Speaking of catharsis, in some ways this story does seem like a real tragedy in the Aristotelian sense. It has a lot of the key ingredients: You know in advance what's going to happen. It's inevitable. There are consequences to people's actions. Were you conscious of that when you were making this film?

No. I mean, I like inevitability. I think there are some things that are inevitable. I will die, and you too. That's inevitable. But we live and we love our lives even though we know it's inevitable that we will die. Everyone knows that the Titanic will sink in the water, but everybody loves that story even though they know the end, because it's one thing to be inevitable and another thing to be predictable.

I think this film -- yeah, it's inevitable, but I think it takes you someplace that other films don't take you. And if you are able to go there, it's a great ride, a great emotional ride, and I tried to find hope at the end of the film -- big, strong hope about life. For me, what I wanted this film to say is that life goes on, that no matter what, life is bigger than death.

What made you decide to shoot both of your films with hand-held cameras?

Hand-held for me is the natural way to see the world. That's how I see it with my eyes all the time. I think tripods and cranes and dollies and all that stuff, they're sometimes beautiful to use because they're very stylish, but in this case, I like Rodrigo [Prieto] to operate the camera because he helps me narrate. His photography is not only observation -- it's an active character that tells you something.

What drew you to the actors that you worked with in this film: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro? What do you look for in an actor?

Well, first of all, they have great integrity as actors and work that I respect, obviously, and most of all, all of them have a very powerful interior life, which you can see in the eyes. They can portray very complex and real human beings. They're not models.

Do you feel that the Mexican view of death differs greatly from the American view? Was that something you thought about when you were making "21 Grams"?

No. I think that is a very universal thing. In my culture we make this party once a year and the celebration is very particular, but here you make Halloween, which is a very American way to see death. The way they approach death is different, totally. But death is death. The folkloric expressions of death vary from one country to another, but that doesn't mean that people really take it seriously to put a pumpkin by the door at Halloween. That's about merchandising and to give the kids a good time. I don't think anybody's thinking about death, about the real thing, on that day.

In Mexico, people go to the cemetery and take food that people used to like, and cigarettes, and they drink and make a party and they start to cry and they really go a little bit more to the bone. But it's more symbolic. That approaches death as a symbol, not as a fact. And I'm talking about death as a fact.

You've said that one of your motives for making "Amores Perros" was to show that Mexico was more than a Taco Bell ad. But you shot "21 Grams" in Memphis, and I'm wondering why. Is there something you wanted to say about Memphis, or about America?

Well, I think that this film means that America is more than McDonald's. [Laughs.] No, I think Memphis is a nice city. I wanted to be out of L.A. and out of everybody's life so they could do their best work. And Memphis seems to me to be a very unique, very beautiful city, but at the same time a city that anybody can relate to, a human city that's not very specific. It seemed like a space where the events in the film could happen, but I didn't want it to interfere with what was happening. The city itself wasn't a character.

You also deal with people from all sorts of different classes in your films. What is it about class difference that fascinates you?

I like to observe every class. I think for me -- I don't know why -- lower classes are more intense and more alive and more dramatic. The higher classes are more boring; they're more planned and politically correct. They don't have as many colors. But life and suffering is for everybody. If you are rich, you suffer. If you are poor, you have to be suffering all the time. All of us are connected by more than how much we earn or who we are.

What class did you grow up in?

I'm a classic middle-class Mexican guy. I never had money. My family never had a lot of commodities. I took my first airplane at 16 years old. And I never went to the United States until I was 17 years old, when I cleaned the floors on a boat that went to Europe and crossed the Atlantic twice, working as a lower-class marine. All that experience, I think, helped me to be a filmmaker. For me, it's not about having technique; that's a very easy thing to do. I think you have to have something to say and then work hard to get the opportunity. You learn doing it. There's no better way. There's no book, there's no school, there are no teachers that will teach you more than doing it yourself.

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