Ahead of a screening of The Man I Love at the Munich International Film Festival, Ira Sachs discussed casting Rami Malek, recreating late-1980s New York, and the European filmmakers who have influenced his work during one of the festival’s signature Film Talks.
Sachs co-wrote The Man I Love with longtime collaborator Mauricio Zacharias. It stars Rami Malek and had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received a heartfelt 10-minute ovation.
In the film Malek plays New York performance artist Jimmy George in late 1980s New York. Jimmy is dying of AIDS as that crisis devastates the city’s artistic community. Despite the prognosis, his desire to live, love and make art endures. Luther Ford, Tom Sturridge, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Rebecca Hall also star.
Sachs was asked what Malek brought to his film.
“I had seen Mr. Robot, and I found Rami a very naturalistic actor in a certain register, and also one that you want to watch, and these two elements are really important to me,” he said. “At this point I can’t really think of the character Jimmy George without Rami.”
Sachs said his first film, Vaudeville, about a traveling theater troupe, set the ground for his latest movie. “Watching [Vaudeville] now, it seems like a kind of precursor to The Man I Love. It’s a backstage drama with music about a queer group of creative people making theater, and it centers on a love triangle between three men. Maybe I’ve just been making that film ever since.”
He added that, having lived in New York at the time, he and Zacharias needed time to pass before making a movie set during the period.
“From the first days we started working together, we talked about this time, and we talked about making a film about the kind of monumental intensity and challenges of that period, but also the extraordinary energy of the late 80s in New York.
“Things were so bold in their intensity. There was death, and there was also life. It just took us a long time to be able to have the perspective.”
In his review for Deadline, Pete Hammond said The Man I Love is “a humane and heartrending film about the love of art and the love of artists,” which chimed with Sachs’ observation here at Munich that most of his work has been focused on making art. “I’ve made 10 films, and I’d say seven of them are about the making of a piece of art.”
Sachs also spoke about his lifelong interest in film and attending Sundance for the first time at age 13. He also recalled a time, as a college student in Paris, when he watched 197 movies over the course of three months.
Speaking here at the Munich Film Festival, he said his filmic influences skew European and international. “My film education tends to be more world cinema, whether that be French cinema, certainly I can say German cinema, or I can just say Fassbinder specifically, but also Asian cinema,“ he said. “I love American movies, and particularly from the like 30s, 40s and 70s, but really, my stylistic influence has been in a more non-American style.”
The filmmaker said he always compares his own work to the great European directors. “I call them my monsters,” he said. “They’re sitting on the shoulder, and I’ll never be as good as them, and they will always intimidate me. But in that intimidation is influence, right? So, it’s also inspiration. As you are grappling with a history, you can find your own voice.”
