Jackass and Beyond
Who remembers the MTV show Jackass? It was such a guilty pleasure from the beginning of the reality “I-can-eat-more-bugs-than-you-can-get-smacked-in-the-face-with-something-gross” genre of TV. As the Jackass viewers have grown up, so have the dudes who made it and I have to say I couldn’t be more impressed by what the man-boys who inspired crude and rude in-your-face narratives are up to now.
Last weekend, Jackass star Johnny Knoxville debuted the documentary he produced, The Birth of Big Air: Jeff Tremaine, a tribute to Mat Hoffman, the freestyle BMX biker who ushered the extreme hobby from backyard antics to the X Games, to critical raves. And this week, Jackass man behind the scenes, cinematographer Lance Bangs, will premiere his 30-minute HBO documentary with the legendary Spike Jonze (who just directed the super fun Where the Wild Things Are) The Lazarus Effect. The film is a joint effort with the RED campaign, that follows four HIV-positive Zambians and traces their recovery (sponsored by organizations like The Global Fund) after finally receiving proper antiretroviral medication. Gwen Stefani, Penelope Cruz, Orlando Bloom, Christy Turlington and Don Cheadle have joined forces with RED to help spread the word about the new film.
I caught up with Lance, who has since directed documentaries about Sonic Youth and Nirvana (and become an all-around upstanding member of society), to chat about heading to Africa for Lazarus. Here’s a few tidbits:
Tonic: How do you transition from Jackass, a show where guys wrestle alligators, pass gas in yoga classes and pee off every imaginable object, to a project with the RED campaign about AIDS?
Lance: I’ve traveled around making all sorts of films, but the contrast between shooting for Jackass and directing The Lazarus Effect was particularly stark. Clearly the emotional gravity is more profound when filming people who are rallying themselves to beat back death than it is to film a friend try to jump a lake by hanging on to a rocket. It was important, however to be able to offset the heaviness of some of the clinics and hospices in Zambia by walking outside and being the funniest looking thing the local kids may have seen all year. Oh, and in Munda Wanga I managed to get thoroughly sprayed with hot urine by a lion who sized me up and decided to mark his turf on my face and chest. Fortunately for the Jackass guys our Zambian friend Towela was filming it as it happened.
Tonic: What was filing in Africa like for you?
Lance: Sheila Roche from (RED) and I spent parts of May, August, September and December of last year in Zambia. I’d seen the Vanity Fair article about treatment in Africa, and was moved. When actually landing in Zambia I had braced myself for the inevitable loss and suffering that AIDS wreaks, but wasn’t as prepared for the larger systemic complications of poverty among some of the population, in particular the lack of access to clean water and food in rural areas. Becoming familiar with how people lived soon made me even more impressed with how resilient they could be, adhering to the precise schedule of taking ARV medication at specific times of day and not missing doses. We met a range of people with different occupations, from businessmen, to clinic workers, to DJs, and overall the qualities of openness and warmth were what came through. I came away from the experience feeling that universal access to medicine should be a basic human right.
Tonic: What are you hoping to accomplish with this film?
Lance: I intended to make a film that has my personal aesthetic but that presents people living with HIV in Africa speaking for themselves, without outside voices commenting on them, and to spend time with them portraying first hand the radical difference that it makes having access to inexpensive ARV treatment. It works, people who were in mortal jeopardy are alive because of it.
**I’ll be on HBO’s red carpet Tuesday night with Lance, Spike and this other guy named Bono. Send me any questions you have for these guys (in the comments section below) and I’ll make sure to ask!
Bret Michaels Will Be Rocking Some Love Soon Enough
Everyone’s favorite hair bander Bret Michaels is on the road to recovery. I checked in with sources close to the Poison singer and Rock of Love star over the weekend and they assure me that Bret is in good spirits and talking following his two week stay in the hospital for bleeding near his brain stem. Get well soon buddy! America loves you.
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