Miranda July in "Friends & Strangers" - Season 11 | Art21

♪ethereal ambient music♪

[lock clicking]

[heels clacking]

[car engine revving]

♪♪♪

[Miranda VO] Risk, in general for me, is
really such a comfort zone.

I was the kind of kid who was just like,

"Dare me to do something."

I loved the high of that.

♪♪♪

(plastic rustling)

(mellow music)

I am remembering when I was
maybe seven or something

playing at the park, and there was...

You know those really
intense basketball games

with men playing, and
they're just shouting,

and like, "I'm open, I'm open!"

You know, like,
[chuckling] um...

And my friends dared me to join the game.

(mellow music)

[Miranda] Do you mind holding that for a sec?

You can let go whenever
you need to let go.

Thank you.

[Miranda VO] And I just jumped right in,

and just was like, "I'm open, I'm open!"

You know, just, like, doing
the [chuckling] stuff I saw them doing,

and I was,
like, floating on air,

you know, because I'd
done it and I'd survived.

[Miranda] Do you mind just holding this?

You can let go whenever
you need to let go.

[Miranda VO] I guess I learned if you're not afraid --

and why
should you really be afraid? --

then it's like you can fly

You have this superpower.

♪curious electronic music♪

Now, I usually say I'm a
writer, filmmaker, and artist.

So within that,

I perform

and I work in these different mediums.

♪♪♪

- Some things are hidden for a reason,

and if you see them,
you'll be changed forever.

But I wanted to be changed forever.

♪♪♪

[Miranda VO] It feels like there's
a million sub-genres

of all those things,

Like, "filmmaker"
-- you know,

that, to me, includes feature films.

[Miranda] And, cut!

And things you might make really quickly

and in an afternoon.

So I'm not really a purist.

♪lush ethereal music♪

I started so young.

I started when I was 16

writing and directing my first play.

[heels clacking]

I had started a correspondence
with a man in prison.

There used to be lists of prison pen pals

in the back of magazines,

and I really just chose him at random.

It wasn't romantic

because I was, thank
God, a hardcore feminist,

but it was very intimate
once that boundary was set.

Dear friend, this is legal paper.

I wish it was the opposite.

How has your day been so far?

You make me wish we could meet.

Perhaps we can someday.

[Miranda VO] I think he and I were in it

for similar reasons in that
we loved the attention.

What teenage girl doesn't love...

Like, literally, I was
the only person --

like, free person
-- in his life.

Like, he hadn't gotten
a letter in 12 years.

And, like, I became alienated
from my friends

and high school ''cause I couldn't
get this across.

And so I wrote a play.

[man VO] You see, you're making me remember,

but I'm not remembering who I was,

I'm remembering who I wanted to be,

[whispering] and there's a difference.

- I shouldn't be able to
know you as well as I do

because I know-
- I mean I guess one reason

I do these projects with people

who are so far out of my world

is that I am thrown out
of my own assumptions

about how things work or what things mean.

Even just very basic things,
like even friendship, like:

Is this a friendship?

My parents are writers.

So from them, I learned how
to be intimate with my work.

And I guess my great hope
was that through my work,

I could have intimacy with other people.

Based on what I saw growing up,

I wasn't sure how else to connect.

I don't know, the idea of the...

you know, the...

the found family or the...

or the friend that kind of saves you, like, I...

those are sometimes in my
work, and it's-- you know,

and I know it's a kind of common theme,

but I can't-- you know, it...

[chuckling] never gets old!

[panting] How
about this, right?

You think that was the big one?

-I don't think that--
-It was.

That was it. [laughs]

Thank you.

[typing]

- I dropped out of college,
and did wanna make movies,

and was surrounded by women in bands.

And we started a recording
studio in our basement,

and there was very much the sense

that you could just
figure it out yourself.

So I started this thing first
called "Big Miss Moviola"

and then Moviola tried to sue me.

Welcome to "Big Miss Moviola."

My name is Miranda July
and I'll be your host.

[Miranda VO] The premise was, if
you send me your movie,

I'll put it on a VHS tape

with nine other movies
made by nine other women...

-Hi, Vanessa!

[Miranda VO] And send the tape back to you,

so we can all see each other's work.

I was providing a service that I needed

in order to conceive of
myself as a filmmaker.

And I did that for 10 years.

I did it until...

until I made "Me and You
and Everyone We Know."

Man: What are you doing in my car?

[laughs]

I don't know you

and you certainly don't
know anything about me.

I mean, what if I'm a killer of children?

-Woman: [chuckling] Yeah, well, that
would put a damper on things,

wouldn't it?

Miranda: I remember actually
after that movie came out,

and I remember performing
and realizing, like,

"They just wanna see the
girl from that movie."

That actually was a bit
of a crisis at first.

And that was actually the point
when I started making pieces

that asked a lot of the audience.

[Miranda] When I signal you,

if you could just walk
towards me very, very slowly.

♪tender piano playing♪

I noticed her immediately

when I walked out on
stage that first night.

[laughter]

She seemed to radiate light.

♪tender piano playing♪

I've been in two relationships
with women before, but...

they were more...butch.

[laughter]

[ambient music]

[Miranda VO] So right now, I am finishing a book,

a kind of long novel...

[footsteps thudding]

about the second half of a woman's life.

And it's a romance.

There's also dance in my book.

So, this is my novel.

[chuckling] No one's
supposed to see this ever,

but, um, so don't
maybe get too close but...

Or it's fine, whatever, who cares?

This is the first half of it.

This is the second half.

When I can't write anymore --
like it's diminishing returns --

then I come to this rack.

It's, like, [chuckling]
costumes to dance in?

Or...

just to make things in if I want
to become aware of my body in a

different way.

And then I'd be like,
"Well, this was a costume,

but-- but who is
this," you know?

♪cool percussive
music playing♪

And I started actually buying things

that make no sense in real life,

but are great for this sort of thing.

Like, what is...

what is this?

♪chipper triangle music♪

[Miranda VO] For me, it's always about energy,

and excitement, and mystery.

And one way it exists is in these mediums,

like, simply working in a form

with materials you haven't used before

is novelty and mystery
in a quite physical sense

and sometimes in a collaborative sense.

[typing]

So day one of the pandemic,

the phone rings and it's
an unfamiliar number,

and I answer it, and it's
clearly like a solicitor.

[dogs barking]

- Miranda's phone number
was assigned to me

but she wasn't a typical customer

that will immediately hang up
the phone or drop the call.

- Maybe I'd somehow ended up on a list

for self-published authors, which I'm not,

and so I answered all their
questions and then I said,

"Can I ask you some questions?"

Where they were, they
were in the Philippines.

How old they were, 27.

I couldn't tell what gender they were.

They were a trans woman.

[Jay VO] Here in the Philippines,

most of the religion is Roman Catholic.

It's very hard for you to be accepted,

to belong in a community.

So I started to share my background

and she thought of a project
that we can collaborate.

This is the edition --
the limited edition --

that I made
out of the project with Jay.

- She said that she's gonna
be sending me assignment

and then I'm going to
respond it in pictures.

This is the first assignment

where Miranda asked me to bow to something

that is also important to
me, which is money and a bed,

because I love to sleep.

So, in this picture, this is
where all my suffering happens.

- The best feeling is when
you throw down a challenge

and then the person comes back
with something much bolder.

I mean, that is what really
makes it a collaboration,

and that happened so regularly with Jay.

♪calm ethereal music♪

[Jay VO] This is me.

So sharing that to Miranda
was really kind of risky,

but at the same time happy

because I was able to express everything.

Like, every pain,

every truth that happened to
my life is all in this project.

♪♪♪

- I mean, I'm full of my own...

trust, abandonment issues,

like all kinds of things that make it hard

to get close to people.

So it's a real miracle

when something like that
connection can happen.

It becomes very beautiful,
and emotional, and light,

which is so, so incredible

because it's not very light inside me.

[chuckles]

♪♪♪

I think that's part of the risk thing

is literally anything is
possible in the moment.

♪♪♪

It's kind of like being
in a dream or something.

♪♪♪

But a shared dream, not a
lonely in-my-head dream.

♪♪♪

And the reward of working this way

is creative freedom

on every level.

♪♪♪

♪ethereal ambient music♪

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