When I sat down yesterday with Adria Petty, director of TIFF controversy-baiting, press magnet doc Paris, Not France, I asked her if she wanted to respond to some of the rumors as to why her film has mutated in the span of a week from a relatively normal festival entry into a mysterious object, destined to have a single screening in a form that––in the words of its sales agent, Cassian Elwes––”will probably never be seen again.” Before I could start ticking off the laundry list of reported factors––concerns from the Hilton camp, legal pressure from the record company who hired Petty to make a 20 minute DVD extra, clearance rights on the Beatles and Madonna and, well, Paris Hilton songs used within––Petty broke in.
“I’ll just tell you the truth,” she said. “The truth is that we just didn’t want the film pirated. There’s a lot of people involved in the film that own it or financed it. It was in a lot of different camps and different layers. And basically, at the end of the day, instead of having the whole thing canceled or pulled because of all these greedy or annoying people, Paris and I, who wanted the film to screen at Toronto and were honored by it, we were like, look let’s just do it once in one big theater. And then we put the night vision goggles in one time––because everybody is like, who pays for the night vision?”
Of course, every filmmaker who comes to a major festival is concerned about piracy, and many screenings at TIFF are patrolled by guards wearing night vision goggles to detect the use of recording devices. Piracy may have been an issue here, but in the above passage and elsewhere during our talk, Petty alluded that the major issue contributing to Paris’ “orphan” status may be its origin as a work of pure promotion. Warner Brothers Records didn’t want the film she turned in, but now, presumably because cigar-chomping execs look at a girl like Paris Hilton and see a walking dollar sign in a diamond tiara, it seems they’re afraid to let it go.
Excerpts from the interview, in which Petty sets Page Six straight, compares her film to Cocksucker Blues, and explains why Paris Hilton is not like Michael Jackson, follow after the jump.
Karina: I just wanted to ask about some of the stylistic references you have named. There’s Truth or Dare, Darling. Last night you said something about the French New Wave. How do these things fit together for you, and where do you see them influencing your film?
Adria: For me, some of the things… I really like movies that are well planned, like Hitchcock and Fritz Lang and people who really developed really tight scripts and story boards and camera effects. Most of my music video work and my commercial work is like that.
On the flip side of that I do some videos that are more like reportage that are inspired by Pennebaker, the Maysles, by Godard … who have an ability to make the camera fluid, use hand-held camera, use available light and also use a lot of structure in the editorials. So, we use jump cuts, we can use “state of mind” perspective. Like there’s one Godard film, I think it’s Vivre se Vie, where there’s a jump cut with a machine gun sound over it in a very innocuous setting where this guy was walking down the street. That was speaking to me, because when I would look at the footage, it would feel so pedestrian, because it’s so over exposed. But, if I took it into like a black and white, available light, jump cut, sound effected world, it actually felt more real.
Karina: Everybody has heard different things about why the screenings were cut down from four to one.
Adria: When Page Six quoted [Hilton rep] Jason Moore, and said that [TIFF documentary programmer] Thom Powers is miffed… I talked to Tom Powers every day in the last two weeks to try to coordinate this. He was never upset at all. He was just pleased we got to actually show the film, because it’s such a bootleg. It’s such a hard film to get out for a lot of reasons. Because she is a shiny brand, I have struggled so hard to get this film out.
Karina: How did what you were trying to do change from when it was a record company project to now? Why there is this difficulty about getting it out?
Adria: It’s hard for me to say that because the chain of title isn’t resolved on the film…But, it wasn’t scripted and it wasn’t an anticipated… you couldn’t anticipate what you were going to get as content. You could anticipate a format, which we always hoped was something akin to Truth or Dare. And something that would open up the feel a little bit, in terms of humanizing Paris for [then] being able to sell a record.
As you saw in the cut, I’m not really oriented on selling the record in that film. I didn’t spend the time with her in the studio. Most of the record had been already recorded by the time I was with her. And I was more interested in dispelling the myth that there could be this horrible, horrible retarded spoiled person.
I thought that’s really depressing, but that’s what we are so interested in, like what is it? What are we doing? And I liked her the second I met her. Just like when you sit in a room with somebody. It’s kind of a feeling. You’re like, whoa, that’s not Paris Hilton, that’s Paris. That’s just a chick named Paris. Leave the room and she’s probably got feelings and feels offended by the things that people say.
When you said it’s a love letter, actually I take that as a compliment. Because I think, it’s so easy to hate her. It’s so easy to say shitty things about her and that’s probably the most boring thing you could do in the entire world. And it’s the most traveled territory in the world. I found it really interesting to be positive about her. I found it like new territory and interesting. As a woman, I found that it was kind of an extension of post modernist feminism of “Cosmopolitan Magazine” or Sex in the City or whatever, to look at Paris as a female icon, and I think that to be able to see what it’s like to be objectified, even if you are willing, is really unique.
You’re part of what makes her whether you like her or not. Because you are not part of what is drawing attention to a warlord in Darfur or drawing attention to privacy rights for people that are in the public eye that are almost being driven insane by paparazzi and stalkers and people chasing their kids. It’s incorrigibly immoral the way that media has got the control with celebrity.
Karina: Well, what part of it is incorrigibly immoral? Is it the people like Paris who are making money from being at the center of it? Is it the people who are making money off of her? Is the people who buy magazines?
Adria: I think that it’s the whole machine. Everyone has to be accountable for it. Paris is really good at having her picture taken. She’s been good at it since she was a little kid. She’s been encouraged to have her picture taken. It’s been a source of self esteem. If you’re a woman and you’re complimented for being beautiful, that’s really the only asset people are giving you––and then you are exposed to the sex tape––When you have been exposed like that, ridiculed, insulted to a point where it gets like that and the only thing you are encouraged for is your beauty and having your picture taken. That’s the only thing we get positive feedback for. Yeah, you may encourage it.
Karina: But if you are making the statement that this industry is negative and this consumption and hate of an icon is bad, why make a film about that, and not make a film about what you are saying are the more important things, like the warlords in Darfur?
Adria: That wasn’t what I was given as an assignment. I was given the job to go make a film about Paris Hilton for a year. And that I could have done in any way, shape or form I wanted to. I could have made the fluffiest, simplest thing and delivered it and gotten my fee and walked away.
I had wanted to make a film that said to the little girls I was seeing, you have to work for a living. This isn’t what it is cracked up to be. This person is a human being. She’s not Michael Jackson. She’s not some…
Karina: Michael Jackson is not a human being?
Adria: He is, but he is not someone we can relate to, is he? If you look at my film, and you look at Martin Bashir’s documentary on Michael Jackson, I think that what you find when you spend a little time with her, no matter how candid you think it is or not, you get to know that there’s a human being you can relate to there. You could probably have a cup of coffee with. I don’t know that you feel that way when you see Martin Bashir’s documentary about Michael Jackson sitting up in a tree, talking about sleeping with little boys. I don’t know. I don’t get that sense, personally.
Karina: This might just be another thing regarding ownership, but you finished shooting in 2006, right? Is there a reason why the film is just coming to a festival now?
Adria: The film’s not sold. It’s just a humble little budget. It is two years old. It’s a little orphan, this film. It’s a little art piece I got to make by luck.
Karina: What do you mean by ‘orphan’?
Adria: For me to show that film last night was a dream come true. That was… I never thought it was going to be on earth. I thought it was going to be like Cocksucker Blues or Superstar and be the kind of film that no one ever got to see. The fact that the partners kind of came around to what an honor it was, for Thom Powers to choose it to be in the company of the other film makers, was huge.
And to convey that to people who aren’t in [the film festival] world, and who don’t understand this platform, was an enormous achievement. It really was a miracle to show the film to you last night.
And now, at this point, I’m in the funny position of defending someone that people don’t like. Unfortunately, I can’t just go, “Oh, just watch the film.” With all this press coming out, I can’t defend myself through my work yet. And I hope I can.
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