ALEX COX
April 1993
One of my nicest experiences in portraiture. Cult English filmmaker Alex Cox gained early career kudos in the 80s for features Repo Man and Sid and Nancy. A refreshing personality Alex was ebullient, engaged and at ease. We shot in an Shibuya cinema foyer, I was introduced along with FIGARO editor Asako Akai. She explained to Alex her family name meant red in Japanese, and handed him a new issue of the magazine which also happened to have a red cover. He replied with faux shock “Is this some kind of communist plot?!” The ice broken instantly, we all laughed.
Alex has a very rubbery face, which I counterbalanced by using dramatic lighting which also cast into relief the off-form concrete backdrop to nice effect. He was in Japan to promote a film he’d directed, Highway Patrolman, shot a couple years earlier on a shoestring in Mexico. Tokyo was good for international indie movies, there were a few great cinemas that championed indie movies and had loyal followers, me being one.
At the time he was living outside Madrid with his Spanish wife, and introducing a weekly film show on British TV. Never working with big budgets, he explained his approach to filmmaking as adapting to whatever the location presented, and never waiting for certain weather - just shoot it. I liked the sound of that.
Before a Q&A for his film a few days later I presented him with a print from our portrait shoot. Not sure if he liked it, but he was very gracious.