.com and other publications. He is married to actress Govindini Murty.
Jason has an MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, a Ph.D. in Germanic Literature from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University.
Jason lives in Los Angeles and is married to actress/writer Govindini Murty.
For Jason’s full bio, please click HERE.
In a wide-ranging interview Apuzzo talks about his film KALIFORNISTAN, Hollywood, politics, and his vision of ‘direct cinema’ with video artist Michelle Landome.
<< Kalifornistan to Open Free Thinking Film Festival, Nov. 12th, 2010! See HERE. >>
A terrorist [Nick Nyon] stalks an exotic dancer [Govindini Murty] in KALIFORNISTAN.
There's obviously a lot of political humor in KALIFORNISTAN, but I personally don't think that's what the film's about. I view the humor and satire as almost being like visual effects would be in another film. It's just there to draw you in.
To me, KALIFORNISTAN is basically a depiction of human evil in its most contemporary form - terrorism. That's what the film is exploring for 90 minutes.
ML: Is the terrorist character based on anyone in real life?
JA: Yes and no. I tried to reduce the terrorist’s motivation down to the most basic level: the will to dominate others. There’s actually very little else you find out about him. Although you sense he’s from the Middle East, his ethnic identity really isn’t specified - and he really isn’t that interested in the philosophical aspects of jihad. He's basically just in it to blow things up and score chicks. That's about it. That's what excites him about terrorism. He’s not very intellectual - he’s totally libido dominandi. He’s almost abstract that way, like a psychic symbol. As I told Nick Nyon, our actor who played the terrorist, the dark hood he wears really is the character. The rest of the character is whatever the audience is projecting onto him.
We also learn that bin Laden kicked this particular terrorist out of Al Qaeda for being a 'loose cannon.' That ends up being important in terms of his motivation to out-do bin Laden. The terrorist in KALIFORNISTAN wants to dominate everyone - including other terrorists. He actually hates Al Qaeda because they rejected him. That seems to be what these guys are like in real life. They’re intensely competitive with each other.
I mean, we're talking about really basic stuff here. [Laughs.] The terrorist in KALIFORNISTAN just can't understand that. He has this backward and shallow worldview that the film satirizes mercilessly. He literally can't imagine how a woman could get along without him.
The reason Islamic terrorists take the attitude they do is that they recognize that women have a kind of basic, primal power over men. It's what makes these terrorists so hostile and vulnerable at the same time to women ... they want to destroy them at the same time that they want to possess them. Women have an emotional, psychological power over men that overcomes all ideology, all politics. That's ultimately what trips up the terrorist in KALIFORNISTAN. It's a 'beauty and the beast' story, in that what dooms him in the end is his obsession with a woman. Nothing else thrown in his way is really effective. So Govindini's character is a classic 'femme fatale,' in that sense.
ML: I notice that KALIFORNISTAN shifts tone rather dramatically in its second half. It becomes the exotic dancer's story, as much as the terrorist's.
JA: What I ultimately find more interesting than the psychology of the terrorist is actually the attitude of the exotic dancer, Govindini's character. She's basically a typical Western party girl, who suddenly has this maniac coming after her ... and she doesn't want to deal with it. Even after the terrorist starts stalking her, she stays in denial and acts almost like nothing is happening - except that she has these visions and premonitions that remind her of what's suddenly intruded into her life. And then, of course, in the last act of the film she really has to confront her fears as things start to get completely out of control.
I think that's the attitude most people have toward Islamic terrorism - we don't want to deal with it. We don't want to be accused of 'racism' or intolerance. We don't want to look like boors, or warmongers. But it's precisely that reluctance that terrorists prey upon.
The reason I made KALIFORNISTAN the way I did is that women really have the most to lose right now if we lose the war on terror. This war is really their war, to a degree they may not always want to acknowledge. We're not really fighting over oil, or U.S. hegemony. We are fighting over whether women are fully equal or not.
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ML: So much of KALIFORNISTAN's humor seems to be directed at the attitude Islamic terrorists take toward women.
JA: When all is said and done, I actually think that's the biggest difference in terms of the terrorists' worldview and that of the West ... it really has to do with women. That's the most irreconcilable aspect of their worldview with our own. Women in the West do not want to be treated as chattel, they don't want to wear burkhas, they don't want to be just 1 of 4 wives for some guy. They want to go to school, be educated, have jobs, etc. They want their own lives.
Govindini Murty in KALIFORNISTAN.
ML: KALIFORNISTAN is a mockumentary about a terrorist in Los Angeles harbor who runs a terror cell called 'Glorious Jihad of Kalifornistan.'
JA: Yes.
ML: The terrorist wants to be a celebrity, bigger than bin Laden, and is motivated by the need to have women worship him. He pins his hopes on what he calls his 'mighty plutonium superbomb,' which he intends to detonate in the Port of Los Angeles ... but he gets distracted by a sexy exotic dancer, played by Govindini Murty.
JA: That's right.
ML: How did you come up with the idea to do this film?
JA: The simplest answer, I suppose, is that the 9/11 attacks took place about 3 months before I finished film school - and those attacks completely changed my long-term attitude about my film career. Everything I've been doing these past few years, whether it's KALIFORNISTAN or the Liberty Film Festival or Libertas, basically grew out of the need I felt after 9/11 to change my whole approach toward film, to become more engaged rather than just to retreat into Hollywood-style fantasy. I'd been feeling that way even prior to those attacks, but after 9/11 I really felt called.
Jason Apuzzo directs actor/martial artist John Barrett in KALIFORNISTAN.
ML: Why do you think Hollywood has been so resistant to the subject of terrorism?
JA: I think there are ideological restrictions at work there. And it's a shame, because the subject matter is obviously quite relevant to our time.
There are two things, in my opinion, that really drive terrorism on the street level - which is where KALIFORNISTAN takes place. One of them is a certain kind of madness - a form of anger or alienation that expresses itself in the rage to destroy America and suppress freedom, to enslave or otherwise do violence to women, to ridicule social norms, romanticize tyranny ... whatever. It's that hysteria, that fracturing of existence that I wanted to capture in KALIFORNISTAN.
The other factor is the contemporary need, fueled by mass-media, to become a celebrity and be worshipped. Really what you're talking about there is an extreme form of narcissism. KALIFORNISTAN is an attempt to capture all that in cinematic form, and satirize it. The cinema, I think, is an ideal medium for capturing the deranged state certain people are in nowadays.
ML: Having just seen the film, it’s extremely intense. I wanted to ask you whether you view KALIFORNISTAN as a political film, or as something that makes a political statement?
JA: I don't really view the world in political terms - I view it in psychological terms. Psychology is what drives politics - not the other way around.
