Original subtitles

ultimately a film when it's completed uh

there was a period of time where

I remember the first films opening up

doing some interviews

press interviews

very little television

well the point is this that

you know if you're in narrative cinema

and you're making films

you're an American filmmaker

whether you make them in New York or Chicago and Austin

Texas and everything kind of around the world

they feel their Hollywood films

even if they're of a different style

but particularly back in the early 70s

all the way through the 70s

they were coming out of Hollywood and away

even though some of them were shot in New York

and edited here

they really were

so once they were picked up for distribution

the distribution companies

with the Hollywood companies

at least the films that I made

you know and so

these had to go through the Hollywood studio system

in terms of uh uh

in terms of letting the audience know

the film is out there

you have to

you write a book

you gotta let people know what's there

you know uh

you do a film

you gotta let him know what's there

whether you do it and it's uh

Michael Snow's Wavelength or whether it's uh

you know uh

Godfather 1

you know Godfather 2 I mean

there's an audience

a certain kind of audience too

I don't say that

you know each film

every film is for the widest range you can

once you do that you're

you're creating an effect in the film that is

watering down the picture so uh

if you find that you made a film that

you feel strongly about

you feel you get as truthful as possible in it

there might be an audience out there for it

now you got to go out and present it to an audience

how was that done

in many different ways

usually it's the actors

people want to see certain actors in there

in the case of

certain individual films made in the 60s and early 70s

there was critical reaction

critics there were certain critics around and were very

very powerful at the time

you had to let the audience know that the

pictures out there

so you find that um

particularly at that time

you could have input in the trailers

coming attractions

you certainly can have input in the posters

in the publicity campaign

you got to be part of all of it

I remember when Bonnie and Clyde was made

Warren Batty produced it

and it was killed by The New York Times

the review and what Batty did was

as a producer of the film

he took a print of the picture by hand

you know the hand and

and these cans

and went from town to town

and went on every television show and promoted the film

um the as a side

as a side point

The New York Times reviewed the film positively

um but that was also a watershed moment

because American cinema was changing so much

and bunning Clyde was at the forefront of that art

the pen and

and baby but um

this was the way you believe in the film

you go out and you talk about it as best you can

um there were different kinds of

there are different kinds too

of reasons for doing it

in some cases

it's enjoyable

you had a good time with the people making the film

you go out you enjoy yourself

you celebrate a little

little with the actors

with the people that work on the film

with the studio people

and if it makes it

it makes it

you know um

it doesn't it doesn't

least you've tried

all the times

you've invested so much of your own money

and your life into it

you better go out and

and talk about it um

without over saturating the market um

with yourself

so to speak

um that includes the actor

includes the head director

whatever um

and other times

it's good just to not do anything

just let it play

if it gets support

and gets what they call word of mouth

it's good to let it play

so um the key is though

you have to let people

if you want people to see

you got to let them know it's there

Taxi Driver did very well

at the box office

I hadn't thought it would

I was I was intent

on using a certain kind of poster for the picture

and they allowed us to get the posters made

they're different images

one beautiful one by Gree Pilart is extraordinary

but the one that did the most for the

for the picture

was just a simple still from the movie itself

kind of black and white

but lavender finish to it

and just a shot of genera walking up at the avenue

that sold the picture

if you had asked me to say

what poster or what image is gonna sell the film

I wouldn't have said that but it did

so I find that

you know I have to

I have to be very patient

and be very open to many different ways

of many different ideas

from people who do sell films

so to speak

it's also a very complicated thing

because in certain cases some films

was subject to a lot of contention during the shooting

during the editing

the studio fighting as I say

years ago people could still do it

actress take away a film

studio takes it away

the financiers take it away

so there's a lot of contention

very often nobody can agree

and so when the film opens

they throw it away basically

and you could go out

you could take it and you could sell it now

go out meaning go from town to town

well today you have the internet

I'm behind on that

so I can't really

it just seems the information is out there

but all the information is out there

so how do you find it