IN CONVERSATION WITH MIKE FIGGIS
Mike Figgis was a fly on the wall for Francis Ford Coppola's epic, Megalopolis, spending countless hours with Coppola's close collaborators and friends giving us a once-in-a-lifetime look behind the scenes of this fabled production. We spoke with Mike about his time in Atlanta with Francis and the crew, his love for agnès b, documenting Vivienne Westwood's FW 1994 show, photographing Kate Moss, and so much more.
Hagop Kourounian: I’d love to spend some time talking about your own personal style and your relationship with clothing. How much time do you spend thinking about clothes? How did you develop your personal style?
Mike Figgis: I think I spent a lot of time arriving at what works for me. There was a time when I looked at people like David Lean. It's such a cool look, that linen shirt, slightly sloppy but beautiful black jacket and all of that. It's kind of like this presentation so I actually tried to dress like that for a while. It just didn't work for me. It's not my style. I just came back from seven weeks in Italy, living a very simple life and working there. I came back to my apartment and I opened my closet and I said I want to throw all this away. I was kinda thinking, cause I gotta present the film in New York and Los Angeles, what should I wear? I just went to the Venice Film Festival and I decided not to take a suit. I was in the middle of nowhere. So I went with my favorite work jacket, which I found online in England. I don't know, it was like 40 bucks or something like that, not expensive. I bought four of them and I just cycle those, they have good pockets. But I think stylistically they're really good. Kind of a Bill Cunningham kind of jacket, right? I found some great t-shirts that I really like now, that are comfortable, and have long sleeves. So it's all about comfort, if you're going to be working for like 12 hours you don't want to be restricted by your clothes. Anyway, so I was looking at my closet and asking myself what would I keep? Ironically, what I would keep would be a bunch of stuff I bought maybe 35 years ago from agnès b. Like a beautiful long coat. I bought two, one with a pin stripe in it and one in a dark charcoal color. They're just timeless. The color is really cool. They're light, they're super light. You don't sweat in them. Then again, an agnès b suit, a Reservoir Dogs kind of suit. I bought it before Reservoir Dogs. But again, a very slim agnès b black tie. And a bunch of shirts that I bought on sale at Prada. That's all I brought with me. I just thought, wow, I've been wearing these clothes for a long time and they still work. In the meantime, I've bought so many other things that I just got rid of. I like the idea of being able to synthesize what I really like wearing. I could get it down to, you know, maybe 8 t-shirts, a couple of shirts, the agnès b stuff, these working jackets, and then just some kind of work pants.
Hagop Kourounian: It's interesting to hear you mention agnès b so much because Claire Denis is also a huge fan of them and they have a rich connection with the film world as a brand.
Mike Figgis: agnès b produced something for me. I did an installation with an Italian photographer called Massimo Vitali at the Spanish Steps in Rome. I made a real time film and agnès b produced that and paid for the whole thing.
Hagop Kourounian: Oh, wow, I have to seek that out. I haven't come across that in my research. I wanted to kind of dive into a Megadoc for a second. I was one of the people that was a huge fan of Megalopolis. I was very moved in the theatre. I thought it was fantastic contrary to what the general perception of critics and fans were. What was your relationship with Francis Ford Coppola like before the film? How did you guys meet and get in touch originally?
Mike Figgis: I met him through Nic Cage. I met him actually at the Oscars when Nic won for Leaving Las Vegas. I sat next to Francis at the Governor's Ball and we had a really good chat. So we formed a friendship where maybe I’d see him once a year, maybe once every couple of years or we'd sometimes email each other. I guest edited/art directed his magazine, Zoetrope. And through the editor I discovered that he was doing Megalopolis, which I didn't know what Megalopolis was. But I just wrote to Francis and said congratulations and also ‘hey, if you want a fly on the wall, just let me know.’ And he didn't… and then he did at the last minute and said can you be here next month? So that was in a sense the beginning of my real relationship with Francis because from then on I was with him every day and all the long bits between takes where he was getting really frustrated. He was cool about just talking the whole time and always having a microphone. He loves discussing things. And also because I'm a filmmaker, he kind of goes, Mike, what the hell, why are we waiting? I'd say Francis, because you're paying for it. That's why. You pay for all this stuff and it's slow.He said this is the biggest film I've ever made, bigger than Apocalypse Now. I think he was stunned by how slow things have become. Because I think probably on Apocalypse Now, he could still move at the pace he wanted, right? Because that was guerrilla filmmaking in the Philippines. Whereas this was Atlanta, Georgia, it's in the Marvel Universe studio time, you know.
Hagop Kourounian: Obviously, Francis is regarded as one of the legends of filmmaking, right? His run in the ‘70s is unmatched. He's got a very tumultuous career, lots of ups, lots of downs. But did your perception of him as this legendary artist, this four time Oscar winner, change as you got very deep into his creative process? Did your perception of him change after your time with him?
Mike Figgis: Well, as I'd say with anyone that you really admire… I've worked with a lot of really great choreographers, musicians, and so on. So you have a perception of them as a fan, as an admirer. Then you spend time with them. And because I'm literally fascinated by process, I just want to know how things get made. How do they do that? I want to find out as part of my own learning curve. So my fundamental interest with Francis was like, what is his process? Of course, he's, as you say, a kind of bipolar genius who turns left when he said he was going to turn right. So this constant waking up in the morning with a new idea, I think that's been consistent in his life. I'm talking to all the people who've known him a long time and so once I became familiar with that human side of him, like his frustration with himself and also with the situation and this beautiful idea of this 80 something year old, still kind of trying to figure out how things work. 100% sympathy for that. My favorite scenes in the film are when he goes commando and just does it his own way. By the time we finished, we knew each other very well. We've had a few very interesting disagreements and conversations, but they were all being super creative. And I've observed him doing the same with Shia and Jon Voight and with other people. But yeah, I'm richer in terms of, it really helped me focus on what I want to do too, which is the polar opposite of what Francis wants to do. I think we share the same idea that we want to do something in a certain way. It's just that his method involves a lot of people, mine involves no people at all. I just want one on one kind of creativity now.
Hagop Kourounian: Yeah, I heard you kind of talk about that a bit with David Lynch in those, Inland Empire DVD Extra interviews. You guys kind of agreed on that point that when there's a bit of an audience around it changes the film, it changes the actor’s performance.
Mike Figgis: Absolutely. So now I'm making a film with just two actresses, nobody else, just me.
Hagop Kourounian: Oh, that's very cool.
Mike Figgis: That's it. And I'm shooting in Japanese and Korean, which I don't speak. So I don't even know what they say until I get back and translate. I know what we’ve discussed and I know what we've agreed it's about. But once they start talking, you realize, Oh, my God, if you're shooting in your own language, you're hanging on to literally every word. And that's how you're judging your performance. If you don't have that, you're looking microscopically at their physical performance and the nuances of their movements. Maybe a month later, when you actually put the subtitles up, you kind of go, oh, that movement goes with what she just said. So you have this exquisite delay in the process and of course, like you have to totally trust what they're doing and they have to trust what I must be doing, right? Also just the musicality of the languages, which you realize that Asian languages, not only are different languages, they are both intellectually and emotionally different languages. They don't say the same things. The translations are crude approximations. That's all they are.
Hagop Kourounian: Aside from your narrative features, you’ve made many documentaries about dancers, musicians, filmmakers, etc. I wanted to ask about something you’ve made that I feel has been lost, which is your documentary with Vivienne Westwood about her 1994 On Liberty runway show. It's so hard to find on the internet. It's not streaming. It's not even on Letterboxd for people to log. I'm curious, what was it like submerging yourself in her world? Did you learn anything from her creative process specifically?
Mike Figgis: Absolutely. You know, I also worked with Malcolm McLaren on a different project, we were going to make a film about Led Zeppelin. He was producing that but we fell out over creative differences. But Vivienne was amazing. So I’ll tell you a very funny story because my daughter was working for her at the time. She said Vivienne's doing this amazing show and no one's filming it. Do you want to come and meet her? I said, all right. And you know, she was totally casual. Then I made the film and it was fucking amazing. Have you seen the film?
Hagop Kourounian: Yeah. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's amazing.
Mike Figgis: Yeah! Every supermodel in the world, barring Cindy Crawford, was in that show, right? And I had complete access, front stage, backstage. The second videographer with me was Jean-François Robin, who had just shot Betty Blue, he's amazing. So I finished the film and I presented it to Vivienne and she went, "Oh, I think it's quite good." She said, "But I have one question, why does it say ‘directed by Mike Figgis?’" And I went, "What do you mean?" She said, "Well, it should really say directed by Vivienne Westwood because they're my clothes." And I went, "Yeah, but I made the film." She went, "Oh, all right, then.” And we just moved on. You know, it's centric, right? That was my first kind of entree into fashion. Then I did a film with Lanvin and then I worked with Georgio Armani. I did a lovely film with him. I love fashion and when fashion's good, it’s spectacular. My interest in photography came from being in a family of three sisters and a beautiful mother and reading Vogue discovering Helmut Newton and all those people, you know?
Hagop Kourounian: Doing this project for the last five years, I've found that filmmakers, playwrights, fashion designers all have a very similar creative process. I feel like they are all kind of intertwined, you know? I think filmmakers are interested in fashion. Fashion people are interested in filmmaking and theater, you know? Like a runway show is kind of like a live theater. I'm curious if you kind of see any similarities between the three. It feels like they're all storytellers in different mediums.
Mike Figgis: Absolutely. Absolutely. Fashion has become all about the camera. So when you think about fashion, you think about David Bailey or Avedon. When I shot Kate Moss, for example, I shot an entire campaign for Agent Provocateur and made four films in two days with her. It's like, as soon as I start shooting her, she hears “click” and then, boom, something happens and then she's already ready for the next shot. That's why she's Kate Moss. I see that something in the same way with an actor. That's why they're who they are, it’s that they have this relationship of storytelling through this modern medium which is photography. Let's call it photography, whether it's moving or still. That kind of connects all of them. So good fashion has the same psychological story possibility as good film, you know, or is a good still photograph, you know. I think that's true.
There's an interesting quote from Mickey Rourke, which I'm going to use again, which was that he once famously said acting is women's work and American male actors are uncomfortable acting in a way, because they think it's kind of too feminine, right? They'd rather punch another guy than kiss someone or whatever, you know what I mean? Whereas women are comfortable with that. There may be something in the fact that I prefer working with actresses in a sense and that would go back to fashion too. So if you take the idea of the runway, and is it a bunch of women walking down there? Or is it guys who then sort of imitate the kind of female on the runway, right? Because that's a fairly recent phenomenon, let's say about 30 years or so. Does that feel as natural? Is it naturally a female world fashion? Of course it isn't, you know, because it's become whatever you want it to be. But at its root there's something about male-female psychology that plays out so well in film, in fashion. When you come into physical acting, which is what the camera picks up, and amplifies, it becomes a very interesting question. And the actors, the male actors that I really like working with are actually quite feminine and in touch with their femininity. Like Brando, the ultimate example of a feminine, very masculine, but very feminine actor, right?
Hagop Kourounian: Yeah, my mind went to Richard Gere as well when you said that.
Mike Figgis: Yeah, interesting, isn't it? I was reading a bit about Giorgio Amani, and of course, I was reminded that it was Richard, that it was American Giggolo, that kind of propelled Giorgio into everyone's consciousness, right?
Hagop Kourounian: Yeah, Giorgio would credit that film and that costume design for putting him on the map. That actually makes me kind of want to ask you about Internal Affairs for a second. I rewatched it over the weekend and it's an amazing film. I'm from here in LA, from the Valley as well, so it was kind of fun to see mentions of Ventura Blvd and Granada Hills. I'm curious to hear about your thoughts on LA. I read that you were trying to green light something that was set in LA and you called LA like a blank canvas. Can you elaborate on that? I love the city, I love LA films, it's like my favorite genre of movies, and I'm just curious to hear what you have to say.
Mike Figgis: Well my favorite of those things, like The Long Goodbye the Altman movie, Cutter’s Way, and all those kinds of movies. Altman in general. So I jumped in, my second feature and my first American film, with that blissful naivete, and let's say confidence, arrogance, whatever. I'd seen so many American films in the same way that as a musician, I grew up listening to jazz and rock n roll and blues. It was a totally comfortable genre for me and it was kind of funny. It was much more comfortable than British cinema, you know, which I kind of struggled with, it was a bit miserable. So when I arrived for the first time in Los Angeles, it just looked like it's supposed to look. Then John Alonzo showed me this amazing 500 millimeter lens that just kind of flattened everything out beautifully, right? He'd actually designed this lens for working with National Geographic, but instead of a focus pull, it had a trigger, so you could focus with a trigger to do a very quick focus pull. I just jumped in, I didn't really know enough about studio filmmaking, so I just went for it. Of course Richard Gere is a bit of a rebel, he was down on his luck at that time. Paramount didn't really want him, they wanted someone totally inappropriate, but I fought for it. I had a fantastic cast, ultimately just the most brilliant screenplay, an incredible script, fantastic, you know. Only afterwards, I realised how lucky I was to get that combination of Richard, a great Henry Bean script, John Alonzo's cinematography, a bunch of really great actors, the freedom, and a very good produce in Frank Mancuso Jr, who's a bit of a punk, he loved The Smiths, and he liked The Clash and all of that. He was totally into English stuff. Sometimes things fall, because with filmmaking, so many things can go wrong, but when they go right, it's usually because a bunch of coincidences have kind of worked out quite well. I saw Internal Affairs again, because they've done a new 4K of it and it looks really good, you know, it looks great. It looks very contemporary but the women's clothes, the padded shoulders, and the bubbly curly hair is the thing that dates it the most.
Hagop Kourounian: Those are the last remnants of the ‘80s that kind of are trickling into the early ‘90s there.
Mike Figgis: I found a clip the other day that I’m going to put in my new film. I'm using archives with stuff I'm shooting now, and it's probably about ‘92 or ‘93. I was staying at the Chateau Marmont, and there was a place below the Chateau Marmont, originally it was a Japanese restaurant, very famous, and then it turned into a nightclub. It was the one just below the marble sign, right? And it was always the big scene on Friday and Saturday night, like a huge club scene, very popular, and I just got a video camera, and I went out and filmed from the other side of Sunset with just people arriving and getting out of their cars and just like talking to each other. I looked at it the other day, it's so good, it's just like the hairstyles, the cars, the guys with their sort of like Miami Vice vibe, it's fantastic.
Hagop Kourounian: Wow, I would love to see that. Before we go, I do want to ask a little bit about music. I think most of the films I've seen of yours say "Music by Mike Figgis.” How did you start making music for your films, where did your relationship with music start?
Mike Figgis: I always wanted just to be a trumpet player, I just wanted to be a jazz musician. So then I wanted to study music in London because I wanted to learn about composition, because I hadn't had any training, I couldn't read music properly and all of that, so I forced myself to learn that, started playing piano, I studied classical guitar, all that stuff. And then I kind of just fell in with a bunch of performance art people, as their musician, and then I became an actor, just because that sort of thing happened. And then for 15 years I did that kind of performance art stuff. I always made soundtracks and I was always fascinated by movie soundtracks. So I wanted the theatre to sound like a movie, so I'd make these 16 minute soundtracks as if you were in a movie house, but you're watching my theatre. So when I started making films, which were low budget, I just automatically said I’ll just write the music for it, because I'd been doing it all this time anyway. Stormy Monday, my first movie, the studio happily said yes, because they didn't have to pay a composer. Then I had a real fight with Internal Affairs because Paramount didn’t want me to do the music. Then I saw Robert Towne at a party, he’d just done a movie, and in front of my producer, he said he loved the music for Stormy Monday and that he’d been using the soundtrack for Stormy Monday as the temp score for his new film. He did this in front of the producer, so there was a relenting, and they then said, okay you can co-compose. So they put me with two other brilliant guys, and that's how I did that score.
Hagop Kourounian: Do you have a favorite score that's not one of your own films?
Mike Figgis: Yeah, it would have to be three films. Once Upon a Time in America, which is Ennio Morricone. In Cold Blood which is Quincy Jones, which is an amazing score. And then the one that's really kind of like made me rethink music. is a film called It Follows. That film really impressed me.
Hagop Kourounian: Mike, thank you so much for taking the time for this.
Mike Figgis: My pleasure. It was a great interview. Thank you.
