Original subtitles

It is considered useful

and enlightening and therapeutic

to think about death for a few minutes a day.

What actually happens to my physical remains

is of zero interest to me.

I don't want anybody seeing my body, I don't want anybody...

I don't want a party.

"Reported dead."

Unless it could provide entertainment value to...

I mean, in a perverse or subversive way, you know.

I mean, if you could throw me into a wood chipper and punt...

You know, spray me into harrods,

you know, at, uh,

you know, middle of the rush hour,

that would be pretty epic.

I wouldn't mind being remembered in that way.

♪ One, two, three, four, five, six ♪

♪ roadrunner, roadrunner ♪

♪ going faster miles an hour ♪

♪ gonna drive past the stop & shop ♪

♪ with the radio on ♪

♪ I'm in love with Massachusetts ♪

♪ and the neon when it's cold outside ♪

♪ and the highway when it's late at night ♪

♪ got the radio on ♪

♪ I'm like the roadrunner... ♪

What the fuck am I doing here?

I shall explain.

One minute I was standing next to a deep fryer,

and the next, I was watching the sun set over the Sahara.

♪ I'm in love with modern moonlight... ♪

I realized that one thing led directly to the other.

Had I not taken a dead-end dishwashing job,

I would not have become a cook.

Had I not become a cook, I would never have become a chef.

Had I not become a chef, I never would've been able

to fuck up so spectacularly.

Had I not known what it was like to really fuck up,

that obnoxious but wildly successful memoir I wrote

wouldn't have been half as interesting.

♪ And I say roadrunner once, roadrunner twice ♪

♪ I'm in love with rock and roll ♪

♪ and I'll be out all night ♪

♪ roadrunner, that's right... ♪

And I'm not gonna tell you here how to live your life.

I'm just saying, I guess, that I got very lucky.

♪ Radio on ♪

- ♪ I got the am ♪ - ♪ radio on ♪

♪ got the car, got the am ♪

♪ radio on ♪

♪ got the am sound ♪

- ♪ got the ♪ - ♪ radio on ♪

♪ got the rockin' modern neon sound ♪

♪ radio on ♪

♪ I got the car from Massachusetts ♪

- ♪ got the ♪ - ♪ radio on ♪

♪ I got the power of Massachusetts ♪

♪ when it's late at night ♪

♪ right ♪

♪ bye-bye. ♪

You're probably gonna find out about it anyway,

so here's a little preemptive truth telling.

There's no happy ending.

He committed suicide, the fucking asshole.

How are you gonna make this?

Is it... is this gonna... I mean...

Of course what you want to talk about,

that's kind of where the gossip goes, that's kind of...

But it's not really what you want to make.

No, I want to make a film about

why he was... who he was.

You know.

I don't know. That's why I'm here.

Do you know what I mean?

That's why I'm here.

Hi. This is Tony at les halles, 411 park Avenue south,

for delivery Monday please.

I need one Spanish onion, one loose carrot,

two shallot unpeeled,

one case frozen fava bean and one case miel de provence.

That'll do it. Thank you.

Where is my fucking fish?

I would never be late.

My cooks would never be late.

How can the fish guy be late?

It's why all chefs are drunks.

It's because we don't understand

why the world doesn't work like our kitchens.

- Oh, hold on. - If you guys are hun...

It's just baba ghanoush. It's...

I mean, it's not a very nice display,

- I know Tony. - Cool.

Thanks, baby.

- What would you like? - Um...

- Apple juice. - Apple juice? Apple juice?

Or cranberry. I don't care. Whatever we have more of.

Happiness is a fresh pack.

First thing in the morning.

I mean, before I brush my teeth.

I mean, I roll out of bed, light a cigarette,

stumble into this room, and, uh, I start,

uh, I start writing immediately.

I always use language to get out of trouble.

You know, I found at an early age,

if I made everybody in the class laugh,

that was power.

I came from a household with a lot of books.

In fact, the first book I remember reading was

a book called why Johnny can't read,

which I stole from my mother.

She was anticipating that I would have

a difficulty reading because I was already exhibiting

antisocial tendencies.

Uh, I pinched the book and, uh, basically taught myself

to read, uh, by kindergarten.

And then, you know, my early heroes

were, uh, musicians and-and writers.

The idea that you could have adventures,

no matter how antisocial, and then make them

somehow legitimate by writing something beautiful about them,

that concept took an early hold on me.

I wasn't serious enough about anything

to actually do any writing until '93.

But, you know, when I was given the opportunity, I did it,

and, you know, kept doing it.

The whole business fills me with terror, frankly.

Hey.

How are you doing, man?

- You guys know each other by now. - Yes.

Let me see if Rocco's over.

What was it about Tony with big knives?

They were never sharp enough.

You know, he's... He'd just always...

When he came over for Thanksgiving, uh,

I was gonna carve the Turkey, and then he took over.

He was very short with me about

how I wasn't taking care of my knives.

- Hey. - Tony saw you when you were just born.

Remember that?

My relationship with Tony

has always been as a writer.

He was such a powerful writer right from the start.

He was on business in Tokyo for the first time.

And he was writing me a series of emails.

He was back in his room, and he-he did

one of those bursts.

"The jet lag wouldn't let me sleep,

"so I crashed late and Rose early,

"plunging blindly down dark streets at all hours.

"The streets were unbelievably dense with pedestrians,

"people hanging around, flashing neon,

"flapping banners, more screaming signs,

"pimpy-looking young men in suits and patent leather shoes

"surrounded by dye-blonde Asian women

"in thigh-high boots and micro-mini skirts.

"No one, and I mean no one, would meet my eye

"with a direct gaze.

"I was the quiet American, the ugly American,

"the hungry ghost, searching and searching

for whatever came next."

I loved it. I loved it,

and my wife Karen, who was a book publisher,

was in the living room breastfeeding the baby.

I printed out the email

and I went, "Karen, you have to read this."

Am I allowed to curse?

Does anybody curse when they talk about this?

I read it and I just went, "that is fucking awesome."

I was like, "okay",

I'm gonna make him an offer

"basically he can't fucking refuse."

He came back and then we sat down.

I said, "so Joel tells me,

you know, you have a lot of stories."

And he goes, "I have so many stories.

I'm so excited to tell them."

He said, "I already have a title for it."

I said, "what's the title?"

And he said, "kitchen confidential."

And I said, "I love it. Let's do it."

What do you think about Tony bourdain anyway?

Yeah, what do you think about that guy?

He's cool. Huh?

It was like, "will you write this book?"

"Yes."

"Can you write it in eight months?"

"You're damn right I will."

You know, you should talk

to Tony's agent,

Kim Witherspoon.

I don't think Tony was afraid of failure,

and that was hard-wired.

He was the kind of person who thought,

"well, you know, what the fuck?

Let's just try it and see how it turns out."

Anthony bourdain, who has worked as a chef

for 28 years, reveals some surprising and disturbing

trade secrets in a new book called kitchen confidential.

Chef Anthony says the truth

about bread in a restaurant,

how you should prepare your meat when you order it,

and also the truth about fish

could make you sick.

I was in a cranky mood after my last restaurant closed

and, uh, felt no reason not to tell the truth about

a business I both love and, uh, have mixed emotions about.

Kitchen confidential is a memoir

of Tony's life in the kitchen and the salty adventures

that he had with his cooks.

It was kind of lawless.

You know, a lot was broken, as Tony used to say.

Mr. Bourdain is the executive chef at les halles.

He found success

and a full-blown heroin habit at an early age.

I had a dope problem, a cocaine problem,

but by '88, I pretty much cleaned up my act.

The dietary supplement that every chef needs.

I take around ten of these a day.

It's an aspirin/tylenol mix.

Call 'em crunchies.

Let me take you on a notional joyride

through our menu tonight.

We have grilled salmon with sorrel sauce.

Veal kidneys.

These kidneys are really good, by the way.

Those of you into water sports will find much to love.

From the first time I met him, I remember thinking,

"oh, wow, you're, like, tall and handsome and funny.

"But you're kind of a big nerd.

"You're nerding out on everything,

and you're a little awkward,"

and I love that about him.

"At les halles, life goes on as always,

"the same crew showing up on time every day.

"Eddy,

"Carlos and Omar, isidoro and angel.

"They're still with me, and I hope they stay with me.

"My bosses, however, when they read this,

"will really prove themselves patrons of the arts

if they don't can me right away."

So you didn't fire him?

I didn't fire him.

I didn't know it was being written.

I didn't know it was going to be published.

Uh, one day, I arrived at the restaurant,

and I just said, "what happened?"

You're fucking kidding me.

I was told today that on, I guess, the 12th of this month,

it'll be number seven on the times best seller list.

'Cause it was on 20, wasn't it? And then, uh...

I mean, I'm getting congratulatory calls,

and they're telling me I have a best seller.

Uh, really, it's scary.

No, it's exciting. It's wonderful.

Yeah, I just...

Anything that happens beyond that door

I'm suspicious of.

He was always behind in the rent,

always behind his, you know, payments

and-and-and living from paycheck to paycheck,

like in a pressure cooker.

So when there was this opportunity, he-he was ready.

"By the time I was 43,

"I really thought that I had had all my great adventures,

"that the entertainment and excitement segment

of the program was long over."

- What's up? - Thank you.

That was cool.

"I was comfortably ensconced

"in secure digs with a wife who still remarkably

found me to be amusing on occasion."

What? What are you doing? You're giving interviews?

What are you... you media hoe.

"I had a job I loved in

"a successful restaurant, and I was alive, for Christ's sakes.

I was still around."

I don't cook at home.

I-I just... I'm too, uh... I would love to tell you,

you know, I go home and-and cook

fabulous, uh, little snackies for-for my wife.

I would be lying if I told you that.

It's more like, "honey, call out for Chinese."

"There are, it turns out, a million ways

"to say 'suck my dick.'

"and like all great performances,

"it's about timing, tone and delivery,

kind of like cooking."

Thanks.

You know, all the TV chefs are

so cuddly and adorable, you know.

Maybe I'm the... sort of like the antidote or something.

You know? I don't know.

For me, it happened overnight.

I mean, one minute, I was a cook at a restaurant,

and not a particularly great one, and the next,

I was an author, and it was literally overnight.

It fell in my lap.

Joining me now is Anthony bourdain,

author of kitchen confidential.

Anthony bourdain...

Chef Anthony bourdain...

Here's Anthony bourdain.

What-what do you think about these guys

- like emeril lagasse and those guys on the food network? - Wow.

Y-You're asking me to, you know,

kick Santa claus in the crotch on television.

I mean...

My life gets more and more ridiculous.

Apparently, Brad Pitt will be playing me in a movie.

Yeah, guess what's, uh, tomorrow.

- What's tomorrow? - Oprah.

No! You're kidding me!

This is Anthony bourdain.

His book kitchen confidential

is a New York times best seller.

I was born to cook.

I loved satisfying people's appetites.

Next, I'll be, uh, doing the lambada with emeril.

Bam! Just a little...

I'd hate myself.

Thanks.

Oh! Whoa!

- Ah. - Tony bourdain rocks!

What's up, man? Everything good?

- Life is good. - Yes, yes.

We're celebrating Tony's book.

- Come here, girl. Get in here. - Hi.

- How you doing? - Good.

- This is Tony. - Hi.

- Howdy. - Oh, congratulations.

We're having a good time.

Oh, oh, the next one?

No, the next one, I'm doing something called

a cook's tour.

Basically, I'm gonna travel around the world,

eating exotic food and having adventures in the far east

and Africa and South America...

With a crew chasing me.

Hey, John, come here.

You know, my 15 minutes of

quote, unquote "fame," uh, you know, when that's over,

uh, I will be perfectly comfortable with that,

if not relieved.

I think even relieved at this point.

When I met him for the first time,

he had made a splash with kitchen confidential.

I had read that he had a contract

to write a second book called a cook's tour,

and I called him.

- Yes? - And I said,

- "hey, I'm a producer." - Doing good.

"Would you ever even consider

making cook's tour into a series?"

And he, you know, he was like, you know,

"yeah, uh, whatever."

- You know? "Sure." - Sure.

He was very nonplussed about the whole idea

of doing anything in television.

It was not what was on his mind.

Bye-bye.

A week and a half later,

Chris Collins and I

went up to les halles.

We found Tony,

shot a demo with him

and had a conversation with him.

And it became immediately clear he had never traveled.

Lydia and I were far greater world travelers

than Tony bourdain.

His travels were in his head.

You know, I want to go to faraway exotic places

with palm trees and where teenagers in army uniforms

carry machine guns.

Growing up as a kid, you know, I watched the crimson pirate.

You know, all pirates and bad guys

having great adventures.

Tony's view of the world

emanated from books and from films.

Almost in an encyclopedic way,

he could grab all these references.

And I think he was excited

to go on this journey

to see if the reality

actually matched the imagination.

That moment when we set out

in December of 2000, it's indelible.

Our first journey was, um, for six weeks.

And remember, we'd only spent one...

One day with Tony leading up to that moment.

The image of Tony, I mean, it was, I think,

a guy who, at that moment, was very unsure

of what was about to happen.

This way.

You know, I'm looking at

a strange and, uh, unpredictable future

in a tough business with rules

that I'm not com-completely familiar with,

and when I become familiar with them, I...

You know, I don't know whether I like them that much.

We hit the road together,

just the three of us.

Lydia and I had just gotten married.

And then we had Tony, a guy who we barely knew.

So it was like three idiots

trying to figure each other out.

The first shoot was Japan.

Like, we didn't know what we were doing.

He definitely didn't know what he was doing.

And Tony immediately became uncomfortable and awkward.

What we would find out very quickly is.

Tony was actually a very shy human being.

And to get him to make eye contact or to interact,

it wasn't his natural state.

You know, life on the road with Tony bourdain

just isn't all it's cracked up to be.

You know what I mean?

The man can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes.

In fact, I got this cold sore on my lip now,

and it's due to stress,

stress over Tony's lack of communication.

That, compounded by the fact

that we were in Japan being sort of led into scenes

where there was a lot of, kind of, formality involved,

you know, all of those factored into him being

quiet,

which was like the worst possible thing.

Mmm. Oh, wow.

Spectacular.

I mean, Chris and I went

back to the hotel and basically

looked at each other and said like...

We're fucked.

Chris, can... Chris, take a picture of

me and Lydia as we come back with the sun behind her,

pointing up the mountain towards the farmhouse

as we walk up past the yellow triangular sign.

Thank you.

Okay. Here we go.

Okay.

I mean, to be honest, I'm not totally alone,

'cause clearly somebody is shooting this.

I always love those, like, desert scenes,

"I'm alone in the desert."

Yeah, but who else's footprints are those?

You know, one of those things. But-but look.

This is pretty cool.

And it does feel pretty cool to be walking...

Well, I'll tell you this: I'm having a lot more fun

walking forward than the cameraperson is

walking backwards, I'm sure.

Was that a groan?

Yes, it was.

We went from Japan to Vietnam.

That's when things started to kick in to a different gear.

My good friend Phillipe lajaunie,

uh, pulled in, uh, semi-unexpectedly last night.

We're ready for, uh, ready for our adventure?

I joined them

on that first trip in Vietnam, and he was enjoying himself

and being less cynical.

Hey.

Floating Starbucks over here.

I'll have a double latte, uh, mochaccino please.

Oh, that's great.

Kicks the shit out of Starbucks.

"I love Vietnam.

"Maybe it's a pheromonic thing, like when you meet

"the love of your life for the first time.

"She just, somehow,

"inexplicably smells and feels right.

"You sense that, given the opportunity, this is the woman

you want to spend the rest of your life with."

We had common desire

to spend time in Vietnam, maybe forever.

That was our secret bond.

And of course, the movie apocalypse now

was one of his top

three movies in his life,

uh, because it combined so many things:

Vietnam and the war and-and the book, the heart of darkness.

We just started doing

all of this self-indulgent film references,

and I suddenly realized, "wait a minute.

This-this filmmaking thing can be fun."

♪ Ah! ♪

You know, it's a big crayon box.

We can actually enjoy this.

Why am I here? Am I insane?

You know, he used to say,

"don't ever let me do TV.

Thing is like, if I ever do TV, shoot me."

And, you know, at first, it was awful.

Where do cooks come from?

The answer to this and other questions to follow.

And then very quickly...

He's such a good student, he's so freaking smart...

He, like, figured it out.

Chris, Lydia, I love you.

You know that, right?

But I got one night in Bangkok here, okay?

So not even 24 hours we're laying over here.

You want to do a whole goddamn show in 24 hours?

Fine. Okay?

But... forget about blocking out.

No plan and you better be fast.

I'm gonna have a good time. We're gonna roll.

And if you don't get it, you don't get it.

Catch it in editing, as we like to say.

What started to grow

at that moment was this understanding,

"Tony, you don't need to tell us everything.

"You need to experience this and ask questions.

"That's how we're all gonna learn from this place.

"It's not you being a travel guide.

It's you being open to this experience."

Oh, Jesus.

Look at this.

Look at this thing.

Look at the roe just popping out everywhere.

Just in... whoa! Whoa.

Come back. Come to papa.

If there is any dish

that comes closest to perfection,

this is it, you know.

This is bumping up right up against the walls of heaven.

Ah, man.

We've reached the mountaintop.

And trying to think, you know,

"what do I want?"

It would be nice to buy something

that will fulfill some hollow part of my soul,

but I can't think of, you know, anything.

Maybe a car will do it. I-I don't know.

I mean, shit, my rent is paid.

That alone is spectacular.

I mean, i-i...

I'd like to live like a normal person.

That was always my thought, that-that if I get

enough money, I'll be able to live like a normal person.

But I don't even know what that is anymore.

I read kitchen confidential at that time,

and I call him.

And I invite him to have lunch with me

because I want to meet the man.

And he shows up with a-a TV crew.

I thought this was a jackpot.

This was one of my idols.

I was just absolutely freaked out.

Incredibly sophisticated, refined,

clean, beautiful,

impeccably presented.

Eric's food is like

the craft performed at its highest level.

When I meet him,

I don't expect him...

To be so articulate.

And he has amazing

good manners at the table.

And I think at the end of the meal,

we said we should meet again.

And, um, and we did.

Served with foie gras mousse and notes of...

I think what was not a struggle...

I don't know if "struggle" is the right word,

but the challenge was to be real,

stay real, and at the same time,

be the host of a TV show.

You have to

exaggerate a little bit.

This is like driving a Rolls-Royce naked

in mink underpants.

Just so over-the-top luxurious.

I think the person

that people experienced on camera was

someone who seemingly had this incredible ability

to engage with anybody he came across.

It's like the UN-muscled James Bond

who could kind of swan into scenes.

There was that persona that was created over time.

I am looking for

extremes of emotion and experience.

I'll try anything. I'll risk everything.

I have nothing to lose.

The story was a cook's tour

was about a guy who smoke and drank

and ate his way around the world.

That was true.

Part of the pitch was,

"and he's gonna eat really weird shit, too."

Let's-let's do the nasty.

They don't seem to have their mise en place together.

I have my mise en place together

when I'm making steak frites.

It seems to me, you know, when you're making live cobra,

you know, you should have your operating stuff laid out.

You know, where's the cutting board, the knife?

Scissors?

You know, eating

those kind of things was for camera, was for network,

was for all the reasons people do that.

It's like, you know,

it's a little salacious,

like he's eating a live, beating cobra heart.

Cheers, folks.

Feels strong.

It kind of pumps on its way down, too.

And I think that persona

followed him for a number of years, but over time,

that burned off and it became Tony.

Going back to the ancestral homeland,

and maybe we'll discover some things along the way.

So this is my father and a little friend in France

in a little oyster village in the gironde.

This is one of my favorite pictures, also.

Uh, my brother and I in the same spot.

We didn't do a lot of travel

when we were kids 'cause my parents were not rich.

We did go to France a couple of times

because my dad had relatives there.

I'm nervous.

Whoever thought we'd do something this goofy?

This isn't goofy.

Our childhood as American kids,

we really got into tintin books,

which Americans say "tin-tin."

This was a graphic novel about this young reporter

who travels all around the world

and ends up with all of these amazing adventures.

I think it was actually, in some ways,

an inspiration for Tony's life.

This is an oyster boat

similar to the one on which I had my first oyster.

"I blame my first oyster

"for everything I did after: My thrill-seeking,

all my hideous screwups in pursuit of pleasure."

"I was miserable and angry."

Damn! We didn't get those when we were kids.

- No, no. - He-he!

"I bridled bitterly at

"the smothering chokehold of love and normalcy in my house.

"Call it a character flaw, of which drugs

were simply a manifestation."

- Outstanding, corporal! - Most excellent.

"A petulant 'fuck you'

"to my bourgeois parents, who'd committed

the unpardonable sin of loving me."

- I'm really glad we got a chance to do this. - Me, too.

We're older and more mature now.

- Yeah. - Okay.

Yeah, let's do another one.

- Yeah. - Okay.

All right, um, take two.

"Two years ago, frequent flyer miles meant nothing to me.

Today, miles earned are the pathetic milestones of my..."

- Top? - Yeah, start at the top.

All right, take three.

We would write the voice-over

in the beginning.

Like, we need context for what we're seeing.

We need

some summary of the scene.

"Later, I'm on another swing through Southeast Asia

"with layovers here and there.

"First stop, Singapore.

A quick business dinner with my editor, ilangoh t..."

"Tanalaban"? "Tanadab..." "Tana..." Is it... no.

- Thanabalan. - Thanabalan. Okay.

"Later, I'm on a..."

Tony would come to the narration,

and he'd be like, "what is the shit?"

You know what I mean? And so...

He would start scratching things out.

And, you know, first it started with a word or two here

or a sentence or two here.

You know, and then he became, like,

maniacal about it.

"Book tours, the TV show, I travel for a living.

"I've committed to memory the skymall magazine.

"The electronic watering timer, $49.99.

"Duty-free restrictions:

One liter alcohol, two cartons of smokes."

"Cobbler for dessert? I don't think so.

"Airport to airport, city to city,

"I'm starting to feel like a modern-day Willy loman.

"Time zone to time zone, country to country,

this, it appears, is my life."

He really understood, like,

"this is an extension of me.

"This is an extension of my writing.

"I better write in my voice.

"You know, otherwise this is gonna sound... I'm gonna sound

like a tr-travel television host rather than a writer."

"Making TV was becoming

"creatively satisfying.

"I wrote the book and yet continued filming.

"The tail now wagged the dog."

"I was hooked on travel, on seeing the world,"

"and on the terms I was seeing it."

"I was on the road for the better part of two years,

"during which time everything in my life changed.

"I stopped working as a chef, a job whose daily routines

"have always been the only thing

"that stood between me and chaos.

My first marriage began to fall apart."

They were together almost 30 years.

You know, he was

a traditional romantic.

He believed that you could

meet your high school sweetheart

and spend the rest of your life with them.

They were like, you know,

sid and Nancy.

They were like two people conspiring against the world.

It was a love born out of youth and rebellion.

Great.

Nancy, I hope your divorce lawyer

is paying close attention to this footage.

Feel free to depose anyone on this crew at any time.

This, too, of course, is part of life's glorious mosaic.

Nancy had no interest in fame

or being tied to fame, but it just

was like a rebirth for Tony.

It was like he died and-and was reborn.

I mean, this was a new person with a new life.

"I wrote a crime novel

"around that time in which the characters' yearnings

"for a white-picket-fence kind of a life reflect my own

"far more truthfully than any nonfiction I've ever written.

"Shortly after that, I cruelly burned down

my previous life in its entirety."

That dying glow in the background is, uh,

I think the fuel depot from the airport...

There we are on the balcony in my room,

nervously emptying out the minibar, uh,

watching jet fuel cook off at the airport.

We had gone there to shoot a show

for the travel channel about how Beirut was

this renaissance of thought, feeling and energy,

and we shot two scenes,

and then shit went south really fast.

There was a border incident with Israel.

Hezbollah had kidnapped some Israeli soldiers,

and basically, uh, we got caught up in a war.

Hold on. Let me, uh...

Todd, exactly how disgusted and anxious are you?

We're damn lucky to be here.

We're spending all this time at the pool,

watching helicopters come in and out.

It was just a waiting game for us.

We had to go in the basement

because there was a lot of bombs by us.

They knocked down our house.

You know, look at us in those scenes.

You know, we're sitting around the pool,

getting tan,

you know, watching a war.

If there's a single metaphor in this entire experience,

that...

You know, that's probably it.

Not a flattering one.

When they arrived back,

the first thing he said was,

"we cannot make a show out of this.

I refuse to exploit this experience in that way."

Needless to say, the network saw it differently.

There's just no neat sum-up to the story.

He stopped doing the...

Rosy sum-up of what we just saw.

He just stopped.

In the few years since I've started

to travel this world, I'd found myself changing.

I'd begun to believe that the dinner table was

the great leveler.

Now I'm not so sure.

Maybe the world's not like that at all.

Maybe in the real world, the one without cameras

and happy food and travel shows,

everybody, the good and the bad together,

are all crushed under the same terrible wheel.

I hope...

I really hope I'm wrong about that.

That ambiguity,

that's what he embraced.

Fucking open-endedness is where the answers are.

It was an embittering experience.

It got all of us thinking about, you know,

what's important in life.

Oh, it's recording.

Oh, my god.

You look like an idiot.

Come on, say something, Mr. Anthony bourdain.

This is, uh, our vacation video,

and we're gonna show this to our children.

Welcome to my video.

Welcome to my first independent film.

My spring vacation.

Ow, ow, ow!

Come on, I'm driving.

How do you say that in English?

Is this a bad thing?

Tony was single,

and ottavia worked for me.

Tony called me and he-he said, "who is this girl, ottavia?"

And I said, "well, have fun."

You know, don't take it seriously."

Eric thought, you know,

we were the perfect match for those

occasional, you know, rendezvous.

You drive like grandma.

What do you mean? Does grandma drive like this?

Oh, here, look, no hands.

Oh, yeah.

I thought he was gonna be this

bad boy, a little bit arrogant,

and not what I was expecting but endearing nonetheless.

Perfetto.

But you know what the show's about?

- No. - It's about a,

about a existential crossroads in my life.

You look bored already.

I am.

You saw they were pretty smitten.

I mean, he always has

really appreciated very strong women.

She would cut him no slack.

This is a load of.

What are the chances this scene is gonna end up

- on the cutting room floor? - Zero.

Even if we fight.

Now, that would be good television, see?

We should fight.

A couple of months later,

we are in a restaurant, and she's toasting him

at the table, and I see tears in his eyes.

Real tears.

And we're like, "oh, my god, he's in love."

Okay, let's do some romantic thing.

What, like... no.

Get that...

Tony was like the teenagers,

like, falling in love for the first time.

They changed their clothes and the music

that they're listening to, and pieces of him that you thought

you knew were... shifting.

Were you shocked when Tony had a kid?

I was shocked.

I had asked him

how come he didn't have kids, and he's like...

"It's just not something I ever see myself doing, ever."

For most of my life,

I wouldn't have been a good father.

Too self-involved, too messed-up on drugs.

And also afraid.

The thought of being frightened for a child,

you know, I was not up to that kind of fear.

Any doubts I might have had kind of dissipated

when I realized how happy, how happy, excited he was

that he was gonna become a father.

- No phone. - No phone?

Okay. Okay. That's okay.

- That's okay? - That's okay.

- Yeah? It's okay, dada? - Come on. Come on.

- Okay, a little hug? - Come on.

Come on, now. Okay, okay.

- Okay, okay. - Okay.

Come on. Come on, appa.

- Appa. - Appa? What about your appa?

One, two, three.

♪ You know we're talking ♪

- Come on, come on. - ♪ 'bout the doctor. ♪

But what does the doctor look like?

Well, hello. I'm Dr. Tony.

What seems to be the problem here?

I'm here to help you get all better.

- Hooray! - Yeah!

We should help all people when they need help.

Hey, that reminds me, I have to get back.

Bye.

This is my life.

I wake up.

I walk my daughter

to her summer camp.

You know, I have a few minutes of normal family life,

then I, like, take the elevator downstairs,

and there's yet another...

Yo, Anthony! How you doing, boss?

Hey, what's up, man?

Are you on the job?

Yo, this guy's got the best show on TV.

Tony got really famous.

Like, every two minutes, it seemed,

someone's going up to him.

"Hey."

You know, "Tony, I'm a huge fan."

"Can I take a photo?

"Can you talk to me?

What are, what-what are some travel tips? Would I..."

It-it was just incessant, nonstop barrage.

He got a kid and he wanted to be a good husband to ottavia,

and... everything changed, man.

For him.

I'm food bad boy Tony bourdain.

There's nowhere I won't go and nothing I won't eat,

as long as I'm paid in emeralds and my hotel room has

a bidet that shoots warm champagne.

Ladies and gentlemen, Anthony bourdain.

And that's when I was like,

"Tony, like, what the fuck, man?

"Like, how do you maintain your cool

and your composure and you're nice?"

I'll never forget this. He's like, "listen.

"Me being nice to someone and being gracious to them,

"if that's my job, it certainly beats

being middling line cook at a struggling restaurant."

Do you have anything resembling a normal life?

No.

I'm asking this 'cause the answer for me is no.

I want to say no, 'cause I just visited my friends.

I haven't seen them in many years.

- Right. - And I felt I just...

I couldn't relate.

- I mean, it's like... - I know, I know.

And I-I understand those, but-but, but... yeah.

I'm a freak.

- They only... - Fucking hell. Jesus.

Oh, is this so interesting?

What are we waiting for?

Is there...

We're always at the ready.

I'm about to give birth to a big fucking alien baby

at any moment.

It's-it's gonna be huge.

All right, why don't we take five, then.

- Take five. - Holy crap. Jesus.

And you're...

How many days of straight shooting you have?

Don't ask me that.

The international narco trafficker

Tom vitale was arrested in Amsterdam just recently.

On examination at the local precinct,

they found he'd swallowed

a record-breaking 90 bolitas of cocaine.

What made it into the shows was,

as far as I was concerned, the least interesting...

Parts of the trip.

Welcome to another episode of 24-hour fuck-over.

He was a control freak in a lot of ways.

You couldn't win an argument with him.

Just because there was an idea, he would challenge it.

Do you have any lines for me?

Maybe you can feed me something.

Rome at dusk. There's really no place like it, is there?

Uh, romance is in the air.

- Who says that? - We're here for two days.

When? When at any point in my life

have I ever said that?

Occasionally you feel inspired and you say something

really nice that makes me tear up.

Not today, I guess.

Well, I would say his barometer

for bullshit in general was extremely sensitive.

But if he felt we were bullshitting,

I mean, that's like kind of the ultimate sin, right?

You're gonna walk down along the canal...

You'd have to sort of

lead from behind with him.

What kind of fascist regime is this?

Because when Tony wanted to leave,

Tony would leave.

I mean, stopping him had to be physical.

Like putting my body in between him and the escape route.

Keep him away from me.

No, no, no.

Yeah, I've had enough, man.

Too, too fucked-up.

Well, my day's ruined.

- Really? - No.

- All right. Goodbye. - I'm gonna burst into tears.

Yeah, that's pretty good, huh?

In the beginning, it was just.

Chris and Lydia shooting with him.

They did that for several years

and then brought in a whole team of people,

many of them who stuck around to the end.

This is for you.

Oh!

- You might need this later. - Oh, I will.

It was pretty much

the most formative years of my life.

There will be blood.

There were these battling

sort of teams on the show.

- Hi, Diane. - Diane.

Hey! Hey!

Zach introduced a little something

called the-the lens change.

I think Tony liked me

for a couple reasons.

One was that, you know, I enjoyed fucking with Tony.

You know? I mean, it was...

Uh, we all sort of fucked with him in our own ways.

You know, it was very competitive,

and so the bar got pushed

every single episode.

Tony was in on everything.

Every show was something that was important.

Every show had his care in it.

Every show potentially had his wrath.

I mean, how many emails I got,

"tell editor to UN-fuck itself."

And I had to translate that to the editor.

He would say that the greatest sin is mediocrity.

"Aspiring to mediocrity.

"There is a grim, inevitable

"and all too predictable trajectory

"to the passage of a good episode of television.

"People aren't as stupid as your minions clearly believe.

"They don't need the truth

"pounded home with meaningless platitudes

"or bland, generic sum-ups.

They'll get it."

And it goes on for several pages.

"Don't empower these squirrel-balled nerds

"by letting them get their way.

"They will then nibble this show to death

"like hungry ducks.

As always, best wishes and respect, Tony."

And this was written to somebody

he truly liked and respected.

It bothered him if everyone liked the show.

He was like, "it should create conversation."

How old is he?

D-Does he even remember the planes?

He was a child.

He doesn't remember.

Doesn't remember. All these years...

He was a shockingly countercultural voice.

I mean, so many of the countries I worked in with him

were still dealing with the fallout

from whatever america had done.

For him, it's losing everything,

uh, because he's the...

The head of the family, feeding the family.

Um, so after losing

his arms and his legs,

uh, it's-it's a great disaster for his life.

Uh, he wants to know if you are afraid

of seeing the-the reality.

Ah. Afraid?

Um, uh, no.

It-it hurts, but I think that's appropriate.

You know, it should. I think Americans...

Every American should see the results of war.

I think it's, uh...

the least I can do is to-to see the world with open eyes.

You'll notice that, in general,

I'm not myself.

Where's the snark, the attitude?

Well, what do you say to this?

I honestly don't know.

People are not statistics.

Surely there's value in-in showing the little things.

How's business for her? Uh, can you ask her?

Not re... Not really good this time.

- Not good? - No.

I mean, the country's situation,

people don't have any income, any money,

so they can't buy food in the street.

So you can imagine that.

That, see... That why you see a lot of

guys here begging, you know.

"Can you buy me some food? Can you give me something?"

The biggest issue

that we dealt with was trying to be,

you know, the fly on the wall and-and going into a place

and not having an effect.

Like, this episode is a prime example of just trying to help,

and it rearing its ugly head.

We have all this leftover food.

Tony's like, "let's just give it to the people here."

You know, they're hungry, and of course mayhem ensued.

Larger kids were just, like, throwing younger kids

out of the line, and it was a very ugly scenario.

I think Tony ultimately saw that

it wasn't just food.

There's suffering in this world,

and that seems to be omnipresent.

How do you spend time with people

and-and-and you empathize with their plight...

How does that not change you fundamentally?

Whee. Whee.

You going to outer space?

Yes.

Going higher.

He was traveling 250 days a year,

and, you know, when you come back home,

you have to be a husband, you have to be a father.

With the little time he had,

he was very attentive.

Sandcastles on the beach, all day long.

I think it was a surprise

and shock for him, that late in life,

to experience that kind of love.

Can I use this hand?

That's okay. Use that hand.

We'll pull that out and use that hand for the crumbs.

It's okay.

It moved him to his core.

And I think he was constantly aware

of, like, not wanting to screw it up.

Are you really in this country right now, or is this a mirage?

I-I am my stunt double.

Couldn't you get someone better-looking?

Yeah. Oh!

Fans of the show think he had

the greatest job in the world, but it was one that

there was no way to ever escape from.

Couldn't really go home for a day and not be

Anthony bourdain.

What kind are you making?

Cookie. What's the best kind?

I don't know. Uh, are you observing child labor laws?

His daughter used to do this joke

where she would get up and say, "I'm Anthony bourdain."

Hi. My name's Anthony bourdain.

"You may know me from such TV shows as..."

Maybe you know me from such shows as, uh...

She knew that her father

and Anthony bourdain were very separate entities.

You're picking that nose

pretty hard there, young lady.

Oh! God!

"I'm through being cool.

"Or, more accurately, I'm through

"entertaining the notion that anybody could even

"consider the possibility of coolness emanating from

or residing anywhere near me."

Everybody kick to the camera.

Hi-yah!

"The essence of cool, after all,

"is not giving a fuck.

And let's face it, I most definitely give a fuck now."

You know, my whole life,

I was like a kid with my nose pressed against the glass,

like, wondering, you know, "what must it be like to, like,

"have a kid and, you know, a normal family

"and-and stand in the backyard with this silly apron,

you know, barbecuing burgers?"

- And so when I find... - Can I get a picture of that?

When I find myself

doing that, I am, like, ridiculously, stupid happy.

Like, I do a lot of pretty cool shit now.

I travel all over the world, I see all these amazing things,

but I'm never happier than when I'm standing in-in the backyard

being, like, TV dad, because...

I-I feel normal.

You know? Whatever the hell that means.

Yeah, what does that mean?

I live a very strange life.

I try to make up for it when I go home

by cooking aggressively.

Like, I try to kill people around me with food.

You know, like, "eat, eat, you know.

Why aren't you eating? Don't you love me?"

He straddled the world of

being the domestic guy,

but that pull for the experience outside...

You know, like as if it was gonna slip away

if he wasn't there... Was equally as great.

He was always rushing.

He was rushing everywhere.

He was rushing to get into the scene.

He was rushing to get out of the scene.

Rushing to get out of the country.

Rushing to go somewhere next, even if he had nowhere to go.

♪ Making time... ♪

Traveling the earth alone

is what I'm accustomed to being on a tour.

And as fathers, we bonded over that feeling

and feeling like,

"I'm here to give a piece of myself away."

And, um, as the years go on, that can be difficult.

♪ Everybody leaving... ♪

- Close. - The wind. That was the wind.

Right. We got to, we got to, you know, factor that in.

There we go.

And we just hit it off.

What do you call an eternal optimist?

An accordion player with a beeper.

It's hard to make friends.

To be at the tip of the spear,

it's like asking for loneliness.

Oh!

Oh, yeah.

That motherfucker bled out already.

Straight to the jugular.

♪ Closing your eyes ♪

♪ making more excuses ♪

♪ pulling the wool... ♪

- Yeah. - Can you make it three?

- Well, cheers to that. - Cheers.

I always think of, "yo, ho, ho, a pirate's life for me."

That's-that's what I think.

I mean, that's...

But you've been, you've been touring for...?

Since I was 18, yeah.

You know?

You know, but it's weird.

I-I'm home for... i'm ridiculously happy for a week,

and then I start getting, like, crazy,

like I should be doing something.

I call it the bittersweet curse.

Nothing feels better than going home.

And nothing feels better than leaving home.

- Yeah, you got a point. - You know?

I loved watching him pick up influence

as he went along through life.

He's a great American storyteller,

and he started off as a voyeur.

He's watching these and detailing these great tales

of what you're seeing.

And then, all of a sudden, he's starting to live

those stories that he's telling.

He's starting to look inside.

"I think I said earlier"

"that I was gonna tell you the truth."

"This is part of it."

"I was unqualified for the job.

"I was in deep waters and fast-flowing ones at that.

The currents could change at any time without warning."

"Like a lot of travelers, I started to turn inward

"from the view out the window,

"started to see what was going on out there

through an ever-narrowing lens."

It is written that I should be loyal

to the nightmare of my choice.

I think I now understand what that means.

You want to be my pilot?

Yeah.

I don't see what the problem is.

Weather looks fine to me.

I'm sure we'll be fine.

Wow. Nice.

Security situation good, weather not so good.

Are you frightened, by the way?

Yeah, look at him. Look at him. He's scared shitless.

I don't like flying.

I think that the Congo was,

without question,

the most dangerous place we ever made the show.

It was something that couldn't be done.

That was a big part of it, and we're always gonna figure out

a way to do something that couldn't be done.

Everyone gets everything he wants.

I wanted to see the Congo.

And for my sins, they let me.

This is a place I read about as a boy.

In heart of darkness, Conrad described it as

a twisting snake with its head in the Atlantic ocean

and its tail buried deep in Africa's heart.

Congo was a fulfillment

of an enormous dream.

In our little fantasy, we were having

our apocalypse now moment.

We've rented a trusty vessel,

and I shall dub thee the captain Willard.

Tony was finding ways

to push himself towards his not just understanding of the world

but understanding of himself.

Are you an assassin?

I'm a soldier.

It's like, which character is he

in that film?

They say my methods are unsound.

Are my methods unsound?

Do you think my methods are unsound?

I haven't seen any method at all, colonel.

In Congo, he got to be someone

who has pushed himself into the lunacy of a world

without law,

without order, without structure.

He got to stand there

with a three-foot machete

and direct the assassination of chickens.

When you get really deep into travel,

I think there's an itch that you want to scratch

that is out on the edge of that envelope,

where chaos rules.

Because it strips away all of the functional artifice of

how we go through our life,

and it leaves you with just the sensory experience.

Anthony bourdain,

the renowned chef and best-selling author,

has a new program, parts unknown,

and it showcases bourdain's gift

for finding the essence of a country or a culture.

Is it about the journalism,

or is it about the tourism?

Is it about the people? Is it about the food?

It's a strange combination of

food, politics

and a decisively personal point of view.

His reports from Israel, the Palestinian Territories,

Mexico and Lyon, France, were simply superb.

He's traveled roughly

662,000 miles...

Around the globe

26 times.

Uh, you know, I actually went to tangier

because you had gone there.

And you've had a big impact on me.

Tony was very aware

of his own ability to promote other people's voices.

But I do think that,

even though we moved to CNN,

he won a peabody and several emmys,

he began to question who was benefiting from these shows.

Okay, so we're just gonna set up a shot with the TV.

Me laying on the bed, watching CNN.

- Okay. - Libya news.

This is CNN.

It is Friday, January the 25th.

I'm kristie lu stout. This is...

I'm not a news fan.

I'm not a journalist.

I'm not an advocate. I'm not an educator.

I'm not looking to inspire or, uh...

I don't have a political agenda.

If anything, I like very much going to a place

thinking one thing and being completely wrong

about all of it.

He was a journalist and he was political,

but he was a storyteller.

And he didn't realize, I think,

how political he was.

We tend to see places

in the middle east and Africa in particular...

We only see them when bad things happen.

If you just follow the news, you'll be reminded about

kidnappings in Algeria, unrest in Tunisia,

terrorist cells to the south, deadly riots in Egypt,

and of course islamic extremist attacks in Benghazi

that killed the U.S. ambassador.

All those things are very real concerns.

But if you only look at what's on the news,

you can miss maybe what's a bigger picture.

You can literally see it

as he goes and travels more and more and more.

It was almost never about food, you know?

I think it was about Tony

learning how to be a better person.

You know, I try to emulate Christ

in small ways every day.

You do?

Yeah.

Can't you tell?

And I mean that in a,

in a completely non-disrespectful way.

No, no, I can imagine.

I mean, you're trying.

You are inspiring so many people with the show.

You have a good Karma.

Can't believe you say that.

- Yeah. - Good Karma?

I think so.

Well...

- Doesn't this concern you... - This is a good Karma.

As a Buddhist?

- Look we're sitting here in provence. - Yeah.

- So? - Wait a minute.

- We just had this fantastic meal. - Yeah.

We're moving on to the 2011 after the 2010.

Life, admittedly for you, has been pretty sweet.

Yeah.

- Isn't that worrying to you? - No.

We're sitting in provence. It's like a wine label.

The next life cannot possibly be better than this.

It's probably gonna suck.

Enjoy every minute of this now, Eric.

And pray.

Pray, pray that this is it,

because if you're right and there is a next life,

we are fucked, my friend.

I may come back as a sea cucumber,

but you're coming back as, like, a yorkie.

Or, you know, if you're lucky.

I'll take the yorkie.

At the end of the day, Tony's dark as fuck, man.

Give you an example.

Like, everyone asked Tony's fucking favorite music,

and he would always give the same bullshit answers,

like, uh, uh, "96 mysterios" or that fucking song.

- He loved that song. - "96 tears."

"96 tears."

And he loved, um, "super fly"

and, um, and Curtis Mayfield's soundtrack.

There's no downers in the fucking bunch.

This was what Tony told me was his favorite song.

He loved this fucking song.

It's a great song.

But it's heroin music.

In the early '70s,

this is where I lived.

You know, back then, if you brought us heroin,

we would've said, "ah, cool.

I'll totally... I would like to try some of that."

It wasn't like I fell into it or accidentally got addicted

or, you know, "oh, really, it's addicting?

Gee, how'd that happen?" No, I knew.

He never really dealt with

the insecurity and all the issues

that put him down that road to begin with.

You know, it's a lot easier

when you talk to choe about this,

'cause, like, that motherfucker is so dark.

♪ Flying over my head... ♪

People forget Anthony bourdain was a junkie.

Like, he's a drug addict,

and I'm also a junkie.

I don't do drugs, but I do everything else.

Overeaters anonymous, debtors anonymous,

gamblers anonymous, sex addicts anonymous,

sex and love addicts anonymous.

Uh, I-I go to all the meetings.

I'll tell you something

really shameful about myself.

The first time I shot up,

I looked at myself in the mirror with a big grin.

You know, something was missing in me.

Some part of me wanted to be a dope fiend.

My whole life was leading up to that point.

In my mind,

it was my first step towards being an artist.

Do you think a-a certain level of dissatisfaction

or unhappiness is an integral part

of the creative process?

I think even great art can be created

when you're happy, but I think the best art in the universe

is created through intense suffering.

So then, do you put yourself in a situation

where you're constantly in pain?

And the answer to that question is yes.

That's just about everybody I know.

I don't know what this says about me.

I think it was one of

the first conversations I ever had with him.

"I was like," hey, I know I'm just meeting you,

"but I-I don't know one heroin addict

"that has quit cold Turkey besides you.

Tell me how you did it."

I got through, but, you know, my case, it was like

I looked in a mirror and I...

I saw somebody worth saving, um,

or that I wanted to at least try real hard and save.

Um...

You know, nobody...

Nobody saved me.

And he goes, "you just work."

When he told me that, I bought into it

when I first met him.

And then as I got to know him more,

I realized it jumped.

The addiction jumped.

When he threw himself into something,

he threw himself completely.

Jujitsu was a good one

because he got super healthy.

He looked great. He stopped smoking.

He felt energized.

He felt powerful.

Oh.

Abort.

I started at 58.

My wife is a fairly high-level competitor

and, uh, trains every...

Higher level than you are?

W-way, way beyond

- where I'll ever be. - Yeah.

Ottavia wanted to be able

to kill anyone who came at their daughter.

So that's where the initial jujitsu interest

in that family came from, and it was a good thing for Tony

to be obsessed with for a while.

There is this aspect of problem-solving

under pressure that it was really appealing to him.

Step over!

But anyone who gets into jujitsu

becomes, like, impossible to be around.

I know because... From experience.

At a certain point, you're like,

"dude, come on, stop talking about fucking jujitsu."

I don't know anything about jujitsu.

Like, I can't have this conversation,

and yet I'm on like hour 150 talking to you about jujitsu.

I mean, his attention and focus

was so strong, but there was always a timeline.

I don't think there was anything that would have

lasted forever in his world.

No person, place, thing, interest.

I have to show you first.

Can-can I show you once? Okay.

Then you skip one and you go down.

Then you skip one and you go down.

Then you come back up and...

It always seemed like what he wanted was,

you know, this, uh, idyllic picture of, like, you know,

a family and ordinary life.

- No. - Come on, you were doing it...

But then when he got it,

I don't know if it was...

I don't know.

Yeah.

After a while, maybe that wasn't enough anymore.

You devoted your book to family.

Yep.

The joys of being normal.

And now you've-you've split.

- Yep. - So I just, like...

Are you rethinking about being normal

- or where's your... - Well, I mean, what is normal?

I think, you know, what does the American family look like?

I mean, I travel 250 days a year.

You know, how normal could I ever hope to be?

Tony and I had been pretty much

living separate under the same roof for...

For quite some time.

You know, even if we didn't work out

as a married couple, you know,

we're still really good friends and our focus was ariane.

That romantic love kind of dissipated

after he started traveling so intensely,

and then we couldn't follow him.

It flowers once every five years.

That's all.

I'll be back before it flowers again.

Cross my heart.

He was devastated.

He was losing his home base.

And it left him incredibly vulnerable.

I think Tony did blame himself.

And I think it also left him wondering

whether or not he was lovable.

Is it worse to be some place awful

when you're by yourself or some place really nice

that you can't share with anyone?

I mean, I have an email that he sent me

that-that haunts me

that was just straight-up...

You know, out of the blue.

"David, this is a crazy thing to ask..."

"...but I'm curious

and my life is sort of shit now."

"You are successful and I am successful.

"And I'm wondering:

Are you happy?"

I know how hard that must've been for him

to even write that email.

To-to reach out to someone and be like,

"hey, man, I'm not doing well."

The era of his life with

his child and ottavia...

I think it was sort of an interruption of his trajectory.

Did he change course in the last two years?

No, he got back on track,

which was not the greatest track.

Hi, Tony. How are you?

I'm all right. Here?

Outstanding. Good.

That's awesome.

I even brought a note...

I took notes.

I was thinking of all my...

All of my ailments and problems.

I haven't done this since

I was, um...

Uh, I was a teenager.

My parents caught me with drugs,

and as part of the deal, I saw a therapist briefly.

And what did you feel about it?

It's-it's exhausting.

I mean, I do tend to have

a sort of a manic personality.

Everything is going really, really great

or it's not going great.

It can happen at any time. It's a random thing.

One minute, I'm okay, everything's going all right,

and then suddenly it's... One little thing

just sort of sets me off, and then I find myself,

uh, you know, increasingly, uh, thinking...

I do, I do, I do, I think about, like,

momentary fantasies of harming other people or myself.

Like I want to kill somebody or choke them

or break their arms.

Uh, I think about that a lot.

I'd like to be happier.

I'd like to be able to be calmer.

I'd like to be able to relax.

I'd like to be able to, you know, look out the window

and say, "yay, life is good."

- And you don't? - No.

Never?

Uh, maybe a few seconds here and there.

There is a line

during your life of loneliness

or-or feeling like "I want to kill somebody."

I think that maybe you should start thinking,

"do you really want to change anything?"

Do you really want to-to change

the way you feel?

I suspect it's too late.

♪ I can settle down ♪

♪ and be doing just fine ♪

♪ till I hear an old train... ♪

I love this car.

I'm having car envy.

We were both, like,

constantly talking about that movie vanishing point.

He liked fast cars, as well.

I love fast cars.

And then we became pen pals really for years

and, um, talked about everything.

His whole entire personality

was that of a searcher.

I just know that he was definitely searching

for something, and-and...

♪ But you gotta understand ♪

it was kind of agony for him.

♪ When the lord made me ♪

♪ he made a ramblin' man... ♪

It's this relentless instinct

to fuck up a good thing.

I think it's something that people on TV,

people who write, people who cook, share.

This difficulty in giving love and receiving love...

They just don't quite know how to do it.

A lot of people loved him a lot.

I don't know if he believed it.

So, what do you think?

I mean, in a metaphysical way,

- when you look back on your life... - Yeah.

For me, I always feel

this little unease, like, you know...

You feel you haven't suffered enough yet

- or you haven't done enough... - How the fuck did this happen?

- Or yeah. - You know?

- How-how'd this happen, you know? - No.

No, I know.

I'm still curious.

You seem like a curious person.

- It's my only virtue. - You're... there you go.

All right.

Curious is a good thing to be.

Given your life...

What thrills you?

What just thrills the shit out of you now?

Uh, this is very embarrassing, but... it's really embar...

Being loved and actually appreciating

the people that are giving that to me.

Whenever you guys are ready,

- the cameras are rolling. - All right.

We're ready to go.

All right, you're up?

So, uh, where are we?

But don't mention the name of the place.

- I mean, turning the napkin over... - No. Why?

Well, we don't... you don't want to blow this place up.

I don't give a shit.

I mean, you've been eating here for how long?

Since I was a, since I was a kid.

So you would come in here and see nothing but Americans?

Nothing but?

- Nothing but? - Well, yeah.

- I mean, just an army of... - Well, yes,

so nobody busts my balls.

Okay, then. We are at the...

So, giving up on that.

Okay. There we go.

H-How many generations of filmmakers in your family?

Mm, a lot.

Cheers.

When Tony met Asia, he's like,

"she's the best. Oh, my god, she's so great."

You know, and, like, when you were in high school

and you got laid for the first time or something.

You know, I'm happiest when life is

kind of like a film.

So, y-you're happy in the illusion.

- 'Cause film is an illusion. - Yes.

Yeah, I am.

No, me, too. I-I understand you.

He seemed really happy with her.

You know, I was like, well,

he found someone he wants to be with.

You know, I'm happy for him.

He told me that she was very insecure

about their relationship, so he just asked me

to stop posting pictures of us on social media.

And-and I think he really thought

he was doing the right thing

to make sure that the person he loved felt secure.

Is that a normal urge?

- For humans? - I want to be normal?

I want to be like everybody else?

I kind of wanted to be like everybody else

when I was a kid, at least for a while.

I-I didn't understand why I couldn't be.

I think people are happier

when they feel like they belong somewhere.

- I just, i-i... - That's why I'm never happy

because I feel I never belong.

I knew who she was,

but he never would use her name.

He would say "crazy Italian actress" in all the emails.

All I know is that he wrote to me a few times

and said that it was gonna end very, very badly,

and that was way back.

Um, he knew it.

Oh!

I bring you to the best places.

Fuck michelin.

Michelin?

His last relationship,

I guess when you look at it, it's not that surprising.

In many ways, it feels elliptical

from the-the very beginning.

Now, some of you might ask,

"how is this food-related?" Fuck if I know.

I guess if I crushed my skull on a rock,

parts of me will become part of the food chain.

It was one that had,

at its center, um, extremes.

It's as if he can't feel in the mid-zone.

You know, life is about

finding a cliff worth jumping off.

I felt he was like,

"I'm gonna look for something feral and wild."

Perhaps that is something to do with age

and all of a sudden finding yourself alone.

This is called, um...

- Are you guys up? - Why are you filming me?

This is called

"our wolf lady of the wolf flowers."

Ah, that's great.

You know, I have a-a John lurie over my bed.

I saw. No, you posted it.

That was nice that you posted that.

No, I love it. It makes me very, very happy.

- Does it? - Yes, it does.

So he had a dark sense of humor.

He wasn't Edgar Allan poe. You know what I mean? He...

There was a lot of light around him.

There really was.

Bring another one.

No. I mean, especially, like, I'm away and I come back

- and I walk into my room... - There it is, yeah, yeah.

I-It feels... The room vibrates at a frequency

that makes me comfortable and-and happy.

That's cool.

Thank you. Eggs, the perfect food.

- Thank you, sir. - Eat that.

We were supposed to have lunch.

And I said, "I want to go somewhere quiet

where nobody knows us."

And he just sort of stopped in his tracks and said,

"I'm becoming agoraphobic."

And then I saw the pain in his face.

Maybe he needed some time away from it all to reflect a minute

and then start again kind of thing, you know?

I don't...

It seemed like he was about to go on to something else.

His life started to feel smaller and smaller.

He couldn't go as many places.

He couldn't be out in public as much.

I could see him whittle away.

So, places like the empty quarter

of the arabian desert started to really resonate for him.

To just sit on the edge of

the largest sand desert in the world and stare out into it...

feeling like it's something

that's bigger than him and not about him.

He often talked about how,

in an ideal world, he wouldn't be in the show.

Uh, it would be his point of view,

like a camera moving through space,

without having to see him at all.

"Travel isn't always pretty."

"You go away. You learn."

"You get scarred, marked, changed in the process."

"It even breaks your heart."

He was very stressed

and very weary and very exhausted.

He did talk about quitting.

It happened like a couple of years ago.

He asked to see Chris and I at a bar.

It was very dramatic.

He was like, "I can't live my life like this anymore."

"I'm done. I'm done with this. I'm done with you people.

"Every band comes to an end.

It's time for us to break up and go our separate ways."

"You know, I've broken one family.

"I'm in this other relationship that I care very deeply about

and I want to make it work."

And Lydia looked at Tony and said,

"then go do it.

"Go do it.

"Don't sit here and talk about it and whine.

"Get up and go. Leave.

"Move to Italy, set up.

We will support you. We will be your friend. Go."

"Like, if you're done with this,

it's okay."

I don't know. Maybe he was expecting us to, like,

grab him and say like, "no, don't go.

It's not over. What can we do?"

He couldn't move.

It's really kind of sad.

It's like,

"then sit the fuck down and let's talk this thing through."

And we said, "we'll figure out a way to make this thing work,

you know, so it's good for you."

Okay. Here we go.

"Hong Kong.

To fall in love with Asia..."

Oof, Asia.

"To fall in love with Asia is one thing.

"To fall in love in Asia is another.

"Both have happened to me.

"It's a gift, a dream, a curse,

"the best thing, the happiest thing,

"yet also the loneliest thing in the world.

"I've been to Hong Kong many times before,

but not like this."

If I die before I'm 40 years old,

that shoot probably had something to do with it.

At the last second,

the director gets sick.

I had my gallbladder removed.

Michael's gallbladder, I swear to god.

So, obviously I can't go, and then Tony immediately,

like, sees an in.

He gets them to all agree that Asia should direct this.

W-Well, like, okay.

In-in man... in some ways, on this side,

this is giving him some kind of, like, intense resurgence

of, like, creative energy.

And so we-we ran with that.

- Asia? - I think...

Back in one sec.

We're getting too much good stuff...

I know, but...

in too short a period of time.

Let's mo... let's move and-and move. Yeah.

And w-we're getting too much.

It's like, I mean,

at this point, it's like, to everybody, I'm thinking,

"stop saying so much great stuff."

- Oh, my god. - So happy.

Food's ready.

Asia, the food's ready.

It seemed like so many years of us

shaping and creating this thing, all of a sudden,

was thrown out the window,

and it was just, you know, anything goes.

So what is your...

what is your hope?

What do you hope will happen to change your situation?

To-to be honest, um, I'm not big fan of hope.

Um, hope is...

Hold on one second.

Let me reset.

In the middle of this heartfelt scene

with these two asylum seekers, we're stopping...

I hold my hand or h-hold the thought?

And telling them to hold

their thought and to, like, redo it,

as if we're filming a movie or something.

- Uh, add one. - Three.

35 milli... uh, centimeters.

You know, breaking the natural,

heartfelt conversations

that are not easy conversations to have,

he would have never, ever done that.

Let's go. Ready to go.

I'm sorry, do it again.

Asia?

What happened in Hong Kong

was... listen.

We-we were trying to help our friend.

And if that meant...

Um...

Doing... yeah.

Of everything I've done

in my life, this was probably the professional highlight.

Between, uh, Asia argento as the director

and Christopher Doyle as the director of photography...

- You're gonna give me a camera? - Hell yeah.

We really did something special.

All right, proceed to smoke weed.

I think I'm happy.

Why? It's so peaceful?

Yeah.

This is the best shot in the movie, by the way.

Wow, this is fucking beautiful.

Wait.

I don't smile a lot on this show, by the way,

but I'm smiling now.

I want to shoot you guys.

So, tell us about your team.

Zach, 12-year veteran.

Zach had made parts unknown

one of the most beautiful shows on television.

Tony's admiration for Zach

was just kind of mind-blowing.

In Hong Kong,

Zach had a differing opinion from Asia

on what they were shooting.

And despite having a huge history

and love and friendship, he was gone.

When Tony fired Zach,

it was a huge red flag, because it was like,

if he's gonna do that to someone like him,

I mean, anyone on the inner circle is

essentially, you know, disposable.

Cheers.

There was a very sort of manic nature

to what was going on in that last year,

where the highs were very, very high.

And the lows were very ugly.

He was not the same person.

Something changed and became really heavy.

But he started going to therapy at a certain point,

and I thought,

"I can take a step back.

"I don't have to be, like, you know,

always so, uh, worried about him."

And, uh...

And I feel like that's something that I will always,

you know, felt like...

I should have kept an eye on him more, you know?

He came by less and less.

And we would see him once a month, if we were lucky.

You know, he said some shit to me

that was really... Fucking pissed me off.

Um...

You know, fuck it.

You know, Tony said I would never be a good dad.

That fucking hurt.

And I know he wasn't trying to be mean, but...

- Was he projecting? - Yeah.

Of course he was projecting.

He did everything he could to be the... a dad.

I think it broke his heart that he couldn't be

the fucking dad he thought he could be,

the romantic version of a dad.

He was such a romantic about life,

about anything, about families, about life as a whole.

Life was a romantic idea, and reality was never gonna

live up to exactly how he pictured it.

He was always gonna sort of

set himself up for disappointment.

Wow.

There's a sense of, um,

vastness that I'm not used to.

Does this remind you of your cowboy movies?

- Uh, a little bit. - Yeah.

Yes, the lone gunman out for vengeance

would be riding in a long shot over there.

At that point, I think

he thought his relationship with Asia

could provide him with an answer.

- But anyway... - You're right, you're right.

You know? His love for her

was completely pure and safe

and helpful and supportive.

Which is essentially what he was looking for from her.

And I think that Tony concluded that

the way to earn her trust

was just to go in with his whole heart.

Please welcome Anthony bourdain!

One of the more painful and-and.

I-I would think interesting journeys

you've taken on your life happened just very recently

with regards to the me too movement.

I started speaking about it out of a sense of real rage.

I mean, I'd like to say that I'm... I-I arrived at...

I was always enlightened in some way

or that I am an activist or virtuous.

But, in fact, uh, you know, I have to be honest with myself.

I met one extraordinary woman

with an extraordinary and painful story.

Uh, suddenly it was personal.

I think it surprised a lot of people.

He had never really wanted to stick himself

out there for a cause.

But Tony was like, "I'm going to make a stand."

A nuclear bomb is gonna fall

on one of my worst enemies.

Everybody's been defending him,

but now he's going fucking down.

He's going down big-fucking-time.

In 1997, I was raped by Harvey weinstein

here at cannes.

And even tonight, sitting among you,

there are those who still have to be held accountable

for their conduct against women.

Argento later posting this photo

on Instagram with her fist in the air,

the caption in French translated,

"the battle of women continues."

Asia had just come from cannes.

And then we're in the uffizi gallery

looking at the beheading of holofernes,

which is literally

the beheading of her rapist,

and it's happening the day that weinstein gets arrested.

Weinstein has repeatedly

denied all allegations.

It was extraordinary.

Everybody takes medusa as the symbol of the evil woman

with snakes in her head, but, uh,

she was, uh, a rape victim.

And she had to protect herself.

You know, powerful, inconvenient women who

piss people off are inevitably caricatured as medusa.

Yeah.

I'm-I'm next.

I wasn't gonna say it.

- It's only a matter of time. - Hmm.

It's incredible.

Me too!

Our stories are true!

We say me too!

I mean, at first it was, like,

very noble of him, you know?

And it was a good cause.

But then he became...

Yeah, he became obsessed with it.

You're talking about it in a way that many people wouldn't.

To the point where

if a friend said something

five years ago that would maybe...

Might be offensive to the me too cause,

he would just, like, cut them out of his life.

I'm pretty much ming the merciless

- on this issue right now. - Right.

Friends and creative partners...

He threw them under the bus without

any sort of consultation or anything.

I mean, there was not much nuance

when it got to that point of his life.

What I saw was him turn

what was a lifelong addictive personality

to another person.

And that was extremely dangerous.

He was acting like a kid who didn't understand

that you're gonna drive someone away

if you just pile on and pile on and pile on.

- Yes. But-but what I... - Really, the top ten

hottest things you've ever done is park in Rome.

What, like... she was like, "you could park here now,

- "but in an hour you can't park here." - Yeah.

"We can get away with this now."

I thought, "this is the fucking coolest thing."

He won't stop fucking talking about

her ability to park.

It's like, "you're such a good Parker.

"Y-You park so well. You park so well.

You parallel park so well."

And she's like, "dude, I don't want to be known

for my parking skills."

Like, you can see her pulling back,

and he just won't stop.

We're having so much fun.

Done.

And it was genius, bro.

I'm telling you, see you at the oscars, yo.

Saying goodbye to him

is the happiest I felt like I had ever seen him.

Huge hugs.

He was like, "I love you."

"I love working with you. We got years ahead of us.

I'm looking forward to it."

You don't want his legacy

to come off as, like, somebody who...

Succumbed to, like, this...

darkness.

That wasn't him.

Like, he created something that was so important.

And I want... that really needs to be, like...

That is the legacy of his life.

Not this stupid bullshit act that he did at the end.

How do we come to terms with...

what happened?

Hmm. That's something I don't speak about.

What happened in France.

Um, where to start?

The kind of scenes that we had and what kind of shoot it was...

You know, it was, like, Tony and Eric.

Lighthearted, funny.

Um...

Wow. Wow.

- Listen, man. Listen. - And you mocked me.

We're probably like four days in.

Tony arrives, and he is just...

Palpably sort of like just angry.

And...

The scene sort of... It takes a dark turn.

Uh, they're talking about dying,

choking on a hot dog or something like that.

He kind of looks back at me,

and we kind of make eye contact.

In-in my memory now, it's very desperate.

I called Helen,

and this tabloid shit's come out

about Asia and this other person.

Tony goes over to this balcony again,

looking over this valley, and he's, like, smoking,

and he's kind of alone.

I go out there, and I'm like,

"hey, man, how are you doing?

"You know, is this just, like... Are these just tabloid people,

"like, fucking with you guys?

Like how, you know... What's happening?"

And then, like, he pauses...

and he just says, "a little fucking discretion."

Right? And I was like, "hey, man, I'm just..."

He's like, "no, man, not you."

It's like, "I don't want to have to fucking deal

with this... these fucking..."

You know, he's talking about Asia.

He didn't even look at me.

You know, he's just kind of, like, just, you know, smoking

and just sort of looking out and just like, "fuck."

I wish I had said more to him in that moment.

You know, Tony hasn't been all right

for a long time.

The amount that he joked about the end of his life and...

He's been chasing that shit forever.

Potato chips are stale.

So depressed right now, I feel like killing myself.

He's a fucking runner.

I mean, he ran for a long time,

but you're not gonna outsmart pain.

I'm pretty sure that pole

will support my body weight.

- What? - If I fucking hang myself.

I think it pops into

a lot of people's heads, and it's just like,

since he knew how to do it...

I mean, I don't know.

He's a storyteller for one thing.

How does a storyteller check out without leaving a note?

But I think, in some regard,

he was gonna write his end, which is what he did.

If you look at his last Instagram story,

he played the title sequence music from this '70s film

violent city.

And if you've seen the film,

you know that the beginning is

a series of paparazzi photos of this couple.

I mean, it's a revenge film.

It's about this woman who betrays him

and him seeking revenge.

I mean, it's-it's all there.

I'm very cautious

to be like, uh, blame the woman for, like, you know...

Or blame the lover or blame the husband.

You know, Tony killed himself.

Tony did it.

My brother committed suicide.

I think if somebody else had been in his room,

it might've been a murder and not a suicide.

I think he was just in an explosive anger

and-and this was the only way out.

When you choose to hang yourself,

it's a torture.

Self-imposed torture.

If he was fucking drunk,

it'd be a lot easier to understand.

The toxicology report was he's clean and sober.

I think it was a clear decision.

It was a momentary lapse,

and I don't think he weighed the pros and cons.

If he had just made it through that night, you know?

We're trying so hard to understand,

because we think if we can understand it,

then we'll be okay with it.

And the fact of the matter is, no,

I don't think we get to know.

We don't get to know.

That's tough.

Well, I don't know where he is

right now, but...

He let me down.

He...

I don't think he was cruel, you know?

And there's, like, a cruelty to that.

What the hell is everyone supposed to do?

It's been over two years

since he took his own life,

and I still experience a range of emotions.

Um...

God.

It's like...

I haven't fucking cut my hair since he died.

Like, i-i...

I just miss him.

I miss a friend, a dear friend.

I think about a lot of happy moments we had together.

Mostly, yeah.

I was in Vietnam on a beautiful day.

I looked at my phone, and there was the news.

And, uh, that's when I decided to move to Vietnam for good.

That was the... It was not even a thought.

It was the door opened and I had to go through it

and start doing something new.

I was listening to this record

that brought me to tears thinking of him.

And, um, both my kids

sort of embraced me.

My son, he's like, "how did Tony die?"

And I was like, "uh, I... we don't know."

Right?

About 20 seconds pass, and he looked at me and he's like,

"I really would like to know how Tony died."

I have this like hour-long conversation about

Tony to my fucking seven-year-old kid.

And I said, "I think Tony, at the end,

"felt alone and felt he couldn't talk to anybody

about the pain that was going on inside of him."

And I said, "you know you always have someone

to turn to and talk to."

That's the lesson in it for me.

It's plenty to just say I'm hurt.

I haven't worked for two years now.

Really close to the end, we talked, and I said,

"got to take our girls and lighten the load

"and show them the world, show them who we are,

not just when you come home, but..."

And-and we were both excited about this prospect.

Fuck.

One, two, three.

When I get angry is when I think about

leaving behind a brilliant...

Daughter.

You know.

He would have loved to be around now, to see her now.

He'd be so proud of her.

I'm so lucky

'cause she's the best daughter I-I could hope for.

And I will always be grateful that, you know,

Tony gave her to me, you know?

I mean, I think this is

the last time I'll ever talk publicly about it,

because I... that's not the way I want to remember him.

I want to remember him

when we were together, all the amazing things that we'd done

and the amazing person that he was.

After Tony died,

the restaurant, les halles, it just became this shrine.

We didn't realize he meant so much to so many people.

"You inspired me to get out of my comfort zone

and fearlessly immerse myself in the richness of life."

"Advocate for the working classes,

"the immigrants, the poor.

This world didn't deserve you."

And then a few people left poems.

"One said," everyone forgets that icarus also flew.

"I believe icarus was not failing as he fell

but just coming to the end of his triumph."

You know, I was an angry young man.

I-I, uh...

I forget what I was angry about, especially looking at this.

What the hell was I so angry about?

This was, you know...

paradise.

Sorry.

Can I say something?

To have him walking down a beach,

it resonates, it's sweet.

And I go, you know, as-as I was upstairs

using the restroom, I was like...

"He would fucking hate that."

Going out in a Blaze of glory was so fucking lame.

But we live in this society where every great artist

who kills themselves is on murals

and they're talked about like gods.

- Tony's on murals. - Yeah. That's...

Around town, there are a couple of them.

I should go deface them.

He would love it if I did that.

♪ I got your written invitation ♪

♪ a beautiful stick in the eye ♪

♪ I get the message ♪

♪ you been sending ♪

♪ ain't no good in goodbye ♪

♪ throw everything away ♪

♪ anything can be replaced ♪

♪ black and blue is the best I can do... ♪

Ooh.

Yeah.

♪ Want to? ♪

♪ Oh, what a pain in the asp ♪

♪ endless love and devotion ♪

♪ Indian gifts of the past ♪

♪ just another drop on the ocean ♪

♪ empty space, empty heart ♪

♪ where the love ♪

♪ is not anymore ♪

♪ so ♪

♪ Living in limbo ♪

♪ kisses akimbo ♪

♪ every single bridge is on fire ♪

♪ hold me together? ♪

♪ No way, never ♪

♪ due date done expired ♪

♪ second chances are a waste ♪

♪ I'm gonna bend until I break ♪

♪ black and blue is the best I can do ♪

♪ yeah, black and blue and broken in two ♪

♪ whoa, whoa ♪

♪ want to? ♪