Sean Baker (New York, 51 years old) likes Trojan horses in his scripts.
And he laughs when reminded that he seems to be a specialist in that, given his filmography, and in turning down offers of big projects.
After filming
Tangerine
(2015) with three iPhones (one of them is in the Academy Museum in Hollywood), he preferred to stay on his way and shoot a gem like
The Florida Project
(2017), in which he only admitted a slip in his independent spirit: the participation of Willem Dafoe, obsessed with working with Baker (and rightly so: the actor achieved an Oscar nomination).
And at the last Cannes festival, in the Competition section, Baker premiered
Red Rocket,
another
indie production,
this time starring Mikey, a porn actor who returns to his hometown, deep in America, of poor whites raised in the suburbs of a Texas factory town now in decline.
Mikey is just passing through, shunned by everyone, and once again preparing his springboard to glory.
"I found it interesting to talk with a certain humor about those people, left out of history," concedes Baker in the promotion in Spain of his film, which is now being released in theaters.
But what if
Red Rocket
is about something more?
What if he is actually portraying Donald Trump?
Furthermore, what if he has created a narrative framework, a new Trojan horse, to recount Trump's electoral race to the White House?
“Let's talk about it,” Baker confesses, and laughs.
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Because Donald Trump, a guy who was laughed at by half the country before facing his former friend Hillary Clinton (here she would be the ex-wife) for the presidency of the United States, was able to take advantage of his charm beyond the picaresque (in the film Mikey dives right into the bravado) in pursuit of getting support and money to reach his goal.
It occurred to Baker that the best thing to do was to hire a real porn actor, Simon Rex, to bring Mikey to life on screen, because no one would understand him better.
“It seems to me that the comparison between some politicians and porn actors is pertinent.
That egomania, that self-adulation born in both cases of living in very closed competitive worlds in which only praise is heard, although one only survives in them by destroying rivals...”, the filmmaker reels.
“As for Trump, it is true.
I have filled the film with seeds that give that reading to the plot.
You decide, although let me tell you that politics is the art of relationships, and that also applies to work, family and social relationships.
I think
Red Rocket
goes further… but I accept the parallel with Trump.”
And unraveling the complete theory, Baker responds with complicity: "Everything is possible."
Sean Baker, right, directing Simon Rex in 'Red Rocket'.
Actually,
Red Rocket
was born long before Trump thought of sleeping in the White House for four years.
Before
Tangerine,
in 2012 Baker wrote and directed
Starlet,
the relationship between a young actress about to be the star of the so-called adult film and her elderly neighbor.
“The porn cinema is full of guys who are true survivors, who live in a state of feverish euphoria.
In any case, I was interested.
I defend that great stories can also star them, for example, a trans that makes a living by prostitution, because we live in a capitalist society happy to celebrate success, ”she explains.
"After
Starlet
, I wrote the first draft of
Red Rocket."
In the United States, the film has caused some polarization.
On the one hand, Simon Rex won the award for best actor at the independent film awards, the culmination of a great festival career for
Red Rocket.
On the other, Baker acknowledges that many people have approached her to say that they find her "quite disturbing".
The filmmaker defines himself “happy” with those comments: “That a porn actor provokes that rejection was part of my artistic intention;
that the public is seen dealing with complex feelings on account of the evolution of an egotistical porn star confirms my bet”.
In Cannes, Baker had some fear of a possible attack from social networks.
“Because I speak of a moral misery through a certainly masculine gaze, of a very reprehensible way of facing life.
However, I couldn't find a better way to display it.
And in the end, those attacks didn't happen."
Simon Rex and Suzanna Son, in 'Red Rocket'.
Returning to Trump, to the United States that he has left after his presidency, Baker ventures an explanation different from the usual one in the media: “Reducing the United States to two points of view according to the Democratic or Republican parties, or urban and rural, it's simplistic.
And so it was for us in the elections that Trump won.
However, I recognize that that electoral race of 2016 was the first time that we lived in a television program.
And there Trump is a winning horse: he gave us humor, scandals, controversy... he took us to his field, turning something complex into a little fight... let me choose the word well... unsophisticated”.
Baker is indeed interested in the parallelism between his leading porn actor and the former president: “They are great storytellers, hypnotic to the point of becoming tiresome, who don't take no for an answer.
narcissists,
and at the same time unaware of the effect they cause among those around them.
In real life, Simon is different, because since I met him he did understand what happens in his world, his glories and miseries.
He understands that in real life he is a hero to many and an anti-hero to others, that in
Red Rocket
brings a wretch to life.
You know?
The quality Hollywood cinema of the seventies was full of characters like that.
What remains of that today?
An electoral campaign camouflaged in a trash TV show.
“Exactly, and there only those who master their language can win.”
Image from 'Red Rocket'.