> Wanted to smoke and drink without his family bothering him. Also had difficulty finding work. Still lives in the airport, but comes out occasionally.
I detect that your question probes the subtle difference how one can be implicitly defining the semantics of "living" and "in" when posing the question, influencing the expected answer.
Im not sure it's comparable. I thought the backstory for living in an airport is something along the lines of the story of the movie:
"The film is about an Eastern European man who is stuck in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport terminal when he is denied entry to the United States and at the same time is unable to return to his native country because of a military coup."[0]
If you were able to come and go, you would just technically be homeless with the unknown benefit to stay in airport for 20 years.
So he's third, and the rest of the top four are entirely by choice. He's the only one to break the two-year mark in airport confinement due to documentation issues.
He speaks well in english, smokes an exquisite tobacco pipe indoors and you can hear the airport flip boards in the background during interviews with him. Also pretty interesting to pause and see what's on the newspapers.
He eventually came to see the airport as his home, and remained even after he was no longer bound there. Atrocity Guide has the story https://youtu.be/JQfXd1YlkS4
Exactly what I was going to write. Path dependency and mental health constrained his choices into an infeasible trajectory, e.g. when the Belgian opportunity.
I appreciate your point of view and concerns, but this is not about an institution not delivering according to certain human values that everyone deserves, this is about multiple interactions letting someone stuck and with little options for exiting, the lesson here is that in such extreme cases don't expect human values to appear from out of the blue, and grab any option to escape the Trap.
What if the stars that got paid millions would've instead cut their own profit for a small amount (eg. 100k) each, that would've provided the man with a reasonable amount of money, while at the same time they wouldn't even feel the difference.
What you are proposing is royalty payment.. if movie does well payback goes up as well.
Have you considered the fact that if he was given a choice of royalty payment (for ex. 10K advance and rest royalty) vs $250K cold hard cash, which one he would have opted for anyway?
I know what I would have opted if I was in his situation.
I mean it's just the way "pure capitalists" think. "It's okay if I fuck over this guy because I gave him -some- money for it". If you make me rich with something I bought off you (patent, book, something you dug up), I'm going to make you rich back. I may not give you half but I'll give you a chonk and not a rounding error, especially if you're destitute.
I agree. It's not like 95% of the work to make a movie like that comes from thinking about a good story to base it on. Once you have a story like that, most of the effort is yet to come until you can see a fully produced movie on cinema screens. And 250k should be a life changing amount of money to someone in that situation if they really wanted to get out of it.
You clearly have no idea what are you talking about.
Outside of the popcorn movies, 90% of a proper movie are the stories behind. All bio movie have a powerful story to tell... Not the always available Hollywood plot: world in danger -> bad guy to fight -> Americans to save the world -> we'll live in peace and prosperity
Notice how you ignored the work required. While the story is critical, it is not at all the most amount of work in creating a movie. Many people have stories, few have the resources required to film and produce the movie.
This doesn't mean anything. Is really hard to have a constructive conversation with people that read to reply instead of understanding the point.
The production has decided to invest 60 million dollars, these money are going to be wasted ok? They have to do the production, pay the actors, technicians, marketing, royalties etc.
Whatever is the case, BEFORE the movie is out, they lost 60 millions. That's what an investment is, losing money in the short term, with the intention to make more on the long run.
So, in any case, someone smarter than me and you, decided that this guy story is worth, at the very least, an investment of 60 millions dollar. THIS IS MY POINT!
The fact that they did more money, good for them, no problem at all that's their business. If nobody went to see the movie, they'd lose 60 million dollars. Not a big deal, cause the production will make not 1 movie but plenty, so from a diversification point of view, they're covered. They can make the 60 million or more in the next movie if this would've had a bad result.
Is that clear?
Replying with the fact that movie lose money too, doesn't change anything upfront. Cause the production spent 60 millions, so for them IS A MULTI MILLION DOLLAR STORY
I can argue your point. You want others to spend money on your wants, then get upset when asked if you spent any of yours on it.
Why are you so angry at others not spending more than the $250k they did when apparently you spent none?
I'm always amazed how people are so quick to demand others give to some cause when not giving even a penny.
So it's not irrelevant. It demonstrates quite clearly the issue. Once you understand why you gave zero, you're closer to understanding why someone else didn't give a million.
Exactly. It's always those with the most excuses about why they won't spend their own money on something who are loudest about wanting to spend other's money on it. Again, "Once you understand why you gave zero, you're closer to understanding why someone else didn't give a million".
>Paying someone 250k and profiting 220 millions?
Profiting $220M? This is complete nonsense. The movie cost $60M to make. It had a box office ticket sales of $220m. Those ticket sales are not "profit" - some goes to theaters, some goes to pay back the $60M + interest. Some is spent on marketing. Calling revenue profit is untrue no matter how you slice it.
And the exposure the movie brought to the story likely added far more to helping the man than the money they paid for him.
You have a very misguided understanding of this.
>You do understand that this is exploitation right?
Yes, if we could just ban making movies about any topic unless everyone in the entire chain is provided a life of luxury then we'd all be just fine. Except movies bringing many important issues to the wider masses would not happen, and there would likely be more, not less, exploitation in the world since no longer could filmmakers choose important social topics, because some internet troll isn't happy about people not being paid millions.
So, if you really want to help people, and not just rant about spending other people's money, get out there, donate, spend time, or whatever, helping those around you.
> Also, actors don't get paid if the movie doesn't go well?
Sometimes they don’t. It depends on what deal they are on. Heh, you need to follow your own advice you gave to some random person on this website some days ago. You should google before you say something.
Well I meant that he would willingly want to do so himself instead of living in an airport.
But as to why France would want to? Because they don't want this guy living in their airport, and he's Iranian that's his home. He could have a real life there.
I think it's fair to be handed a check while other people make the movie, it's a good chunk of money. If he didn't have skills to allow him to earn money to afford a real apartment along with the movie money, yes he should have "been a hermit" in a smaller village or gone back to Iran. It's a ridiculous story to live in an airport for 18 years, he was a hermit there too.
> With 250k you can't even buy a decent apartment in a decent area in Paris
Paris itself no, but in the metropolitan area (where most people actually live), 250k€ gets you a nice appartament in a nice city well connected to Paris. Especially 20 years ago's 250k€.
At 10k a square meter, you get 25m^2. Not huge, but for a single person, I've seen people living in less than half that, and it's still better than an airport
Lots of movie does not make money. And ask all those actors and actress not making it. It is not that millionaire you should shoot at as arts need to be paid. It could be the 1% or 0.1% should pay back to the society. Not the 10%. The society need innovation and competition and money to drive this.
It is pretty bad. CDG and Orly, the two Paris airports are atrocious in pretty much all aspects besides maybe transit options -CDG has regular commuter trains and high speed rail linking it to Paris and other cities.
That's why I was shocked that last time I was there, struggling to understand where i could find food at the late hour of 21h, a bathroom or an electrical socket that worked, that it has apparently been voted as best European airport by Skytrax for 2022.
> ..He then spent time living in a hostel using the money he had received for the film.. (When he died) he was found with several thousands euros in his possession
Maynot be rich but atleast he seemed to be in a reasonable state because of the movie.
It's not the same story, though. It's inspired by it but that's it. They paid him for the rights of his full story which they did not uese. Legally they didn't even have to give him anything.
You can’t patent or copyright a concept based on your life. At least I don’t think you can. They didn’t need him to come up with the story. “Man lives in airpot”. As I recall the
film was quite different anyway in how the story evolved.
The cheapest hostel in Paris I found on Hostelworld was $35 per night, or around $1000 per month. Given that the median global income is somewhere around $10k per annum, a Parisian hostel seems to qualify.
Is well known to everyone that there are plenty of people living long term in hostel, especially the people who made someone else millions in profit, because they consider it a really suitable long term solution where you can live comfortably.
But ya, I was the idiot to think that hostel are instead short term accomodations for students / travelers / disadvantaged people (in very few instances) that are willing to sacrifice part of their freedom (like is also well known to everyone that sleeping every night with strangers in your room is a great thing) to have more cash to travel from place to place (or to put together their life)
Today I learned that there are a lot of people living long term in the hostel just because is great!
Also why are you comparing the global situation while we're talking about Paris here? Mystery
My furnished, air-conditioned apartment in the heart of Bangkok was less than that, even including the internet and utilities charges. It was 20 stories up with a nice view and a balcony with a washer on it.
From his Wikipedia article, I imagine this book provided some income as well:
> In 2004 Nasseri's autobiography, The Terminal Man,[6] was published. It was co-written by Nasseri with British author Andrew Donkin and was reviewed in The Sunday Times as being "profoundly disturbing and brilliant".[9]
Hopefully he also received some money from the 2004 Tom Hanks movie which used an adaptation of his story to earn $219 million on a budget of $60 million.
For context his primary stay in the airport was until 2006, it seems he returned at a later date (recent weeks?)
He was given food, and eventually received some donations. His expenses were almost non-existent other than that, as he didn’t pay to sleep there and his lawyer worked pro bono.
This is a really famous case and is fairly Kafkaesque.
It comes down to this:
> In 1992, a French court ruled that having entered the country legally, he could not be expelled from the airport, but it could not grant him permission to enter France.
He was legally stuck at the airport with no options from 1988 to 1995 when Belgium said they would take him. After that he stayed due to stubbornness in refusing to sign bureaucratic papers that did not represent his mental truth, which was affected by the years trapped and made him a bit off in the head like it would anyone. So he remained stuck.
He never could afford to stay at the airport. He was trapped there by bureaucrats. Humanists recognizing his dilemma gave him food.
Reading his Wikipedia, I wonder if he was of sound mind even before being trapped there. Things like his unproven claim of being expelled from Iran, "losing" his documents because he mailed them to Brussels...
> Humanists recognizing his dilemma gave him food.
It would seem that by not providing him food, hunger would have driven him to take the Belgian deal. Call me callous, but by making one's bad situation comfortable, often the result is that the person stays in that bad situation instead of improving it.
I found this nice enough to be worth of quote here:
"...And yet from the moment I sat down next to him I felt the force of his - there is no better word - dignity. Alfred seemed totally content within himself. He did not aim to please or play on your sympathy. He was not the homeless guy on the tube singing for a drink. Everything in Alfred's life was conducted on his own terms. In some sense he was a freer man than most...
...Despite outward appearances, Alfred lived a life of total self-sufficiency and order. He kept himself meticulously clean and groomed, using a nearby airport bathroom. He hung his freshly dry-cleaned clothes from the handle of a suitcase next to his bench. He always ate a MacDonald's egg and bacon croissant for breakfast and a McDonald's fish sandwich for dinner. (Perhaps one day McDonald's will have the wit to sign Alfred up for a celebrity endorsement.) He always left a tip. Alfred was not, to put it bluntly, a bum..."
> An Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport and inspired the 2004 Steven Spielberg film The Terminal died on Saturday in the airport, officials said.
How is it possible to inspire Steven Spielberg 18 years ago if he lived here only 18 years?
Funny enough, I've had many a layover there. I don't recall ever seeing him (it's not a small airport, so no surprise) but I probably would have sought him out if I knew about him.
Anyway, it's not the worst airport I've been in. Not great, but not that bad. Steigl for breakfast is grand.
For the curious, name of French film and other works inspired by Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian refugee who lived in Charles de Gaulle Airport from 1988 to 2006, are listed here:
What are you supposed to do if the person you're getting the info from didn't put it in their tweet? Clearly my opinion of journalism has fallen quite low.
According to Wikipedia: "In 1992, a French court ruled that having entered the country legally, he could not be expelled from the airport, but it could not grant him permission to enter France."
A very constructive and humane decision indeed. So this poor chap was the living proof of the futility of the court decision.
When speaking positively about some authors that wrote plays in the 'theater of the absurd' genre to an actor friend earlier this week, he replied that absurd theater was producing the only plays realistic enough to confront the modern Kafkaesque society and world. Indeed.
That Sheraton hotel isn’t anything to write home about though. It may be decent enough for Europe, but any third rate (and 3-4 times cheaper) hotel in Japan that I’ve been to has it beaten.
The one I was thinking of when I said it was the “The Yokohama Bay Hotel Tokyu”, which seems to be about 70% of the €200 price I paid for the Sheraton (and lightyears better).
It also seems to be a 5 star hotel according to Google, so it’s possible my idea of third rate is a bit skewed.
My point is Japan has a ton of these hotels, and they seem reasonably priced compared to airport hotels or US hotels anyway.
I want to give you a thorough answer but I've a lifetime of bad experiences with that airport and I'm on my phone where I can only type for so long before my thumbs hurt.
My issue is not so much about the physical design of the airport (although I do have beef there) but more the human institution of it. Suffice it to say that I have missed way too many international connections there due to kafkaesque bureaucracy, and they've lost way too much of my checked baggage. It's also an especially bad place (relative to other major European air hubs) to have a member of your travel party in a wheelchair.
However, they do have an on-site high speed rail terminal and I think that's super awesome and deserves major kudos.
I had my first panic attack in that terminal, so I may be one of the few in this thread with professional psychiatric analyses to share (though surely not the only one.)
Basically a lot of Americans find CDG stressful because it is so close to the beauty of Paris without allowing any exposure to it. It is a perfectly accomodating and pleasant space, but it hits the uncanny valley of manufactured cultural institutions while really just being an airport at the behest of arbitrary French immigration officials.
The airport is also very open even by airport standards. There are very few nooks and/or crannies to hide away in to catch your bearings. The omnipresent announcements relay information relevant to you 1% of the time but you constantly feel on edge trying to keep up with all of them.
Couple that with the fact that travellers are likely to be sleep deprived (or in my case Ambien deprived) and you have a recipe for disaster.
If purgatory is a real place I am pretty sure it will feel like CDG. Its quite a nice place for an airport. In fact, your first hour there is always lovely, but it seems to have an exaggerated version of that 'airport feeling.'
Wow, you really added to the conversation. I just want to thank you for the effort you put into this insightful comment. We all know so much more about Charles de Gaulle airport now. This kind of content is was keeps me on HN.
I intended for it to be an obviously farcical comparison. Wordplay, if you will. The word lived is part of the 'punchline' that spending 18 hours somewhere is comically different than 18 years, as you point out, even if it did feel like a lifetime...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_lived_...