Nothing Lasts Forever Movie 1984

[Tina Popielarczyk]

Igrew up in Los Angeles where my father was a writer on I Love Lucy. As a kid, I got to visit the set where I learned much about shooting films. My mother screened The Red Balloon for my fifth birthday. After seeing it I wanted to become French.

My younger brother and I used to watch TV every night while eating dinner. We watched movies from The Time Machine to The Jazz Singer, and every style in between. I also used to go to an underground film club called Movies Round Midnight where I saw my first experimental films.

Nothing Lasts Forever is full of references to other art forms too. There are multiple gags about Dadaism, for example. The humour is both playful and sophisticated, with an absurdist streak. How would you describe your particular take on comedy?

The film feels very affectionate towards New York, although it's also playfully satirising the city as well (the jokes about the Port Authority and the avant-garde art scene). Did you want to make a homage to the city?

One thing I noticed was a huge bus station called the 'Port Authority.' This struck me as funny as I wondered if the Port Authority was a human entity. I used that in my movie when the city was in the midst of a massive strike and it was under control of the Port Authority. New York also had a lot of art galleries and performance spaces where I usually found them pretentious and good fodder for the movie.

I first saw Nothing Lasts Forever when it appeared on YouTube a few years ago and got a few nice write-ups, like Richard Brody's great piece in the New Yorker. How did you feel about it leaking online and the reaction?

The film did have champions, particularly at the Cannes film festival. It must be one of the few times a studio has refused to take their film to Cannes when invited. Why do you think MGM wouldn't let you screen at the festival?

The main thing I learned is that an undistributed film can still live on even after 35 years and have screenings (like in Glasgow). That is heartwarming to me. Somehow the film continues to live on and nothing is really lost forever.

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