E-mail a friendMarjane Satrapi
airdate January 17, 2008
Marjane Satrapi is a Paris-based graphic novelist, best known for the autobiographical Persepolis—the story of her youth in Tehran and living through the Islamic Revolution. It's been adapted as an animated film, which shared a Special Jury Prize at the '07 Cannes Film Festival. Born in Iran, Satrapi was sent to Vienna to flee the Iranian regime and returned to Tehran for college. She's also the author of several children's books and writes an illustrated column in The New York Times Op-Ed section.
Marjane Satrapi
Tavis: Marjane Satrapi is the co-writer and co-director of the acclaimed new film "Persepolis" which last year won of the special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie has been selected by France as this year's Oscar entry for best foreign language film.
"Persepolis" is bested on Marjane's bestselling graphic novels by the same name. Here now, some scenes from "Persepolis."
(French language film clip.)
Tavis: Nice to meet you, and congratulations.
Marjane Satrapi: Thank you very much.
Tavis: How would you - I was thinking during the clip how to describe what that is, and you can do a much better job than I could. How would you describe what "Persepolis" is? They've done some fascinating work with these pictures and we'll (unintelligible) in a second. But anyway, how would you describe "Persepolis?"
Satrapi: Well actually, "Persepolis" at the beginning when I made the book, that was the answer that I had to give to the stupidity of the whole world, when they were talking about my country, because it was reduced to an abstract notion. It still is, but at the time there was -
Tavis: You're country, of course, we're talking about Iran.
Satrapi: Iran, yes, exactly. And so I heard so many incredibly stupid things that I kept on telling the story over and over and over until I got bored of telling the story, so I wrote a book, a comic book, not to have to repeat myself again and again. And then I ended up making a movie out of this book, so this is it. That is absolutely not the other point of view about Iran, that is not the other version of Iran, but at least it is another one, another point of view.
Tavis: I want to come back to your feelings about Iran in just a second and why you decided to write the comic book, but first, though, tell me about the process of turning a comic book into a movie.
Satrapi: Well the process is a very difficult process because since it's a comic book, we have the tendency of thinking it's enough to take a camera and just filming the frame one after the other.
Tavis: Just film the frame, yeah.
Satrapi: And so then you have a movie, which is really not true because it's another language. The cinematographic language is completely different. So we had to forget about the book, really put them aside, and then think about directing something that would be for the cinema and not a comic book. So it was something very hard to do because for me, I'd been thinking about the book four years in one way and then I had to stop to think about it this way and to start thinking in another way for three more years. So it was a long and painful.
Tavis: Yeah. So the message of the comic book around "Persepolis," Iran - that's the Greek word for Iran, "Persepolis."
Satrapi: Yes.
Tavis: The message of the comic book with regard to your country is what?
Satrapi: I don't have so much message to give because I'm not a preacher and I hate to preach. But if there is something, if you can call it a message, if people by reading the book or watching the movie they can say to themselves, these people that you are so scared of, these people that they're just called axis of evil or I don't know what, they're just people just like us.
They're people that they have parents, they have hopes, they have loves, they study, they like to party, etc., etc. Just that they consider that you're a human being just like them. This is enough. More than that, I don't think that I can make any change. Just the human side of the thing is much more important than anything else.
Tavis: What do you think that you are up against, what are the obstacles in trying to get that message to break through? I ask that against the backdrop of you sitting in the United States of America right now, a country where our leader, as mentioned earlier, used that phrase, axis of evil, and put your country as one of the countries in that axis.
You live in the world where the United Nations has had some issues with the leadership, of course, in Iran. How against all of that, this imagery about Iran, this message that we get from the media about Iran, do you break through with your message about the humanity of the Iranian people?
Satrapi: Exactly. Instead of talking about the whole country, instead of talking about things that are general, because what is a country? What is a population? A population is made of many different people. I'm sure that between you and George W. Bush there is no common point, and between the mullah of my country -
Tavis: You'd be right about that. We're both Americans, that's about it.
Satrapi: Exactly. Between me and the fanatic of my country, neither. But you and I, I think that we have a lot of common points. So it's not a question of which country you come from, it's not a question of where you are born. It's basically a question of fanaticism against the other people, and the fanaticism everywhere that it is, that is call the religious fanaticism that it can be - Muslim or Christian or whatever.
Even it can be atheist and secular fanaticism, like communism. All this fanaticism, this idea of somebody who is not with you, is necessarily against you, that somebody who doesn't think like you, then he has to shut up, these kinds of ideas, they are to combat. Of course it's not easy, but instead of making the politics of going and preaching that, I try to make a movie.
And making people laugh, by using a little bit of humor, by telling them the story, by holding their hand and telling "I have some story to tell you, please come with me and listen to my story," I hope that people, they will ask themselves these question. But oh, well.
Tavis: What do you make of the fact, Marjane, that issues as serious as the ones that we are grappling with where Iran is concerned can, in fact, be tackled in a comic book? That you can, in fact, use humor. You can lighten up the subject matter to try to get people to understand about the humanity of Iranian people. What do you make of that? That seems really interesting. The issues are very serious and very dire, but your approach to it is a comic book.
Satrapi: Yes, absolutely, but that's the only way of do it because (unintelligible) they are too dark. Either you have to die or you have to take (unintelligible) with it because otherwise is kills you. And for me, humor is a question of intelligence. People, for me, that they don't have any sense of humor, for example, they are stupid people. (Laughter) If you don't know how to laugh, it's already very bad.
And also for me, humor is understanding the spirit of the other one. It's not me, Marjane, hungry, and you give me a sandwich and it's fine. To laugh with somebody is to understand the soul of the other one. It's even more than crying, because we cry for the same reasons. We cry because our child is sick or we have lost our mother, etc.
But we don't laugh for the same reason. And also, laughing is something that you do with someone unless you are crazy and you laugh with yourself. I do that. But we cry all alone, but we laugh with somebody. So this humor is extremely important in the way of communicating with people. And also once you laugh with somebody, you are never scared of this person anymore.
Tavis: For those watching right now who watch the Academy Awards every year, I assume we'll have the Academy Awards this year; with this writers' strike, we'll see. But for those who watch the program every year, we hear this category, we Americans hear the category every year, and the winner for the best foreign language film is.
Now most of us in America have never seen these foreign language films, much less understand the process of how a film like this gets to be France's entry in the best foreign film category. Can you explain briefly how your film got to this point?
Satrapi: Well actually, in France, you have a committee of seven people that sit and they vote for the movie that is going to be selected to represent France. And these seven people voted for us. So it's not me who has chosen myself, that's other people, thanks to them.
Tavis: But if you'd been one of the seven, though, you would have voted for your film, though?
Satrapi: Well of course. Of course. (Laughter) What else would I have done?
Tavis: Of course.
Satrapi: I would be a liar if I say I wouldn't vote for myself.
Tavis: So tell me from your perspective as best you can what it is about the film in your country, your adopted country of France, that got these seven people to vote for "Persepolis."
Satrapi: Well, I think that what they thought it is, that "Persepolis" is the kind of movie that Americans, they wouldn't necessarily do, but they enjoy anyway. There are many movies that Americans, they can do themselves very well. So they thought that this is not the kind of movie that can be made here, but the people, they would like.
And I think they're right because we showed it in many different places in America and the reaction of people was beyond what I could expect. People were very warm and welcoming, they embraced the movie. I was very surprised.
Tavis: Tell me about your back story. We know, obviously - at least the viewer can make the assumption that France, of course, as I said earlier, is your adopted country. You've been in France how many years now?
Satrapi: Fourteen years, and before that I was Austria. So yeah, half of my life I have not lived in my country.
Tavis: You've not lived in Iran.
Satrapi: Yes.
Tavis: You ended up leaving when, and for what reasons, Iran?
Satrapi: Well the first time, actually, I left Iran because it was war and we were being bombed and I was the only child and my parents, they wanted me to have a safe life. So they sent me abroad, and then I came back. And then the second time, that was after I finish art school in Iran and I needed lots of freedom and I didn't have this freedom where I was.
And that's lots of people, actually, that stay in Iran and despite everything, they work because they are very brave and they have lots of courage. But I am too eccentric; I'm too narcissistic to stay for something. I have this only life and I have to live it the best way I can. I cannot stay. I think that the one who stayed, they are much braver than I am. But I couldn't do it otherwise. So I left a second time and I came to France and I studied again in France, and then I started working in France.
Tavis: Do you go back from time to time now?
Satrapi: I went back time to time, but since I wrote the book I didn't go back. Not because they said don't go back. I know I can go back, but it's not sure that I can come out again. (Laughter) Which makes it not a very good idea.
Tavis: Finally, then, how do you think "Persepolis" would be received if you were to screen it amongst everyday Iranian people inside the country?
Satrapi: Well, listen, if I could screen it in Iran, that means that I could go back to Iran. That means that everything would be more than fine.
Tavis: Obviously.
Satrapi: But the book, actually, I know the book has been read in Iran and people, they tell me that everybody loves me, etc. But the people that say that to me, they are my friends, so they wouldn't say the contrary, that (unintelligible). Of course they wouldn't say. But that is what I have heard. I think that the movie people, they are going to watch it like all the other movies that they watch. It's not going to be on screen, it's going to be on DVD. Not a big deal? The screen is smaller, but they can see the movie anyway.
Tavis: At least they can see it in Iran, yeah.
Satrapi: Yes.
Tavis: Her name is Marjane Satrapi. The project is called "Persepolis." It is one of the films in the best foreign language film category for this year's Academy Awards, and we are honored to have you on the program.
Satrapi: Thank you very much. It was great to be on your program too.
Tavis: Nice to see you. France's entry, I should say, for the Academy Awards.
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