Radha Blank says time is right for ‘The Forty-Year-Old Version’
If Radha Blank had a tagline for her film, “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” it would be: “You don’t age out of your passion.” Blank wrote, directed and stars in her debut film, a heavily autobiographical tale, shot in black-and-white and on 35mm, about a middle-aged playwright in Harlem struggling to fulfill her career’s earlier promise. Faced with unappealing options, like a Harriet Tubman musical put on by white producers, she turns to an old passion, hip-hop, and begins performing as Radha MUS prime.
The film— laceratingly funny, relentlessly frank, wholly original— made its lauded premiere at the Sundance Film Festival where Blank won a directing prize and Netflix acquired it. It began streaming Friday.
Blank, who has written for the Spike Lee series “She’s Gotta Have It” (on which she was also a producer) and “Empire,” first began the project as a web series that would have culminated in a mix tape. The death of her mother derailed the series, and Blank realized “The Forty-Year-Old Version” needed a bigger canvas. Lena Waithe (“Master of None,” “Queen & Slim”) came aboard as a producer.
In an interview back when “The Forty-Year-Old Version” was landing at Sundance, Blank— a proud New Yorker who, like her character, struggled to get her plays mounted before rapping under a pseudonym— talked about her delayed but inevitable arrival.
Q. What compelled you to start writing this? A. I was fired from a film job. This is like before I was writing for TV. I got a job. Someone had seen a play of mine and they hired me to adapt a book. And I got fired off the job. And I was kind of devastated and felt a little powerless and just decided, you know what? (Expletive) it. I’m going to make a web series so that I’m in charge. No one can fire me.
Q. Is your protagonist you?
A. It’s me but a heightened version. She is who I wish I could be all the time. She tells it like it is. What we have in common is how we use rejection to fuel an idea. My character, the idea of her becoming a rapper is a joke until she starts rhyming. And for me, when I first decided I wanted to shoot this in black and white, everyone was like, why would you do that? It’s a matter of trusting your impulses.
Q. How does it feel to be making your filmmaking debut at this stage in your life?
A. “Auteurs” are reserved for older filmmakers. And groundbreaking, fresh films seem to be associated with young filmmakers. I’m somewhere in the middle. I’ve been telling and crafting stories for over 20 years. When it came time to make the film, I knew exactly what it is Iwanted to say. For people who know me and know my work, itwas just amatter of time before I got here. It’s kind of this idea that we never stop learning about who you are. You can have revelations about yourself and what you should be doing at any age.
Q. And that includes rapping for you. But you bring a different perspective to hip-hop.
A. It’s all of the bravado of hip-hop but it’s from a person whose body is changing. There’s some hot flashes in there. AARP is sending me (expletive) in the mail. I know a lot of people who feel that way, I just don’t see it reflected in mainstream culture. Especially with hip-hop. I love this culture. I am the same age as hip-hop culture. Some of the culture is over-sexualized and oversaturated and so loud. That’s part of why I wanted to film it in black and white. Black and white cools it down.