Live Cinema Demands Telepathy

Training in the Song Islands

People have asked how Francis Ford Coppola ended up joining my one-shot musical film Brother Verses Brother, so I'm sharing this tale in chapters. I hope it’s inspiring for your own life/art journeys. The movie is about combative, codependent twin musicians hunting the streets of San Francisco for their dying poet father, and everyone in the film plays a version of themselves.

Live Cinema Demands Telepathy

In a film with no cuts, you get raw connection or complete garbage. As my friend Sebastian Schipper (director of the one-shot masterpiece Victoria) warned me, “If you look like you’re acting, the characters will look like they’re lying.”

So: filming with my real family could be a superpower or a disaster.

I always knew that a desire to capture all of life in a single movie would lead to paralysis. So, doing a tale in real-time seemed like the right limitation: what could happen in the span of ninety improvised minutes that would suggest the bigger story? The sun setting on twins - a woman - bars and clubs - a father gone missing.

I knew from experience that directing myself was like holding a mirror to my flaws while trying to manage a set. Directing my twin, who’s known me longer than myself known myself, was probably dangerous.

The Song Islands

My brother Ethan was in Berlin when I pitched him the story. I lobbied him to drop his European tour plans and film in San Francisco in just six weeks - while our 99-year-old novelist father was still willing and able. To prepare, Ethan and I embarked on a mini-tour, stopping first at our friend Maciej Musialowski’s dilapidated artist castle in Poland (as one does), and played him some songs.

Maciej lęts us practice our renovation skills

We then headed for rural UK and Ireland. Ethan respects the bard-loving-islands where the relentless thwacking of digital music is sometimes muted in favor of an actual human being with a guitar. His solo numbers onstage were intimate and lyrical, but our “Brothers Gold” songs were too ridiculous - more “Flight of the Conchords” than Simon & Garfunkel. How to plan a musical flow in advance, that would work with an improvised movie? Fortunately, our test audience (sometimes just one bloke with a pint) was always ready with an opinion on the pros and cons of each number.

We did tests in Ireland with Stefan Ciupek (a brilliant DP who had deep experience with “one shot films” going back to Russian Ark), then went out to rainy West Cork to workshop the songs one last time with Augustina Saygnavong and Robert Sheehan (who starred in my movie The Song of Sway Lake). Then I had to face my brother on my own…

West Cork with Rob Sheehan and friends

The Problem with Casting Someone Who Knows You Too Well

By the time we were off to California, we were cognizant of a lifelong problem of trying to fix each other. This was going to be one of the main themes of the film, set during an evening when “Ari” (my character), is taking on the fixer mode. But rehearsals in San Francisco became a minefield of real sibling dynamics. We yelled about how much our characters should or shouldn’t resemble our real selves. Should my pushiness be exaggerated to create tension? Should his “lost artist” persona play as neurotic or mystical? How idiotic should our verbal combat be? And how to deal with my fear that were we just an unemployed version of Oasis, who no one would want to watch for ninety minutes?

Underneath the fights, there was a deeper conflict: terror versus trust. I couldn’t forget an epic music video we’d attempted a decade earlier, for one of Ethan’s Brothers Gold songs. We filmed on horseback outside an Irish friend’s dilapidated castle (I promise I only know two people with broken castles) - that devolved into fights about how the video should end.

This time, both of us wanted to support the vision, even if we disagreed about how to get there. We often hide our grief behind music and humor. We needed to see beauty in each other’s brokenness. To shoot it live, we needed to access the telepathy that other people imagine twins have.

I wanted a real twin story - no “evil twin” or any other cliché - so we had to get to the root of love, hate, identity, separation, and fear of a father’s death - in a way that even a singleton could relate to. In junior high, people repeatedly asked us, “Do you ever wake up, look in the mirror, and not know which one you are?” Well yes my fools, we mostly know, but don’t you wonder who you are too? I realize now that something was asking to be healed, on both sides of the screen. We all have to say goodbye to ourselves, as we say goodbye to those we love.

Thanks for reading. I welcome your comments by the way! And hope to see you on our tour as soon as I am allowed to announce our bundle of upcoming festivals in Europe. - Ari

Next Chapter: How Poetry Sparked a Music Movie