Caleb Landry Jones from “Dogman”: Besson’s chosen one

Luc Besson says he writes a lot. He has been writing since early in the morning. He jots down ideas in bursts, works on them, then almost always throws them in the bin. Luc Bessonthe author who was among the first to promote female figures to the role of protagonists and heroines (Leon And Nikita) and that was it cleared of rape charges after a long legal processjust in time to participate in the latest Venice Film Festival, every now and then he recovers some of those crumpled sheets of paper from the garbage.

Dogmanwon’t it be too much?

And, tell I Woman«when you realize you have written a story in which a Marilyn Monroe in a wheelchair fights against a gang of Mexicans surrounded by 70 dogs, you ask yourself: won’t it be too much?”. Being the type for whom “too much” doesn’t exactly fit the dictionary notion, it was just a matter of finding the person who could complete the task. «Caleb and I smelled each other like two dogs, we met a few times, drank something together, tried to understand if we had things in common, if we came from the same planet. We finally realized that Normandy and Texas are closer than you might imagine».

Caleb Landry Jones grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, son of a builder and a teacher. As happens in many Hollywood stories – even though he hasn’t been around much yet – he begins to speak his mind on the high school stage. And saying that about him corresponded to: «Feeling authorized to scream, say dirty jokes, cry, feel feelings I had never felt. Acting for me represented, right from the start, the space in which to feel and feel myself.”

«A therapy, of course, but above all an escape route, a place where no one can tell me what to do, what is right, what is wrong, how to paint or write a song (Caleb is also a musician and comes from several generations of violinistshe plays other instruments, ed ). And where no one can tell me how things must be in society: a man must be like this, you must expect this from a woman, if you come from that place you will necessarily be like this, and there is no escape from your family, it is certainly like this. Every character I’ve played has allowed me to see things from a different perspective that I otherwise wouldn’t have considered. At that point the obsession was born» explains in a low voice (and this time it’s worth taking the term according to the dictionary meaning), the sing-song cadence of the South, without the “grunge” satisfaction of someone who has argued with the hairdresser (even if the comb in the suitcase, we suspect that Caleb almost never wears it).

«But art is a safe escape route» he continues, reassuringly, the diaphanous, freckled skin, characteristic of luciferine beauty according to admirers. «Safer than alcohol and drugs. Or money. Art takes you elsewhere for a while and then takes you home. You can get lost and find yourself again. And you feel good afterwards. And you feel part of society, where I’m not at all certain that otherwise I would have ever found a place for myself.”

Dogman: a heartbreaking and kitsch scene

The place in society, patiently carved out, after many small parts (in 2007 he was in the credits as “the boy with the bicycle” of It is no country for old men by the Coen brothersbut his only line – «Sir, you have a bone sticking out of your arm» – to Javier Bardem, he pronounced it with feverish conviction) has now passed into the “object of desire” category (in the next film, Two Wolveswill be directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney, alongside Viggo Mortensen).

Dogmanthe film that Luc Besson sewed on him like a glove (“Luc is the type who loves to shape”), he starts in a wretched family inspired by a real case in the news – father and brother, cruel breeders of fighting dogs – and ends up in a drag queen club in which Caleb-Douglas, known as Doug, who sounds like “dog”, in a wheelchair with the gift of a bullet fired into his spine by his father, becomes Marilyn, but also Edith Piaf, in one of the most heartbreaking and more kitsch together than seen at the Venice Film Festival.

The Volpi cup goes to Peter Saarsgard

The alchemies of the juries then assigned the Volpi cup to Peter Saarsgard for Memory (well done him and good film), but at the top of all the predictions was Caleb and for his performance, which will be difficult to forget, the most frequent adjective was “courageous”. «Brave me?» he replies. «Of course, putting myself in front of the camera and throwing myself into the void always makes me nervous. I’ll make it? Will I be good enough? Didn’t the director hire the wrong person? These are thoughts that will never go away. Awards aren’t enough (at Cannes, he took home the award for best actor for Nitramstill unpublished by us, ed ). Luckily this is a job where there always comes a showdown. You’re on set: either you jump or you go home, and I like being in the position of having no choice. I like being forced at a certain point to take all the thoughts, all the research done and direct them towards a single target and try, try again, make mistakes, even feel like a failure and think that the next take will be the good one precisely because you failed that one. Before”.

In short, if it’s not a sacred fire, we’re close. Also because the French director who doesn’t skimp on symbolism (even Christological) and who knows how to create it a perfect cocktail of epic and trash (the dogs who listen enchanted to Caleb as he extols: «What’s in a name? What we call rose even by another name always retains its scent» from Romeo and Juliet, but also a Doberman who squeezes a gangster’s testicles in his jaws to persuade him to reason) is not satisfied with anything less: «Caleb is an actor, he can play a flower if he wants. Let artists be artists, they don’t kill anyone.”

A flower sprouting in the asphalt

The film opens with a quote from Lamartine: «Wherever there is an unhappy person God sends a dog» and closes with the notes of I don’t regret it again of Piaf: and this, if it says something about the author who made the two choices, also says a lot about this 33-year-old Texan who on the use of weaponsrather popular in the State that gave him birth, simply says that «All those bullets fired at the same time by automatic weapons… the damage they can do… Definitely I have a problem with the idea that guns can be sold to anyone».

And of his film, for which the adjective “dark” is not out of place (even if less dark than the average of those he has participated in so far: author of a massacre in Nitramhateful racist in Get Outabusive husband in Twin Peaks), «Dogman it is a ray of light” tell us.

“In a field full of flowers there is no way to see a rose, but if a wildflower appears on the asphalt of the highway you will not miss it.” Not a rebel without a cause – Caleb Landry Jones is no James Dean – but an outsider perhaps yes.
During the pandemic, to create the cover of the album he was about to publish, The Mother Stonehe is his girlfriend, the artist Katya Zvereva with whom until not long ago he lived “in a not yet gentrified neighborhood of Los Angeles”, they decided to do it themselves. He took a very backcombed blonde wig from a second-hand dealer, covered his face with white lead and his mouth with lipstick, lit a cigarette and abandoned himself to the camera lens. The result is halfway between the Venetian Rondo and Cindy Sherman. It was 2020, and that was already, perhaps, the best calling card for everything that would follow.

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