Isabella Rossellini on InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse

she was born into showbiz royalty the daughter of famed Italian director Roberto Rossellini an Academy award-winning actress Ingrid Bergman with brains beauty and talent she's carved out a career to be envied as a model she was the face of Lancome for 14 years as an actress she starred in films as diverse as blue velvet and death becomes her and as a producer she gained internet superstardom by writing code directing and starring in a series of shorts for the Sundance Channel called Green porno where she acts out the mating habits of insects and Wildlife hello i'm ernie manouse coming up on interviews our conversation with Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actress Isabella Rossellini as your concept your idea of beauty changed over the years I don't have an understanding of beauty I mean you know yesterday I presented a film that I did about my father who called my father is a hundred years old and when I'm asked why did you fail to need to make a film about your father it's because my parents I was remembered or because of my work as model I'm always asked these questions about the glamour the red carpet wonderful clothes and of course there was some talk about it but he wasn't the principal thing that we've talked about in my family my family was successful and so some of it came with it but you know my mom looked at movies as if art not really has a showcase of a beauty or her showing her clothes or you know she really she was really breaking with the tradition so much so that she was then thrown out of Hollywood where she didn't come back for many years and I always loved fashion and so it was delightful to be was delighted to be a model for so long but to me the great interesting in fashion was photography for example so and I think photographers would are given a showcase in fashion to show their art so they know that they have to photograph you beautifully because because if the context is fashion and or beauty or cosmetic but really the research is in composition and color and all that so I I don't really know specifically what is beauty I never really think about it you know you don't think about that you think well you know if you wear a beautiful clothes how to make it flow in like a dancer you know in a in a certain way to make a shape in that frame that is a square or a triangle or is horizontal or vertical so the truth is that I don't spend much time thinking about beauty you know there is a saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that is also true you know what it is important that what is beautiful for you remains beautiful and and that you asserted and actually I think that the definition of style is when somebody does recognize has a name has a reaction to something and shows their reaction you know and then we have a way to learn you know I have I have seen for example film that first time I've seen it I thought that was terribly boring but then a wonderful reviewer would explain it to me and then I would look again at the film now it looked beautiful or you know you can also think of George O'Keeffe or Maria Callas that weren't particularly beautiful women according to the rules that they were at the time but they had such wonderful styles that they became beautiful so beauty is also not only in the eye of the beholder but it's an expression let me take you all the way back yes do you remember a point when you realized how well-known your parents were was there ever a moment when you realized hey wait they're famous not really not really first of all I grew up in Europe so in Europe there is less that feeling that filmmakers are in America they are like American royalties but in Europe we have the royalties and so the maker is considered very popular but he's a job so there was less of that emphasis and then it did take me quite a while you know I didn't understand how famous they were until I think I was an adult still today I'm surprised that people remember my mother Ingrid Bergman or my dad and remember them with such fondness but he does it's hard to imagine and I would imagine that you know the children of Angelina Jolie that they don't realize how famous you for there is mom as a Bergman for me was really mom pretty you you tell a story of being it I guess was maybe an antique store and you're wandering around and you kept seeing this woman off to the side tell me the story when I went to an antique store and I saw a woman and I thought you know I thought she reminds me of my mom and but she would seem to be a little bit like she didn't want to be disturbed so I kept on you know as we were walking around if I see you know I would walk away not to disturb her and that she's very elegant Ben listen our bhishan better not deal with her and then I realized that I saw myself it was myself in the mirror because in this antique store it was very full of things and they had mirror so occasionally I would capture my image and I didn't recognize myself because I'd aged and you remember yourself younger in your head and I was delighted to find myself elegant not so delighted I found it myself a little bit snobbish and I even said I look like my mom which is something I was hurt all my life and always said no I don't really look like my mama mom and I when we looked at each other I never felt that we looked so much alike no yeah but when I was little my god all the time people say you're exactly there's another thing you talk about is that when people talk about the older films of your mother that that woman on screen isn't a woman you really knew well my mother you know became when she was in your 20s a huge star in Hollywood doing films like has a Blanca or notorious it worked a lot with Alfred Hitchcock and I was born after that period as I have said my mum was very interested in art and thermos art so when she saw after the war in 1949 she so films that my father did in Italy and Italy was the enemy country it was a fascist country that it I lied himself with the war with Hitler and and then came my father who showed films about how the civilian lived the war and lived the fact there were enemies and this film were incredibly touching incredibly moving and in a way they served also to reconcile the world with Italy and the fascist when my mother saw this film loved them this film had only an incredible new style they look like documentaries they didn't look at all like film they didn't have the beautiful lighting and the better than life quality of the Hollywood film they look like documentary but obviously they were not documentary you saw people shocked and dead dying on screen so he was obviously a fictional this film were very incredibly influential to the modern cinema that happened after the war and my mother won so this film wrote to my father wanting to make films with him when they met they fell in love and my mother became pregnant with him without obtaining a divorce from a first husband and my mother was a sweet so there was all sorts of protests in America and my mother was not allowed back the basic idea was how do we allow a foreigner to come to our country ray take advantage of our country raised to be stars and then give such bad examples to our youth and even the American Senate took a stand against my mother wanting to create laws that would control who could become a star and who you know a little bit like the checker the checks that you do on on somebody would be a CEO or a politician you make sure that you're in your past right there isn't anything that it is dark so hopefully in the future you're not going to and so there was the attempt to control also art and who should be known or not known so but meanwhile my mom has a sweet was not allowed back and never came back coming came back years later but worked very little in Hollywood growing up then in that household what was your understanding or view of America really no my mom loved it but my dad no my dad felt very very betrayed very frightened about this incredible backlash against my family so was it rebellion when Kame know it wasn't by then my father had reconciled completely unnatural thanks to dominique and jean de Menil who took my father who have in Houston are so important in the arts in the patrons of the arts and naturally Jean and Dominique de Menil took my father under their wings and there was one of the artists that they foster my father's intent with cinema it was to use cinema too because he said to me if I had to describe an elephant I would say something very big grey with the long nose and each one will have a different idea of what this elephant is and if you have to read about it you have to learn how to read and write and every thing is very imprecise but when you have photos or film you immediately in one second have a lot of information a lot of precise idea so my father gave attributed to cinema the ability to defeat ignorant and therefore misery and in that utopistic enthusiastic of commitment to society it felt you know a good year in dominique de Menil and jean de Menil who were looking for artists it was also socially committed and matching my father came to Houston and opened the media center a Rice University and meanwhile he was trying to create under the patronage of the deme Neal a way to make films about science not a documentary but some a new film where you can because they were very much against the idea that art and science is true world that never meet and they felt that was an artificial separation that was damaging and it too had to be reconciled so my father did reconciled to America but not with Hollywood but America of the great patron and America of the great universities and I don't mean to jump away from where we're talking about but I can't help but see the similarities then with green porno yes when you talk about what your father wanted to do with science and art and image well I didn't think about it when I did my short films my short films were commissioned to me by the Sundance Channel that you know it's the great Robert Redford who is the head of it and Redford throughout his life he's obviously an enormous Hollywood star but he always felt that Hollywood and Hollywood studio was one expression of cinema but the cinema has to have and other voices too and not just a voice of the studio so he was incredibly influential to to the independent film were also became so important in America creating to the film festival and financing film and to him it this is what it is about this country which is diversity and having everybody speak up so you can't have just the voices of this math magic and take film that cost a lot of money and they are marvelous but you have to have other voices too and Redford commissioned because it felt that the internet offered an opportunity for these other voices also to be heard now for short film for everybody and so he commissioned me and other artists to create a series especially for the internet and I have personally always been very interested in animal behavior and what Redford said you know it my series if there is any reference to the environment I will be more inclined to finance it because it's a very big environmentalist I thought I'm going to make a series about animals but what is it about animals that everybody will be interested sex because I know everybody's interested in sex so I made several episodes a two minutes each about how animal mate and the films are not documentary they start with me saying if I were a fly and then I transform myself with the incredible costume I have Andy Byers and Drake met Gilbert helped me create I transformed myself in a fight and then I show how they made and I do that for 28 animals are there more of them still to come or are we done with that series no dude just about a new one coming out called seduce me if we wanted to eliminate the word porno because we were solicited to have sponsors you know one of the things that we don't know how it's gonna work in the internet is how is it in the internet and short films or like YouTube what you see in YouTube can be monetized can create a business for the moment we have an incredible tool of distribution but we don't have any ways yet to make the artists to create this film get the money back finance yeah to finance and this is one of the great mysteries of how the Internet is it going to just be a recycling bin of something that you do on television but because they also steal audience to television television is becoming poorer and that's the same problem with the music the same sorry with the publishing business so we are in a period of transition where we don't know exactly how to reorganize so so there is the incredible ability to reach a lot of people but we don't have we can't sell tickets you can't sell copies of books you can't pay royalty so how do artists right and yet not only artists but everybody works into the industry of cinema yet some of the money back so they can perpetuate making film how do you envision property ownership of art I do think that yeah and you know I do think that it has somewhat to exist I mean I understand that I mean I was very touched today going to determine Neil to see this fantastic collection that it is for free so that everybody can walk in while I live in New York and Entering in a museum in New York is twenty thirty dollars and if you bring your children it's you know easily a hundred dollars that go so for sure I have this great admiration but we have to find it doesn't have to be copyright whatever it is but I do think that artists should earn money that it isn't a hobby you know that artists should learn because if Picasso had to make a living as an accountant or as a lawyer he wouldn't have been Picasso he wouldn't have time it takes time to become an artist it takes time and concentration so we have to create I know it's strange we have to create a system where they can earn money from their arch we take you back again a little bit and curious what made you decide to go into modeling I was offered to become a model and by a photographer called Bruce Weber a wonderful fashion photographer and a photographer also filmmaker and Bruce was delightful and I started to work with him and one thing led to the other you know I worked with him then I got the cover of Vogue and then Richard Avedon wanted to meet me and I didn't think I was going to be a model but obviously when Richard Avedon Oh Bruce Weber called you and they said we like to photograph you say well absolutely that would be a fantastic opportunity and I didn't know that it was going to turn into a 20-year career and I mean no disrespect when I say this it was later in life for you to start as a model well I started when I was about 28 which is an unusual age I looked much younger and nobody asked me how old I was when I finally somebody did say how old are you and I said you know by then 32 but that tells you how how much we have stereotypes about age you know and how ageism can influence how people are seen yeah they forgotten to ask me and I was anyway the daughter of so it was always the daughter of so I must have been young I couldn't have been in my 30s yeah does that ever get tiresome being you know I know we know what it was young a little bit not now not now my parents unfortunately died 30 years ago and I'm delighted to be their daughter and I'm delighted that they are still remembered so I'm I'm pleased now is it was it hard to see your image larger than life walking in New York and there you are on billboards walk into a department store in your honor wasn't it one difficulty was delightful but nothing in the exhibitionistic way you know not in my kaha you know you you do a job and you hope to really fulfill it so you do a photo and you when you do the photo in the studio you see it may be in a Polaroid that it is like this and you have to imagine that that image has to be so striking that when you walk and you and the airport running to your gate it still catches you so that you can because and so when you finally see the photo where he was meant to be and if it is striking if it is arresting if it does communicate a message you are there to communicate you feel like you've done a good job so how then does that set you up to go into acting are you performing in these images are absolutely yeah keenly aware of your audience modeling it's almost like being a silent movie star you know you don't have to have a dialogue or but you do have to show emotion there is you know the great Diana Vreeland was considered a sort of philosopher you know a high priest of fashion said there is no beauty without emotion it you know it's nothing if you are the perfect nose and blue eyes and blonde but you stay like this in front of the camera if that that doesn't work it's the emotion that the camera has to capture and is the motion that people react to so in that sense it's also like acting where you emote in front of the camera but you also have to learn a dialogue and you have to pace your emotion so that you can tell the story so it's a little bit more complex but definitely there is a lot of things in common between modeling and acting was it an easy transition for you yes and no some difficulties in the language I think your English is not my first language and so it I always act in English or French Italian is my first language but now I've been spoken and so long so I do think that visual just visual art it's better for me I can youonce my voice the same way door Laurence Olivier nuance did because it is in my language so I don't feel it deep down you know sometimes I deliver lines and remember some director saying why do you say that with an interrogation mark I don't say I said with certitude you said no III hear and I think he was just the Italian you know song that made it they formed it into an interrogation mark instead of an affirmation so I work because but I do have an accent and so I think ultimately that I felt more comfortable as a model than as an actress was it white nights where they didn't think you could do the Russian accent and you were like wait I'll get this well yes they often hired me to play Russian German and all this you'd like to get a job but I mean it's a little bit generic you know to say if you are a for you it's American and the foreigners you know you also have to live through that stereotype so you accepted because it's a job and you're trying to work with a voice coach to change it a little bit so that he doesn't come across terribly Italian but a little bit German a little bit Russian but yeah I find it a little bit strange that I was given those role I mean thank you but it is strange you know talking about strange everyone would be after me if I didn't ask about blue velvet sure what was your concept of it when it was first presented to you what did you think of his film I yeah I read the script and I thought the script was wonderfully wonderful original the character were wonderful I immediately understood - it was very clear to me that David was a David Lynch was a major talent and a major artist I asked David if we could rehearse the scene with Kyle McCloud and the actor that played the lead and most of the scenes with me because I just wanted to make sure that I understood the character because I play a very disturbed woman and I wanted to make sure that that's why that's the way David in envisioned it and and then he offered me the part David explained to me that one of the scene maybe the most controversial in blue velvet is when I come out walking the street completely naked and exposed and David explained to me that when he was a child here gone back to home you'd seen a woman walking naked in the street and he didn't giggle or he didn't feel OH sexy he burst into tears he understood that it was something very alarming behind this unusual sight and that is what he wanted to convey in this film and the image that when David was talking to me that came to mind to me was a photo by a Vietnam photographer called Nate Nick are told that a girl walking in the street after a napalm bomb burned her village and actually what I thought were clothes hanging from her work actually her skin she and that gesture seemed so helpless and that's the gesture that inspired that I have adopted for the character of Dorothea violence in the film but frontal nudity is not accepted in film strangely enough you know I mean nudity and titillating but also covered I mean also complicated to deal with with what is acceptable and not acceptable you know so when the film came out it was a huge scandal which I didn't expect you know I didn't expect that if I walked with a bush but it suggested nudity but me you need it that impact because you needed that shock and you needed to recreate the fear that David felt when he was a little boy and I understand your conversation about it from an artist point of view but it must have been shocking surprising the first time you were sitting in the theater and you saw it up on screen well you know you don't you don't make a film and then all of a sudden you see it in a theater with the audience who you go to the editing room you're seeing being edited and also it was an independent film it was very small it was meant to be for an arthouse so blue velvet has become hugely successful very very controversial and then little by little it got the reputation of being a wonderful film well we didn't expect that success you know and also to be exposed to that kind of press or that kind of you know it was meant to be more of an arthouse film and so maybe reviewers or people would understand it better but instead when he hit them you know it became a pop culture then you know also the theory came out is it porn or it's not porn or is Isabella doing this to destroy her mother Ingrid Bergman rebelled against her or to destroy our image as a model you know there were all these theory but it was just an artistic film and I understood it from the beginning and certainly didn't expect that awful reactions it were pretty tough well that might have gotten some shocking reactions but so much of your work has been so well received even that thank you so much taking the time to talk with us thank you Isabella Rossellini to order a DVD of this or any episode of interviews please visit Houston pbs.org you

Channel: HoustonPBS

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Rating: 4.8730159 out of 5

Keywords: isabella, rossellini, on, innerviews, with, ernie, manouse, interview, houston, pbs, channel, italian, actress, blue, velvet, roberto

Id: NJqD5Y_4T-g

Length: 26min 49sec (1609 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 21 2011