“My conceit in making it was, ‘can I make a Saturday night
date movie about religion?’” says Larry Charles, director
of “Religulous.”
Lionsgate “If you know Bill’s work, he’s a
challenger,” says director Larry Charles of his star, Bill
Maher, right. “And he’s one of the most fearless
commentators. … He challenges people’s beliefs. He asks
questions they’ve never imagined they’d be asked.”
ASPEN — As a key writer on “Seinfeld,” Larry Charles
helped take narcissism to a level probably never before experienced on
network television. Charles also has had a hand in further perfecting
the art of narcissism as a director of “Curb Your
Enthusiasm.” As director of 2006’s “Borat: Cultural
Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of
Kazakhstan,” Charles assisted the film’s star and writer,
Sacha Baron Cohen, put the mock in mockumentary. The satirical hoax,
in which Cohen passed himself off as an earnest Kazakh journalist
traveling in the “U.S. and A.,” was an equal opportunity
insulter, drawing the ire of gays, Arabs, feminists, Jews, Gypsies and
not a few regular Americans. (It has also pulled in a reported $260
million — without the help of Muslim countries, most of which
banned it — a Golden Globe Award, an Oscar nomination, and
numerous rave reviews.)So one can only wonder whom Charles can
infuriate, and to what extent, with his latest project,
“Religulous.” The documentary, directed by Charles,
follows comedian/commentator Bill Maher to the world’s holy
spots to talk about people’s deeply held religious beliefs and
practices. Given Maher’s knack for attracting controversy
— and his critiques of President Bush, right-wing politics,
America’s eating habits, 9/11 conspiracy theorists and organized
religion, generally delivered with a condescending smirk — one
might brace for a firestorm from the world’s faithful.But
“Religulous” might not set off the predictable calls for
boycotts. Charles says that in preview screenings, the film, which
shows Saturday at Aspen Filmfest and has a limited national opening on
Wednesday, Oct. 1, has drawn overwhelmingly positive remarks —
“and usually from the last people you would expect,” he
said by phone, from Los Angeles. So maybe the movie itself has less
mocking tone than the trailer, which plays the Gnarls Barkley hit
“Crazy” behind clips of people speaking in tongues,
claiming to be Jesus and engaging in other colorful worship rituals.It
probably comes as no shock that Charles doesn’t align himself
with any mainstream religion. But it is surprising that the 52-year-
old almost wishes he was. Growing up in the Brighton Beach section of
Brooklyn, Charles wanted to be a rabbi. (That desire might show semi-
consciously in his appearance — with his signature long beard,
Charles can look rabbinical in the right clothes.) But his parents
were secular Jews who wanted only to break away from the Old World
traditions and assimilate into the American mainstream.“My
parents said, ‘Do the bar mitzvah, get the gifts, and get
out,’” said Charles, whose writing credits include the
“Seinfeld” episode “The Bris” (the bris is the
Jewish tradition that removes the foreskin from a baby boy’s
penis) and, as director, the “Curb Your Enthusiasm”
episode, “The Bar Mitzvah.” “Because the rabbis were
like the nuns in Catholic school — they shut down the dialogue.
Which is a shame, because there definitely are cool rabbis out
there.”Charles basically took his parents’ advice; as an
adult, he follows a strict regimen of skipping synagogue. But he has
cultivated an interest in matters of the spirit, and man’s
reasons for being on Earth.“I am a seeker,” he said,
“and there are questions we need to ask: where we came from,
where we’re going. We need to explore things to learn our place
in the universe.”I note here that Charles’ past gives me
reason to pause, and consider whether I should take it on faith that
he isn’t pulling a hoax on an unsuspecting dupe naive enough to
believe that he actually is the spiritually guided being he claims.
For “Borat,” Charles had to help perpetuate the
movie’s fictional foundation. But when I ask whether he is an
atheist, he takes exception, and it seems genuine.
“That’s a word we’re trying not to use in an
unexamined fashion,” he said. “Bill and I, we’re
saying, ‘we don’t know.’ We know there are a million
questions we don’t have the answer to. Neither one of us
believes there is nothing out there, and no answers to
anything.”“Religulous,” Charles swears, is an
extension of opening up the dialogue that his parents, and the rabbis
of his youth, didn’t want him to explore. At the sites he and
Maher visited — the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Vatican,
various churches in the Southeastern U.S., the Mormon Tabernacle in
Salt Lake City — people were more than willing to engage them in
the conversation, he said.“People want to talk about their
religion,” he said. “They like to proselytize. So there
was not a lot of need for subterfuge. I just told them we’re
doing a movie on religion. They wanted to talk.”Interestingly,
the people who were reluctant to speak were those at the top of the
racket. “The people who are hard to get to are the people in the
real echelons of power,” said Charles. “We couldn’t
get the Pope, or the head of the Mormon Church or the head of the
Church of Scientology. They’re hidden behind many layers of
obfuscation, and it’s hard to get them.”Charles said the
most surprising moment in making the film came when they were talking
to a pair of high-level Vatican priests. “They were the most
rational people we spoke to,” he said. They said that
“evolution is a fact, that Jesus’ birth is a fairy tale.
We were taken aback.”The incident, however, confirmed for
Charles that Catholicism was something of a scam. “You realize
the perpetuation of the church is one thing, and the beliefs are
another,” he said. “Their doctrines are surprisingly
revelatory. [The priests] are all highly educated people, and much
more rational than the masses and the followers. You can’t
disseminate this doctrine to the masses; they have to perpetuate these
myths to keep the masses mollified and keep the institution
intact.”As much as “Religulous” might begin a
dialogue, it is also meant to challenge people. From what Charles
reveals, and from the trailer to the film, it seems likely some people
are going to have their feathers ruffled.“Absolutely,”
said Charles. “If you know Bill’s work, he’s a
challenger. And he’s one of the most fearless commentators.
He’s not afraid to alienate people, to say the unspeakable. So
absolutely, he challenges people’s beliefs. He asks questions
they’ve never imagined they’d be asked.”In this,
Charles thinks the film serves a vital public service: “The
belief system is kind of set. It’s not allowed to expand, no
matter how absurd he doctrines and beliefs are. It thwarts what needs
to happen in this modern world.”Charles says a bigger motivation
behind “Religulous” than forcing a re-examination of
entrenched beliefs was to provide a good night of entertainment.
“My conceit in making it was, ‘can I make a Saturday night
date movie about religion?’” said Charles, who began his
film career with 2003’s “Masked and Anonymous,” the
enigmatic Bob Dylan vehicle directed and co-written by Charles. (A
more recent project, with rapper Kanye West, for HBO, has been put on
hold.) “So it’s fun. It’s quick-paced. I want it to
be like a road movie, with me and Bill on the road.”That road,
however, has proved to be an enlightening one, and one that Charles
could see following farther. Speaking about religion and life’s
big questions fits right in his domain.“I could make
‘Religulous’ for the rest of my life,” he said.
“Because it puts me on the ultimate journey, to find out what
we’re doing here. I have a million questions, and it put me in
dialogue with people who are thinking about these things. It’s
so complex on so many levels, politics and philosophy. It confirmed my
journey.”“Religulous” shows at 10:15 p.m. Saturday
at the Wheeler Opera House as part of Aspen Filmfest.
Other weekend highlights at Aspen Filmfest:Sneak Preview 2 (Today at
6:30 p.m., Isis Theater): All we know is it’s in English, and
features some recognizable names.“Stranded: I’ve Come from
a Plane that Crashed in the Mountains” (Today at 5:30 p.m.,
Crystal Theatre in Carbondale; and Sunday at noon, Wheeler Opera
House): A documentary about the survivors of a 1972 plane crash in the
Andes Mountains focuses on the questions of life, faith and
solidarity, rather than the horror of the
incident.“Ballast” (Tonight at 8:30 p.m., Wheeler; and
Sunday at 5:30 p.m., Crystal): First-time feature director Lance
Hammer earned the Directing Award at Sundance for this drama of a
troubled family in the Mississippi Delta coming together after a
suicide. New York Times critic Manohla Dargis focused on
“Ballast” in a recent story on independent cinema, calling
it “an elegiac, rapturously lovely
story.”“I’ve Loved You So Long” (Saturday at 5
p.m., Wheeler): Kristin Scott Thomas has earned acclaim in this French
drama, portraying a woman reconnecting with her family after a long
prison sentence.“Peter Pan” (Sunday at 3 p.m., Wheeler):
Filmfest has the exclusive Colorado screening of the 1953 animated
classic, being shown from a new print in celebration of the
film’s 55th anniversary.“Lemon Tree” (Sunday at 5:15
p.m., Wheeler): This sympathetic Israeli drama explores the
Israeli/Palestinean conflict, and reveals the personal and political
sides of the issue.For full program details, go to aspenfilm.org.
The Meeting: ski porn in Aspen New AVLT book celebrates the
preservation of lands The movie listings: Aspen to Glenwood Wheeler
sets fall film schedule
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