This month, 68 years ago, Anthony Bourdain was born. And this month, 6 years ago, he ended his life.
I usually consider caring about celebrities beneath me. Masterpieces of film, music, and literature move me deeply, as they do to most with a pulse. But the knowledge of whether or not the artists behind them are alive, dead, at peace, or in despair, usually matters to me only to the extent that it scratches a brief itch of mild curiosity. The brilliance of an artwork lies in the fact that it speaks for itself, no matter how it was created nor by whom.
However, separating the art from the artist is impossible when engaging with any product of Anthony Bourdain. Every program he ever did was thoroughly injected with his presence and interspersed with his autobiography. His shows, after all, were self-titled: Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. And yet, these shows never reeked of narcissism. His story begged to be told in a way that only he could tell.
Bourdain’s magnum opus, Parts Unknown, was staffed by an incredible team, but anyone familiar with him could recognize his individual voice and artistry shining through each step of the show’s creative process: from the cinematography to the music choices to the editing.
Each episode followed Bourdain to a unique location, where he engaged in unconventional tours with charismatic locals. Though Bourdain’s television career was spurred by his previous chef career (and his tell-all Kitchen Confidential book about that life era), food was simply a backdrop to his examinations of locales.
One particularly great moment of Parts Unknown is its 2016 “Rome” episode (notwithstanding its heavy-handed political commentary). Bourdain easily could have followed the well-worn path laid by every other travel and food show ever-aired, eating pasta carbonara a stone’s throw away from the Colosseum, in the predictable Rick Steves fashion.
But Bourdain was too creative for that. He was a true artist in the truth-seeking sense. He brought out the bizarre in the beautiful and the beautiful in the bizarre.
And so, his tour of Rome took him (and us) through its gritty back corners, among its deviants and hustlers. The backdrop for his meal with soon-to-be girlfriend Asia Argento was not a candlelit dinner in a rustic taverna beside a crooning, mustached accordionist — it was an amateur boxing match. (Watching the episode far surpasses any description I can offer of this scene, or of any other scene in the show for that matter).
The “Rome” episode was interspersed with clips from classic mid-20th century Italian cinema — an artistic era that Bourdain rightly recognizes as golden. In his film taste, as in his general life outlook, Bourdain was a true romantic.
His romantic view of life likely led to his demise. He ascribed tremendous emotional weight to life, and crumbled under that weight.
Bourdain was an idol of mine. At the time he left this world in 2018, writing, filmmaking, and traveling seemed to me to be the best way to live a life. It still does.
He reminded me of myself, especially in the depths of my teenage angst. His dissatisfaction with his bourgeois upbringing, his artistic aspirations, his emotional highs and lows, the way that he quickly became imbued with passion for things (just to get promptly get bored of them), his sense that he must suffer in order to become a great artist, and his persistent search for meaning, all deeply resonated.
He was a source of comfort for me. He demonstrated that you can be a sensitive and troubled individual and ultimately turn out okay — more than okay. He was universally beloved, and crafted a dream life to everyone’s envy.
He had all that, but in the end, it wasn't enough for him. In an instant, his comforting story became a profound discomfort. Silver linings blackened.
It should be noted that Bourdain didn’t care all that much about being beloved by the “rubes” (a term he repeatedly and hilariously employs in Kitchen Confidential).
He seemed to simply care about being loved by a few people — or even just one person.
At the end of his life, that one person was Asia Argento, and his life was over as soon as their relationship was.
His suicide followed on the heels of her publicized infidelities. It’s possible that he wanted to inflict his pain onto her. It is said that the sentimental are the most cruel.
(This is why the “Rome” episode is so haunting. He met Argento during its production. It was the beginning of the end).
Bourdain was an atheist, but I am not moved by an answer to his life story which would suggest that he would have ultimately pulled through his heartbreak if only he had faith in God.
Faith comes and goes. Lifelong unbelievers often come to God in moments of peril. But the opposite is tragically also true; otherwise there’d be no despair or suicides among the professed-religious.
I know that there is no answer to Bourdain’s death that we can discover in life. Yet, I can’t cease my inquiries.
So until it all makes more sense to me, I’ll just repeatedly rewatch and reread his works. It’s the best-available substitute for never being able to meet him in-person.