John Landis: "Michael Jackson had twisted ideas"
At that time, in 1983, Michael Jackson was "young, happy, playful," remembers John Landis. "On Thriller, it was very clear that Michael was working for me, we had a lot of fun on this shoot, watch the making of Thriller, it's very close to reality." When he found eight years later the King of Pop for Black or White, everything had changed: "It was a lot stranger," he confirms. "He had made weird things in his face, it was sad, Michael was handsome, look at the blanket of Off the Wall, he mutilated himself, it was obviously self-hatred, it was depressing. He was surrounded by shitty people, I do not like his family very much, I hated his father - who gave me back, he was a beaten child, his father did not give him any beating. On Black or White, I was there to protect Michael, he wanted to do things that were just too weird, and he wanted-and he did it later-to build that huge statue of himself. I said to him, 'Do you think you're Mussolini, what's that bullshit?' He had twisted ideas. "share