Alex de la Iglesia is one of today's leading directors in Spanish cinema. His past films include the cult classic Acción Mutante (1993), as well as Day of the Beast (1995), Perdita Durango (1997), Dying of Laughter (1999), and La Comunidad (2000). Theblowup caught up with him during a recent Lincoln Center retrospective of his work. He spoke of his love for Scorsese , dark comedy, surrealism, and his detest for film festival pretension. Look out for his newest film, 800 Bullets, hailed one of the most exciting films to come out of Spain in 2002.

In your words, what is your newest film, 800 Bullets, about?

This is the story of four crazies. Along time ago they were stuntmen who worked with Sergio Leone (Italian Hollywood director who made spaghetti westerns famous). These stuntmen worked with Clint Eastwood, David Lynn, in films like Laurence of Arabia, Death had a Price and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Leon movies were filmed in Spain--not Italy--in Almeria. The most important big productions of the 1960's and all the Sergio Leone movies were filmed there. These guys lived with Clint Eastwood and Yul Brenner, rode horses together. All of a sudden this ends. Their whole life disappears because the Americans never come back. They go crazy. Two or three of them decide to stay and live in Almeria for 40 years doing a stupid, pathetic show for Japanese and German tourists. They go to the beach and happen across the Almeria desert (which is in the middle of nowhere). They find the sets, watch the performances and the stuntmen are happy. However, there comes a time when they are overwhelmed by reality, when a company shows up and wants to build a theme park and kick them out. Then they want to defend themselves and so they trade in their blanks for real bullets. Hence the title, 800 Bullets.

Who are your three favorite American film directors?

It's difficult to choose because I love the American cinema. First, I think the most interesting is Martin Scorsese . I just saw Gangs of New York at a press screening and I think it was fucking excellent. A masterpiece. I think he is a genius, the best living director. Gangs of New York is an American 'noveccento.' After Martin Scorsese , I like...Coppola, of course. I love David Lynch, David Cronenberg, many of them.

What do you think about film critics who say that your style is to modernize classic film genres?

I disagree. I am not trying to rejuvenate genres. I like to play with genres and construct my own movies, but I don't think that I am modernizing them at all. What I am trying to do is inject poison into theses genres. In a happy comedy I like to introduce poison and make the movie freaky and weird, with a tasteless sense of humor. The more black, dark and bitter, the more powerful the comedy becomes. I convert it into a cynical comedy. Not because I hate the classic genres --the reverse! I like to take the best of a genre and scare the viewer, shock them, precisely because they expect to see a classic film format. For instance, in 800 Bullet a child goes to a western town to meet his grandfather and it looks like a Josh Huyes movie. But it is not the same thing at all; it is the opposite. The grandfather is like a pirate, a pimp, a gangster, someone you can not trust. The little kid has an amazing introduction to sex. [He] meets this super sexy Cuban prostitute and spends a night with her at 12 years old. I would have liked it to happen to me! It is something that I have been dreaming of all my life. That's why I am making movies. I have problems. Otherwise I would be a normal person.

Do you consider your films violent?

Not at all. Gangs of New York is not a violent movie. It is a hard movie, a tough movie. In the 19th Century, people were not politically correct. People were real, with strong feelings. Now we have problems because everybody tries to avoid the existence of violence. Violence is like the sun and the moon and the mountains. You have to accept that it exists. Let's try to talk about violence and control violence. Respect it and free it. This is the reason sports exist---football. These are paths to liberate our natural animal impulses. It is a lie that we are all kind, nice and rational people, searching for peace. That is bullshit. All of us, in one way or another have bad thoughts. When you deny them, those thoughts appear in a more violent way. It is when the earth opens and punches you.

Do you think your films are influenced by surrealism?

Thank you very much. I hope that this is true. In fact, I am obsessed with this. I like Buñuel very much. He is one of the greatest movie makers ever. I love the way he views life. Coming back to the theme of violence, things are not what they seem; life is not a Sandra Bullock movie. Nothing is like a Meg Ryan movie. Nothing in real life is like a commercial, like the images we get from TV and the mass media. Absolutely the contrary. Life is a fight. It is opposition. War. It is confrontation. It is fun. It is uncontrollable fun, wild, reckless, debauchery. It's we that make the world look like it has order and sense. We try to say life leads us somewhere, but it's not true. It is not leading us anywhere. Life is surreal.

I think Spanish films are sexier and the plots more magical than most. Do you think I am biased?

I think you are marvelous. Obviously, we are aware that we are not going to win the public with our quantity of resources or the number of films made. We can't make Harry Potter, and we will never be able to. Actually, we might not want to make these types of films. We are trying to have our films go to another place. We are trying to explain reality in another way. That's what I do with my movies.

Earlier, on the film festival panel, you stated you make no distinction between industry and culture? Is this true?

No, it's not true. A difference exists between Harry Potter and Carlos Suara. But, what is true, is that people in Europe like to believe they have the great culture and Americans are stupid. They are accustomed to talking about culture as separate from industry. I think this is a great lie. European film festivals, like Cannes, Venice, San Sebastian, are temples where you supposedly see wonderful movies that try only to expand your mind and intellectually stimulate you. This is a big joke. Those movies are miserable, even more miserable than Harry Potter, because at least Harry Potter is not pretending to be anything it is not. It hurts me more when people pretend to make great movies that feed your soul and talk about the human condition, and refuse to make films for the masses or for profit. That's a lie, you are making a product too--for a very concrete type of audience that looks for these types of movies. Ultimately, these directors are after the money too. Their films are made to please the film festival audience. This is sicker than the commercial industry because it is the commercialization of intellectualism.

Do you have anything in the works right now?

Of course! I am filming no later than this summer. I am working on two things: one expensive and one cheaper movie. The first takes place in Toledo and is about Kabala. The other is about a guy who works in a store in the mall, possibly called Codicia.

How, if at all, do you think your degree in philosophy influences your films?

It influences my films in the same way it influences me as a person. Thanks to five years studying philosophy, I discovered that no one knows anything! I am in agreement with a cynical Greek philosopher that used to say, 'Nothing exists. In the case that something does exist, it would be impossible to see it or discover it. And in the case that we see it or discover it, it would be impossible to communicate it.'

In Spain you are famous, even mainstream, while in the US you have only a small cult following. Do you think your films can appeal to a wide American audience?

I think so. I would like to try. More than in other places, in America people are trying to find something new. For 30 years, more or less, people have been watching the same movie. If we could do something powerful, to change the mode--something violent, brutal--but at the same time with a story, that woulb be fucking great.

If you were to have a drink tonight with a great New York director, who would it be?
Of course, with Martin. God in person.