Artist Jorge R. Gutiérrez's discusses the border, his struggles in the film industry and his painting spree which led to this prolific show, Border Bang; HBO, Netflix and NBC face advertisers at the Television Critics Association Daniel Holloway of Variety fills us in on what went down; James Schamus used to run the film studio Focus Features for years, but this past January when he went to Sundance with his directorial debut, "Indignation."
'Border Bang': Artist Jorge Gutierrez and the vivid pop culture of the US-Tijuana border
When you hear people talking about the border these days, it’s often about the wall a certain GOP nominee wants to build.
But for artist and animator Jorge Gutierrez, the border was a source of inspiration and wonder. Growing up in Tijuana, Gutierrez crossed that border almost every day to attend school in the U.S. Along the way he was struck by the mash-up of American and Mexican pop culture being peddled by vendors.
His experience crossing the border over the years is the inspiration for his new gallery show, "Border Bang." It’s a collection of 57, vividly-colored paintings depicting pop culture figures Gutierrez was first exposed to during his childhood in Tijuana.If you saw Gutierrez's Day of the Dead-themed animated movie, "The Book of Life," you'll recognize his style.
We recently caught up with Gutierrez as he was preparing to open his show at the Gregorio Escalante Gallery in L.A.'s Chinatown.
Interview Highlights:
On how his exposure to pop culture along the border influenced his show:
This is the stuff I've had in my head since I was a kid. As you can imagine, the border was a big part of my life growing up. So this show is just me. I say I'm like a chef and I just couldn't stop myself from cooking all these dishes.
A lot of middle-class Mexican families send their kids to go to the U.S. to learn English. So everyday I would cross the border and I was bombarded by all these bootlegs of American culture. It was kind of a shocking experience to be exposed to all this stuff because a lot of times I had no idea who these characters were. So I made up stories in my head. I didn't know that Mickey Mouse and Mr. T and Elvis didn't hang out. I just got used to seeing them together.
It was roughly two hours every morning [waiting to cross]. Sometimes the border guards would poke my belly and say, Did you swallow any [drug-filled] condoms? Obviously, I was nine years old and so I thought, That must be a really good cereal!
To me, Superman is the ultimate immigrant. He left his planet, he came here, he pretends to be like us, and secretly makes our world better. To me that's the perfect immigrant.
Lucha Libre is Mexican wrestling, but "Luchó Libre" means, He fought to be free. It's about all the openly gay wrestlers in Mexico. You know, Mexico is kind of a homophobic society, but in Mexican wrestling, they are crushing that. People cheer for these guys in a way that you don't see in other parts of the culture.
I did not know who Tupac [Shakur] was until one day I saw his T-shirts show up on the border. He was right next to Jesus and other very important figures so I figured this is a very important person. Then I found out who he was and I fell in love with his music. It's such a tragic story, but the border told me who to listen to.
One of the things I love about the border productions is that they reflect the fears and dreams of the people crossing. So the border tells you how to feel. For example, they would have an El Chapo halloween mask so kids know, Hey, that's a bad guy. Trump — they have piñatas so you know that's someone we should hit with a stick.
On how he ended up painting 57 paintings in five months:
Originally it was only going to be nine [paintings]. Then I just started painting and I got to the point where I would get bored waiting for the paint to dry, so I would start another painting. Then I got to the point where I was painting nine paintings at a time. This is something I did at night and on the side. I would put my son to sleep and then put on "Rocky III" and paint Mr. T. Whatever I was painting I would put on either the [related] record or the movie and then I would paint for three to four hours. It was crazy. Our house started looking like some crazy painter used to live there. The day we had to ship all the paintings, my wife got really depressed. She said, All our children are gone.
On his artistic heroes and inspirations:
My two big art heroes are Basquiat and Picasso. I love also Mexican folk art. Then, I work in animation so it's kind of a mix of all those things. And that's the border, right? You take things from all over the world and you make them your own.
As an artist I have to keep doing stuff that hopefully informs people. To me, I have two audiences: I've always been deemed not Mexican enough by Mexican audiences and too Mexican for American audiences. But I think because I grew up on the border, I'm very comfortable disappointing both.
On the reaction he's received about the content of his work:
What's been crazy is social media. I've been putting all of this stuff on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and so people write me directly saying, I love this piece or It reminds me of this. "The Book of Life" was very different. But here, to talk to people who came to the gallery or who saw the pictures [via social media] in Japan or in Ireland — that's kind of amazing. As an artist you dream of having that interaction.
Spider-Man to all us Mexicans looks like a Mexican wrestler because of the mask design. Then you learn about his story and you find out, Oh, he really is a wrestler — [because] he hides his identity. I loved how in Spanish, Mary Jane basically means marijuana. So as a kid I thought, Wow, Spider-Man really is into marijuana.
I'm super proud of [the painting], "El Ultimo Super Macho." Super macho is something that I grew up with from my grandfather. He told me, there's two types of Mexican men: machos and super machos. The difference between the machos and super machos is that the macho guy fights everybody, but the super macho guy doesn't fight anyone. So it was like Mexican zen. Then he told me the macho guy cheats on his wife. The super macho guy is super loyal and never cheats on his wife. I asked him, Grandfather, are you Super Macho? He said, No, I'm not. So it was something to aspire to. It's my dream that when I die, I'm super macho.
Jorge Gutierrez's "Border Bang" is at the Gregorio Escalante Gallery through Aug. 14.
James Schamus goes from studio chief to director with 'Indignation'
James Schamus has been an Oscar-nominated film producer and screenwriter. He partnered with Ang Lee on a number of films, and has writing credits on “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “The Ice Storm.” Until this January, he had never been to the Sundance Film Festival as a director. He attended the indie Mecca most recently as the head of Focus Features, the arthouse division of Universal, where he was looking to buy movies. But this year he took his directorial debut "Indignation" to the festival in the hopes that someone would buy his movie. The night of the premiere Lionsgate bought it for $2.5 million.
"Indignation" is an adaptation of the Philip Roth novel of the same name, and it stars Logan Lehrman, Tracey Letts and Sarah Gadon. It's in theaters now.
The Frame's John Horn sat down with Schamus to get a sense of what it’s like for him to be at the festival in this new incarnation.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
You have been in the Eccles theater [at Sundance] probably more times than you care to count, but it's always been in the role of a buyer, somebody who's looking at a film, trying to figure out if it was a good match for Focus Features. What was it like watching your film not as that person?
That question assumes that while I was sitting in my seat I was actually capable of watching my movie, rather than just kind of feeling what the audience was communicating to me, which was the primary experience, really. So it was quite different.
What was that like?
It was great. Obviously, being in the theater with 1,200 people and having the audience burst into applause at a scene in a drama was weird. I've never had that except once before — at the world premiere for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," when people applauded after the first fight scene. I thought, Oh well, that [scene in 'Indignation'] seems kind of like a fight scene, too. So I guess it makes sense. But it was very odd.
http://a.scpr.org/i/25c084b7f3c718c076ec409a3a8eb40b/117918-six.jpg
(Logan Lerman and Sarah Gadon star in James Schamus's directorial debut, "Indignation")
This is the 12-minute scene between Logan Lerman and Tracy Letts?
You're warm!
Fifteen?
But the point is, it's not a macho thing, let's put it that way, like how long it is. But to the extent to which [the scene] played narratively and intensely, people really got the underlying structure and architecture of it. That was the biggest moment, obviously, for me in the evening.
And were you able to separate yourself out from that experience, or did it feel as if you were watching it from some altered state?
The thing is, whatever calculations went into writing and making the movie, the moment of calculation passes by the time it screens. So it is a different experience, on the one hand, than those that I had when I was buying films as the head of a studio. On the other hand, having seen a few hundred movies over the years here at Sundance, my philosophy was always the same — which was, after about 10-20 minutes or so, usually, as a buyer, I would know whether or not the film was for Focus. But I maintained, for myself and my team, [the] ethos, Never walk out of a movie, no matter what. So I sat through all those movies.
You are very rare in that category. Because most of the buyers I know will walk out quickly and loudly.
Yeah. And I refuse to participate in that. I thought that this is a filmmakers' festival. These people have worked hard, no matter what. They made a movie. I'm going to sit and watch that movie. Quite often, the movies that I most enjoyed here at the festival were those that I knew I would never have anything to do with as a businessperson. So I could just sit back and say, Look, let's see where this person's taking me.
They might not have been the best movies, and sometimes they really were the best movies, but they were movies that I was not in a position to distribute.
When you introduced the film at the premiere the other night, you referred to being — and I'm quoting you — "uncharacteristically humbled." What do you mean by that?
[Laughter.] What I meant by it was the followup to it. Which is, uncharacteristically humbled and potentially humiliated. Luckily the potential humiliation [seems] not to have appeared, so that was great. I'm very happy for that outcome. But you have to admit your own vulnerability. Here I am of a certain age and a certain career. And I could easily continue to be doing things that would enable me to be well-remunerated and to receive various life-achievement accolades until whenever. But when you stand there, you're really — even though it's a collective work of art, and I had a great crew and a great cast — you're the guy with the target.
There's nobody else to blame.
Exactly. And rightfully so. So I was vulnerable. And I should have been.
I want to talk a little bit about filmmaking influences. You have worked in the business for decades. You've produced a lot of movies. You've written a lot of movies. As a director, as a different job, do you think of yourself as being influenced by filmmakers you've worked with? Do you think you have your own style? Or are you really able to differentiate those things as you're making a movie?
I've learned so much from everybody. And what I tried to do as a first time director on this movie was something that I've noticed. Sometimes directors fall into a certain trap — they screen their favorite movie for the crew, right? It's like, Let's watch "The Seventh Seal" together and you'll see what I'm really going for! Which to me is just a nightmare. Because A), I'll never get there anyhow. That's Ingmar Bergman and I'm not. And B), I don't want the crew to think that I'm just emulating something. So, I pulled from as many disparate sources and inspirations as I could, knowing that I was going to organize them in a specific style at the end of the day.
If the people who run NBC Universal didn't have a different view of the world, you might be here at Focus Features looking for films. You are not, because they changed the company radically and changed your job in it. With a film here now, does part of you say, Everything happens for a reason?
Yeah, of course. Even if I didn't believe it I'd have to answer that question that way. For sure.
Here's the truth, to be honest. My exit from Focus was something that I had foreseen and had planned on, just not quite as early as that. So I had seen that writing on the wall. I did not see the fundamental change, obviously, to the lives of the other staff at the company at the time. But besides that, I think it had been time. The job had gotten much more corporate the last couple years I was there. And you know, over the years I was able to maintain a pretty fun balance between my own personal creative work and the work of really supporting the company and the films I was delivering for it. But that balance was certainly disappearing.