GROUND 0101 (The Fall Issue)

also have an appreciation for
work that is outside the mainstream
and alternative. Like
Barbra Streisand says to Robert
Redford in The Way We
Were, "Couldn't we both win?"
IO. How relevant is Berlin for
your work? With Otto you created
what seem to be the normal
cycle of gay romance in
this gay paradise.
BLB. I love Berlin, but she can
be a harsh mistress. I love the
nightlife, I love to boogie, but at
times the divinely decadent city
of Berlin can be, as the saying
goes, a kind of permanent midnight,
and that can lead to all
sorts of consequences of disaffection.
So I enjoy spending
weeks or months here, but then
I can start to feel like I'm getting
sucked into a miasma of
sexual excess and decadence.
So then I go back to Toronto.
It's funny, I've shot two movies
in Berlin and two in L.A., and
the cities are like night and day,
literally. Berlin can be like one
long, perpetual night, open til
the wee hours and beyond, the
grey skies presiding even over
the day, whereas L.A. is perpetual
sunshine, cars glinting in the
sunlight, and a city that closes
down not too long after midnight.
But I love the opposing
cityscapes: the Gothic, brooding,
Old European post-war
one, and the bright new shiny
apocalyptic American one.
activism? Do you see any gap in
a closer future, where violence
could make things work out like
in Old Times revolutions?
BLB. I hope so. Violence is
always a tricky proposition. I
guess you could say I'm a violent
pacifist. I quote Angela Davis
in my movie No Skin Off My
Ass talking about how embracing
a philosophy of violence is
like embracing the philosophy
of suicide. For self preservation,
it seems like sometimes
you have to bash back. But
the problem is you can't internalise
it, you have to see it
only as a temporary solution to
an entrenched and seemingly
permanent problem. The new
neo-liberal, neo-conservative
world order is unquestionably
becoming increasingly fascist
and casual about its violence,
so it may be a matter of survival
to resist violently, to fight back.
Like it says in my movie The
Raspberry Reich, "The Arrogance
of the Strong Will Be Met
by the Violence of the Weak".
It's a simple rule for kids to remember.
IO. What would you say this
generation is missing?
BLB. A heart.
IO. What do you think of current's
movements of supposed