Filmmaker Mike Figgis on love: why it never quite works, what makes true love closer to friendship, and the films and songs that get it right. Figgis Unfiltered S2 E3.
Season 2 of Figgis Unfiltered examines the human emotions, one at a time. In Episode 3, director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) takes on the most complex subject of all — love. He begins with the love songs of the American songbook and asks why love has all but vanished from modern music, then turns to Einstein and the philosopher Georges Bataille to ask why desire so often curdles into disappointment, and why the truest love might look more like deep friendship than romance.
Along the way: a year-long love affair sustained entirely through perfumed letters he couldn't actually read, why the suffering of love has always drawn him more than happy endings, the films that define love for him — from Elvira Madigan to Bonnie and Clyde — and what a single look on Billie Holiday's face reveals about the whole thing. Then he takes your questions: on inviting your exes to your wedding, whether love is worth the pain, and how love shifts across a lifelong marriage.
⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Love — the most complex subject of all
00:37 A roll-call of love songs — and what vanished from them
03:23 Einstein on marriage, desire and disappointment
04:20 Why his films are all about broken love
05:05 Georges Bataille: desire, and why marriage palls
07:51 "True love is deep friendship"
09:04 A fool for love — chasing the unattainable
09:51 The perfumed letters he couldn't read for a year
12:36 Why the suffering of love appeals to him
14:00 "I like you": how language fails love
14:47 Saying "I love you" — the point of no return
16:06 When a friendship turns into love
16:52 True love stories — Leaving Las Vegas & One Night Stand
17:36 Elvira Madigan — his favourite love film
20:04 Love as a clash of two forces
21:01 Listener questions — Nithya (Hong Kong): exes at your wedding?
25:28 Mark (Toronto): is love worth the pain?
31:11 Carol (Ottawa): love across a lifelong marriage
38:04 The most profound love on film — Billie Holiday & Lester Young
🎬 Mentioned in this episode
Films — Elvira Madigan · Bonnie and Clyde · My Girlfriend's Boyfriend (Éric Rohmer) · One Night Stand · and Mike's own Leaving Las Vegas
Thinkers — Albert Einstein · Georges Bataille (Story of the Eye) · Albert Camus · Michael Ondaatje
Music — the American love-song standards · Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 · Billie Holiday & Lester Young, "Fine and Mellow" (from the 1957 TV special The Sound of Jazz, on YouTube)
🎙️ Got a question for Mike? Send it as a voice note on Instagram: https://instagram.com/figgisunfiltered
🔔 Subscribe and hit the bell for new Season 2 episodes across all podcast platforms and here on YouTube.
Follow: Instagram → https://instagram.com/figgisunfiltered
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