Gaspar Noé Talks Violence, Porn, & Why He "Likes Laughing About Cruel Things"

Once you begin watching a Gaspar Noé film, it’s completely obvious that the filmmaker is not interested in making four-quadrant, appeal-to-the-masses fare. His work is often challenging, and pulls no punches when it comes to depictions of violence and sexuality. And he keeps that streak going with his latest work, “Climax,” which earned great reviews coming out of Cannes (much to the filmmaker’s surprise) and is now beginning its US theatrical run.

But make no mistake, “Climax” is not a happy-go-lucky film experience. Noé explains why fans should never expect that sort of film from him in a new interview with Vulture.

READ MORE: ‘Climax’ Trailer: Gaspar Noé Invites You To A Provocative, Strobe-Lit Party

“If I make a happy, happy movie one day, I’ll think it’s dull,” said the filmmaker. “I like laughing about cruel things because life is cruel. And probably [‘Climax’], if it had been filmed by [Michael] Haneke or by [Ingmar] Bergman, it would have been a very dark movie. I cannot keep myself from making it funny.”

The director then explains how a recently released film that many viewed as dark and gratuitously violent, he saw as completely “playful.” “Even the last movie by Lars von Trier [‘The House That Jack Built’] seemed to me extremely playful,” he said. “But when I talk to some other people they say, ‘Oh, that movie’s so violent.’”

He continued, “For me the graphic violence in the movie is just funny. And I enjoy how much he likes playing with the audience. I probably would be very happy with a serious melodrama in which people could cry. I like melodramas. I like crying in life. I like hugging those I love. But some people have an adolescent approach to life, and maybe it’s time for me to change.”

READ MORE: Sofia Boutella Says Gaspar Noe Was Confused By The ‘Climax’ Praise

Noé goes on to talk about the contrast in America between how violence is depicted and how sexuality is shown. He feels that violence has become so mainstream, that it has lost its edge, and sexual situations are blown way out of proportion. And to illustrate his point, he brings up a film that many Playlist readers might have skipped, the Mark Wahlberg-starring “Mile 22.”

“I was on the plane and I was watching this movie called ‘Mile 22’…You see this one? There’s a guy getting slashed every 15 seconds,” explains Noé. “And it’s a very amusing movie. There’s a lot of graphic violence, but the movie’s not violent at all — the portrayal of violence in cinema doesn’t touch anybody anymore. You watch that like you could watch an old ‘Batman’ series. It’s playful, it’s funny, and totally out of this world.”

The director continues, “But when you start touching aspects of the real human experience … Now people are terrorized when they see a man and a woman having sex on-screen. Come on! In real life, having sex with someone you love is the best moment of the week, or of the day (if it’s every day), or of the month. In your own life, you say, ‘Oh, this is the moment that made me feel good and justified the whole month of work, or the whole week of work.’ But when people see a man and a woman kissing and the guy having an erection, then it turns into trauma — like there was the face of the devil coming out on-screen.”

READ MORE: Gaspar Noé’s ‘Climax’: An Orgy Of Sex, Drugs, Horror & Death [Cannes Review]

The full interview goes into much more depth about the types of films that Noé finds interesting, as well as his thoughts on musical comedies (spoiler alert: he hates them). But the end of the interview brings with it a quote that is worth sharing in its entirety. Noé is known for his use of sexuality in his films, often showing in graphic detail what other filmmakers shy away from. However, that doesn’t mean that the filmmaker is some sort of erotic film connoisseur. In fact, he doesn’t even enjoy porn much anymore.

“I never, never got horny watching any explicit sex on a computer or on a cellular phone,” he said. “I’m old-school. I enjoyed erotic comic books. I enjoyed magazines containing photos from erotic movies or porn movies. I enjoyed watching porn on VHS. But I don’t know if it’s because of the age or what, but when I started watching DVDs I got disconnected from the porn genre, and I started watching documentaries instead. And certainly when you are 14, 15, 16, you are invaded by your testosterone and you need to masturbate three times a day, to fulfill what your hormones ask you to do.

He continued, “But then when you’re 30, you’re more focused and you have less rushes of testosterone and you can concentrate on reading and watching documentaries. But, yeah … I was a masturbation junkie as a teenager. It’s like people when they stop doing heroin they are afraid even of drinking beer, because it’s going to remind them how good the heroin was. I would say the day I stopped my addictions to porn images, I felt like my life was much simpler. I stopped early. I like erotic images, but I don’t like erotic images that are made in a cold context.”

“Climax” hits theaters starting today.