The Comedy Couch - Paul Provenza & Penn Jillette Interview

GUY MACPHERSON: You're billed as the "film-maker" of
The Aristocrats. Were you the director? Or what was
your job?
PAUL PROVENZA: Yes, I was the director. Penn and I are
listed in all the literature and on the posters and
things as film makers because, while I directed the
project, it's just not right that Penn only credited
as executive producer because his heart and spirit and
vision and integrity are such a huge part of this. And
he was astonishing to work with. And I'll never get a
chance to make a movie like this again where the money
man, the investor, is also of such a high level of
creative integrity that all he would say to me is,
'Look, whenever we talk about anything in the movie,'
he would always say, 'if there's any argument here,
you win.' Because the last thing he wants is art done
by committee. And so he was just amazing. Nobody will
ever get an opportunity like this - and I certainly
won't again - where the guy who's responsible for
everything about the movie sits back and goes, 'You
know what? It's not a personal enough vision. Please
go further.'

GM: Were there many arguments?
PP: None whatsoever. Absolutely none whatsoever. But
he prefaced them all by saying, 'If there is an
argument, you win because I want it to be one vision.
I don't want it to be done by committee. I don't want
it to be compromised in any way.' So he was just
amazing. So he is without a doubt a filmmaker of this
project even though I'm credited as the director.

GM: He was there on a lot of the shots, too, wasn't
he?
PP: He was there for almost every shoot and had a
huge, huge effect on the final outcome because Penn
loves laughing, he loves comedy, and everybody in this
movie was either a friend or an acquaintance who's
become a great friend since then. And the whole
premise was we didn't want it to feel like we were
making a movie; we wanted it to feel like we were
hanging out with friends. And so while I was doing
what I needed to do to get the movie done, he was
loosening everybody up and having a great time. And
the hardest part we had in editing was with him and
his laugh.

GM: But that adds a nice feel to it, having his laugh.
PP: We couldn't get it all out. But I'm telling you,
all you'd hear wall to wall was Penn's laugh if we
didn't cut out a little bit of it.

GM: Whose idea was it originally, this film about a
joke?
PP: It was both of us. We had talked about doing
something like this for a while because we're both
fans of the joke and we had heard people tell the joke
and we always remarked on how it seemed like something
else was going on with this joke. It meant more to us
than it meant to anybody else who knew the joke. We
would just talk about it a lot. We'd talk about
different versions that we heard. And whenever either
of us was with Gilbert Gottfried, we'd always try and
get him to do it for other people. We just thought it
would be really fascinating to hear a number of
versions in a row. And then Penn got really, really
deep into jazz and bebop, because he's also a musician
- he plays upright bass - and he was really, really,
really working hard and focussing on bebop and it
struck him how we know about improvisation in jazz,
we've seen different actors do the same theatre role,
we've seen painters do the same still lifes, but we've
never actually seen that in comedy because comedy, by
definition, they wouldn't do the same kinds of thing,
so we never get a chance to explore the notion of,
well, what if the playing field is evened, what would
each individual bring to it? And this joke was the
opportunity to do that. We knew it would be absolutely
hilarious and we thought it would reveal something
about the art of comedy and the creative process and
improvisation. And we figured some other things would
come out of it but we had no idea that it would be as
rich and interesting as it ended up being.

GM: So it's not just a movie about a joke being told a
hundred different ways. There are so many other levels
to it.
PP: Yeah, there are a lot of levels to it. We shot
about 150 hours of footage. And I watched and watched
and watched it and transcribed it all myself so I
really got inside it and started to feel that there
were ideas and themes that were emerging because each
individual was just performing and having fun and
hanging out with us, but when you look at 150 hours of
it, you start to see certain ideas emerge and patterns
emerge. So when we went to edit it, we tried to do the
same thing: we tried to have all those ideas and
patterns emerge for the audience as well. And in the
aggregate, it became very revealing, certainly about
all those things that we expected art and the craft of
comedy and the value and importance and mystery of
improvisation and about the individuality - how each
comedian really can take the same dopey old joke and
do something extraordinary and unique with it. But
then it also became about culture, it became about
taboo, it became about questions of taste and
integrity and ideologies. It turned out to be
something much richer that operated on so many more
levels.

GM: It's improvisatory, but there's only so much you
can do, isn't there? I mean, how base can you get?
PP: Actually, apparently not. There's not just only so
much you can do. And I defy you to find where the end
of the creative experience is. It's just astonishing
how people go on and on and on. And everytime you
think you've heard it all and there's nothing new that
can come along, somebody will come along and give you
something new that you could never have imagined. It's
absolutely remarkable.

GM: When did you first hear the joke?
PP: I heard the joke when I was just a baby comic. I
was probably maybe twenty or something like that. I'd
just started doing standup a year or two before that.
I actually have an emotional connection with the joke
because I associate it with that time in my life that
I found a sense of community and found what I wanted
to do with the rest of my life. And I found this great
sense of, 'you know what? I'm not alone. There are
other people who look at the world a little
differently than I do.' So it happened at a very
special moment in my life. Which may be why I've
always had a fascination with it.

GM: Any idea on the joke's origin?
PP: Nobody knows for sure but we have reasonably
placed it back to the mid-19th century, first hand.
There's a gentleman in the film named Jay Marshall who
actually tells the joke for the first time - the first
time you actually hear the joke in the movie. And Jay
Marshall just passed away several weeks ago sadly at
the age of 94. And he was a living, breathing showbiz
encyclopedia. He was in Vaudeville as a child. He was
from the world in which the joke takes place. And he
remembered hearing it as a little boy, as a six- or
seven-year-old in Vaudeville from the old guy at that
time who remembered hearing it when he was a kid. So
first-hand account we were able to at least place it
back to the middle of the nineteenth century. Which is
pretty far back for a joke that's making audiences
laugh today. But probably nowhere near as far back as
it actually goes. And it's impossible to find out how.

GM: And probably back then it would have been way more
of a shocker. I mean, it still is and I'm sure you'll
have people walking out of the theatre but standards
have changed.
PP: Yeah, yeah, but you know what? In ten years
there'll be things that people are able to use that
will shock people or push their boundaries in some way
that we can't imagine right now. And that just keeps
going on and on.

GM: Someone in the film took a racial slant with it,
and that was the one where you go 'oh geez, you can't
say that!'
PP: Yeah, and that's interesting because back in the
middle of the nineteenth century that probably
wouldn't have worked in the joke. It's like a living,
breathing animal; it changes and evolves.

GM: As an outsider, I was having a little trouble
believing the concept that there would be this joke
that comics only told to comics, like a secret
handshake or something. Because there are so many
filthy comics and you can hear practically anything on
stage. So why would this have been kept away from the
general public for so long?
PP: It wasn't kept away from the general public by
design, first of all. Also let me clarify any
misconceptions about this. You don't hear comedians
doing old jokes anymore. The artform's shifted and
moved away from that 50, 60 years ago to where people
started actually crafting their own material and using
their own voices. So it's just not a natural thing to
hear a comedian get up on stage and tell a joke-joke;
a joke that you would hear at a party or something
like that. They write their own material; they do
their own routines. So it's not a joke that you would
hear on stage by a comedian; it's just a joke that
comedians have told each other backstage after late
nights of shows and hanging out with friends and
sometimes it comes up and it becomes this little
thing. And not all the time anyway. It's not something
that comedians think about or work on. It's just Penn
and I thought this little piece of minutia that most
comedians wouldn't think twice about could reveal
something interesting because it had this longevity
and this ubiquity. Nobody really gave it any thought
or attention. It wouldn't mean that much to anybody.
But when one hears the joke and when one goes outside
the rarified world of comedy - musicians also love
this joke, by the way, which kind of makes sense when
you see it because musicians and comedians, we're
different from the rest of the world - but when you
hear this joke and you try and tell it outside that
rarified world, you learn pretty quickly that that's
really, really dangerous. Because you're not going to
tell this around the Thanksgiving Day turkey. This is
a thing that you have to feel comfortable and safe
doing it, so it stayed among the world of comedians
because we know that we don't have to explain
ourselves. Whereas it's not really made it out into
the general public because the levels at which it
operates aren't immediately obvious.

GM: So who is the film for? Is it for the comedy nerd
who just loves standup - and by the way, it's great to
see a film with all these standups from many
generations.
PP: Yeah, that's a really wonderful thing that
happened, isn't it? So many people got on board that
it became, as George Carlin called it, a snapshot of
the art of standup at the turn of the century, which
is just wonderful. Yeah, that's really great. That's a
great part of it. And what an opportunity to hang out
with all of them as we're making this. But... I'm
sorry, what specifically was your question again?

GM: Who is the film for?
PP: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we made the film for
ourselves. We had feelings and thoughts about this and
we had a vision. And Penn allowed me to explore my
feelings and vision on this and keep it very, very
personal. So it was really made just for the two of
us. And we were successful enough in elucidating that
love and that respect for comedy and the craft and the
art and all the people in the movie. And anybody can
get that. I mean, who's Moby Dick written for? Is it
written for sailors or whalers? Or is it written for
oceanographers or pirates? Who's it written for? It's
a similar kind of thing. It's just a true story about
a human experience that happens to be a rarified world
but things that we all relate to are there. And that's
the other interesting thing about it, because while
it's filthy and it's obscene and it's vulgar without a
doubt - we want to make that clear to everybody
because the last thing we want is for somebody to go
into the movie that's not going to enjoy themselves;
we do not want people to go and expect their minds to
be changed about this. If somebody loves a good dirty
joke and loves having a good time and getting loose
and down and dirty, they will love this movie; if
that's not someone's cup of tea, they absolutely
should go see something else - but, having said all
that, when people see the joy that's happening in this
film and they see the love of art and craft that's
going on and the freedom that people are celebrating
and reveling in, that speaks to everbody. As obscene
and vulgar and vile as the language in this film is,
we think of it as a love story. Really. And we're not
kidding. Seriously. Name a movie that has no sex, no
violence, no conflict, and no hostility whatsoever.

GM: Well, there's spoken hostility towards members of
the family.
PP: Actually, it seems to me that that family's really
loving each other quite a bit. (laughs) A little too
much, if you will.

GM: Maybe you should have that as a tagline: The
Aristocrats: A Love Story.
PP: (laughs) It would be... But again, we wanted to be
so clear. We didn't want to get fancy and we didn't
want anybody to misconstrue what's going on here. If
you want to come into the back room and hang out with
our friends, the language is going to get a little
rough and if you have no problem with that, oh boy are
you going to be privy to stuff that is really special.

GM: I'd love to see the TV network version. It would
be just the trailer, I guess.
PP: Actually, we did a version which at the time we
were calling the Ashcroft version with all the curse
words and all the things you can't say on television
bleeped out. It's almost funnier than the movie
itself. Swear to God, I'm sure there are satellites
picking up Morse code. It's really funny... Penn
Jillette, ladies and gentlemen!

GM: Paul was just saying what a tough guy you were to
work for.
PENN JILLETTE: I am that. I am certainly that.

GM: So what's the controversy now with the film?
PJ: There's no controversy with the film. What are you
talking about? Who?

GM: With the theatres...
PJ: AMC is one schmuck. One guy [Dick Walsh] who got
enough power to own a chain and then decides to
pretend he's little junior PT Barnum, little junior
Houdini, 'Oh, I can get some publicity for AMC!' And
he (laughs) he decides, after showing violent anal
rape in Irreversible and showing a burlesque of 9/11
in War of the Worlds, he'll put his foot down on this
movie of people laughing and telling jokes and
swearing a little. And you have to ask yourself, even
in a totally non-cynical way, huh, he picked the one
movie that came along that doesn't have a studio
behind it. If he went up against Spielberg or those
guys, they would punish him for acting like a fool.
But no, we can't. We won't get another movie out ever
probably. Maybe in three years. What are we going to
go?: 'Oh, we're not going to let AMC do it because of
that thing no one remembers three years ago.' So it's
one guy thinking, 'Ooh, I'm in show business kinda
because I bought the store. Maybe I could have a
little fun with the press.' He's trying to be in the
tradition of PT Barnum and Houdini and he's an
impotent, rich, old man. (laughs) And we won't play in
his game. We're supposed to go, 'Oh, we're repressed.
Our movie can't get out' and go back and forth in the
press. And he gets more famous and we make more money.
And the answer is no. Whoever you are, we're not
playing your stupid game: We made a movie, people like
it and you don't have a monopoly.

GM: This is probably a good thing for you, isn't it?
PJ: I don't know. You do the math.... It might cost us
some money; it might gain us some money. It'll
probably cost us some but not a lot. And who cares? He
has more money than us but we're happier than him and
we have bigger dicks that work.
PP: And laughing a lot more.
PJ: A lot more.
PP: I guarantee that.

GM: The dedication to this film was for Johnny Carson.
Why?
PJ: Conceptually because it was Johnny Carson's
favourite joke and he's the most important person in
comedy of this time. The more emotional reason is that
we were writing e-mails. He was talking about this
joke a lot and very much wanted to see the movie. And
I had a date to show it to him right after Sundance
and died during Sundance. It was an emotional
connection and also a logical connection.

GM: You said you shot 150 hours, what was left out?
Was it sort of the opposite - you put in all of the
filthiest stuff and you take out...
PP: No, no, no. People did a number of variations on
it. People did entirely different takes on the joke.
As I said, we basically went to hang out with people;
making the movie was secondary. And as we were hanging
out with them, sometimes they would just go off on
other things that weren't pertinent to the movie per
se. And we wanted to give as much time in the movie to
as many people as possible so we had to make certain
choices. But there's an endless font of hilarious
stuff and real smart insights and really beautiful
human moments by artists.

GM: Like I say, I enjoyed the fact that you had comics
from all the generations. Did you sit down and come up
with a list? Or how did it work?
PJ: No, you're just pretending, in all these
questions, that this is being run by an organization,
like every other thing, that there's product involved
here. This is two guys that made a movie about their
friends. Our list was based on who we had in our
Rolodex. Now, that expanded by some people, like
talking to Eric Idle and then Eric Idle says, 'Have
you got Billy Connolly?' And we said, 'No, we don't
know him.' He goes, 'Let's get him in.' I mean, very,
very much... I mean, if you were twelve years old and
you pictured how movies were made, and you said,
'Well, I guess you get a friend and you talk about it.
Then you get some cameras. Then you go and get other
friends. And then I guess you put some of the stuff in
the movie.' That's exactly how it was made. There were
no conversations with studio executives where they
talked about acquiring talent; it was calling your
friends. And that's one of the reasons - maybe the
only reason - the movie is so good. It may have
nothing to do with us. It may be just that we
short-circuited the process that creates mediocrity.

GM: So these two guys just making a movie, did you
dream that it would get to this stage?
PJ: We didn't have time to dream. We have other jobs!
(laughs)

GM: How long was it in the making, by the way?
PJ: Four-and-a-half years?
PP: Closer to five at this point.
PJ: Five years, as I said. Five-and-a-half years. It
would be about five-and-a-half years. Maybe six. About
six years now?
PP: Uh, actually, we can narrow this down. We first
shot in early 2001.
PJ: So it's like seven years. About seven-and-a-half
years?

GM: Eight or nine?
PP: It could be about 14, I think.
PJ: My math has, we started the movie... The first one
we did was backstage at the Sullivan show.
PP: Right.
PJ: Actually, it was Talk of the Town. So that was
'48.
PP: Right. But those kinescopes have not been
preserved.
PJ: Well, we use some of the kinescopes. We use a
little bit of the kinescopes.
PP: We used the Sam Kinescopes.
PJ: Some of the stuff looks like it's on kinescope.
PP: Some of it looks like kinescopes.
PJ: (laughs) Uh, four-and-a-half years. We started in
2001.

GM: Did you receive any resistance from your friends.
PJ: The French. The French resistance. (laughs) Uh, we
didn't ask anybody more than once. We would call up
and say, 'We're doing this movie. You have people who
play jazz and improvise over the same song; we wanted
to do the same thing with comedy doing The
Aristocrats.' Everybody said yes before I finished
asking. And those that didn't, that said I'll get back
to you, I never called them again. It's not like we
need people for the movie. We didn't need anyone; we
needed everyone. It's kinda like if you met somebody
and you thought they were cool and you called them up
and asked them out for coffee the next day and they
go, "I can't really make it." You don't say, "Why?
Because you don't like me? Why? Because I'm ugly?
Why?" You just okay and you don't call them again.
Same thing with the movie.

GM: What was the final number of comics that made it
into the film?
PP: Nobody's actually been able to nail that down. But
it's about a hundred.
PJ: A little over a hundred. It depends. There's a lot
of questions over you count the Onion staff as one or
whether you count the Onion staff as five. And
Southpark, is that two people or is that one? So it's
around a hundred.

GM: Eddie Izzard said that he hadn't heard the joke
before. There must have been some people in the film
who you had to tell the joke to.
PP: And it was interesting because some people you'd
just break it down and give them beats of the joke and
they'd go, 'Oh, got it. No problem. See you tomorrow.'
And then other people just wanted to talk about it.
And that was really fun. That's what was going on with
Eddie. Eddie was having fun with the idea of having
just heard the joke and then trying to work his way
through it.

GM: You also heard a lot: 'I don't get it.' Is there
something to get, or is it just sort of the journey?
PJ: Well, I think that was a joke, the 'I don't get
it.' If you're talking about Southpark.

GM: Well, not just Southpark. I think Izzard said that
as well. And maybe a couple others.
PJ: No.

GM: Are you sure?
PP: Izzard was screwing around with different
punchlines.
PJ: I don't think anyone says it except the imaginary
depiction of an 8-year-old boy. (laughs)

GM: When did you first hear it? I asked Paul.
PJ: I probably first heard it told by Gilbert
Gottfried, but I'm not sure of that because once I was
told by Gilbert Gottfried any other telling just flew
out my head. But I heard Gilbert tell it many, many
times. We're very good friends.

GM: Was he the highlight for both of you?
PJ: Well, highlight is such a tough word, you know?
When you work on something like this, you need to fall
in love with every second of it or you're a bad
person, a bad artist. So there's a certain amount of
discipline in loving everything. I think that for
where it is in the movie, and intellectually what it
does, Taylor Negron is my favourite moment. Gilbert is
the most skilled comic. I think anybody would agree
with that. I mean in the world, not in the movie.
Ever, probably. And I really like Paul Reiser being
funny while talking about being funny, breaking it
down. I think that's, in a certain way, Paul Reiser is
a very smooth microcosm of the movie. And I like that.
You can't not like Ottoman George. I like Eric Meade
doing the mime because they're so far outside what
people want out of this movie. I mean, that's the
thing: this movie can be - with no studio money - can
be so personal. I mean, do a little mental exercise
and run through the movie and then picture a studio
editing it: 'Put in more Robin Williams, less Gilbert
Gottfried, what's the mime doing there?' And that's
what you see with every other movie. I mean, go see
Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which is another way to say 'Go to
hell' in our culture.