When you think about the difference between food and cinema, they seem like entirely separate creative endeavors. While movies bombard you with sight and sound, food takes on the other three senses, relying on taste, smell, and even touch to connect with its audiences. In the documentary 42 Grams, which premiered at this year’s Austin Film Festival, these two worlds combine, as we watch a chef go from serving meals out of his kitchen to opening up his own restaurant, as well as his quest to obtain a coveted Michelin Star rating.
After the premiere, we got the chance to talk to the subject of the documentary, chef Jake Bickelhaupt, and the director, Jack C. Newell, about how their creative endeavors ended up intertwining over the course of filming, and the resulting collaboration that brought 42 Grams to life.
Having spent a decade working in some of the best-known kitchens in Chicago, Bickelhaupt wanted a better way to connect with those he was cooking for. Inspired by the underground dining movement, he and his then-wife, Alexa, started running a restaurant out of their home.
From these humble beginnings, they met Newell, director of the culinary film Open Tables, whose wife had won an auction for a meal from Bickelhaupt’s kitchen. “Every single course we ate was just better than the one before it,” he said, recalling the experience. Inspired by Bickelhaupt’s intimate approach to fine-dining, he asked if he could “just start showing up and filming,” thus beginning the documentary 42 Grams.
Bickelhaupt had started serving food out of his home so he could run a kitchen his own way. “It’s really a high-end tasting menu as a dinner party, which both are things people are very accustomed to, but not really at the same time. And, it just wasn’t like a theme that we were trying to do, it just really made sense for how I like to cook and entertain.”
Then, based on the success of his underground dining, the stars started to align. The space below the Bickelhaupt’s apartment became available, and he and his wife opened up 42 Grams — a name inspired by their combined passion, as well as the notion that the human soul weighs 21 grams.
With his work on Open Tables wrapping up, Newell aimed to document what was then Bickelhaupt’s underground dining experience. Given their limited space, Newell went in with a small crew to capture what went on, authentically as possible. “It really felt like he wasn’t filming,” explained Bickelhaupt. “He was just hanging out. He’s working, he’s talking, he’s asking questions, but he’s just part of the process. It’s all natural and it just felt like part of the process. It was just another day, and it felt it real.”
“In documentaries, there’s this moment that happens when the subject stops seeing the camera, and that starts to fade away,” said Newell. “A lot of time I think what you’re going for is this moment where they feel comfortable and the camera. Everyone knows that a camera’s there, but it’s not about the camera as much as it is just being there.”
Throughout 42 Grams, Bickelhaupt relates cooking as not just a way to connect people, but as a way to tell them a story. With Newell’s filming, it was inevitable that their two methods of creativity started to overlap.
“[In] the early days when you’re stuck there filming, you’re not really sure what movie you’re making,” said Newell. “But what we ended up talking about a lot was my point of view and my thoughts on film as I’m trying to work through understanding the art form better, so always learning, and then Jake’s doing the same thing on his side. So, a lot of our conversations, I’d be like, ‘Oh, this is what I think about film,’ and Jake would be like, ‘In the culinary world, this is like that.’ It was this conversation we were having about art, about two art forms, one film and one food, and seeing where they meet in the middle.”
“As far as the creation process sometimes you don’t know what you got,” said Bickelhaupt. “You know you want to move in a direction, and you just go one step at a time, and sometimes things just naturally happen that’s unexpected, and that’s part of the process. So, as far as filming and food, I guess there’s this underlining thing that was very similar. We just always were on the same page, even though we’re two different mediums. Somehow there’s very much a link, especially the way we’re trying to show it.”
At one point in the film, Bickelhaupt talks about creating a dish without thinking about the ingredients, but rather the endgame. “It’s more like feeling or a time and place,” he explained. “Like, ‘who am I in this moment? What kind of emotions do I want to either express for myself or try and have people’s emotions change?’ I try to tell a story with my food.”
This improvisational approach is similar to how Newell approaches his filmmaking. “I tell the story and make people feel something, and try to reveal something about human nature,” the director says. “I don’t have a set of, ‘this must be this,’ or ‘I need to make a movie that talks about why this thing is bad or this thing is good.’ You kind of have to go in and just follow your gut. It’s a very organic and a very messy process, but it’s part of what’s fun, and I think what I tried to do in the film, seeing the true cost of what this is all about, and letting the film be funny and sad and thoughtful and poignant and silly and kind of all of these things.”
Like Bickelhaupt’s dishes, Newell didn’t know what the movie would end up when the cameras started rolling. Then, as the course of events started to unfold on film, he eventually found his end product. “It’s got this human quality to it that people really respond to, whether they’re a surgeon, or a taxi driver, or a chef, or whatever. It’s a story about the American dream. It’s the high of the American dream, and the pursuit, but also what it costs. And people really, really respond to that.”
Looking back on the experience, Bickelhaupt describes the film as “more like a time-capsule.”
“I started to think about things a little differently, and the people that you’re trying to reach. Documentaries are the stories, [and] most times they’re all for the food. [This] really wasn’t anything about the food, it was just about people, and trying to do whatever it takes to accomplish something that we thought was worth it. That can go across many different fields and mediums and art forms or whatever it may be, as long as you reach people and inspire them. I think we did something that was really worth it.”
42 Grams will be available on VOD starting November 17th
