Meet Alexander Langsam | Writer / director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alexander Langsam and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alexander, how do you think about risk?
I really think that risk taking is one of the most important instruments for a person, particularly anyone following a creative or artistic passion. I know so many people who have great skills and drive, but their lack of risk-taking essentially stunts them. They get too focused on a limited worldview, a limited toolkit.

You need to be able to roll the dice, explore the unknown, venture out of your comfort zone. Everything in your life will feed your work and your perspective, so you’ve got to go out and broaden it as best you can. Try new things, test out ideas, don’t get hung up on what you know or think you know, because there’s so much out there and if you go searching you’ll find incredibly ripe fruit.

As a filmmaker, as a writer and director, I need to be in-tune with other people. I need to understand culture, what people like, what moves people, what people go through. I can’t rely on my interior world or an idealized world I hope exists — no, I have to go and meet the world and its inhabitants where they are. It’s easy to stay in my head too long, to think that everything I want, everything I believe, everything I know is ALL there is, but it’s simply not true. And risk-taking helps remind me of this.

I came to LA to study and work, and to learn things I might not have sought out back home. I remember talking to friends of mine before I left, wondering if this move was worth it, if it was even half a good idea. The consensus response was “nobody knows… it’s untested”. And that’s when I knew I had to go. Because if it was untested, then regardless of material gains, I would get to experience something unique and gain perspective that just wasn’t common knowledge in my neck of the woods.

I try to apply this approach risk-taking to many aspects of my life and career. Go to that weird event someone mentioned offhandedly, check out all the graveyards and divebars of a new city, listen (and really, listen!) to what other people say, what they feel.

All of this is material for personal growth and it will pay off in wonderful and unexpected ways in an artistic career.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’d like to think that what sets my work, namely my films and fiction, apart from others, and also what I’m sort of proud of if I can accomplish it, is the “big picture” scope of my work. I really want to understand and explore the bigger questions of life, the classic stuff that really has no easy answer, you know, like why are we here, what makes life worth living, what do you do with your limited time on this planet.

Personally, I have no time for minutiae, for things that don’t have the ambition or courage to really examine life with a keen eye. There’s so much content and entertainment know, that I think it is really important to create something worthwhile. In fact, it’s a brilliant dilemma the contemporary artist is in — with our modern technology, it’s so easy to create something that now I think what is most important is creating something worthwhile.

For me, this ties into the risk-taking thing I mentioned earlier. I’ve only gotten this perspective from venturing out of my comfort zone. From traveling, meeting new people, talking to everyone and trying to understand the world from their shoes. What makes up their life? What hidden beauty or pain lies there, and how have they responded to it? What have they become. There really is something great (and perhaps something awful) in everyone.

I’m also a huge reader. I go down rabbit holes with books, and become an expert on some crazy aspect of life for a brief minute. Last month I was reading stories by Jim Corbett, a gamesman from India who hunted “maneaters”, i.e. tigers and leopards who start hunting people in the local villages. There was this one that killed more than three hundred people and Jim tells the story of tracking it down over years, through all seasons, in dense jungle, never knowing if he’s about to become its latest victim. The book was incredible… even though he was a hunter, he had a profound respect for the ecosystem and the animals. He really understood them. And it was all set in 1920s India… through reading it, you get to glimpse a world that’s now disappeared.

Anyway, after that I read Lou Reed’s memoir about Tai Chi. Just like that, I jump from the jungles of Northern India to the bohemian scene of New York City… that’s the power of books. Who knows where you’ll go next… it helps remind me the world is a big place. There’s infinity out there. How could anyone get depressed if they can remember that?

I want my work to be able to do THAT to people. Remind them that the world is huge, that it can offer them so much so long as they go looking. Right now, my big project is a short film based on the British nuclear testing program. It’s set in Australia and looks at what happens in the aftermath of the tests… I’m hoping it can be a compelling way for people to learn about some of the heavier stuff in life, to get them hooked on thinking about how power and politics shape lives even if you don’t always realize it… and the consequences of hubris.

To sum this all up, there’s a great quote that I think says more than I ever could: “art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”. That’s the job.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Great question! I’ve had a few people visit me already and it’s been great showing them around. LA is an easy city to get lost in if you don’t know what you’re doing – I think that’s why some people visit and feel underwhelmed. But the trick is finding your place in it… then it’s the best city in the world.

If there game, I’d start the day with a hike. The earlier the better. Head up to Malibu and take any of the hikes in that area, especially if we can make the sunrise. They’ll come to LA expecting a big, bustling city… and you’ll blow their mind with one of the most beautiful views of nature in the world, only like 30 minutes away from the metropolis. Then we’d grab a coffee at Lilly’s Cafe, in Laurel Canyon. Super cool hippie kind of spot. After that, maybe we head into the city… either thrift shopping in WeHo or checking out Downtown. I’ve found Downtown to be a hit with my friends visiting, probably because it has a similar “built-up” feeling like my hometown Melbourne… the Last Bookstore in particular always works. It’s fun getting lost there.

To end the night, a beer and a dance somewhere in the East. Find a cheap band to see, there’s tons of good ones in Silverlake and Echo Park. Or, if we’re a little low energy, head west and check out what’s playing at any of the thousands of movie theaters… in particular the Billy Wilder since it’s free and always has something unexpected that you might not otherwise watch!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My creative partner Nish Cancarla – together we’ve worked through millions of ideas (both very good and very bad) and helped each other grow as artists and craftsmen. We have incredibly different brains… I’m more the cynical philosophy student and he has this entrepreneur-like, optimistic personality, but together our personalities complement each other well and we end up taking our work in new directions because of it.

There’s also my fellow director Ece Naz Kiltan, who has helped me produce and direct projects while here in LA, and is something of a mentor figure, given her extensive work as a director in Istanbul. Through her, I’ve started holding my work to a higher standard and really tested myself.

I’d also like to shout out the Australians In Film networking group, who have helped me make friends and given me a dose of home whenever I’m missing Melbourne.

Website: https://www.alexanderlangsam.com

Instagram: @langsam_ag

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-langsam-a176b1185/

Image Credits
Zenon Samuels Lukas Ernst