A version this article also appeared at Medium.
I first met Caveh Zahedi as an animated version of himself. I was in my freshman year of college and had just been introduced to Richard Linklater’s film Waking Life. It is one of my Top 5 films of all time. The best sequence of the film is titled “The Holy Moment” and it features two men, one of them independent filmmaker and teacher Caveh Zahedi, and the other poet David Jewell, in conversation at a table. I was fascinated by the skinny man with the wild eyes and zany hair as he talked about the ability of film to capture our most human moments and, in so doing, capture God.
It turns out, according to this sequence, that we are all trying to capture “the holy moment,” a sacred communion with another human being or just with the moment itself. To capture such a moment, Caveh says, he should “stop talking.” So he does. He looks deeply into Jewell’s eyes and we sit breathless as the moment becomes holy. I was so moved by this conversation between Caveh and David Jewell that I bought Waking Life and showed it off to my friends.
Caveh Zahedi, I would later learn, is an American filmmaker of Iranian descent and a professor of film at The New School. He has made such films as I Am a Sex Addict, The Sheik and I, In the Bathtub of the World, I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore, and A Little Stiff. There is a box-set of his complete works available through Factory 25 called Digging My Own Grave: The Films of Caveh Zahedi
It is said of Caveh that, as an artist, he “transcends failure.” His work is obsessed with truth. Caveh’s work captures moments in his life with his wife Mandy and two children. This includes his sex addiction, self-absorption, and use of drugs as a vehicle to God. He explores his own limitations, and his harsh, icy, unfeeling critics. Caveh Zahedi does not spare us any cringe-worthy moments in his personal life. We cannot accuse Caveh of being sensationalist. At times, his films have been judged as failures, frustrating, or poorly made.
This, however, is not to say anything of substance really. The question Caveh forces us to ask ourselves is: If my films are true and honest, how can they be failures? Or, better yet, how can Caveh Zahedi ever be considered a failure given that his work is really an extension of himself?
BRIC TV is a non-profit Brooklyn arts organization with four public access channels that has concerned itself with Brooklyn-centric themes, namely, diversity, social justice, and politics. BRIC TV agreed to greenlight and produce Caveh’s newest piece, a TV series titled The Show About the Show and it is THE MOST META TV SERIES EVER. Each episode of the series is about how the previous episode was made. It is, literally, a show about making the show itself. Caveh has brought his unique brand of squirm-inducing human moments and humor to a series that defies all conventions, because, that’s just how Caveh fuckin’ rolls.
My Interview with Caveh
I had the opportunity to interview Caveh Zahedi for thestake.org, as he was making his way, by bus, to the Sundance Film Festival for a showing of his newest animated short film. Since this was my opportunity to interview one of my heroes, I was holding in my fanboy squeals of delight as best I could. Caveh was very kind and polite, as he somehow managed to carry on a very thorough interview with me on his phone while navigating through security at Sundance and even getting his picture taken for the festival.
Josiah Armstrong: What do you think your work says about human story, particularly in The Show About the Show?
Caveh Zahedi: Storytelling is how we think. Thoughts aren’t separate from narrative. “Stories” is a form. The form effects how we think. Thinking about storytelling is a way in which thoughts change. Changing thoughts is the way the world will change. I’m just trying to tell stories well and honestly. Stories are already a false thing. There’s no truth. I am always exploring the disparity between the notion of truth and the ways people communicate. Everyone’s truth is singular and different.
JA: You said something very profound in Episode 2 of The Show About the Show. You said, “People don’t love honesty.” Honesty seems like the very foundation of your work. Why do you think it is that people don’t love honesty and why is the brand of honesty you present so important?
CZ: Survival. People don’t love honesty because they want to survive. Honesty causes more suffering. This is the planet of suffering. But honesty causes less suffering for me, though, than non-honesty. People need permission to be honest. Sex Addicts Anonymous is incredibly healing. You move from shame and feeling like a monster to being united with others. This is a beautiful thing to give someone, I think. This is the truth for me. As a teacher I am honest with my students as well. They will often end up asking, “You can be a teacher and say this stuff?”
JA: What role do you think sex plays in your work? It shows up quite often as a conversation topic.
CZ: It’s a taboo. There’s a lot of dishonesty and shame around it. I’m all about trying to minimize the shame that we all feel.
JA: How about drugs, as in your series Getting Stoned with Caveh?
CZ: I think drugs are the gateway to spirituality and to God.
JA: Tell me about The Show About the Show. Why do the series in this particular way? What is it saying about art and our experience of it and each other?
CZ: Art is about going to the places that the culture hasn’t already validated. Boring conversations happen all the time. There are certain rules we play by. Art is about not doing the norm and doing something real at the edge of the culture where there is interesting energy. Embarrassing things are truly true. If you’re comfortable with something, it’s boring, it’s pat, it’s adjusted. Embarrassment is a very good barometer of you. In The Sheik and I I’m in control and I am not as vulnerable as I would have liked. In my series, I’m more vulnerable and the people I film are more vulnerable. Episode 3 of The Show About the Show is vulnerable and that makes it better. Filmmakers need to be vulnerable.
JA: What is it like working with Alex Karpovsky of Lena Dunham’s Girls and Eleanore Hendricks of Boulevard (Robin Williams’s final film)?
CZ: Alex is very honest and real. Eleanore is delightful. Free spirit. Flexible. Smart. Intuitive.
JA: How about your wife Mandy? You have used her as a subject in a lot of your work and oftentimes she seems frustrated.
CZ: Mandy feels good about being a part of my work. It’s embarrassing to her, of course, but, that’s part of what makes it good, and she knows that.
JA: In The Sheik and I you were expressly forbidden by “those in charge” from making fun of the Sheik of Sharjah, which then became the very subject of the film. In The Show About the Show, Aziz from BRIC TV asked you not to make fun of BRIC, yet you do, in a way. I know this is all part of truth and honesty for you, Caveh, but, do you ever worry about getting fired?
CZ: What I do is borderline fire-able all of the time.
JA: It was said by someone in an essay included in your box set that you “transcend failure.” Can you say more about that?
CZ: Failure is a very spiritualizing experience. It helps us realize what’s important. I don’t know what I’ve ever done that didn’t feel like failure in some way. We are born into guilt and also born into failure. There is a narrative of success that is a lie. The movie Creed is really good and deals with this very topic. Failure needs to be talked about. It’s shameful. You transcend failure by making the best of your weakness. Turn your weakness into a strength. That’s my rhetorical strategy. It’s an underdog strategy.
JA: Thank you, Caveh. If you have the time, I would love to hear more about…
CZ: (interrupts) I’m sorry, Josiah, but the film is about to start! I need to go now.
The first three episodes of BRIC TV’s The Show About the Show, created by Caveh Zahedi, are available on Caveh’s website www.cavehzahedi.com, on YouTube, and on BRIC TV’s website http://bricartsmedia.org/community-media/bric-tv. The image of Caveh, above, is from www.hamstermovies.com.
Josiah Richard Armstrong is a hospital chaplain from Western New York. He is also a playwright and amateur cartoonist. Follow him on Twitter @JosiahArmstrong and Medium, where he writes more reviews for film and television.
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