Skip to main contentMarjane Satrapi has had a busy year: Finish the direction of an animated adaptation of her graphic novel Persepolis, then watch the movie earn an Oscar nomination. But then Satrapi has had a busy life: Born in Tehran in 1969, she fled the Iranian Revolution to spend her teen years adrift in France—and ever since has been chronicling her divided life in drawings. She returns to Oregon this Monday, April 7, for a reading in the Portland Arts & Lectures Series. When WW spoke to her earlier this year, she was smoking, and complaining about not being allowed to smoke by "fascist" rules that she attributed to Bush's America.
WW: You've made a movie that talks about Iran at a time when its relations with the U.S. are as strained as they've ever been. How does Persepolis speak to that?
Marjane Satrapi: I think this movie is a humanist movie, and what it shows is that people, they're people. A movie like mine—I'm not saying that with my movie, you know, I can stop the war or anything. I mean, even Michael Moore couldn't stop George [W. Bush] to be re-elected by Fahrenheit 9/11, so you know, how do you want me to do something? But the thing is that, if people, by watching this movie, they can say to themselves, "These people are just like me," it becomes much more difficult.
What does art do at a time like this?
Art does the things that I do. Take a step back, ask the questions, try to cool down for one second. Everybody is crazy! Every day you hear 100 Iraqis died, like if they were farts. I mean, come on! They're human beings! I mean, isn't life too short and too painful already that we shouldn't make it more short and more painful? In a time like that, a person like me, I am an individualistic, egocentric, narcissistic artist. I am self-involved, I love myself, I have started talking like a hippie about peace and love, and human beings. If someone like me has to start talking like that, that means there's real big shit in this world. That means that we are really in trouble. Normally somebody like me would never say something like that. I am too individualistic for that. But I have to.
You don't strike me as sentimental.
I am not sentimental, but at the same time, I have to say these things. Like, please! Love each other a little bit! I mean, we are worse than the monkeys. There are tribes of monkeys in the center of Africa, and as soon as they are stressed and they have [a] problem, all of them, they lie down and they make love together. And the stress goes down. This would be a good way of doing it.
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It seems like, in this movie, you used your own personal story to tell a much larger story.
Well, you know, that was Tolstoy who said, if you want to talk to the world, write about your small village. Of course, you know, there is nothing more universal than one human being, one person. As soon as you talk about a nation, or something, you know, a nation is a vague notion. What is a nation? A nation is full of different people. But you know, one person can be anyone. Especially the fact that we made it in animation. That means it doesn't belong to a very specific geographical place, with a specific human type. It makes it that, again, it's not the story of these people, these Middle Easterners that are far from us. Because there is something abstract about the drawings that anybody can identify to. Yeah, I based myself of course on my own experiences, but also we should not forget that it is not a documentary about my life. Of course a part of the storytelling is also the part of the storytelling, and you have to make a script. And from the moment you make a script, no matter how personal the story is, it becomes a fiction.
The character of your grandmother, how close is that to her real personality?
It's much less than what she was. She was much more than that. It was unbelievable. She was a tough one. And at the same time she was the cutest person I have seen. She had complete generosity, but she would never tell you something to please you; she would really tell you what she thought. And she could have the whole world against her. If she thought that was not right, she would say it was not right.
It strikes me that her honesty is something that you take after.
Oh yes, absolutely. Of course there's a price to pay to be honest. But for me honesty is not so much that I believe in honesty and this thing, it's that I don't have time to lie. I mean, once you make a first lie, then you have to make a second lie to cover this first lie, and you always have to remember, that I don't have time for that. My life is short and I want to do stuff. The more honest I am, the [less] bullshit I have to make all around.
I just go forward. People, if they like me, they like me. If they don't like me, fuck them. I don't like them either. That's it. And do I like everybody? No. So there is no reason that everybody should like me. I have enough friends. I have more friends than I can handle. This is already too much, I have to get rid of some of them.
Most people aren't that brave, though.
I don't think it's a question of brave. When I was a child, I was kind of small, and I realized something. I couldn't go to a consensus, because if what the majority of people say, if that was the right thing, then we should live in paradise. We are not living in paradise. Which mathematically shows that the majority of people are not right. I cannot take what they say because, oh, this is the way it should be. Who said [so]?
Until the moment you...harm anybody, you are free to do exactly what you want to do. People, for example, who are against gays—how can you be against gays? What is your fucking problem, what people do in their beds? If this guy is nasty, gay or not gay, then he's nasty. But what he does in his bed, or how he shits, or how he eats, is it my problem? No. What does it harm me?
This kind of reaction, I never understood where it comes from. I think [it's] because of the insecurity of people—because suddenly it shows you that it is an alternative way of living—and then suddenly you realize how stuck you are. And if you are stuck in your life, then it is better that everybody else is also stuck like that. You don't feel that you're stuck, but if some people take the freedom of doing the thing that the consensus doesn't want, then, ay ay ay ay ay, it shows you that you have a very miserable life. So you'd rather kill these people instead of putting yourself on their question.
This is how it is. But human beings are very odd. Albert Einstein said something. He said there is two things there is no limits to it: the first thing is the universe, and the second thing is human stupidity. About the Universe, I'm not sure, but about the Human Stupidity, I certainly am. There is no limit to it. It can go very, very, very, very far.
But then you also have human beings who transcend humanity, human beings that make the things that you just say, "Wow, you did that." So human beings can be that also. For that you have to be a little bit...at least not scared. I mean, scared of what? All of us, we are going to die one day or another. It's not like you have something big you are betting on. Whether you die now, or five years, you will die. If you get that, then the rest doesn't matter.
We haven't even gotten to talking about drawing. What's the most exciting part of making an animated movie as opposed to drawing a graphic novel?
Well, the most exciting is all the things that you have to take care of. I mean, as a director, you are not only responsible for a hundred people, but also you have to think about things that are not just drawing. You have to take care about music, about the game of the actors, the soundtrack, the movement of the camera, the movement itself, etc. etc.
It's extremely tiring, because you know, working with people, I'm a solitarian, and I don't enjoy so much being surrounded. But at the same time, but when all these people have put all their soul and their life and their talent—their huge talent—in the service of what you're doing, then you see that the project is transcendent, and it goes towards up. Everybody gave whatever they had. This is something very incredible that happened.
You've been drawing since you were a little girl, right?
Since I remember, yes. I think that everybody draws. I have been this kid that never stopped drawing. Because all of us would draw when we were kids, and at the age of ten, most of us would stop drawing. I was the one that didn't stop drawing.
WWeek 2015