Capturing a kind of bravado

Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth and Body/Head on Catherine Breillat and the music with Anne-Katrin Titze and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman: “It was a real honour of my life to be in one of her films.”

In the first instalment with Kim Gordon on Catherine Breillat, we discuss the songs in Last Summer (L'Été Dernier) - Body/Head’s Tripping (Bill Nace and Kim Gordon), Sonic Youth’s Dirty Boots (Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, and Steve Shelley, now drummer in Bush Tetras), and Léo Ferré’s Vingt Ans, and we are joined by music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman. Kim’s initial encounters with Breillat films are A Real Young Girl (Une Vraie Jeune Fille) and then 36 Fillette. We also touch on Kim’s latest work with French choreographer Dimitri Chamblas, Ed’s copy of the mastered cassette of their second album Bad Moon Rising Sonic Youth dropped off at 99, and a word on Brooks Headley’s Superiority Burger.

Anne (Léa Drucker) with her husband Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin) as her stepson Théo (Samuel Kircher) stalks his prey.

Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall and Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar shortlisted The Zone Of Interest, both starring Sandra Hüller, Poor Things directed by Yorgos Lanthimos with amazing costumes by Holly Waddington, Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves (Kuolleet Lehdet, also Oscar shortlisted), and Pablo Larraín’s El Conde are some of Kim’s 2023 favourite films.

Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer (written in collaboration with Pascal Bonitzer and a highlight in the Main Slate of the 61st New York Film Festival) stars Léa Drucker and Samuel Kircher with Olivier Rabourdin, Clotilde Courau, Serena Hu, and Angela Chen. The film is based on May el-Toukhy’s 2019 Queen of Hearts (Dronningen, co-written with Maren Louise Käehne), starring Trine Dyrholm, Gustav Lindh, and Magnus Krepper.

Breillat, incomparably daring as ever, tells the story of Anne (Drucker), a successful lawyer, who lives with her businessman husband Pierre (Rabourdin) and their two headstrong, adopted daughters, Serena (Hu) and Angela (Chen), in a beautiful, cool, well-ordered home. All white and cream and easily stainable, the house resembles Anne’s Hitchcock heroine wardrobe. When Pierre’s 17-year-old son from his previous marriage, Théo (Kircher), comes to live with them, nothing remains the way it was. Anne’s transgressive desire step by step will transfigure a calm that maybe never existed in the first place. Each scene of seemingly quotidian normalcy contains kernels ready to pop. All the while, the intensely impatient relationship between Anne and Théo intensifies and morphs into unforeseen terrain.

Kim Gordon on Catherine Breillat using Dirty Boots for Samuel Kircher’s Théo: “I thought it was interesting how she used the Sonic Youth song as sort of characterising the young boy, capturing this kind of bravado, this really confident or sort of free teenage boyishness.”

From Los Angeles, Kim Gordon joined us on Zoom for an in-depth conversation on Catherine Breillat and Last Summer.

Anne-Katrin Titze: Hi, Kim! I just emailed this afternoon with Catherine, who sends her love, and she mentioned what a great contribution your work is to the film.

Kim Gordon: That’s so sweet.

AKT: Tell me how it came about! How did you end up doing the music for Last Summer?

KG: Well, I’m not really sure how it came about. I think her music supervisor contacted my manager and I know that they wanted a Sonic Youth song. But my music partner, Bill Nace, and I, who have this experimental guitar duo, Body/Head, we kind of got our name from one of her films. We love her movies and our dream would be to do a soundtrack. But she doesn’t really use music. I mean, she doesn’t use score much.

AKT: She doesn’t, exactly.

KG: Somehow she maybe knew about Body/Head or whatever. We had just kind of recorded this EP of songs so we sent them to her. There was one that she really liked. And also she said, you can try and do some sound, really low so you don’t really hear it, you just feel it on your skin.

AKT: That’s great!

KG: I did some of that and sent it to her but I don’t really think they used it. She just used the song twice.

Kim Gordon on Catherine Breillat: “I got to meet her in Paris because I’d been in the South working on this dance project with a French choreographer [Dimitri Chamblas].” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

AKT: I was just going to ask you, because I didn’t notice a soundtrack.

KG: No, she doesn’t use soundtrack. It was just funny because she kept wanting to credit me for writing all this music and I’m like, I didn’t. I can’t say that. Especially because Sonic Youth gave her the song for practically nothing. I got to meet her in Paris because I’d been in the South working on this dance project with a French choreographer.

AKT: Who is the choreographer?

KG: Dimitri Chamblas. I did some music and worked with some of his dancers with guitars in a piece that’s going to premiere in France. We already played it in Belgium and the US. I think in June in Montpellier it’ll be at the festival there.

AKT: But back to the Breillat story!

KG: Anyway, it was very sweet to meet her and she took me to lunch. Her English isn’t very good.

AKT: It’s very interesting. Her English is totally unique, like her films. Nobody has her English.

KG: Yeah. I speak a little French but mostly we were communicating through pictures on our phones. She showed me pictures when she was a young girl and I showed her pictures of me when I was a young girl. She showed me pictures of her family. Anyway, I hope I get to work with her again in some way. It was a real honour of my life to be in one of her films.

AKT: Do you remember the first Breillat film you saw?

Poor Things New York Film Festival press conference with Yorgos Lanthimos, composer Jerskin Fendrix, production designers Shona Heath and James Price, costume designer Holly Waddington, cinematographer Robbie Ryan Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

KG: I think it was A Real Young Girl and then 36 Fillette.

AKT: They are very strong. Nobody made films about girls the way she does.

KG: Actually there’s a great book that I was talking to her about, about her work by Douglas Keesey, published in England. It analyses all her films and the piece about 36 Fillette talks about this conflict of the body versus the head. This young girl who wants to lose her virginity with this older man but she doesn’t want to give up control. That was really fascinating. I had never really seen anybody try and depict that.

AKT: Hence the Body/Head name?

KG: Yeah.

AKT: I found the placement of your song very interesting. It’s in the car with the two kids in the backseat. They are fantastic, I spoke with Catherine about these two little girls, Serena and Angela. And they talk about werewolves when the song kicks in, followed by the accident. Did you know that it would be car accident music?

KG: No, I didn’t, actually, no. You’re talking about Dirty Boots, the Sonic Youth song?

AKT: No, I’m talking about Tripping.

Kim Gordon on work done by Holly Waddington for Poor Things: “The costumes are amazing.” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

KG: Honestly, you know what? I haven’t actually seen the film since it’s been completed with English subtitles and the colour correction. Criterion sent me a link which expired before I could watch it. So I’m a bit confused where it was placed.

AKT: It’s in the car when Léa Drucker’s character drives the two girls to horseback riding.

KG: Now I remember. I didn’t know how she was going to use it. I thought it was interesting how she used the Sonic Youth song as sort of characterising the young boy, capturing this kind of bravado, this really confident or sort of free teenage boyishness.

AKT: I have someone here who wants to say hi to you, Ed Bahlman.

KG: Hey, nice to see you!

EB: Hi, great to see you! I always thought you were the adult in the room.

KG: I think I was more serious when I was younger. I’ve gotten less serious as I’ve gotten older. That’s also because I was shy.

EB: But you were always present. The shyness makes you even more present.

KG: Maybe.

EB: With Catherine Breillat, when Anne-Katrin came back from the New York Film Festival and mentioned that your name was listed as music, and I hadn’t seen the film, so the whole hooking up with the email, but I still needed to see the film so that I could join the conversation.

Kim Gordon on Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest: “I really liked [it]” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

KG: Oh yeah.

EB: And Catherine Breillat sent a link just this week.

KG: Oh cool!

EB: That’s why we contacted you.

KG: Excellent! I wish I could have seen it on the big screen. I bet it’s beautiful.

AKT: It’s great on the big screen. Seeing it again, though, I noticed details I didn’t catch, for instance the wedding ring at the end. It turns into a light flicker which remains. That’s the last image, we see, the wedding ring.

KG: I wonder, do you think it will have distribution? I know it’s on Criterion, but I wonder if it’ll come to LA at some point.

AKT: I hope so. I don’t know. This is also partly why this conversation maybe pushes somebody to say, hey, what are we so afraid of? Because people are afraid of her films.

KG: Yes. It’s crazy how LA is supposed to be such a movie town but it’s really hard to see a lot of foreign films, for them to get distribution.

EB: It used to be so easy in New York, so many theaters looking for foreign films. I still have [Ed holds up a cassette] the Bad Moon Rising cassette tape, unmastered.

KONK vs. LIQUID LIQUID in Tompkins Square Park on Sunday, August 9, 1981 - promoted by Ed Bahlman’s 99 Records Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

KG: Oh wow! Amazing!

EB: Are you coming to New York at all?

KG: Actually I am coming on the 24th. I have a new record coming out in March and we’re shooting another video there.

EB: There’s this crazy series called Jury Duty.

KG: I’ve heard about that.

EB: And it’s nuts. There’s one person on the jury who doesn’t know that it’s all actors. It throws you off balance.

AKT: It’s very funny.

KG: Okay, I watch it. I need more humour in my life.

AKT: Did you watch the series The Curse?

KG: Yes! I haven’t seen the finale.

AKT: We haven’t either.

EB: We’re watching it tonight!

KG: It’s so good, it’s so cringy. There are actually so many good movies that came out this year. I got invited to Telluride and I got to see many good ones.

AKT: I agree, it was a great year. Which films did you particularly like?

KG: I really liked Anatomy Of A Fall. And Zone Of Interest.

AKT: Oh, The Zone Of Interest is incredible.

KG: Incredible. Poor Things I thought was amazing. Fallen Leaves. There’s this really weird film by this Chilean director [Pablo Larraín], El Conde. It’s about Pinochet as a vampire. It’s a little long but it’s worth seeing. I recently saw American Fiction and I thought that was really good, really solid.

AKT: Poor Things I think will win for Costume Design. The sleeves alone are spectacular.

Brooks Headley with Ed Bahlman behind the bar at Superiority Burger Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

KG: Yeah, the costumes are amazing.

EB: Are you still working on your fashion line?

KG: Oh, no, I haven’t done that in years and years. We sold that to the Japanese in the Nineties.

EB: Anne-Katrin is going to speak with Wim Wenders on Sunday.

KG: Oh wow. People loved that film [Perfect Days] at the [Telluride] festival, I didn’t get to see it.

EB: A lot of music, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, of course.

AKT: Very calm and a bit Ozu inspired about a man who cleans Tokyo toilets and his days.

KG: The repetition of his day. It’s weird, I haven’t heard anything about it here.

EB: Have you been to Superiority Burger?

KG: I’ve been there, yeah. Actually a good friend of mine’s boyfriend owns it.

EB: Brooks?

KG: Yes, Brooks. Mariko [Munro], she actually produced the Nam June Paik film [Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV].

Kim Gordon on Pablo Larraín’s El Conde: “It’s a little long but it’s worth seeing.” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

AKT: We’re going there tomorrow.

KG: To L.A.?

AKT: No, to Superiority Burger.

EB: We went there for my birthday, first time in the new location. They have a lot of East Village memorabilia, so we’re going to speak with Brooks about a Konk vs. Liquid Liquid at Tompkins Square Park flyer I have, to put that up.

KG: Oh yeah. It was really noisy, that’s the only thing I can say that was negative. Go early!

EB: Drop us a line if you have time when you come!

KG: Okay!

AKT: Very nice to meet you!

KG: Very nice to meet you and give my love to Catherine if you talk to her again.

EB: Big hugs from Brooklyn to you!

Coming up - Kim Gordon on waiting to become an adult, Samuel Kircher’s puppy-ishness, the coupling of Tripping with the Léo Ferré song Vingt Ans, the dangerous scooter scene, Catherine Breillat’s fairy-tale films Bluebeard [Barbe Bleue, inspired by Charles Perrault] and Sleeping Beauty [La Belle Endormie, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Perrault] and the humour in The Last Mistress [Une Vieille Maîtresse - Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly].