Filming for 'The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things' is complete. Asia Argento, with whom JT Leroy lived for 2 weeks when he toured Italy in 2002, directed, starred and wrote the screenplay for the production. Cast members also include Peter Fonda, Ben Foster, Marilyn Manson, Ornella Muti, Kip Pardue, Mike Pitt, Jeremy Renner, Winona Ryder, Matt Schulze and Jeremy Sisto.
'The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things' recounts childhood experiences of physical and sexual abuse with deadpan clarity. "It’s about a four-year old who gets sent back to his birth mother, who’s regained custody. Up till then, he’d lived with his foster parents, a very upper middle-class, warm, wonderful family", says JT. And the birth mother is not prepared to take care of a four-year-old child. "She doesn’t have much money. She doesn’t have much support from anybody. She’s working as a waitress. And all of a sudden she has a kid who doesn’t know her, and only wants to go back home". She doesn’t know any better, but her strategies for trying to get the kid to stay with her feel sadistic, ruthless, and frightening. They create such terror and guilt in the kid that it’s almost impossible to comprehend. She gives him speed. She makes him wear his soiled clothing until he learns not to wet the bed. She tells him the police are literally going to crucify him if he tries to go back to his foster parents.
Asia first contacted JT Leroy after reading his debut novel, 'Sarah'. They struck up an email correspondence in 2001 but did not meet until June 2002. Their first meeting occurred in an appropriately artificial environment: a small, manicured garden set behind a hotel in the centre of Rome.
Dressed in black, in defiance of the unremitting midday heat, Asia waited expectantly for a figure to emerge from within. The sun beat down upon the plastic trees, and smoke curled up into the air from a cigarette held between her long, elegant fingers. "I was smoking like crazy", begins her fevered recollection of that morning. "My heart was racing, my palms were sweating. I was waiting and waiting", she continues. "Then he came downstairs. We shook hands. From then on, I felt very comfortable with him. An instant empathy".
JT, who was wrapped in black, eyes shielded by large mirror shades that dwarfed his small, delicately featured face, remembers: "I was so nervous to meet. She was so beautiful, I could only look at her feet".
The night following their first meeting, both he and Asia were scheduled to read at Letterature, a month-long literary festival.
When asked to comment on the roots of their rapport, the pair are almost lost for words. "That’s deep territory", says Asia. "Territory that belongs to the subconscious. And maybe for that reason, it is something that can not be spoken about".
At the end of 2002, Asia told an American newspaper that she was pregnant with JT’s baby. She meant it metaphorically, but the journalist didn’t get, and it made the joy of tabloids and gossip websites all around the world. Asia had to explain that she was referring to her second movie as a director: 'The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things'. The film is based on a short-story collection by JT Leroy and depicts the troubled relationship between a young mother, played by Asia Argento, and her neglected son. It’s a low-budget drama that has been financed independently, not by a studio. Asia defines it as "European", even if it has been shot in the United States. According to her "it's like an autopsy of America": "It's called ‘The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things’ and it’s taken from a novel written by JT Leroy, this young American writer. It's his autobiographical story. I've adapted the screenplay and I'm playing the main female role. It's a story of a mother and a child. The child goes from since he was four years old until he's eleven. And it's her descent into Hell, with drugs and prostitution. It's like an autopsy of America, and people".
"I can identify, I think. I'm a single mother in the sense that I'm the one supporting my child and I live alone with her and it's kind of difficult in Italy, in America, all over the world. So I can identify even though I'm lucky because I was blessed with, you know, the belief, faith and creativity. Well, people who don't have that or don't have a reason to believe in themselves can quickly lose themselves".
"I wrote the screenplay, directed, and I also play one of the leading roles. I dedicated one year and a half of my life to this project and I learned a lot of things, about myself and about my work. In the first place I should never play the leading role in the movies that I’ll direct in the future. It’s very exhaustive, and as the years pass by, I loose my forces! At the same time I believe that in this movie it was necessary that I played Sarah, I could never have asked an actress to do what I’ve done with my body and my mind (I have completely annulated, hurt, massacred myself..., I played a very strong and masochist character) without not even getting payed for it. The most beautiful thing was to work with extraordinary actors such as Peter Fonda, Winona Ryder, Ornella Muti, but especially the children, Jimmy Bennett and Cole and Dylan Sprouse (11-year-old twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse are best known for appearing with Adam Sandler in 'Big Daddy'). They have been my only true allies, and I owe them my tenacity and the courage to go on conditions that were almost impossible. I owe them this strange, special and poetical movie. The children have been my biggest inspiration".
Information provided by Asia herself on February 1st 2004. Thank you!
"Making of the Heart was incredibly difficult and maddening, being a very ambitious low budget movie, I am currently in the editing, very close to a first cut, hopefully will be selected at very prestigious festivals once ready!!! Marco “Morgan” is working on the music, creating magnificent sounds, a cross over between his own style and Italian futurism".
Music: Asia Argento - Disco Sux/U Just Can't Stop The Rock/Sad Core (2008)
