Interview: Marjane Satrapi

Hey All,
The work I did for the Boxoffice.com website has been archived within the site, but each time I brag about having interviewed So-And-So and I attempt to forward the link to the victim of said bragging, the link never works. I am dubious that my contributions will be preserved for posterity, so, at the risk of breaching some contract and facing legal repercussions, I'm going to cut and paste at least one of those previously published pieces here; my interview with Marjane Satrapi. I conducted this interview about a month prior to the release of Satrapi's film, PERSEPOLIS, in the states. A much, much longer version version exists on my hard drive, but I think this (heavily edited) version a much more enjoyable read...

So, enjoy already...

Marjane Satrapi

December 18, 2007

Illustrator and storyteller Marjane Satrapi has found an audience with young and old all over the world. She is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times, and has produced such graphic works as Chicken with Plums and Embroideries; but it is Persepolis, her four-part series of illustrated biographical novels recounting her childhood in Iran during the rise of fundamentalist Islam, that has earned her international attention. Now an animated feature directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, Persepolis has garnered accolades from Toronto International, Telluride, and New York film festivals. Released through Sony Pictures, Persepolis arrives in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas Day.

Q: Where does the title “Persepolis,” come from?

MJ: Persepolis is the ancient capital of Persia. It is the name the Greeks gave to it. “Persepolis” in Greek means the city of the Iranian….It…helps people to not forget that this is a country with 4,000 years of history. Plus, its one word, its easy to remember—a beautiful word. When titles are too long, you never remember them. Once you hear the name “Persepolis,” you remember it.

Q: In reading Persepolis, one is struck by your parents very liberal intellectual depiction, especially against the dominant fundamentalist culture of the time…

MJ: You have liberal parents and crazy fanatic parents—you have them everywhere. I have a friend who lives in Salt Lake City. All of her neighbors are Mormon. Jesus Christ, thank God I was born in Iran and not in Salt Lake City with those kinds of parents, that would be just Hell.

I am much happier to have been born in Iran—a challenge though it was. But having the parents surrounding me that I had, unlike being born into these Born Again Christian families—I’m ten times happier. I am very happy to have not been born into a fanatical family. It doesn’t matter if you are born into the freest country in the world; if you are born into a fanatical family…if you are stuck with them in your childhood, you are stuck with them….

Q: Were people of your parent’s mindset very commonplace in Iran, or do you feel your parents were the exception to the rule?

MJ: I don’t know if I can say “common.” If I say that about the whole if Iran, it’s definitely not true, but I come from Tehran, and I came from a middle-class family and we had enough money to travel to Europe, to go to movies, etc—and not to have major problems….All of my friends had similar situations as my parents did; very educated, very open-minded,

Q: In your preface to Persepolis you characterize Iran as being a strong nation, a nation whose language and culture stood up to repeated invasions for centuries. And yet, the most detrimental alteration of that culture ultimately came not from without, but from within. Why was this?

MJ: Let’s remember there is 5,000 years of history here. The Persian Empire was the biggest in the world—ever—until that point in time. The first words of the world were written in this country, the first Federal System was established in this country. It is a strong identity that is there. But this condescension with which the western world looks upon this region of the world can be unbearable. Changes in a country, of course, have to come from within the country. From the second you say, “I will go and bring peace to this country,” from the second you invade this country you are an enemy of this country, whether you wanted to be or not. If you love your own country and you think it belongs to you, you need to remember other people share exactly the same feelings. So how is it that we can determine that pride for here is good, but the pride there is not? How can we determine if people in another place have great pride for their own country and that other people don’t have any pride?

In making Persepolis--if there was a goal to it as an artistic project—it was to show that a human being is a human being no matter where in the world they come from. I wanted to show what it was like to grow up in a place where the individual is repressed and what you do to grow up in that and what you do when it comes time to leave. For the living, it is not just enough to be alive, as individuals we need more. This is a story about things that have happened and are still happening and will continue to happen in many countries of the world. Once in a while those changes come from your government, once in a while it comes from your family, from your school friends, but that’s why some many people can identify with the story.

Q: In the latter half of Persepolis, your boyfriend, Markus’ character says, “ Culture and education are the lethal weapons against all kinds of fundamentalism,” and yet it was a group of Iranian student revolutionaries who seized the American Embassy in 1979, holding them captives for nearly three years…

MJ: You need to understand something--the Shah originally took power in Iran by a coup d’etat supported by the American government in 1953. Memories carry from one generation to another. Imagine that in 1951 we nationalize our oil, Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal, and whole wave of democracy comes into this region. Suddenly this coup d’etat happened. President Truman didn’t want the coup, but it happened and after we didn’t have any trust for the American government. You have to understand that the secret service of the Shah was very much helped by the CIA—they kidnapped people and tortured them. So, the people are not very friendly toward the US government. When the hostage situation happened, it was a big deal for you, but for us not so much because these were not nice people to us. Also, let’s face it, nobody was killed and nobody was tortured. They spent 444 days there and then they came back to their country and that was it.

I grew up with the idea that Americans were the worst people in the world… because of what I was taught in school. But I come to America for the first time, looking for other reasons to hate them, and I got this slap in my face because they were all so fucking nice. During the last election—me, the Axis of Evil— here I am defending Americans in France, declaiming what was being said about Americans—Why? Because I know who Americans are, they are not pro war either, they are nice people and they want peace in the world. Why did I feel this way? Because I had been instructed to do so? No, it was because I went and I saw and I tried to understand who the American Person is…Being very much constricted by your ignorance is where the problem lies…I make an effort and make discoveries and suddenly things are not the way I thought.

If we understand that we have different points of view, how can we hate each other?

Q: In the publishing realm there does exist an effort to maintain a distinction between the graphic novel and the comic book, at least in the West. Case in point, Alan Moore (creator of V, For Vendetta, The Watchmen, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) has referred to comics as being predominantly superhero stories, or more precisely, “thirteen-year-old power fantasies.”

MJ: All of that is Comics. It’s just the medium of Comics and I like Comics. I always say that I am a cartoonist and I make comics. I have never said that I was a “Graphic Novelist.” What is a Graphic Novel…? “Graphic Novel,” is really a term that the publishers created to save the bourgeois from being scared or ashamed to read comics in front of their friends. I’m a cartoonist and I make comics and I don’t care for this “Graphic Novel” stuff.

Making comics is just a medium--it’s just an arrangement…It’s like animation, people ask, “Why did you make your movie an animated movie instead of using real people?” It was the choice that seemed the most logical. Animation, really, is not a style of storytelling, its not a genre, it’s a storytelling technique.

Q: Were there any particular challenges in seeking support for adapting Persepolis to film?

MJ: The biggest challenge for people…was getting them to understand that a comic book is not a storyboard for a movie. There was this initial feeling that if you are adapting Comics, all you have to do is take the book and film the frame one after the other and you have your movie, which is not true. A movie is a completely different narration and you don’t have the same relationship to it. They’re two different media and two different kinds of narration. We kept many of the main elements from the comics, like the characters, but a whole new framework around it had to be created. The two works, the book and the film, are very similar, but at the same time they are very, very different and that is the whole paradox of the project.


Q: In adapting Persepolis into an animated film, were there moments that stood out as being particularly challenging?

MJ: No, we really tried to proceed with the story and forget about the book. We just pulled the comics apart and started to develop the narration. If there was dialogue that would be good for the movie, we kept it—but just some of it—for the most part we had to recreate the whole thing.

Q: While watching Persepolis evolve into a feature-length film, did you make any new discoveries about your story?

MJ: Absolutely. In a book, for example, it’s very easy to cover sixteen years of someone’s life, but it’s not so easy in a movie because then you would have five movies in one. You have to choose an axis; you have to choose a turning point. When we began making the movie, I was in a very nostalgic time of my life, so we decided to structure the whole film a flashback. Setting it up this way is all part of the decisions you have to make for film but not for a book. In a book your audience can take their time, in a film, your time is limited.

Q: You made the conscious decision in 1994 to leave Iran indefinitely, and yet you still refer to it as “my country.”

MJ: Of course I do. It was not an actual decision. I can go back, the problem is, if I may leave once I go back—that is the question! Of course I see Iran as my country, but France is also my country. The situation is not exactly the way I want it to be, but it will never stop being my country.

Q: What is the one thing you hope your audience retains from viewing Persepolis?

MJ: That they find themselves saying, “These people are just like us.”