'A Filmmaker Bared His Soul. It Ruined His Life.' diff viewer (0/1)

This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on October 30, 2019 10:06 (UTC). The next check for changes will be July 30, 2020 18:06

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/magazine/caveh-zahedi-documentary-film.html

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Previous version 1 Next version

Previous version 1 Next version

Version 0	Version 1
A Filmmaker Bared His Soul. It Ruined His Life.	A Filmmaker Bared His Soul. It Ruined His Life.
2019-10-30 10:06:17 UTC	2019-11-09 06:34:19 UTC (10 days later)
On the fifth episode of Caveh Zahedi’s “The Show About the Show” — a metadocumentary series that is sort of like if “Scenes From a Marriage” were crossed with “Synecdoche, New York” and then filtered through reality TV and the cheerful low-budget atmosphere of public-access cable but also a completely sui generis work of art that is nothing like any of those things and doubles as a deranged social experiment — Zahedi’s wife, Amanda Field, pleads with him to leave something on the cutting-room floor. The context is a little hard to explain; it involves the question of whether reimbursing an actor for the cocaine he snorted is as illegal as buying cocaine for yourself. But Field is upset and wants it out.	On the fifth episode of Caveh Zahedi’s “The Show About the Show” — a metadocumentary series that is sort of like if “Scenes From a Marriage” were crossed with “Synecdoche, New York” and then filtered through reality TV and the cheerful low-budget atmosphere of public-access cable but also a completely sui generis work of art that is nothing like any of those things and doubles as a deranged social experiment — Zahedi’s wife, Amanda Field, pleads with him to leave something on the cutting-room floor. The context is a little hard to explain; it involves the question of whether reimbursing an actor for the cocaine he snorted is as illegal as buying cocaine for yourself. But Field is upset and wants it out.
“I can’t take it out,” Zahedi says, hero and antihero. His eyes are wide and innocent with zealotry. “Now that you’ve got so upset about it, I’ve got to re-enact this moment for the next episode.”	“I can’t take it out,” Zahedi says, hero and antihero. His eyes are wide and innocent with zealotry. “Now that you’ve got so upset about it, I’ve got to re-enact this moment for the next episode.”
Zahedi, 59, has been a force in independent film for decades, writing, directing and starring in talky, low-budget and spellbinding work that uses his own life and persona as material. (He used to be compared to an underground Woody Allen, back when being compared to Woody Allen was a good thing.) Zahedi’s output — including the video diary “In the Bathtub of the World” and the cine-confession “I Am a Sex Addict,” as well as shorts, web episodes and video letters — was an inspiration to the mumblecore generation, many of whom have achieved greater fame than he has by applying his ethos to more conventional narratives. “Caveh’s work opened me up: as a creator, as a viewer, as a recovering moralist,” wrote Lena Dunham in the notes accompanying Zahedi’s DVD box set, “Digging My Own Grave.” The title of her essay was, “Holy Shit, You’re Allowed to Do That?” — and it’s true that Zahedi’s audacity is so overwhelming as to be blinding. It takes some time to notice that underneath the humor and raw willingness to humiliate himself is a rigorous, brutally efficient editor, shaping every moment for impact.	Zahedi, 59, has been a force in independent film for decades, writing, directing and starring in talky, low-budget and spellbinding work that uses his own life and persona as material. (He used to be compared to an underground Woody Allen, back when being compared to Woody Allen was a good thing.) Zahedi’s output — including the video diary “In the Bathtub of the World” and the cine-confession “I Am a Sex Addict,” as well as shorts, web episodes and video letters — was an inspiration to the mumblecore generation, many of whom have achieved greater fame than he has by applying his ethos to more conventional narratives. “Caveh’s work opened me up: as a creator, as a viewer, as a recovering moralist,” wrote Lena Dunham in the notes accompanying Zahedi’s DVD box set, “Digging My Own Grave.” The title of her essay was, “Holy Shit, You’re Allowed to Do That?” — and it’s true that Zahedi’s audacity is so overwhelming as to be blinding. It takes some time to notice that underneath the humor and raw willingness to humiliate himself is a rigorous, brutally efficient editor, shaping every moment for impact.
Over the years, Zahedi has occasionally tried his luck in Hollywood, to no avail. He came closest with a script about the artist Joseph Cornell: He received some financing, but not enough. Zahedi teaches filmmaking at the New School and has won prestigious awards (a Guggenheim, the Rome Prize), but he is still looking for a way to break through, to gain recognition and make more money, which he needs. He started “The Show” in the hope that television would be more lucrative than independent film. But despite some critical enthusiasm and meetings with Sundance Now, HBO and Viceland, “The Show” remains on the very tiny, very local BRIC TV, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit cable channel and network, and on YouTube; he posts some of his other work on Vimeo. If your idea of artistic success is a yacht and glossy magazine covers, you might take this as evidence of failure. “Sex Addict,” Zahedi’s most commercially successful film, grossed, worldwide, $120,000 in its theatrical release.	Over the years, Zahedi has occasionally tried his luck in Hollywood, to no avail. He came closest with a script about the artist Joseph Cornell: He received some financing, but not enough. Zahedi teaches filmmaking at the New School and has won prestigious awards (a Guggenheim, the Rome Prize), but he is still looking for a way to break through, to gain recognition and make more money, which he needs. He started “The Show” in the hope that television would be more lucrative than independent film. But despite some critical enthusiasm and meetings with Sundance Now, HBO and Viceland, “The Show” remains on the very tiny, very local BRIC TV, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit cable channel and network, and on YouTube; he posts some of his other work on Vimeo. If your idea of artistic success is a yacht and glossy magazine covers, you might take this as evidence of failure. “Sex Addict,” Zahedi’s most commercially successful film, grossed, worldwide, $120,000 in its theatrical release.
It’s more than a little plausible that the riskiness of Zahedi’s work makes it hard for him to find backers and scared off more mainstream TV companies — no normal executive would want to greenlight a show on which he himself would become a character. But it’s also true that even if Zahedi had millions in funding, Hollywood marketing and Hollywood distribution, his work would almost certainly not achieve mass popularity. It’s too weird, too personal and too desperately vulnerable, a twisted reflection of the reality culture that we have come to take for granted and one that uncomfortably indicts the viewer.	It’s more than a little plausible that the riskiness of Zahedi’s work makes it hard for him to find backers and scared off more mainstream TV companies — no normal executive would want to greenlight a show on which he himself would become a character. But it’s also true that even if Zahedi had millions in funding, Hollywood marketing and Hollywood distribution, his work would almost certainly not achieve mass popularity. It’s too weird, too personal and too desperately vulnerable, a twisted reflection of the reality culture that we have come to take for granted and one that uncomfortably indicts the viewer.
Each episode of “The Show” consists of a chatty, meandering and occasionally heartfelt monologue that Zahedi delivers to the camera against a black backdrop, intercut with scripted re-enactments and behind-the-scenes footage. (That scene of Field asking him not to re-enact — that’s also a re-enactment.) The seven episodes of the first season came out irregularly between October 2015 and August 2017 and had a neatly recursive formula in which every episode was about the making of the previous episode. The pilot was about pitching the series; the second episode was about making the pilot; and so on. Over the course of the season, Zahedi and Field’s 16-year marriage cracked under the pressure of constant filming. Season 2, which was released Oct. ~~28,~~ abandons the metastructure in order to chronicle the two-month period in 2017 when the marriage broke up. It’s darker, and the conflicts are more serious. Eventually both Field and a woman Zahedi briefly dates quit the show, and he replaces them with actors; because so much material had been shot before they quit, some scenes cut between the real person and the actor, or two actors, to dizzying effect.	Each episode of “The Show” consists of a chatty, meandering and occasionally heartfelt monologue that Zahedi delivers to the camera against a black backdrop, intercut with scripted re-enactments and behind-the-scenes footage. (That scene of Field asking him not to re-enact — that’s also a re-enactment.) The seven episodes of the first season came out irregularly between October 2015 and August 2017 and had a neatly recursive formula in which every episode was about the making of the previous episode. The pilot was about pitching the series; the second episode was about making the pilot; and so on. Over the course of the season, Zahedi and Field’s 16-year marriage cracked under the pressure of constant filming. Season 2, which was released Oct. 29, abandons the metastructure in order to chronicle the two-month period in 2017 when the marriage broke up. It’s darker, and the conflicts are more serious. Eventually both Field and a woman Zahedi briefly dates quit the show, and he replaces them with actors; because so much material had been shot before they quit, some scenes cut between the real person and the actor, or two actors, to dizzying effect.
“I don’t think I’m a great filmmaker,” Zahedi told me one afternoon early this summer. “I don’t. But I can’t think of anyone more honest than me, in cinema. So if that’s a value, which it is for me, then I’m the best one.”	“I don’t think I’m a great filmmaker,” Zahedi told me one afternoon early this summer. “I don’t. But I can’t think of anyone more honest than me, in cinema. So if that’s a value, which it is for me, then I’m the best one.”
We were sitting on the roof of his building in Carroll Gardens, a couple of blocks away from where Field and their two children, an 11-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, were living. The divorce lawyers were going back and forth, trying to reach an agreement, but it was ugly, and it seemed as if they would wind up in court. Zahedi didn’t know how he was going to pay for it. He could barely afford his rent. He had been depressed and was having a dispute with his landlord; his teaching contract was up for renewal, and he wasn’t sure which way it would go. He had a terrible, hacking cough. On his birthday in April he filmed himself taking five grams of psychedelic mushrooms — something he used to do on all his birthdays, before the children were born — and the cough had disappeared. But now it was back.	We were sitting on the roof of his building in Carroll Gardens, a couple of blocks away from where Field and their two children, an 11-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, were living. The divorce lawyers were going back and forth, trying to reach an agreement, but it was ugly, and it seemed as if they would wind up in court. Zahedi didn’t know how he was going to pay for it. He could barely afford his rent. He had been depressed and was having a dispute with his landlord; his teaching contract was up for renewal, and he wasn’t sure which way it would go. He had a terrible, hacking cough. On his birthday in April he filmed himself taking five grams of psychedelic mushrooms — something he used to do on all his birthdays, before the children were born — and the cough had disappeared. But now it was back.
Five grams, in case you don’t know, is a lot of mushrooms — what the psychonaut Terence McKenna called a “heroic dose.” Zahedi in general likes to take heroic doses. His way of doing things is to overdo them. His artistic practice, or maybe better to say his personality, is dedicated to finding out how far is too far to push people, situations, rules, whatever. “Caveh looks at confrontation as the possibility for a story line,” Aziz Isham, executive producer of BRIC TV, said. “He is the only person I know who, when faced with litigation, his first response is, ‘This could be interesting.’ ” When Zahedi was invited, in 2011, to contribute a film to the Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates, he was told that he couldn’t make fun of the sheikh. So he made a film, which included a terrorist fantasy sequence and dancers in hijabs, making fun of the sheikh.	Five grams, in case you don’t know, is a lot of mushrooms — what the psychonaut Terence McKenna called a “heroic dose.” Zahedi in general likes to take heroic doses. His way of doing things is to overdo them. His artistic practice, or maybe better to say his personality, is dedicated to finding out how far is too far to push people, situations, rules, whatever. “Caveh looks at confrontation as the possibility for a story line,” Aziz Isham, executive producer of BRIC TV, said. “He is the only person I know who, when faced with litigation, his first response is, ‘This could be interesting.’ ” When Zahedi was invited, in 2011, to contribute a film to the Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates, he was told that he couldn’t make fun of the sheikh. So he made a film, which included a terrorist fantasy sequence and dancers in hijabs, making fun of the sheikh.
Zahedi is disappearingly thin, with spidery limbs and long fingers, and when we met he was dressed, as he often is, in a billowy white shirt that made him look, as someone says on “The Show,” like a cult leader. He was more interested in talking about Wallace Stevens than how he fit or didn’t fit into the tradition of personal documentary. He seemed like a more muted, more guarded and generally bleaker version of his selfish, needy, clueless, thoughtless, intellectual, charming screen persona. The charm has something to do with the relish with which he narrates his despair. “Caveh kind of picks at his own image like a scab until he manages to draw some blood — his own blood,” said the documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee, “but he does so with a childlike innocence.” He is a playful and expressive performer, both inside and outside the frame — at once wholly enmeshed in the drama of bringing his experience to the screen and distant enough to turn it into a punch line.	Zahedi is disappearingly thin, with spidery limbs and long fingers, and when we met he was dressed, as he often is, in a billowy white shirt that made him look, as someone says on “The Show,” like a cult leader. He was more interested in talking about Wallace Stevens than how he fit or didn’t fit into the tradition of personal documentary. He seemed like a more muted, more guarded and generally bleaker version of his selfish, needy, clueless, thoughtless, intellectual, charming screen persona. The charm has something to do with the relish with which he narrates his despair. “Caveh kind of picks at his own image like a scab until he manages to draw some blood — his own blood,” said the documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee, “but he does so with a childlike innocence.” He is a playful and expressive performer, both inside and outside the frame — at once wholly enmeshed in the drama of bringing his experience to the screen and distant enough to turn it into a punch line.
“I think my experience of life is loss, loss, loss,” he said at a screening of Season 2 at the Roxy Cinema in September. But making art out of loss makes it less tragic, more bearable.	“I think my experience of life is loss, loss, loss,” he said at a screening of Season 2 at the Roxy Cinema in September. But making art out of loss makes it less tragic, more bearable.
Someone raised a hand to ask if Zahedi regretted making the show.	Someone raised a hand to ask if Zahedi regretted making the show.
“I love the show,” he said. “I have no regrets at all.”	“I love the show,” he said. “I have no regrets at all.”
I remembered something he said on the roof: “My relationships aren’t more important to me than the truth.” But what, exactly, was the truth?	I remembered something he said on the roof: “My relationships aren’t more important to me than the truth.” But what, exactly, was the truth?
I discovered “The Show” this spring, when a friend, Genevieve Yue — who is the director of the screen-studies program at the New School, where Zahedi teaches, and who acted on Season 1 — happened to mention it at dinner. I went home and watched it. I could not believe what I was seeing and finished it all in one sitting. I was familiar with the work of personal documentarians such as McElwee and Ed Pincus, but this was so much bolder and blunter, so much funnier and needier and faster and more appalling. It was a record of life but also a metaphor for life, in which we all walk around trying to convince one another that our version of how things went down is the real one, or at least the most real to us. It was more like performance art than documentary, although with the added frisson that all this was not only making a claim to reality but was a record of participation in the construction of reality. No matter what was being said in any given scene, what was really happening was that either a real human being was willingly handing over his or her body and voice to construct Zahedi’s version of reality or an actor was pretending to do that because the real human being had refused. The sound quality was erratic, the cinematography was beside the point, but there was a quality of life and precariously high emotional stakes that elude most so-called art.	I discovered “The Show” this spring, when a friend, Genevieve Yue — who is the director of the screen-studies program at the New School, where Zahedi teaches, and who acted on Season 1 — happened to mention it at dinner. I went home and watched it. I could not believe what I was seeing and finished it all in one sitting. I was familiar with the work of personal documentarians such as McElwee and Ed Pincus, but this was so much bolder and blunter, so much funnier and needier and faster and more appalling. It was a record of life but also a metaphor for life, in which we all walk around trying to convince one another that our version of how things went down is the real one, or at least the most real to us. It was more like performance art than documentary, although with the added frisson that all this was not only making a claim to reality but was a record of participation in the construction of reality. No matter what was being said in any given scene, what was really happening was that either a real human being was willingly handing over his or her body and voice to construct Zahedi’s version of reality or an actor was pretending to do that because the real human being had refused. The sound quality was erratic, the cinematography was beside the point, but there was a quality of life and precariously high emotional stakes that elude most so-called art.
A couple of weeks later, Yue emailed me about a test screening of Season 2 that Zahedi was holding. That night Zahedi seemed depressed and exhausted, a little dead in the eyes. I was aware, as I barreled over to him announcing my intention to write about him, that this was just the kind of encounter that could wind up on the show. Zahedi looked at me, or to be more precise, just past me, warily. “O.K.,” I recall him saying, flatly.	A couple of weeks later, Yue emailed me about a test screening of Season 2 that Zahedi was holding. That night Zahedi seemed depressed and exhausted, a little dead in the eyes. I was aware, as I barreled over to him announcing my intention to write about him, that this was just the kind of encounter that could wind up on the show. Zahedi looked at me, or to be more precise, just past me, warily. “O.K.,” I recall him saying, flatly.
During the Q. and A. that night, Zahedi said that there wasn’t going to be another season of “The Show” — too many people had quit; he was too demoralized. But in July, he told me that because of this article — because my interest had renewed his faith in the project, and because, presumably, the article would increase his viewership — there would be a Season 3. What’s more, I would be a character in the story. “You’re a player in this,” is what I recall him saying. A friend who is a fellow fan texted me: “You are now part of Caveh’s circle of enablers. History will look back kindly on you.” I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.	During the Q. and A. that night, Zahedi said that there wasn’t going to be another season of “The Show” — too many people had quit; he was too demoralized. But in July, he told me that because of this article — because my interest had renewed his faith in the project, and because, presumably, the article would increase his viewership — there would be a Season 3. What’s more, I would be a character in the story. “You’re a player in this,” is what I recall him saying. A friend who is a fellow fan texted me: “You are now part of Caveh’s circle of enablers. History will look back kindly on you.” I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.
It became clear at some point that this article, and the threat or hope of attention it might bring, was activating tensions in the divorce. In the fall, Field got in touch with me to ask that I not print the children’s names. I bristled a little at this interference — the children are on the show — but I said I would think about it. The next week, her lawyer sent a letter to BRIC, saying that unless Zahedi desisted from airing any episodes featuring footage of Field or the children, she would “commence legal action.”	It became clear at some point that this article, and the threat or hope of attention it might bring, was activating tensions in the divorce. In the fall, Field got in touch with me to ask that I not print the children’s names. I bristled a little at this interference — the children are on the show — but I said I would think about it. The next week, her lawyer sent a letter to BRIC, saying that unless Zahedi desisted from airing any episodes featuring footage of Field or the children, she would “commence legal action.”
At the show’s premiere, Zahedi, clad in a purplish shirt with glittery thread, announced this latest twist. Someone asked how he thought the whole series would end. “There will be a lawsuit, I’ll lose, I’ll lose custody of my children, I’ll kill myself,” he said. People gasped. He grinned, as if it were a joke, but nobody laughed. I sat near the back of the theater, worrying that my exchange with Field had possibly had some tiny bit of unintended influence — that after musing for a while on the fact that yes, the kids are on the show, Field had determined that that was the problem. (Ultimately, Zahedi decided to replace the children with animations.)	At the show’s premiere, Zahedi, clad in a purplish shirt with glittery thread, announced this latest twist. Someone asked how he thought the whole series would end. “There will be a lawsuit, I’ll lose, I’ll lose custody of my children, I’ll kill myself,” he said. People gasped. He grinned, as if it were a joke, but nobody laughed. I sat near the back of the theater, worrying that my exchange with Field had possibly had some tiny bit of unintended influence — that after musing for a while on the fact that yes, the kids are on the show, Field had determined that that was the problem. (Ultimately, Zahedi decided to replace the children with animations.)
Suffice it to say that by the time autumn rolled round, I had become uneasy about “The Show.” I still believed it was an urgent and original work of art about power and relationships, about performance and everyday tragedies of miscommunication, about our inability to agree on a shared version of reality and our bottomless need to be loved. But it seemed questionable at best for Zahedi to pursue another season that involved the lives of his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend, two people who most decidedly did not want to be involved. In a world of slick franchises, cynical reboots and manufactured celebrity, to encounter a commitment to art as unwavering and transcendental as Zahedi’s was awe-inspiring, for sure, but it was also nausea-inducing. There was a cost to the show, and it could be measured not only in lawyers’ fees but in human suffering. Zahedi has no regrets, but a normal, nonartist person, a person who is not committed to the idea of life as performance, who is not compelled by ideas about free expression and the unique power of filmmaking to capture the “holiness” of every moment, might reasonably survey this morass of a situation and ask, “Art: Is it worth it?”	Suffice it to say that by the time autumn rolled round, I had become uneasy about “The Show.” I still believed it was an urgent and original work of art about power and relationships, about performance and everyday tragedies of miscommunication, about our inability to agree on a shared version of reality and our bottomless need to be loved. But it seemed questionable at best for Zahedi to pursue another season that involved the lives of his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend, two people who most decidedly did not want to be involved. In a world of slick franchises, cynical reboots and manufactured celebrity, to encounter a commitment to art as unwavering and transcendental as Zahedi’s was awe-inspiring, for sure, but it was also nausea-inducing. There was a cost to the show, and it could be measured not only in lawyers’ fees but in human suffering. Zahedi has no regrets, but a normal, nonartist person, a person who is not committed to the idea of life as performance, who is not compelled by ideas about free expression and the unique power of filmmaking to capture the “holiness” of every moment, might reasonably survey this morass of a situation and ask, “Art: Is it worth it?”
I remembered how an acquaintance of mine who helped out on one episode of “The Show” described it to me. He called it a black hole.	I remembered how an acquaintance of mine who helped out on one episode of “The Show” described it to me. He called it a black hole.
On a Monday afternoon in June, Zahedi was at home, panicking, because he thought he had deleted some files he needed to finish the season. Zahedi hates editing by himself and surrounds himself with a rotating group of students, former students and devotees who approach him at screenings to volunteer their services. Most of this work consists of sitting with Zahedi, who is indecisive, and weighing in.	On a Monday afternoon in June, Zahedi was at home, panicking, because he thought he had deleted some files he needed to finish the season. Zahedi hates editing by himself and surrounds himself with a rotating group of students, former students and devotees who approach him at screenings to volunteer their services. Most of this work consists of sitting with Zahedi, who is indecisive, and weighing in.
“He’s created this empire around this show where he has other people working for him so he’s never lonely,” said Lindsay Burdge, the actor who plays Field. “But he’s so lonely.”	“He’s created this empire around this show where he has other people working for him so he’s never lonely,” said Lindsay Burdge, the actor who plays Field. “But he’s so lonely.”
The editing setup was in the dark middle room of a 540-square-foot railroad apartment. Zahedi is a workaholic who has a constitutional aversion to small talk and rarely does anything resembling hanging out; working, many people told me, is how he hangs out. Now, he shared a new theory about his chronic cough: It was caused by cockroach poop. My legs began to feel itchy. I asked about his weekend. He had played tennis with the children at Van Voorhees Playground and then they picked mulberries from a mulberry tree that was growing by the entrance to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I said I had never eaten a mulberry, and it was decided that we would visit the tree in an hour or two, when it was time for a break. A few minutes later, he was ready to go. We left his assistant editor to link the files, took bowls from the cupboard and hailed a taxi to an on-ramp by the waterfront.	The editing setup was in the dark middle room of a 540-square-foot railroad apartment. Zahedi is a workaholic who has a constitutional aversion to small talk and rarely does anything resembling hanging out; working, many people told me, is how he hangs out. Now, he shared a new theory about his chronic cough: It was caused by cockroach poop. My legs began to feel itchy. I asked about his weekend. He had played tennis with the children at Van Voorhees Playground and then they picked mulberries from a mulberry tree that was growing by the entrance to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I said I had never eaten a mulberry, and it was decided that we would visit the tree in an hour or two, when it was time for a break. A few minutes later, he was ready to go. We left his assistant editor to link the files, took bowls from the cupboard and hailed a taxi to an on-ramp by the waterfront.
There we were, picking berries from a tree by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, while the traffic whipped around the bend. Did the drivers of the cars taking the bend too fast think we were crazy as we stood there, shaking the tree’s delicate branches? That’s the kind of question that does not seem to bother Zahedi. He wanted to pick mulberries by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway because he likes mulberries, because mulberries are ripe for only a short time and then rot and the smell is terrible, because he thought it would be fun for me, because he had just done it and knew it was a good thing to do and because he needed a break from editing the show that is the most important thing in his life.	There we were, picking berries from a tree by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, while the traffic whipped around the bend. Did the drivers of the cars taking the bend too fast think we were crazy as we stood there, shaking the tree’s delicate branches? That’s the kind of question that does not seem to bother Zahedi. He wanted to pick mulberries by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway because he likes mulberries, because mulberries are ripe for only a short time and then rot and the smell is terrible, because he thought it would be fun for me, because he had just done it and knew it was a good thing to do and because he needed a break from editing the show that is the most important thing in his life.
Zahedi grew up in California, the son of Iranian immigrants. His parents separated when he was 9. His mother loved the novels of Victor Hugo and taught Zahedi that being an artist was something to aspire to; she is not a fan of her son’s work. His father was an insurance salesman. He doesn’t really get Zahedi’s work, either, but he’s supportive — he was game to play himself in “I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore” (1994), an insane and brilliant film featuring long takes of Zahedi pressuring his father and half brother to take ecstasy in a hotel room. At one point the camera operator forgets to change the film, and a whole roll is double-exposed, an accident that Zahedi turns into a marvel.	Zahedi grew up in California, the son of Iranian immigrants. His parents separated when he was 9. His mother loved the novels of Victor Hugo and taught Zahedi that being an artist was something to aspire to; she is not a fan of her son’s work. His father was an insurance salesman. He doesn’t really get Zahedi’s work, either, but he’s supportive — he was game to play himself in “I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore” (1994), an insane and brilliant film featuring long takes of Zahedi pressuring his father and half brother to take ecstasy in a hotel room. At one point the camera operator forgets to change the film, and a whole roll is double-exposed, an accident that Zahedi turns into a marvel.
As an undergraduate at Yale, Zahedi majored in philosophy. As a film student at U.C.L.A., while struggling to complete a script about vivisection, he took LSD and had a vision of the Buddha holding out a flower. It meant, he thought, that beauty wasn’t off on some other plane but everywhere, right here, immediately before him. He abandoned the vivisection project, turning the scalpel on himself. His next film, “A Little Stiff,” re-enacted, in black and white, his unrequited crush on an art student. “A Little Stiff” feels very French, very simple and very profound. Film is always a record of vanished time, but knowing that these are the real people playing themselves in a story about a past so recent it might still be present concentrates that power, making it stranger and more beautiful.	As an undergraduate at Yale, Zahedi majored in philosophy. As a film student at U.C.L.A., while struggling to complete a script about vivisection, he took LSD and had a vision of the Buddha holding out a flower. It meant, he thought, that beauty wasn’t off on some other plane but everywhere, right here, immediately before him. He abandoned the vivisection project, turning the scalpel on himself. His next film, “A Little Stiff,” re-enacted, in black and white, his unrequited crush on an art student. “A Little Stiff” feels very French, very simple and very profound. Film is always a record of vanished time, but knowing that these are the real people playing themselves in a story about a past so recent it might still be present concentrates that power, making it stranger and more beautiful.
With “I Am a Sex Addict,” which Zahedi made in his early 40s, he found the style that reaches its apotheosis in “The Show” — a blend of monologue, re-enactment and behind-the-scenes documentary footage that takes a nonlinear, nested approach to storytelling and allows what is performed and what is documented to puncture each other. At the end of “Sex Addict,” Zahedi, his hair black and puffy, round head bobbing, explains with unblinking eyes that he has overcome the compulsion for prostitutes that had torpedoed his first two marriages and other relationships. Then a friend puts a red rose in the buttonhole of his tuxedo and walks out to the altar of a crowded church. The camera follows. A radiant Field walks down the aisle, white veil trailing behind her, to the organ strains of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”	With “I Am a Sex Addict,” which Zahedi made in his early 40s, he found the style that reaches its apotheosis in “The Show” — a blend of monologue, re-enactment and behind-the-scenes documentary footage that takes a nonlinear, nested approach to storytelling and allows what is performed and what is documented to puncture each other. At the end of “Sex Addict,” Zahedi, his hair black and puffy, round head bobbing, explains with unblinking eyes that he has overcome the compulsion for prostitutes that had torpedoed his first two marriages and other relationships. Then a friend puts a red rose in the buttonhole of his tuxedo and walks out to the altar of a crowded church. The camera follows. A radiant Field walks down the aisle, white veil trailing behind her, to the organ strains of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”
At the New School, Zahedi encourages his students to make personal documentaries in his style. It is, he says, the perfect form for undergraduates. You don’t need a lot of technical skills, equipment or money. You just have to be willing to be honest in front of the camera. He sometimes generates controversy in the department. There have been concerns, for example, that he put his students in danger during “The Sheik and I,” which was ultimately banned and required the intervention of a First Amendment lawyer. But he remains a valued colleague, “the kind of professor you might imagine having in a movie — something like ‘Dead Poets Society,’ but with Iggy Pop instead of Robin Williams,” Yue said. “I feel we would be such a boring department without him.” Several colleagues attested that the work his students make is excellent. He is also known for giving brutal feedback and, following a heated class discussion on race, was the subject of a student complaint. As he explains it, a white student said something in a documentary class that students of color called racist; when Zahedi said he didn’t think it was racist, he was accused of racism. The incident is the subject of “Higher Education,” a documentary he’s making about the class. (The New School declined to comment.)	At the New School, Zahedi encourages his students to make personal documentaries in his style. It is, he says, the perfect form for undergraduates. You don’t need a lot of technical skills, equipment or money. You just have to be willing to be honest in front of the camera. He sometimes generates controversy in the department. There have been concerns, for example, that he put his students in danger during “The Sheik and I,” which was ultimately banned and required the intervention of a First Amendment lawyer. But he remains a valued colleague, “the kind of professor you might imagine having in a movie — something like ‘Dead Poets Society,’ but with Iggy Pop instead of Robin Williams,” Yue said. “I feel we would be such a boring department without him.” Several colleagues attested that the work his students make is excellent. He is also known for giving brutal feedback and, following a heated class discussion on race, was the subject of a student complaint. As he explains it, a white student said something in a documentary class that students of color called racist; when Zahedi said he didn’t think it was racist, he was accused of racism. The incident is the subject of “Higher Education,” a documentary he’s making about the class. (The New School declined to comment.)
Years ago he wanted to make a series, “Tripping With Caveh,” where he would take psychedelics with famous people, but only one famous person, Will Oldham, did it. Then he tried “Getting Stoned With Caveh,” but it’s hard, as the first guest, Alex Karpovsky, pointed out, to have a talk show when you keep forgetting what you are talking about. He has also made some episodes of “Not Getting Stoned With Caveh,” where he gets stoned but his guests, such as the indie filmmakers Alex Ross Perry and Andrew Bujalski, do not.	Years ago he wanted to make a series, “Tripping With Caveh,” where he would take psychedelics with famous people, but only one famous person, Will Oldham, did it. Then he tried “Getting Stoned With Caveh,” but it’s hard, as the first guest, Alex Karpovsky, pointed out, to have a talk show when you keep forgetting what you are talking about. He has also made some episodes of “Not Getting Stoned With Caveh,” where he gets stoned but his guests, such as the indie filmmakers Alex Ross Perry and Andrew Bujalski, do not.
Getting stoned makes Zahedi more receptive and helps him connect with people. That’s why he suggested that, even though he had just quit smoking pot because of the poop cough, which had turned into asthma, we could get stoned together. I was pretty sure that wouldn’t pass muster with The Times, so we decided to play tennis with his children instead. The night before our tennis date, Zahedi forwarded me an email his lawyer had forwarded him from Field’s lawyer, saying that if the children were involved in my interview with him, she would “take further actions” against him. This was in July. We had lunch instead. A little while after that he emailed me to suggest that if I couldn’t get stoned with him, he could get stoned. I mulled this one over for a while and then replied that I couldn’t tell him whether or not to get stoned, but if he wanted to get together for another interview and make his own decision about whether or not to get stoned, I was available. He wrote back to say he no longer thought it was a good idea.	Getting stoned makes Zahedi more receptive and helps him connect with people. That’s why he suggested that, even though he had just quit smoking pot because of the poop cough, which had turned into asthma, we could get stoned together. I was pretty sure that wouldn’t pass muster with The Times, so we decided to play tennis with his children instead. The night before our tennis date, Zahedi forwarded me an email his lawyer had forwarded him from Field’s lawyer, saying that if the children were involved in my interview with him, she would “take further actions” against him. This was in July. We had lunch instead. A little while after that he emailed me to suggest that if I couldn’t get stoned with him, he could get stoned. I mulled this one over for a while and then replied that I couldn’t tell him whether or not to get stoned, but if he wanted to get together for another interview and make his own decision about whether or not to get stoned, I was available. He wrote back to say he no longer thought it was a good idea.
It’s saying something, when Field says the marriage failed because of “The Show.” This is a woman who allowed Zahedi to film three sessions of their couples therapy. (He released only one; when the therapist came to the screening and heard the laughs, that was the end of “Couples Therapy.”) Field and Zahedi met in a dance class in Los Angeles when she was 22 and he was 37. They bonded over their love of Lars von Trier, especially the movie “Breaking the Waves.” She can be glimpsed throughout Zahedi’s films but has a starring role in “In the Bathtub of the World,” a video diary about the year 1999, and “Mandy’s Birthday,” which largely consists of her changing her mind about whether she wants to be filmed. Field has played both enthusiastic collaborator and resister, moving from gleeful buoyancy to stormy anger and tears. Her ambivalence — her eagerness to be seen and unseen — is more interesting than pure enthusiasm could ever be.	It’s saying something, when Field says the marriage failed because of “The Show.” This is a woman who allowed Zahedi to film three sessions of their couples therapy. (He released only one; when the therapist came to the screening and heard the laughs, that was the end of “Couples Therapy.”) Field and Zahedi met in a dance class in Los Angeles when she was 22 and he was 37. They bonded over their love of Lars von Trier, especially the movie “Breaking the Waves.” She can be glimpsed throughout Zahedi’s films but has a starring role in “In the Bathtub of the World,” a video diary about the year 1999, and “Mandy’s Birthday,” which largely consists of her changing her mind about whether she wants to be filmed. Field has played both enthusiastic collaborator and resister, moving from gleeful buoyancy to stormy anger and tears. Her ambivalence — her eagerness to be seen and unseen — is more interesting than pure enthusiasm could ever be.
She was, unsurprisingly, ambivalent about this article too. She wrote back to my first email right away: “I would be happy to meet. I am all about resisting the Show’s narrative!” But then she wouldn’t pin down a date. She wanted to be interviewed over email. She stopped answering my messages altogether. Eventually we met in her apartment. Field, who was dressed in a white dashiki, has a huge, toothy smile, but for much of our conversation, her mouth was set and firm, and her eyes were enormous and beseeching, making their case. On one wall hung the guitar she smashes in an episode of “The Show,” tied together with red twine. She explained that when Zahedi was making vérité documentaries about their life, the camera could be turned on and off. But because of the re-enactments on “The Show,” and Zahedi’s willingness to cast actors to do scenes, there was no outside to it. With the show, “there was no husband anymore,” she told me. “There was only director.”	She was, unsurprisingly, ambivalent about this article too. She wrote back to my first email right away: “I would be happy to meet. I am all about resisting the Show’s narrative!” But then she wouldn’t pin down a date. She wanted to be interviewed over email. She stopped answering my messages altogether. Eventually we met in her apartment. Field, who was dressed in a white dashiki, has a huge, toothy smile, but for much of our conversation, her mouth was set and firm, and her eyes were enormous and beseeching, making their case. On one wall hung the guitar she smashes in an episode of “The Show,” tied together with red twine. She explained that when Zahedi was making vérité documentaries about their life, the camera could be turned on and off. But because of the re-enactments on “The Show,” and Zahedi’s willingness to cast actors to do scenes, there was no outside to it. With the show, “there was no husband anymore,” she told me. “There was only director.”
“You’re gonna have to choose between the show or our family,” is how she said it on Season 1.	“You’re gonna have to choose between the show or our family,” is how she said it on Season 1.
Except now, in real life — in the apartment where Zahedi no longer lives, sitting on the couch that she installed against the wall where his desk was, until she sawed it to pieces and hauled them away one night while the children were sleeping — she says that she never said that. That’s a line that he wrote. She never perpetuated a binary of art versus family. She went out of her way not to do that. Field is also an artist — a poet and photographer. She is working on a project about motherhood and another about school lockdown drills. She doesn’t want to play the part of the wife and mother who is hampering the great artist. She just thinks that there are limits. A person has to be able to talk to her spouse about her private thoughts and feelings without then being conscripted to perform a remembered version of that conversation to forward his story about it.	Except now, in real life — in the apartment where Zahedi no longer lives, sitting on the couch that she installed against the wall where his desk was, until she sawed it to pieces and hauled them away one night while the children were sleeping — she says that she never said that. That’s a line that he wrote. She never perpetuated a binary of art versus family. She went out of her way not to do that. Field is also an artist — a poet and photographer. She is working on a project about motherhood and another about school lockdown drills. She doesn’t want to play the part of the wife and mother who is hampering the great artist. She just thinks that there are limits. A person has to be able to talk to her spouse about her private thoughts and feelings without then being conscripted to perform a remembered version of that conversation to forward his story about it.
The re-enactments of the show, even when they are bleak or disturbing or intimate, have a quality of distance that never lets you forget that you are watching reality at one remove; Zahedi’s performances especially, even when they are “sad,” are often comedic, playing up the absurdity of feeling. But the behind-the-scenes documentary footage is mesmerizing in a different way. It’s raw and disturbing. The second season of “The Show” includes footage of Zahedi and Field fighting about his direction and the script. They are cruel and nasty, as fights between couples can be. He yells at her; she taunts him and sticks out her tongue. At one point, she complains that Zahedi is being abusive. He turns to the cameraman. “Are you filming this?” he asks.	The re-enactments of the show, even when they are bleak or disturbing or intimate, have a quality of distance that never lets you forget that you are watching reality at one remove; Zahedi’s performances especially, even when they are “sad,” are often comedic, playing up the absurdity of feeling. But the behind-the-scenes documentary footage is mesmerizing in a different way. It’s raw and disturbing. The second season of “The Show” includes footage of Zahedi and Field fighting about his direction and the script. They are cruel and nasty, as fights between couples can be. He yells at her; she taunts him and sticks out her tongue. At one point, she complains that Zahedi is being abusive. He turns to the cameraman. “Are you filming this?” he asks.
For what it’s worth, Zahedi never claims to represent people in their fullness. “It’s about subtraction,” he told me. In real life, we try to defuse tension, “lower the emotional temperature.” His work erases all of those moments. “It makes it less complex and it distorts it, but it makes it stronger.”	For what it’s worth, Zahedi never claims to represent people in their fullness. “It’s about subtraction,” he told me. In real life, we try to defuse tension, “lower the emotional temperature.” His work erases all of those moments. “It makes it less complex and it distorts it, but it makes it stronger.”
In other words, subjecting reality to art doesn’t make it less real or less true. It makes it more real and more true.	In other words, subjecting reality to art doesn’t make it less real or less true. It makes it more real and more true.