EXBERLINER Issue 153, October 2016

Brussels-based artist Pierre Bismuth on his playful
and confounding quasi-documentary Where is Rocky II?
By Paul O’Callaghan
WHAT’S ON — Film
“It was not my intention to
do something this weird!”
Saint Amour
D: Benoît Delépine,
Gustave de Kervern
(France, Belgium, 2016)
HHH
The directors of
Mammuth return with
this broad, silly and
surprisingly touching
riff on Alexander
Payne’s Sideways,
featuring Gérard Depardieu's
strongest
performance in years
as an ageing farmer
trying to reconnect
with his feckless son.
Starts Oct 13.
Sausage Party
D: Conrad Vernon, Greg
Tiernan (USA, 2016)
HH
This outlandish
animated tale of sentient
edibles realising
their grim fate offers
a few surprisingly
smart laughs, but
soon gets stuck in a
profanity cul-de-sac.
Starts Oct 6.
What happened to Edward
Ruscha’s 1979 sculpture
of a boulder hidden in
California's Mojave Desert, and why
is Ruscha so secretive about the
project now? Bismuth attempts to
find out in a film that deftly explores
the way secrets and intangible truths
stoke the fires of creativity.
When did you first learn about
“Rocky II”? I first read about it in
2006, and I soon realised that no
one in the art world knew about the
piece. I persuaded a friend of mine
to ask Ed Ruscha about it, but Ed
really didn’t want to discuss it. So I
thought that was extremely weird. In
2009 I went to London to confront
Ed directly during a press conference.
I felt that if I made the film
without evidence, nobody would
believe the piece existed. The confrontation
was perfect, because you
can see the surprise in his eyes – he’s
taken aback by the fact that I know
about it. That was exactly what I
needed to start the movie.
How did you envisage your film at
that point? The initial project was
an art movie, a slow journey into
the desert to look for something
that was impossible to find. Then I
moved towards the idea of a documentary,
but I found myself simultaneously
moving away from the conventions
of the form. The finished
film is really about the different
regime of reality we’re confronted
with in TV and film. I’d noticed
that filmmakers often have to add
signs of reality to make the audience
believe that something‘s genuine. I
decided to respect the documentary
methology of unscripted events, but
hide the signs of reality where possible.
Would the audience still perceive
it as true, or would we destroy
the feeling of authenticity? That was
the game I wanted to play.
And why decide to depict screenwriters
creating fiction based on
the story? There were two questions
I wanted answers to – where is the
piece, and why did this artist decide
to create something that was totally
invisible? When I started casting for
the detective, I found people who’d
be able to find the piece, but wouldn’t
necessarily be able to answer the question
of meaning. Because the private
detective is such a common cinematic
element, I realised I already had one
foot in the film world. That led me to
think that the best people to explore
the meaning would be screenwriters.
What was it about Michael Scott
that won him the private detective
role? The main reason is that he was
very square! He’s an ex-army officer
and ex-policeman, totally overqualified
for the job. I liked the fact that
he made no judgement about the
case – he didn’t think it was stupid.
Did you know in advance that
you’d be pairing him up with Jim
Ganzer, the founder of skate brand
Jimmy’z and inspiration for The
Dude in The Big Lebowski? The
way it appears in the film is exactly
how it was. Michael really wanted
to find Jim after flying to London
and watching him in an old BBC
documentary about Ruscha. And Jim
turned out to be this totally amazing
character. What I didn’t expect is
that Michael would somehow fall in
love with him – it was great to watch.
Was it always your goal to make
something this unusual? To be
honest, I just thought I was making
a documentary with a little twist. It
was not my intention to do something
this weird! The strange thing
is if you try and explain the film,
it sounds like something that not
many people would be interested in.
But the reaction we’ve seen at festivals
is that audiences find it very
entertaining and easy to follow. n
Welcome to Norway!
D: Rune Denstad Langlo
(Norway, 2016)
HHHH
This wonderfully wry
migrant crisis comedy
follows the exploits
of a casually racist
wannabe entrepreneur
as he attempts
to convert his family’s
hotel into a refugee
centre. Starts Oct 13.
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EXBERLINER 153