SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The title of the new documentary film, "Andre Is An Idiot," actually springs from a mother's love.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ANDRE IS AN IDIOT")
ANDRE RICCIARDI: (As himself) When I told my mother that I had colon cancer, the first thing she said was, what a [expletive] idiot. She said that is the easiest cancer to stop. All you need to do is get a colonoscopy. And I may still defeat it, but if I don't, she's right. I'm a [expletive] idiot.
SIMON: Andre Ricciardi, a San Francisco ad man, family man a self-titled wild man is gone, but he shines on in this new film directed by Tony Benna about the end of a man's life and the love that he brought to it. Tony Benna joins us now from our studios in New York, along with Lee Einhorn, who was Andre Ricciardi's friend and also executive producer of the film. Thank you both so much for being with us.
TONY BENNA: Thanks for having us. We're...
LEE EINHORN: Yeah.
BENNA: ...Excited to be here.
EINHORN: Thanks so much.
EINHORN: That's right. I tried to convince him to come and get a couple's colonoscopy, I think we called it. We weren't officially a couple. A few years before he went in himself, when we turned 50, I was kind of the rule abider of the two of us. So it was time, and I went in to do that. And Andre decided he would wait a few years, and unfortunately, his results were not great when he waited those extra couple of years.
SIMON: And, Tony Benna, as soon as Andre received the diagnosis, he called you, didn't he?
BENNA: Yeah. He sent me an email at first. He said, I've got a really fun project. Let's get on a Zoom. And a few weeks later, Lee and Andre jumped on a Zoom with me, and the first thing they said was we got a really fun project here. You're going to love it. I've got Stage 4 colon cancer, and we want to make a comedy. And we'd love you to direct it, be part of it.
SIMON: Well, why'd you want to do it? I mean, why didn't you say, look, just be with your friends and family?
BENNA: You know, cancer is not funny, but Andre is one of the most hilarious, outrageous and brilliant people I've ever known. He's really a one-of-a-kind person. I just felt honored that he had asked. But also, I thought, at very least, if I could just capture his crazy, funny, irreverent stories for his family, it would be a legacy I could leave for his daughters, for his wife. And so I went into it without the whole idea of having to make a full feature. I just thought if we can just start capturing these stories, we'll see where it goes.
SIMON: Let me ask you both about his family, Andre and his wife, Janice. They had one of the most remarkable marriage stories I've ever heard. Could I get you both to tell us?
EINHORN: Yeah. I think, you know, for years, I had heard about how they met and how they got together. She was Andre's bartender at a place called The Shamrock in San Francisco. And there was a point where Janice, who was Canadian - she was coming up to the end of her green card, and she wanted to stay in the U.S. So she needed someone to do a green card marriage with her, and Andre agreed.
SIMON: I mean, there it was at the bar. He said, oh, I'll marry you. And - two daughters and a life together.
BENNA: Yeah. And I'll add to that. That was another reason I really wanted to do the project. 'Cause Andre would tell us these crazy stories about his life that just seemed so unbelievable. And I always figured he was embellishing. So another motivating factor for me was to really uncover - you know, to be a sleuth and detective to see if he was telling the truth. And it turns out every single crazy Andre story was true, and that's a scary thing.
SIMON: Well, his two daughters, Tallula and Delilah, Andre says, I guess to you at one point, I want to be honest with my daughters, but I don't want to burden them.
BENNA: I think that Andre, you know, as vulnerable as he looked with the laughing and the joking about the situation he was in, I think he had to learn to be truly vulnerable. And I think you can see it happening during the process of the film. And for Andre, being truly vulnerable was, you know, seeing pain in the faces of the people that he loved. He didn't want to hurt anybody, you know? And I think if he could cut it with a joke, if he could make it lighthearted, it made it easier not just for him but for everyone around him. But eventually, you know, he had to really come to terms with the fact that, you know, this wasn't going to go his way, and he had to be honest with the severity of his illness.
SIMON: Lee Einhorn, there's a scene where you go with Andre as he's seeking advice from - do I call this person a death yell adviser?
EINHORN: I think he called him his death yell guy, but adviser sounds more official.
SIMON: Well, let's hear some of the candidates that Andre tried out for his last words.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ANDRE IS AN IDIOT")
RICCIARDI: (Yelling) So long, suckers.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.
RICCIARDI: Like that?
BENNA: Yeah.
RICCIARDI: All right.
BENNA: Yes.
RICCIARDI: That feels pretty good.
BENNA: Yeah.
RICCIARDI: All right. (Yelling) Come and get me, Spaceman. Getting weird.
EINHORN: Andre always faced whatever was in front of him with a sense of humor. You know, I think humor therapy for him was something that he believed in, you know? And when he was then faced with the worst thing that he had ever had to face in his life, the choice was to use humor to get through it.
SIMON: Tony Benna, did you ever want to, or did you ever turn the cameras off, say no, this is too much?
BENNA: Andre, you know, he wanted us to keep filming, no matter what. One of the last interviews that we had with Andre, I asked him how the last, you know, 3 1/2 years had been, you know, having cameras in and out of the house. I asked everybody, the family - you know, Janice and the girls the same question. But Andre said it's been the best 3 1/2 years of my life. And Janice was in the kitchen at that moment, and she said, me too, and chimed in. And to me, that meant a lot.
But it also - you know, Andre, he used to joke. He'd say, the last thing I want to see is you guys setting up a camera as I'm, you know, breathing my last breath, and you guys are probably going to miss the shot 'cause you're trying to get the light perfectly. And so I think everybody thought that the film was actually keeping him alive because it was something for him to focus on. He enjoyed the process. I mean, he was really making art with his best friends in the last few years of his life, and what better way for a creative man like Andre, you know, to spend that time?
SIMON: Andre Ricciardi was an ad man. So there is a slogan I think he'd like to attach to the film.
BENNA: So at the end of the film, you know, there is a call to action. It's after - in the middle of the credits. It says a really, really brilliant quote from Andre. He says, we paint the portraits of ourselves that we want people to see, but the most beautiful portraits are the ones that showed the flaws within us. And those quotes are next to two beautiful paintings of Andre in two different places during his colon cancer journey - one where he's very healthy and one where he's very sick. Directly after those quotes, a big title comes up and it says so get your [expletive] colonoscopy.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: What do you take from making this film and your - the relationship the three of you have had together, beyond any slogan?
EINHORN: I mean, this has, by far, been the greatest project of my life, which feels weird to say sometimes 'cause of the end result, you know, of Andre passing. Death certainly is something that I look at differently myself now. I really - as crazy as it sounds, I have a sense of joy that this project exists, that we went through it for 3 1/2 years, as hard as it was, you know, for both of us being friends and the filmmakers together. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.
BENNA: Yeah. And I'll say, you know, that beyond the message of get your colonoscopy, I think that that's secondary to the real messages of the film. Lee and I really feel like, you know, the film's about Andre, and he just so happened to have cancer during the making of it. You know, as Lee said, it really taught me to look at my mortality, to think about that daily - that idea of memento mori, if you consider your mortality every day, you're going to live a richer life.
And I think the second thing that it's OK to talk about and even laugh about really hard situations of people being sick or dying. And I hope it opens the conversation to families and friends of people that are sick. And lastly, I'll say - and I think this is for everybody - is, you know, I think Andre teaches us in the movie and one of the takeaways I got, was die how you want to die. Do everything your way. You don't have to bow down to convention, no matter what, you know, stage of life you're in.
SIMON: Tony Benna has directed "Andre Is An Idiot," and Andre's close friend Lee Einhorn was executive producer. The film is in select theaters now. Thank you both so much for being with us.
BENNA: Thank you.
EINHORN: Thanks so much. Thanks for having us. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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