Dunlevy: John Lurie emerges from anonymity
Q&A with creator of Fishing With John series in advance of his appearance at the PHI centre on Friday
BY T'CHA DUNLEVY, GAZETTE FILM CRITIC MAY 23, 2013 1:54 PM
“I am not an actor,” John Lurie says. “I have moments of being good but don’t really know what I am doing nor do I care. Music was everything to me until I got ill in 2002 and then slowly painting took its place.”
Photograph by: Ray Henderson
MONTREAL - John Lurie starred in my favourite film of all time, Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise. The black-and-white tale of a pair of New York City hustlers and a visiting Hungarian cousin won the Caméra d’Or (for best first film) at Cannes in 1984.
The movie’s genius rested in the understated comic timing between Lurie’s brooding hipster, Richard Edson’s wide-eyed naiveté and Eszter Balint’s boredom. It forged new ground for independent cinema, garnering imitators for years to come.
Jarmusch put Lurie in another power trio opposite Roberto Benigni and Tom Waits for his followup, Down By Law (1986), which also screened at Cannes.
Lurie then called on Jarmusch, Waits, Dennis Hopper, Willem Dafoe and Matt Dillon for his 1991-92 TV show Fishing With John, an idiosyncratic series detailing fishing trips in places near and far.
But he wasn’t just an actor. Lurie composed scores for the above-noted films — as well as Get Shorty (1995), for which he received a Grammy nomination — and garnered acclaim with his post-punk jazz band The Lounge Lizards.
And then there’s art, Lurie’s creative focus since he was found to have Lyme disease a decade ago. He exhibited at Montreal’s Musée des Beaux Arts in 2007.
In 2010, Lurie was the subject of a controversial New Yorker profile detailing his troubles with former friend-turned-alleged stalker John Perry.
Though he stays away from the spotlight these days, Lurie emerges from anonymity to present three episodes of Fishing With John, Friday at the PHI Centre.
Earlier this week, he answered these questions by email:
Gazette: Where are you writing me from?
John Lurie: My apartment in NYC. But I am rarely here.
Gazette: What’s your life like these days? Where do you live?
Lurie: If I tell you where I live, that would defeat the purpose of living there. I mostly live somewhere other than New York now. I come back to take care of business stuff.
Gazette: Why do you prefer email interviews over phone?
Lurie: After the hideous misquotes in the New Yorker magazine article a couple of years ago, I promised myself I would only do interviews live or in writing from that time on.
Gazette: How did the original idea for Fishing With John come about?
Lurie: After being out all night, I came home and turned on the TV to find the only things that were bearable to watch were fishing shows. I thought, “I am going to do this.” But it was really a joke. I didn’t think it would actually happen.
Gazette: Tell me about your experience of New York in the ’70s and early ’80s. How do you look back on that time now?
Lurie: Come on man, that is a 300-page answer.
Gazette: Stranger Than Paradise is an amazing film. Were you aware of being part of a radically different kind of cinema?
Lurie: Sorry, but anyone who thinks that is a radically different kind of cinema is grossly unaware of many, many things that came before it.
Gazette: What was it like working with Benigni and Tom Waits in Down By Law?
Lurie: Both Tom and Roberto are exceptional characters. It certainly wasn’t like being around your normal actor; in one way or another they are both geniuses. One of the favorite moments in my life was going by boat through the swamps in the morning with the three of us singing and drinking coffee.
Gazette: Your performance in those films made you into something of a star. How did you feel about that?
Lurie: At the time, I was only interested in my music. In a way it made a mess of everything because that was all anyone wanted to talk about and we felt what we were doing musically was something special.
Gazette: You were the quintessential cool dude. How much of that was cultivated?
Lurie: That is a really weird question.
Gazette: You seemed to turn more toward music after those films, with the Lounge Lizards. What was the band about for you? And what did it bring you compared to acting?
Lurie: The acting was something I did on the side. I am not an actor. I have moments of being good but don’t really know what I am doing nor do I care. Music was everything to me until I got ill in 2002 and then slowly painting took its place.
Gazette: How does your art fit into the equation? It seems to have given you a renewed creative outlet. What do you express in your art?
Lurie: What do I want to express? I would be suspicious of anyone who thought they could answer that question.
Gazette: What was your reaction to the 2010 New Yorker article?
Lurie: I was horrified. They told me it would be an article about my life and work, about “artistic achievement.” They promised it would not focus on the stalker situation. Then they interviewed my stalker, and every detail in the article about my prior relationship with this person came from the stalker himself, with confirmation from no one in my life. Three cheers for what used to be journalism.
I have Advanced Lyme disease and I am dealing with someone who professionals feel is a conniving psychopath, obsessed with harming me. There is no ambiguity about either of these things and they made it look like perhaps it was all in my head. There is a mountain of evidence and in the case of the stalker — multiple witnesses that were all ignored so the New Yorker could pull everything into a gray area when none existed. They did all this to adhere to their current style of vagueness, and I think (New Yorker editor) David Remnick is irresponsible to have let this happen.
(T’Cha — if the New Yorker issue is to be addressed. I have to insist that you use my quote in its entirety.)
Gazette: What’s the situation with John Perry now?
Lurie: This is a serious situation that probably is best not addressed here in a sound byte. Though I very much hope the truth of this nightmare comes out at some point.
Gazette: What is that status of your Lyme disease?
Lurie: I am a ton better than I was. I still have bad days and have to be careful how much I attempt to do because my body goes haywire if I push it. There is a pretty good movie about Lyme called Under Our Skin.
John Lurie presents three episodes of Fishing With John (featuring Tom Waits in Jamaica, Willem Dafoe in Maine and Dennis Hopper in Thailand), Friday at 8 p.m. at the PHI Centre, 407 St-Pierre St. in Old Montreal. Tickets cost $23.50, or $12.50 to view a screening of the event in the adjoining theatre. Call 514-225-0525 or visit phi-centre.com
To view John Lurie’s paintings, visit johnlurieart.com. To follow him on Twitter: lurie_john.
Twitter: tchadunlevy
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