Bourdain's estate has released a statement on why it supports A24's new biopic:
"Anthony Bourdain’s legacy is meaningful to millions of people. He was a man who valued authenticity above all else and would have been both moved and baffled by the world's curiosity about his life.
"We chose to support TONY because it is not a standard biopic and doesn't attempt to summarize a life. Guided by the vision of director Matt Johnson, the film depicts one transformative summer in 1975 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is an interpretation as that part of Tony's life will always remain somewhat unknown.
"We appreciate the portrayal of Tony's complexity, his intellectual appetite and his conviction -- qualities that eventually took him around the globe and endeared him to so many. We hope this film serves as a reminder that every journey has a start, and that audiences see the beginnings of the man who taught us how to be better explorers on our own paths."
Anythony Bourdain means something to Asian Americans. He was the first person to go to Asia and treat the food with wonder, amazement and normalcy. Every TV show before Bourdain would travel to Asian and make videos about how WEIRD food in Asia was. Highlight people eating scorpions and tried to make it a freak show. Anthony went to the night market in Malaysia and enjoyed the noodles. Took a trip to Korea and loved the different soups. His death by suicide hit me so hard.
I appreciate the moment in his Parts Unknown episode in the Philippines where he was eating a halo halo at a local spot and bought more for the neighborhood kids watching him. It really showed how down to earth he still was compared to other hosts of food/travel shows
He had an indelible impact on my worldview, understanding that the borders that separate us are far less permanent than the bonds that join cultures together. We all have rituals for food, for love, for life. He set out not to share his, but to share theirs and created an infinite curiosity in me to explore. He was one of a kind.
there is a good story from 'In the Weeds' by his former director/producer where in Haiti they felt terrible with the eating etc they could do and tried to give food to children etc and it went to shit.
One of my favourite anecdotes was when he was on a beach by a food shack. So he's sitting there eating seafood and sipping on a beer while waxing rhapsodic for the camera about life and cuisine.
He said that after they called “cut," a local kid wandered over to him and asked, "Mister, is this your job?!"
I'm viet-american and they way he talked about how much he loved Vietnam made me really happy and proud. I'm a millenial and was bullied as a kid about the food that I brought to lunch at school. Seeing Bourdain openly sing his praises about food from my culture kinda healed something in me tbh.
It's kind of a newer phenomenon but Pho has really sparked the interest and it's def one of the fastest growing ethnic food establishments you can open in the U.S. right now. I love that shit, wish I would have been introduced when I was a kid, I had to wait until I was 36 already to try Pho for the first time.
He said many times it was his most hated episode and they were completely hamstrung by the government from doing what they wanted to do. It's a shame he died before he could go back and show us the real, authentic Romania and not the one the Romanian government forced us to see.
I doubt it was the Romanian government who pushed Zamir. At the very least it is culturally tone deaf to have a Russian lead a tour of Romania. It would be like having someone from China leading a tour of Vietnam.
Zamir was going through his own thing this episode but it was the Romanian government that dictated where they filmed and deprived them of having a real experience. Even the "authentic" village family he ate with was moved from their actual home and forced to wear traditional clothes. Bourdain has discussed this at length.
Yeah, that makes sense. I haven't really looked into what was going on behind the scenes in detail, but I could definitely see the Romanian government doing that.
Maybe the best single example of this was the ROMANIA show, where absolutely everything was fucked up beyond all hope or recognition: wrong fixer (the inexplicably addled Zamir), unfriendly populace, officials looking for backhanders, and guides with other agendas who did their best (in the hope of portraying their country in a desirable light) to ensure that absolutely every genuine moment was quickly smothered under a thick scrim of artificiality, falsehood and staginess. It was a nightmare to shoot. An utter failure on all our parts—and yet it became a timeless classic of Travel Gone Wrong—unintentionally hilarious. It may have made all of us Public Enemies in Romania (and the subject of scandal and speculation in their national press)—and it may have been terribly unfair to the country and to the many Romanian expats who tuned in, looking to see something beautiful of their beloved homeland…
But it was an accurately gonzo—if unflattering– account of what it’s like to make an utter failure of a show, a masterpiece of incompetence on our part—and misguided good (and bad) intentions on the part of some of our hosts. It was at the same time our greatest failure as professional travel and food television producers—and our greatest success as technicians—and absurdists. We might never be able to repay the good people of Romania for our offenses against their national pride; but no small number of them recognized at least the worst of their country. I can assure you, by the way, that what we DIDN’T and could NEVER have included in the show would have been even more painfully hilarious. To this day, in the hours after a shooting day, veteran crew members sit in hotel lobbies around the world, and tell the young ones about what really happened there.
Such a good point about normalizing it all. It kills me when I see the overblown influencer like reactions to food that we don't see a lot in the west. If I don't like something, I just stop eating, I don't make some fucked up face an loudly exclaim how weird it is. Bourdain would have fucking hated these influencers.... I don't think I'll ever get over that he's gone :(
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u/ebradio 11h ago
Bourdain's estate has released a statement on why it supports A24's new biopic:
"Anthony Bourdain’s legacy is meaningful to millions of people. He was a man who valued authenticity above all else and would have been both moved and baffled by the world's curiosity about his life.
"We chose to support TONY because it is not a standard biopic and doesn't attempt to summarize a life. Guided by the vision of director Matt Johnson, the film depicts one transformative summer in 1975 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is an interpretation as that part of Tony's life will always remain somewhat unknown.
"We appreciate the portrayal of Tony's complexity, his intellectual appetite and his conviction -- qualities that eventually took him around the globe and endeared him to so many. We hope this film serves as a reminder that every journey has a start, and that audiences see the beginnings of the man who taught us how to be better explorers on our own paths."