Over some rice wine at Ray Quan, watching the night trains passing through the city, Hung Tran talked to independent filmmaker Vincent Moon about everything incredible and amazing. About film and music. About freedom, the power of the internet and about doing what you want with your life.
Vincent Moon filming in Vietnam
Vincent Moon: So what are we talking about?
Hung Tran: Well, what prompted you to go into the world of more traditional and experimental music and away from making rock and indie music videos?
Vincent Moon: I don’t know. I didn’t wake up one day and say ‘now I’m finished with this and I’m going to go into traditional music’. I just went with the flow.
Five years ago, I ended up being without a home, and when I travelled to countries I was getting more and more interested in seeing the culture,less and less about the rendition of pop and rock culture, but more and more about their own folklores. Which was a long process. But I didn’t really think about it like that, I just went and it was my curiosity in those places.
The thing you have to understand is probably that, as long as you have no money involved in projects like this, as long as there’s no producers and basically you’re alone – you can really do whatever you want, and go with the flow, improvise on the spot.
Hung Tran: So like the ultimate freedom to do whatever you want to do?
“How far can you go without money involved? So far I’ve made like 700 films. I can prove that it’s possible, and if people get that and try and make it then that’s great.”
Vincent Moon: Yeah yeah yeah. But really from the beginning I’ve had the freedom to do what I want when there’s no money involved. I’ve had good and bad experiences of working with money on some projects, but mostly it turned out bad. So I was like, ok cool I might be able to travel and live like this, without getting paid – yeah I think I can do it. I think I can find my own little balance, then I can be free and make these films as I want them. And that’s still what I am like, nowadays.
I don’t really want to change that. I want to continue pursuing this quest, of how far can you go without money involved. So far I’ve made like 700 films. I can prove that it’s possible, and if people get that and try and make it then that’s great.
Hung Tran: How have you been able to fund your travelling?
Vincent Moon: Based on workshops, screenings, donations. And help. Just help from people, as in ‘come to my place and you can stay as long as you want’, or ‘I really liked your films tonight let me buy you drinks’. And it’s still quite a mystery to me as I’m surprised I can live with so little. But also, for the big trips I often get paid by big projects. I get invited to film festivals, music festivals – they pay for me to come and they’re like:
‘Ok so you’re going to stay three days yeah?’
‘No, I’m going to stay three months – but don’t worry just give me the plane tickets and I’ll manage the rest’.
Hung Tran: Are you keeping up this way of life?
Vincent Moon: So far it’s good, and it works. But still I think I’m going to change my lifestyle a bit in the next year because I want to have a family and so on.
I’m not going to do as many films, not going to go on crazy travels. I’m going to work on longer projects. Spending more time in one place with my family, and just trying to dig deeper, working more with some sorts of institutions, museums, galleries and so on. Lots of people in cinema actually get tons of funding, and I never applied for one of those – I do not belong at all to the film industry. I do not work for any industries at all. I do not want to work for any industry. I guess it’s a very political approach to life and I just want to continue making things this way – my own personal way – I don’t want to get rich or famous.
Hung Tran: You played for Les Siestes Electroniques in Paris in July, and that was the first time you ever did anything like that – a musical set?
Vincent Moon: Yeah, and I was really happy actually with what I did. Samuel came up with the idea because he was following my work for a bit, especially the recordings I made around the world. That was a very interesting challenge. I spent a week in the museum [de quai Branly], digging stuff up and arranging and orientating everything around the theme ‘Blessing’, as the sound piece I presented was based around the blessings in the world.
I wish I could work more with sound, really, just pure sound. You know, what is music? What is the limit to music? What is sound? It’s fantastic. Everything is. If you open your ears. Every sound is really a pleasure. You have to work with your ears.
There’s the sound of a train passing by – Vincent says “There’s nothing better” – then almost silence.
The Onion Cellar’s Hung Tran
“We have 10 times more possibilities than 10 years ago, in terms of new technologies. And at the same time people take less and less risks.”
Vincent Moon: I’m just really surprised, to say the least, about the fact that in the world we live in, we have 10 times more possibilities than 10 years ago, in terms of new technologies. And at the same time people take less and less risks. I see my friends around me and everyone is really scared about handling things, to change things, but that’s the right moment to experiment you know, you can really experiment a lot with those tools [internet platforms Vimeo and Bandcamp].
They’re tools though, which means that they’re never an end themselves. I’ve been publishing stuff on the Internet for more than 10 years now, not only films but also my photography work, and it’s always been for free. But I really always found that the Internet is a fantastic way to organically connect with people, to organise human potential – that’s what it’s about. So I just use them very carefully, I don’t publish very much on Facebook, only when I go somewhere and put something on there to connect and meet with people.
Hung Tran: I think it’s a pretty good tool to know people you normally would never meet in real life.
Vincent Moon: But at some point you’ll really have to meet them, right? And that’s the great point of it. To meet those people.
For instance I arrived in Armenia with a contact or two. At first it was really hard to find any contacts, but then finally just one day before going I just put a message on Facebook and then got contacts for maybe two or three people there. And then, my trip, which was only seven or eight days long, went amazing. Through these initial contacts I met tons of people, and I made some incredible recordings in a very short time. That was insane. I made a big film of the music there. Really fantastic stuff.
Hung Tran: How else do you make use of the tools on the Internet?
Vincent Moon: What’s the most exciting about these tools is that nowadays, the Internet connection is good enough in any country to allow you at least to listen to music. Nowadays many people use the Internet as a better TV – TV 2.0 you know, which is very wrong. The core of Internet is the exact opposite of the technology of television. Television is from one centre, information gets spread without the possibility to really reply, on the Internet it’s the exact opposite in the sense that there’s no one centre, but everybody is a centre, and everybody is able to interact with everybody else like this.
So it makes it a very powerful anarchist tool, it’s a very strong tool to change society, and it’s been changing a lot of society but it can do much more, much, much more, in terms of people living together, on an everyday basis.
Hung Tran: So the Internet is a force of change?
Vincent Moon: It’s a massive part of a possible change of our society, but unfortunately I don’t think society is going to change that much, because there’s too many people involved, too many people controlling and so on, and we’re never going to live in a peaceful world. But, nevertheless, we’re still fighting, with a smile.
Hung Tran: What do you think of the power of arts – music and films and literature – in inspiring people to go against the norms, against the powers that be, so to speak?
Vincent Moon: I think it’s always been like that. Artists have always been at the forefront of the fight. And nowadays we live in a very interesting moment, as we’re able to reach a lot of people.
“A lot of people seem to think that revolution is a massive switch from one day to another, like people going out to the street all together and changing stuff, but I do not believe in this at all. I think it’s an everyday fight.”
And also, I think there’s a real danger in what people think of revolution nowadays. We see all these things, Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring and so on. And a lot of people seem to think that revolution is a massive switch from one day to another, like people going out to the street all together and changing stuff, but I do not believe in this at all. I think it’s an everyday fight. The revolution has to happen everyday, on your own simple personal basis. That’s what I feel when I see my friends getting very disappointed when they see that these Occupy movements have not really succeeded. They had hopes, people had big hopes, and they got disappointed by the results. Because too many times people think of revolution.., and I think that the idea of revolution nowadays is very different, the revolution that we now have to fight for is very silent, a very discreet one.
Hung Tran: And you have to be subtle, as you just cannot directly fight the power.
Vincent Moon: You have to be subtle. Especially in this era of massive media power, we have to avoid the media as much as possible if we want to be happy, if we want a beautiful life. I apply this to my own life, by not promoting my work actually. No. I don’t need to get more from what I have now. I don’t need to have more audience. I’m happy with what I have now.
It’s sort of useless to me. I was thinking like this before, thinking that you have to talk to a lot of [big] people. But I don’t really think like that anymore, I think you just have to do things your own way, talk to a lot of little people all the time, you have to keep it little, keep it simple.
There’s a very beautiful quote I saw the other day, a French writer talking about how we could express ourselves nowadays, in this society, and again we always come back to this: we have to paint with a little brush. Keep it simple, keep it wet, and fight on that basis.
Hung Tran: There’s this book [Candide by Voltaire], a French one actually and I don’t remember the name but the idea is that you can’t really change much about the world around you. The ending is basically: the main character went around the world realising that he couldn’t change anything about the world so decided that he should ‘tend to his garden’, to the little things around him.
Vincent Moon: Vietnam is a very beautifully Taoist country and Tao says that you have to go with the flow at some point. You have to accept how little you have and to feel, to constantly be the harmony around you. And that’s very much it. You just have to make your own little things and not be too ambitious. You have to realise what you’re going to change is only a few people around you, but those people – they’re going to thank you forever and they’re going to change a few people around them, and little by little… That’s it.
Hung Tran: In a way, I also think that what we’ve been doing with The Onion Cellar is [like that]. Like inspiring people to think a little differently, in terms of arts for now, music and films, but they’re going start thinking differently about other things as well.
Vincent Moon: Of course. Little movements. Have you seen this film called ‘Step across the Border’? A German and a Swiss guy made it. It’s about a guitarist called Fred Frith and was made at the end of the 80s. This film actually made me change and pushed me to make films, because the philosophy of Fred Frith, the main guy, is very much like this. He makes improvisational music and he says, what’s important is that at the end of the night after your show, if one person comes and talks to you then it’s a success. Keeping it simple you know. Like if you have to play in a stadium in front of thousands of people not being able to talk with them – that’s scary.
Hung Tran: I like your way thinking. In a way I guess The Onion Cellar haven’t really been attracting a lot of people, we’ve been staying rather underground, but as long as we still have people who understand what this is all about and come support us, then that’s fine, I’m happy with that.
Vincent Moon: You know, that’s why I enjoy talking with you, I know that what you’ve been doing is already in that way and what I’m telling you maybe would comfort you and push you more. Like two human beings sharing ideas and talking about how to make it better.
Hung Tran: Yeah, I appreciate that. I also don’t like the way that with music and film these days, you get the pressure that you have to achieve something. Nowadays it’s all about achievement.
Vincent Moon: Yeah, we’re being brainwashed by the media system we live with. It’s terrible right? The idea of success and so on, so wrong.
Hung Tran: And the idea that it’s much more important who you are, as supposed to ‘what you do’. Like you have to be someone, you have to be famous..
Vincent Moon: Fame is a nightmare.
A pause as the train passes by.
Hung Tran: So. Where are you going this weekend anyway?
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World premiere of Lên đồng, the film Vincent Moon shot in Vietnam, on & Of Other Things
