The Living Arts - October 2007
Déjà Vu
A Conversation with
Director Henry Jaglom
by Stephen Simon
What happens if you meet the person of your dreams, the one you’ve always known was out there somewhere, and that person is with someone else and so are you? Henry Jaglom’s haunting love story Déjà Vu posits just that question and weaves it into a brilliantly conceived and deeply spiritual love story. This classic independent film stars Victoria Foyt, Stephen Dillane (The Hours) and Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave. In Déjà Vu, a woman and a man who are in separate relationships find themselves falling in love after being brought together by a mysterious woman and a series of serendipitous incidents.
Director Henry Jaglom is one of the guiding lights of American Indy films and he is one of my personal heroes. Jaglom specializes in dramas loosely based on (and starring) characters from his actual life. In the 1960s, he edited Easy Rider (1969), directed by his friend Dennis Hopper. Like many individuals associated with that film, he soon got a chance to direct a major studio-backed film entitled A Safe Place (Universal Pictures, 1971). That film, starring Tuesday Weld and Orson Welles, was considered a commercial and critical failure, but initiated a longtime friendship with Welles. Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1977), Jaglom’s film involving love and relationships amidst a set of characters in the entertainment industry, set the tone for many of his works to come.
When we screened Déjà Vu at our 2007 Spiritual Cinema Festival-at-Sea, most of the audience was riveted, transported, and utterly enthralled, but there was also a spirited conversation after the film about the conflict between commitment and destiny. Jaglom says his film “came out of a lifetime of yearning for the romantic dream of finding the perfect ‘soul mate’.” I spoke with him about his transcendent film that still inspires movie lovers from around the globe.
SS: To summarize Déjà Vu , a man and woman fall desperately in love with each other and decide that they are going to be together. When you see the film, it completely and totally makes emotional sense, romantic sense, and intellectual sense in every way that they really feel that it was their destiny to be together. However, it requires the man who is married to leave his marriage and the woman who is engaged to break her engagement. Is this why the film caused so much controversy?
HJ: It’s not as if they cavalierly decided to do that. I think it was just a very honest and real life look at a dilemma that faces people sometimes because many people marry for various reasons, for comfort, security or convenience; usually something other than the intense romantic love that they have dreamed of. Then they may be faced with the possibility of running into that intense romantic love, the love that should have been the one that was there, the one that they believe they were destined for. This is really what the film is about—whether we are all destined for certain people. And it is a question of finding our destiny.
SS: Is it true that you still receive letters from many people who have found themselves in the same situation?
HJ: Without exaggeration, I have received several thousands of letters and emails, some of which are incredibly touching. Some describe the fact that, based upon the film, they have decided not to marry the person they were engaged to for the past seven years. It’s a very scary thing which I don’t want the responsibility for. Other people write to me saying that the have made the phone call to the person that they had been in love with when they were teenagers and now forty years later, and after their spouse has died,…they are getting married.
SS: To me this also shows that Déjà Vu is standing the test of time which is truly the test of a film, even though it was originally released about ten years ago.
HJ: The film seems to touch a very deep place in people—I had no idea when I wrote it that it would do this. It just seems to have touched a very profound part of our human psyche and the need for finding that person and not letting anything get in the way of finding (them).
SS: Déjà Vu is a wonderful love story. It is a deeply spiritual love story and it asks a lot of questions. One of the things that we are the most committed to is putting movies out to subscribers of the Spiritual Cinema Circle and into our community that asks the big questions about who we are and why we’re here. Then everybody comes up with their own answers.
HJ: And truthfully, that’s the only way. I think for me to make a film and give the answers is absurd, because there is no right answer. It is to each individual to discover her or his answer. I do hope that if my film makes the case for anything, it makes a case for really looking at your life honestly and really trying to define what happiness is for you. (Also) staying open to the possibility that what you might have settled on at one point as the right thing may not have in fact been the right thing, that there might be something else. What you wanted when you were younger and dreamed of and thought you could never have might really be there for you. I hope that is what Déjà Vu inspires.
Stephen Simon is the co-founder of the Spiritual Cinema Circle. Members of the Circle are receiving DÉJÀ VU as part of the October 2007 DVD collection. For a limited time, new subscribers can receive a free trial membership (for a nominal shipping fee) by visiting: www.spiritualcinemacircle.com or by calling 800.556.0129. To learn more about Henry Jaglom please visit www.henryjaglom.com. Deja Vu will be shown at the Swedenborgian Church of San Diego during the first Friday week of Oct. For more information, visit www.swedenborghall.org