Original subtitles

[Music]

[Applause]

hello and

welcome we're shooting this class in a

place called alist Tully Hall on the

corner of 65th Street in Broadway in

Manhattan at Lincoln Center and it um

means a great deal to me it has a lot of

significance for me because every fall

this is where the New York Film Festival

takes place and when I was young um I

came to the festival every year to see

pictures from all over the world I had

sometimes I was able to get into the

Press screening because I had a couple

of short films shown in the first few

festivals we saw new work from great

filmmakers like uh Luis bunwell Fran

trufo Jean luk godar and Nagisa osima so

many remarkable movies and we were all

just enthralled by the movies coming

from all over the globe in those days

and as we went and absorbed those

pictures we were receiving an

education it wasn't the reverse we

didn't set out to make a study of

anything we were immersed and entranced

and on fire and the education

just naturally

followed and that's the way it is when

you're pursuing an obsession when you're

going where you're drawn to go where you

have to go as opposed to where you think

it might be fun to go or where you think

you should

go so if you're intrigued by movie

making as a

career uh this isn't the class for

you but if you need to make movies a

movie if you feel like you can't rest

until you've you know told this

particular story that you're burning to

tell and moving images and sounds then I

could be speaking to you because um

that's who I was when I started making

pictures and when I made Mean Streets

and showed it here in this theater for

the first time to the public and the New

York Film Festival audience in

1973 so I'm going to be speaking

personally and that's the only way I can

speak about making movies I'm not going

to give you a

blueprint uh there are no shortcuts

I'm going to give you some practical

advice along the way but the most

important thing I can convey to you is

that you always have to find your own

way you can be inspired you can learn

about cameras and sound equipment

editing tools uh but in the end it's

just

you that's what you have to guard that's

what's

precious so I'm Martin soressi and this

is my master class

I'm often asked about the relationship

between my original desire

to enter the

priesthood um and my love for film um in

other words in a sense going from one

vocation which is one calling

it's called one calling which to the

priesthood to another which is a calling

which it is a a a um commitment uh to a

way of life and that is the film making

uh of course it's a very you know

personal matter but um but I will say

that it was a matter of being honest

with myself as best I could and

realizing that uh you must do what

you're called to do within yourself um

the uh church and and uh

Cinema they both made sense to me one

particular priest who was a very very

influential in my upbringing from the

age of 11 to age of 17 or 18 um and that

made sense he really made sense made

sense about morality and life in the

outside world away from the neighborhood

and the church we were in um and this

was a person that I wanted to be like of

course uh you know uh in order to be uh

um a true cleric in that sense you do

have to feel that yourself you have to

be there's a commitment that uh you

can't join it because you want to be

like somebody else and it has to come

from you um and I found all of this

started to filter into a storytelling

storytelling this particular priest did

help try to balance um common sense in

the world and also moral sense but the

world we're in you know there were there

was the bowy when they called the bums

at the time living on the bowy were part

of the world that I grew up in there was

a criminal element along with the

Working Class People who were just

trying to stay alive and the older

Sicilians neapolitans who had come to

America who didn't speak English so so

much was entangled I when went on in

that neighborhood in and in my own life

and it was so powerful to me the desire

uh to tell these stories on film came

from

that and a lot of what I experienced in

church for example the visual impact of

the church uh

the statues whether they were uh plaster

statues or whether they were actually

beautifully formed versions of some sort

of sculpture uh devotional paintings

Stations of the Cross the uh the light

in the Basilica of St Patrick's old

Cathedral the light during the daytime

and how it shifted through the stained

glass windows uh the tone and the mood

of of the Basilica itself the nature of

the rituals that was prev Vatican 2 uh

all informed me of course and my

approach to cinema as I began making

movies the concept of morality

uh right and wrong good and bad good and

evil

um and how Faith um uh how faith is a

major element in leading a life that

could be a moral life you know and how

faith can also be something which

contains a great deal of doubt and how

uh there's a struggle for Faith and uh

this is something that uh comes from

that time that was planted at that time

uh how does one live uh there the old

story is in Mean Streets or a number of

the other films if you're in a in a

world that uh is a uh U on you're in the

front lines of a world that is uh uh

pretty tough and pretty negative and at

times evil is all around you how do you

try to live balanced not balanced but

how you try to live moral

life and so these these questions always

uh uh have come back to me and this is

what I think of all the

time when I was young uh obviously was a

very different world than it is today

the movies were only seen in theaters

before television um and due to many

different reasons late 1940s and early

50s including Health uh I found myself

seeing a lot of movies uh my parents

would take me to see and my brother and

I loved the movies I saw um but there is

no doubt that this world of movie

making um where these uh miraculous

images and stories came from um really

felt very distant I it was something

that U I could not imagine um I would

ever be involved in the point is that um

creativity with Cinema like any real art

form is you really should know the old

work that has gone before the Old

Masters and I I do think uh you should

know it

meaning you should be exposed to it you

should see and uh experience them as

best you can do not look at them to

learn from them look at them to see if

it speaks to you if you're interested at

all if you're curious you know it's not

a matter of uh I'm going to learn

something from watching of Max oold I'm

going to learn something you know um uh

it's a matter of uh your response to it

you're aware that that is out there

you're aware that that's part of the

medium you're using uh and so in a way

even if you reject it you have to know

what you're rejecting I think um and

it's to learn from the Old Masters hence

you need conservation you need

preservation and you need presentation

of these films it's unfortunate that

many of the new films will be seen on a

a small screen uh um however we did see

some great films on television which was

a small screen at the time in the late

in the 50s so somehow the power of films

like like Citizen Kane burst through

that 16inch black and white screen you

know uh and when we saw it in a theater

in a in a in a print that was being

shown in um re-release in the late 50s

uh it was another experience you know I

wish I had seen it on the screen for the

first time but didn't the effect seeing

it on television was still very very

strong enough to change my mind about

how films are made and so you know it's

really important to be aware of these

things that have happened before and to

maybe reinterpret them or reinterpret

reinterpret to the point where you

discard them even you have a 100 Years

of Cinema more than a 100 years

now to

uh sort of I should say dive into in a

way and find your way you know because

in

1960 we had basically the 19 some of the

1930s all through the 40s and 50s of

American films all the syum films were

not seen if you did see ayum film by

that point it was in 16 mm scratched up

jerky motion and you wondered why

anybody went to see these things you had

some foreign films French and Italian

mainly many British films um but nothing

from Japan until early 50s

uh and so there was a possibil German

films to a certain extent from the 1920s

again there were silent Russian films

that were silent so whatever prints we

got dup negatives they weren't the best

but you were aware of these things and

yet I think by

19 1960 or 61 one could still say you

could actually absorb the history of

Cinema from all over the world because

there wasn't that much to see you

compared to now now you have everything

and everything is on the same plane on

the same time scale almost you can watch

something from 1920 and then see

something was made yesterday the people

who made uh Cinema and created Cinema I

should say in 19 1898 to 1903 to 1910 to

196 to

1925 it's a very different they were

creating a language they were creating a

new form a new art form and so we uh

myself and my generation many you know

even uh others at that time but

primarily the generation that came out

of the 50s and 60s that started making

films in the 70s in um the cinema is

that was made particularly in in in

America um uh that we were um exposed to

constantly is uh a block of time that uh

is something very special to us no one

really ever thought about um the

continuity uh the preservation or the

restoration or even just the

preservation the conservation of this

the these works that that influenced us

so much not influenced but made up so

much uh made up so much of our lives

there was a transition from the old

Studio system in the 60s to the early

70s a transition from the old Studio

system to the new Hollywood at that

time but in the in the midst of it you

don't know if there's going to be a new

Hollywood you see we just knew that the

studios were closing down they were

selling off their props the who knows

what was happening to their prints a lot

of the prints are on nitrate stock a lot

of the negatives in n they're just

disintegrating all of this was the end

of an era you see and so we started um

uh trying to raise the consciousness of

uh uh people who in power at the time to

um preserve the films conserve the films

uh ultimately particularly with the

ancillary markets of video and that sort

of thing uh they began to realize that

there's a uh there's still an ability to

these are assets are very important to

them we knew they were more than assets

they were a lifeblood to us

[Music]

when I went to myyu in the early 60s

1960 I think it was it certainly wasn't

the myyu we know today it was a

Washington Square College which I

enrolled in it was quite small and the

introduction to film really wasn't a

film school so to speak there were film

department

along with radio and television but the

introduction to film was split into um

the first two semesters that we call

history of Motion Pictures One and Two

um this along with all the other U

required courses for the first two years

of the school our teacher was a man

named heg manujan of Armenian descent

and from the first class he talked very

very very fast almost like a drill

instructor and he covered a lot of

ground very quickly and I remember there

sitting there just you know taking

endless notes endless notes he'd show a

film and if he thought a student was

just there for you know uh to to waste

time uh just take it easy and watch

movies he would throw them out basically

so he weeded people out and in our

second year we took a um U an

introductory kind of production course

we had 16 millimeter cameras um and it

was called Sight and Sound and we

learned the very basic the rudiments of

film making the very basic elements of

lenses uh using 16 mm black and white uh

film uh we did little exercises and by

the end of the semester by the end of

the year I think it was we were able to

make a three to four minute film um

based on what we had uh learned about

the equipment and lighting and that sort

of thing uh in in in those classes more

people were weed it

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out what he focused on ultimately he was

heavily influenced by the Italian

neorealism and new way of of film making

but he really focused on the individual

voice the individual stories that you

felt that you had to

tell and he wouldn't let anyone direct

unless they had written the film

themselves separate from a non-fiction

film I'm talking

about and if you didn't write it

yourself basically out of the class I

remember one student telling him uh you

know I want to direct and he says okay

where's your script and he said well I'm

I need a script I'm a director he said

no go write your script otherwise you

can't do it um he also we found

ourselves at odds because I mean he

hated melodrama he hated he said I don't

want to see any of you kids going uh for

a shot where somebody picks up a gun he

was encouraging everyone to express

themselves and protect that spark in

themselves and not be influenced by

other kinds of film making if they

wanted that sort of thing they're going

to television or going to another go to

Los Angeles was was a different a

different situation it was a little

different for me because I grew up in a

world where at times um people had

access to guns and you know uh that was

part of a part of life or a fact of life

at times so uh melodrama turned out to

be drama to a certain extent um and

eventually that led to Mean Streets and

other films I made but that was in the

early 70s he was really developing

individual voices that would make very

very different kinds of film

[Music]

what he was finally getting to was the

understanding or comprehension of Cinema

itself never used that word uh you

Motion Pictures you know you could say

film cinema movies but he always Motion

Pictures he was trying to get to the for

us to understand what is the potential

of the moving image and the cut so to

speak um now uh what that means is um a

kind of immersion in the process an

immersion in the process which means not

only the writing the working and the

script and the page or or a paragraph

could be a script of course but uh one

uh would have to work it out in in the

shooting with non-actors with actors or

or um simply um um images uh without

people in the frame it comes to the

point of where you take the images and

you're in and edit editing room quote

unquote or computer these days or

whatever and uh you put it together to

tell a narrative now the narrative could

be about the color uh

blue it could be about color red you

know it could be about music it could be

music itself um the the nature of the

actual moving image uh even if it's a

still image has another quality which is

different from a still photograph and a

painting and a piece music so all of

this is about

understanding the value of um Cinema

itself um and recreating it constantly

recreating it constantly from yourself

okay and that even deals with narrative

Cinema so of course so what what he

talked about was always the value of a

shot a value of a shot and I didn't

understand until we were in the editing

process of u a number of us um we we'd

shoot some

with the intention of using it one way

or in one section of the film let's say

and then at some point when we really

get into the editing of the picture and

because of so many different um changes

and so many different decisions that

were made that you don't expect suddenly

you found yourself using a shot that you

thought was meant for one place and

you're using it in another place and it

makes sense and he's he I remember him

becoming very excited when one or two of

us did that he goes now you understand

the value of a shot the shot is a value

in and of itself no matter what you shot

it for it may not matter it may not

matter ultimately uh it takes on its own

life it takes on its own um intention

and it takes on its own Essence in a way

and this is something that you can't

teach you have to just do it but this

was the excitement I saw

him um and the excit the way I saw he

was so excited when the student or uh

one of us I forget who it was now when

we stumbled on this he goes now you get

what I've been talking about um and we

mention yeah but uh Professor he said

when truo said that you know when he was

editing a film and it's going one way he

would tend to want to cut it to go

another way and he said I don't believe

that he said you know that's part of the

process he thinks he's doing that but

he's going to a final he's going to a

final Point somewhere in the um in the

uh telling of the story whether it's uh

Jose Jim and whether it's uh you know uh

leus I mean it's going

[Music]

somewhere the essence of what he gave us

with the essence the spark he was the

inspiration he was the one to give me

the confidence

to become a filmmaker to come from this

other world uh to come from this other

world and suddenly be able to express

myself with film that might even be

shown in theaters at some point or might

be shown to an audience you can't learn

to make a film in school you can have

the opportunity to make a film in school

you have to learn it yourself great

thing about the film school is the

inspiration and the ability to give you

the confidence uh if you have something

that you really feel uh passionate about

and I think that's the greatest thing

Any teacher or any guide could give a

student that is the confidence and the

inspiration to make you think well you

know it's crazy but maybe I can do it

[Music]

I don't think there's

anything that could

be that could be deemed a a process

which covers all the bases so to speak I

mean look yes there's a process in order

to uh start shooting you have to put the

camera on the the some sort of device or

you want to handhold it you have to make

a choice there there are some basic

things um uh that are about more

logistical than anything else uh the use

of equipment knowing what equipment

could do knowing which tool to use um

but natural process you know there are

many people who just work it out there

are many people who kind of write as

they go along um the script for viu in

Italia um Voyage Through Italy by

rosellini was fra I saw it framed on a

wall in an apartment in Rome it was one

page paragraph not saying everybody does

that phini when he would um shoot I was

on a set a number of times but 1980 81

uh doing city of women um he had five

different sets uh in on the same stage

and there was constant talking and

shouting and yelling and he was running

up and down and people laughing people

arguing in the meantime he was

shooting he was shooting I remember

remember people saying what's going on

well he's shooting over here and one it

was a very different way of shooting of

course in Italy they don't use SN sound

so uh the sets are everybody's used to

speak talking loudly you know um and as

he was shooting we were guests on the

set he would come over and talk to us

and you go back to the shot so it's a

very different way of of

um working a very different process

there are filmmakers uh who are more uh

there are filmmakers who have an editor

they trust um who knows their style who

knows who they are and has worked with

them a long time editing while they're

shooting the film could be put together

two weeks after the pictures finish uh

wrapping

shooting um I like to wait until I

finish shooting and work with my editor

you know um and so um what I'm saying is

that there is no process and when people

talk to you about a process you might as

well open a textbook a textbook give you

some basic facts Logistics facts that

sort of thing but uh whether good or bad

it's

art uh meaning the quality of it I don't

know it depends on the person the

quality of your own work I don't know

you just know you have to do it so um in

that doing of it you

are making judgments whether the quality

of the judgment is something that's

going to last and mean something to

people 50 years from now who knows you

know do you feel feel good about it very

often people feel terrible about some of

it and it's quite good to many people so

there really is no process I mean yes to

a certain extent it would be good to

talk to the costume person uh before

shooting okay I mean it's common common

sense preparation seems to be good

especially for narrative Cinema that

sort of thing seems to be which means

you should talk to your director

photography talk to your locations

people uh describe what you want um this

is aside from working with writers or

writing it yourself working with the

actors all of this sort of thing is is a

common sense I think the actual

Logistics uh and uh the rubic cube of

making a film is something that you may

need guidance with people who are real

pros at it I mean uh for example uh

Michael Ball house when we were doing

Last Temptation Of Christ I had

um worked on the uh uh we worked on the

the schedule and and uh all of this sort

of thing and we had it ready the first

scene in the script was going to be the

first thing we shot and um I was all

ready to do it and a week and a half or

two weeks before shooting Michael came

to me and said look instead of the first

scene we should go to the there's a

scene with a crucifixion of a a guy who

was called a zealot he said we should

shoot that first it's daylight the light

will be right we get three days of

daylight out of the way and then we go

indoors and for whatever reasons I it

was made clear to me that that was the

most sensible way of going because of

budget and

schedule and I wanted the luxury of

continuity but I couldn't have it and so

this is what I mean about uh there is no

process so um you know um there's a

process in that in that you must rely on

those who know how to get the things

done um

what those things are come from you and

uh is it practical or not you know is it

practical for the amount of money you

have the amount of days you have the

people you're working with that sort of

thing and if it's not how could they get

close enough to what you'd like you

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know a life of a film is perceived

differently from different filmmakers

you know um for me it means uh allowing

uh the film to have its own life at

times and to um be able to take the

chances to burst the seams of the

picture and for us to take advantage of

the um uh the possibility of special

things that would happen within the

scene with the actors with the camera

with the light all of this um you know

uh there are many films that have been

made and many continue to be made where

in a sense they're almost like director

free they're like a succession of line

readings in a sense with good script

really good actors and you can enjoy it

but I don't feel it's Cinema I don't

feel that the it's a film somehow

because here's the thing you have to

stay open you have to stay open to

what's

happening right in front of you around

you at every single

moment as you envision a scene as you

work on the scene with the crew and with

the with the cast um

[Music]

you design it in your head of course you

you know even the lenses you want to use

in some cases you design the camera

moves the camera moves mean something we

hope uh the U the cuts uh uh could be

designed in such a way as to an editing

pattern you know uh you work with the

production designer the custom designer

and then with of course the art director

and um uh custom designer on the set and

then with the actors and you shoot it

and something completely unexpected that

happens it adds new value to the scene

in the case of Good Fellas for example

uh the third night of shooting we we

because of schedule problems we had to

shoot this really important scene where

character of stacks uh played by Sam

Jackson uh gets assassinated by Joe

pes's character and he had um his friend

with him uh Frank and uh we did all in

one take um and it was before digital so

there were Prosthetics and all kinds of

it was very complicated to do but um

when Joe came in with Frank uh said a

lot of stacks and said maybe some coffee

will you he told Frank so Frank's making

the coffee come on Frankie make coffee

get make

coffee thought you had one of your

[ __ ] in here yeah I did where the

[ __ ] is

he so he's got these hot books around 6

something Joe comes around in the frame

around and finally surprises every for

your own [ __ ]

funeral and Frank comes out with the

coffee pot looking he just took the

coffee pot with him the [ __ ] you look at

so Joe told him come on make that coffee

to go let's go they actually start to

leave the room and Frank is Walking with

the coffee potties no it's a joke the

[ __ ] you doing it's a joke a joke put

the [ __ ] pot down you got to take the

coffee and so I began to get a sense of

the horrifying

humor uh and uh um the dark humor of the

picture and the story and and the

lifestyle of uh uh making jokes in

circumstances like this and uh the

Psychopathology of it and um this is

really coming out of uh uh working with

the actors and uh uh it happened

repeatedly throughout that film uh or in

the editing for example where you

takeing good Fellas where um

Mory keeps

asking Jimmy to get his money for him

and they're in a bar it's later in the

picture and you begin to hear uh

Sunshine of Your Love cream and at that

point you see Jimmy played by Robert

dairo looking around and checking out

each one in the bar and realizing to

himself that why should he have to share

the the

loot why don't he just kill them all you

know but I had made a note that we move

in on him we shoot it at 36 frames a

second or 32 frames a second and when we

were syncing up the music for this scene

a guitar riff uh hit right at the moment

that Bob's eyes flared and we realized

this was it this was the moment we were

looking

for it was a combination of

planning and the imagination on the page

32 to 36 frames a second second a camera

move

in and the editing of the picture few

months later using that piece of

[Music]

music then even sometimes the surprises

in the mix like en Raging Bull or Frank

Warner we kept saying there's so many

sounds of punches and H these fight

scenes and there was one big moment I

think Jake uh swings his arm into frame

and glove smashes into the head of the

the other fighter knocks him out

whatever we were sitting there saying

it's just how many more ways could we uh

Express the sounds of gloves slamming

against flesh or whatever or the speed

of the glove going right past you uh

because

um a lot of the sound effects in those

scenes in the ring were meant to be just

as the the the visuals Were Meant To Be

impressions of how Jake saw it in the

ring not from people outside the ring

but how you uh perceive reality um after

being punched or throwing punches and

losing your breath and trying to stay in

shape and trying to stay on your feet uh

and so everything was twisted and turned

in a way so Frank was thinking Frank was

thinking he said what if we take out the

sound I said yeah let's do that

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

and sure enough that's how it worked out

but again it was created there in the

mix but all of was working together and

so the point is Jo always really have to

stay alive to what's happening in front

of you right in front of you and you

could have the some in a negative way

preconceived ideas but as long as the

philosophy of the idea still um uh is

still retained you could change the

aspects of it you could change um the um

Elements which create the concept of the

shot um and so you know I I think um the

picture itself takes over in a way

[Music]

I always found that that going to see a

film and studying it at the moment as

you're watching it for the first time it

doesn't work um you have to let the film

work on you or not then if you're hit by

certain things if you know you go there

and you you go back and you try to find

very often if few imagine a sequence or

a scene or two that's edited a certain

way you find that the camera wasn't that

close but it appeared that close in your

memory that's interesting why well may

have been use sound effect may have been

use of a cut you see or a camera move

that was imperceptible at first so uh

there was a almost like a memorization

of I guess it was almost like a

photographic memory of images editing um

sequences in the film um scenes shots

and so I would draw upon that don't

forget there was really no way of seeing

these things unless it was shown on

television again arbitrarily or it was

playing in a theater somewhere and you

had to go to find that theater you know

um and so you had to do it for memory uh

whether it was the uh Marshall's badge

on the dirt ground um against the boot

of Gary Cooper at the end of high noon

or you know um part of the Chariot race

in benur uh you had to go and see the

film again you can make little drawings

try to I used to try to draw my own

versions of these things from memory you

know and so um I remember seeing the

small back room of Paul pressburger

film um on television in an afternoon

one day I think in the mid mid early to

mid-50s and I remembered the mood of

this this film was a very strange film I

recall very very clearly the opening

title sequence um particularly uh

there's a shot of traffic light changing

from red to Green of course it's a black

and white film but you do get the

impression it's the angle of of the the

traffic light and it's the rain that's

in the frame around it there's something

about that shot that made it very

powerful and memorable they only saw it

once and also through the windshield as

the person is driving there Michael Goff

I think is driving in the beginning and

through the windshield it's the London

during the war everything is dark and

the windshield is the windsh wipers are

wiping away this heavy rain and you're

looking through and those two images

became really key images for taxi

driver there's another shot in there too

in Taxi Driver that he goes to buy guns

um this is a spe a specific reference

for example but he goes to buy guns from

uh Andy and the the hotel room and he

picks up one of the guns he goes to the

window and the gun is pointed at two or

three women outside I think with an

umbrella but that's placed on a dolly or

a track and it tracks

over and there was always something I

loved in this King vor's film um

Northwest Passage there's an attack by

the uh Native Americans uh against the

fort and at one point he has somebody

with a rifle camera's shooting over that

person with the rifle and you see the

native running in the background and the

man is put on a track a

dolly and the actor and he's the camera

just tracks with him fires a gun running

along tracking along in the same

direction as the uh the native was

running so we tried the similar thing

that was directly and I started putting

them um uh Travis onad at times although

we did it in uh in Mean Streets too but

not particularly with the not as

specific as with the gun from Northwest

[Music]

Passage when we started making films we

were uh very conscious of cinema around

us particularly the older Hollywood

Cinema too so um this was a time when

you could actually make reference to

films that people considered just quote

entertainment unquote um and there were

people around the world France and

England Italy other places uh Japan who

knew what you were talking about and so

we started making references and this

was our generation doing that um you

know again the French filmmaker Jean luk

odar making a reference directly to

Humphrey Bogart in U Abu sufla

breathless where Bel Mond looks at an

image of Bogart I think from uh the

harder they fall his last film and he

does the the gesture that Bogart always

was known for with his thum

and says bogy I think

um there was

uh references to Hawks films references

to Hitchcock constantly in those

films my first kind of a feature is

Who's That Knocking on my door which is

kind of a I look at as kind of a

juvenalia as kind of like a we were

trying things took about three or four

years to make over time trying to find

how to tell a story without telling a

straight narrative we used um references

a to westerns in the film as a uh

starting point for conversations uh they

were like testing each other and so a

reference particularly to the Searchers

which everyone knows now to a certain

extent uh but at that time the Searchers

was not considered a very good film um

it was like a franchise picture for

example it was always usually a John

Ford film Hitchcock had a film a year so

vertigo was was uh ignored um was just

another Hitchcock film was a little uh

murky they felt the audience and uh I

should say the critics more but at the

age of 13 and 14 the searches was

something that was really important to

us um when we saw it um that

reflected the world we were in the

America that we knew or that we were

experiencing at that time um and the

portense of the character of Ethan

Edwards and so and the beauty of the

film The Poetry the imagery and the

language we use that as a basis to start

conversations in the movie and that sort

of thing and particularly you're dealing

with a film that

had that took place in lower e side and

people who certainly wouldn't even have

ever seen a horse except for one of the

two uh policemen on horses on uh on

Prince Street Maybe

[Music]

my suggestion would be if you're

starting to make a film or you want to

express yourself on some sort of uh

visual narrative uh I don't know if you

have to uh be conscious of your style

you know I mean you can use a sense

of an aspect of some some style that you

think you might have as a but be be be

aware that it might um reveal itself to

be something else and that's what's more

important uh and that's the essential of

who you are and what you're trying to

say and how you're expressing it you're

using the tools to express it uh because

ultimately if to take away all the

equipment you still have to be able to

tell the story can't talk about my own

style I don't know what I don't know

what that is really so um other people

could do it if they want but I I don't

know how to so I'm trying to make the

pictures uh feel the need at times to

really make these pictures for whatever

that U whatever that

means to me it means that you

can't it means that you it's hard for

you to to continue your daily life

unless you work on this particular story

or um work out making a film so to

speak so I'm just making the pictures

telling the

stories trying to capture the emotions

uh the ideas and really try to provoke

to the best of my ability what's left of

uh uh my time and what's left of uh the

capacity

for my my brain basically um going

further into the mystery of film

[Music]

making we now agree that verbal literacy

is necessary and we take that for

granted but a couple of thousand years

ago

Socrates actually disagreed his argument

was almost uh the very same identical to

the arguments of people today who object

to the internet or to or the people back

in the 60s and 70s who warned about uh

the evils of

Television Socrates worried that writing

and reading would actually lead to not

truly knowing it he believed that if

people would have stopped memorizing and

start writing and reading they'd be in

danger of cultivating the appearance of

wisdom as opposed to the real thing he

was afraid that reading it would take

away the actual knowledge and the

understanding of the text so the same

kinds of questions still come up around

moving images they're too literal they

leave nothing to the imagination and

they're inferior to the written

word so now if you're taking this class

um I'm going to take it for granted that

you don't agree with those

ideas but if you're going to make films

I promise you that you're going to

encounter them because words and images

have a common source so when you look at

ancient writing you see that words and

images are almost indistinguishable in

fact words are images they're symbols

written Chinese and Japanese so actually

look like pictographic

languages the written word is not

superior to the moving

image they are both ways they are both

modes of communication and expression of

equal value so to me when people talk

about visual

literacy I think that in the end there's

just literacy period the most important

thing is to understand the difference

between certain images or to be more

precise certain sequences of images some

are meant to sell something some are

meant to just entertain and some are

meant to you know inform and some and

this is what we're talking about here

are meant to tell stories and in so

doing

pursue and discover something surprising

and

mysterious not all images are there to

be you know eaten consumed like fast

food and forgotten that's important to

remember when're not mass manufacturers

we're trying to be

[Music]

filmmakers the world of movie making

where these remarkable images came from

these stories and the worlds they

depicted this felt very very distant I

mean if I even I did have the dreams of

maybe putting something together like

what would become a movie but these were

purely dreams there was no way to to um

actually implement this in any way and

no way we really thought that such a

thing could happen to us to be able to

make a film it was like a a place that

you had to uh conquer in a way you had

to overtake and be able to do your own

thing um so the next best thing I was

able to do since it was working class

family didn't have cameras and that sort

of thing was too expensive so I was able

to um the only way I can express this

desire this impulse I should say was to

draw imaginary movies in a small small

room that I was in in the uh tenaments

uh living downtown on Elizabeth Street

um and uh these were different genres um

some were based on television shows I

saw uh some were watercolored some were

just uh black and white with ebony

pencil some were even sepia a lot of

those don't exist what does exist now as

the beginnings of a ancient Roman epic

which I never finished which allowed me

to play with aspect ratios or what I now

know as an aspect ratio in 65 mm or 70

mm aspect ratio and so this was a way of

trying to tell the stories from frame to

frame uh I'd show it to a few friends um

but they felt that they were just Stills

drawings and I explained to them that in

between the frames that were drawn there

was movement or you have to imagine the

movement see the only way I could try to

come up with the visual narrative or

make a movie quote unquote was to draw

these pictures within frames and uh

sometimes it be a strip of um paper and

maybe divide into three frames and the

um difference between each frame

sometimes I found myself editing

telling the story with medium shots

closeups wide shots that sort of thing

very rarely were the frames from frame

one to two or from two to three wide

shots simply wide shots sort of like in

the the first films that were made I was

just finding my way based upon what I

saw in the movie theater and on

television and so um in some cases the

frames would be cuts from one to the

other in others there would be frames

which represented three or four parts of

the same shot I imagine camera movement

and I also imagine that when the cuts

were made that there was some sort of

movement in the film in a way and one

would have to use your imagination so

when I was able to start to actually put

a film

together the only thing I could uh uh

relate to really was to go back to those

drawings and uh design the whole picture

on paper which is what I did in my first

short films and pretty much subsequently

most of the film films I made on a

practical level

um it gives you an idea of exactly what

you want to get uh that particular day

of shooting uh or for the entire

schedule of the picture so that you can

utilize the time properly you don't make

it up as you go along on set and waste

that time and uh um energy of everyone

um and money so uh it was meant as a uh

not just a blueprint but actual an

actualization of the shots I wanted to

get exactly how they

[Music]

go I think the documentaries I've been

trying to do over the years or the

non-fiction films are are uh uh really

for me um projects that um have no rules

in a sense and if they have no rules it

gets tougher you know so uh what that

means it's they're right places for

experimenting or uh finding another way

to tell a story whether it's through a

piece of music or whether the editing

itself becomes music uh meaning a a

rhythm and

pace

and uh telling stories elliptically I

tend to want to continue making these

non-fiction films because they I'd hoped

or a Time

feel that should inform the narrative

structure of the fictional films I make

um and there's a freedom in making these

documentaries or these music films so to

speak there's a freedom of form uh that

um loosens me up in a way everything's

included in the shooting of it if you

are shooting certain scenes sometimes

it's the footage that already exists um

the um the shooting of it and

particularly in the editing there is no

such thing as editing it's writing

writing editing you're making the film

there in that room you know and so uh

you can go many different ways it's

infinite and so it's really a challenge

as they say it's also true with the

documentary I made about my parents

called Italian American in fact I

learned a lot from that by letting them

uh um letting them uh exist I should say

within the frame and tell the

stories without intercutting or U

finding a obvious cinematic techniques

to push time forward or backwards didn't

matter jump Cuts putting 12 frames of

black leader slugs in the middle of a

story just to get to another Point um

and just holding on the person really

was something was a great lesson and the

pictures I've made that are set within

the world where I grew up or related to

that world like Mean Streets or Raging

Bull Good Fellas so and so I I think for

example one aspect of it that's really

important is the body language is very

important the way that people relate to

each other physically I suppose it was

that uh fact which uh let it take uh

center stage and didn't complicate it

with cutting or anything superficially

cinematic um in the creation of certain

kinds of stories uh in many cases it's

when to hold the shot when to let the

people speak when to just watch them you

know uh and not move the camera and not

cut you find what's there and that in a

sense they inhabit the

[Music]

film the use of voice over is very

important to me uh it was just a natural

element in making movies I I appreciated

so much over the years seeing films with

voice over particularly uh kind hearts

and

carinet with that U wonderfully

restrained humor of the voiceover the

irony which uh put me in the mind

thereof so to speak of using ironic

voice

over in Good Fellas the inherent humor

in some of the the voice over in that

film comes is sparked from kind hearts

and coronets or

uh other films at the time particularly

there was also a wonderful use of voice

over in shoot the piano player truo and

Jules and Jim I like that very much it

goes back and forth through time and

space building up the relationship of

the two men and their friends in that

world the world of the uh Left Bank at

that time um and for me yes it has a lot

of

exposition meaning explaining what

you're seeing but somehow the words

don't

necessarily the words don't are not

needed to fully explain it what you're

seeing in other words the narration

itself is not expository in a dull sense

in a didactic way it somehow

expresses the joy and uh the warmth and

the love between these characters and

also the freewheeling aspect of this

kind of thinking you know this life that

they're living or the life they' like to

live too and so I thought what about

what about a whole movie that way and

that became Good Fellas and so there was

a spark there Barry Lyon is another good

example of VoiceOver um the language of

the voiceover in that in that particular

film um the language itself and so that

led to of course the use of the

voiceover in Age of Innocence that when

we were about to make the film uh there

were those who were in the production

who turned to me and said who's

talking I didn't realize people took it

that literally who's talking the

Storyteller I don't

know person telling you the story or the

person living the

story um and so I didn't I never took it

that literal in many cases I I believe

so Age of Innocence um we had the

opportunity there to play with voice

over from the book bth Warden using her

language very much the same way let's

not the same way but very much inspired

by the use of language in Barry Lyon and

a number of other films in voiceover the

whole point is that when I when I found

narration the use of narration in voice

over as a part the storytelling uh as

natural to me the very first film I made

the very short film very first short

film I made covered with voice over um

it's an element of the storytelling in

film not a literary

device in the case of Age of Innocence

we're able to take advantage of the

literary uh because we could take the

voiceover directly from what was written

in the book in the novel uh byth Wharton

but for me it was one of the C cinematic

elements in the film not a literary

element at all and not for something to

uh just uh give you Exposition as to

what's happening in the film

[Music]

I was able to get my hands on an 8mm

camera at one point A friend of mine had

it and I shot out a little uh silly film

um on the rooftops of the Lower East

Side back I think in 1962 or so um but

the very idea of

uh making a film a narrative film even

though I was aware of all the excitement

around me and maybe because of that too

the excitement of the American

Underground Cinema the American

avanguard European avanguard all these

things were developing um and were being

available now that Cinema could be

anything Cinema was anything you make it

all these things

um fed the desire to make a narrative

film I wanted to make a narrative film

um

and when I finally saw the film Shadows

by John cetes I think it was 1959 or

1960 um what what it proved to us was

that if you had a desire to tell a story

as strongly as he had and you were able

to break away or not even be encumbered

should I say not be encumbered by uh a u

Studio system a way of the industry way

of making a film with very big crew very

very heavy equipment and that was that

was that was

stopping the creative impulse in a way

so what happened was that there was very

lightweight equipment this enabled uh

the filmmakers like cetes like Shirley

Clark like many others to be able to

just open up the field and um shoot

almost as if you have today for example

uh an iPhone would be a a similar thing

and so these became truly truly uh

Independent films you realize there

would no more excuses if they were able

to make a film this way in New York in

16 mimer the camera didn't have a tripod

and that sort of thing very very little

lighting maybe none there's no excuse

now you have to be able to do it but the

only thing you need and this is the most

important thing is the spark and the

desire and the passion to to say

something utilizing film it turns out

that

where and it's some it's difficult to uh

to to sort of try to say Encompass all

of this but there are many different

aspects different kinds of films that I

was inspired by

cabetes work within the scenes with the

people who happen to be actors but with

the people um gave it a sense of

authenticity and life that uh it felt

like it was going to live off the screen

the screen couldn't inhabit it just

couldn't hold it but the cavetti thing

was to explore that life and push it to

the

edge and still try to keep um if you're

so inclined a particular narrative in

story line and see if I can combine it

all it wasn't intentional that way but

that's what I

[Music]

felt because of the uh the extraordinary

technology around us at this point I

mean they people talk about the the the

fact that anyone can make a film it's

true anyone can express themselves in

visual images but what's happening U one

has to remember is that technology is a

tool um the same principles apply which

is uh your your need to tell that story

your need to go through the process and

you happen to be using uh uh digital as

opposed to film or or an iPhone I have

no idea but the key thing is that the

technology does not dictate the art the

art dictates the technology the art

comes first and you use the technology

for the art whatever that art may be you

know and I think there's a misconception

today that uh because of the equipment

um the equipment does it easily done you

can press a button and you have

different sorts of uh visual effects um

I learned this back with the steady cam

back doing raging

I had designed fight sequences in the

film nine of them in very very specific

ways so much so that they were all drawn

images I have storyboards for everything

and designs and outlines and diagrams of

the choreography of the fights

themselves and myself and a

cinematographer worked out the camera

moves that is the physical actual use of

the equipment at that time with no video

assist none of that sort of thing we

have today so for my uh Director of

Photography Chapman it did take longer

than we thought to create these images

that you see in those fight scenes

because of the nature of the equipment

and it which means that it took we had

planned five weeks to shoot the fight

scenes it took 10 um there was one fight

scene that I thought we would um do with

this new instrument called the steady

Cam and we started shooting it I did not

design the shots I just used the sense

of the element that I thought the steady

cam would give me um and after shooting

for a day I realized there is no way of

getting around the design in other words

the technology of this beautiful

instrument was not going to direct the

film for

me something else was happening and I

scrapped it all and reshot it and of

course used the study cam for the long

takes um that I uh that are in the film

and then eventually uh understood the uh

nature of it um to the point where we

were able to do that long take for

example in Good Fellas which goes into

the Copa Cabana um but I had relied on

the um this new technology to create um

to create a a certain aspect of Cinema

which I which was still mysterious to me

and I realized at that point that I

still had to be there you know it wasn't

going to do it for me um I wanted to see

what that equipment gives me but I still

have to direct the equipment and know

what the equipment is capable of and

what I can use it for so this is a very

important

[Music]

point the issue of Technology carries

over particularly into the

post-production too in the editing

itself of a film um or of a a visual

narrative so to speak um in uh the days

when we first started of course it was a

separate track and picture um if one

wanted to make a dissolve or see a call

for a dissolve or call for any special

effect it had to do temp so to speak it

had to go to a lab uh very often we

didn't see these dissolves until the

film was finished um but in this case

what's happening now is that there uh

it's kind of exciting because you can

see these different elements um uh uh

pretty much immediately uh with the

computer editing many different effects

can be seen and experienced right away

uh so that you could you could uh react

immediately to it yet there is a

drawback and that is is the immediate

nature of it very often I found that

once we made the switch from editing in

35mm to um computer I found that uh

discussing how to make a change in a

scene uh what we were used to would take

maybe 25 30 minutes or so as they're

working on that change splicing film uh

uh cutting uh sinking up or whatever

they were doing um You' think about it

possibly or at least if you weren't

thinking about it you were in the

presence of the change in a sense you

were experiencing the travel in a way uh

from one version to the other um and at

a certain point when we started using

the computer I'd asked for a change say

why don't we try this why don't we try

that and within um two to three minutes

it was done and so I had to learn um to

do without that process a very valuable

process of another way of film making of

waiting of waiting

and absorbing what you're doing this was

something else and it threw me for quite

a while because it was immediate uh and

almost at a certain point because one's

able one is able to do this with the

technology there may be too many choices

and what I began to understand is that

one has to steal yourself against all

these choices somehow and learn how to

uh uh how should I put it um tame them

in a way and that the only way to do

that is to keep focused on what you want

to say you see um and so uh the

extraneous cutting away the extraneous

sometimes it works for me sometimes it

doesn't but it is a

different um it's a different medium

this way in terms of cutting that

quickly um and having everything at your

fingertips at this point um I always

think it's interesting because if you

have everything at your fingertips and

in such rate of speed then you really

are committed to the essence of what

you're doing you know there's no excuse

to say I've got to wait for this I've

got to wait for that you really have to

know what you're doing even more so

[Music]

I don't think there's anything more

inherently cinematic about one way of

life versus another um if you're

inclined towards Cinema then you see

what is Cinematic within that way of

life I mean everything is Cinematic all

of life is Cinematic depends on how you

perceive it I can only talk about my own

life I mean my own case what I know I

grew up in a certain part of the world

and because I had very particular place

uh and because I had uh asthma from the

age of three on uh I observed a lot I

wasn't allowed to participate in uh

anything uh that was uh OV exciting in

terms of uh physical activity uh Sports

and that sort of thing so I observed a

lot and I found I was absorbing it

really and then later you know I found I

was interpreting it and translating it I

think and uh trying to transmit or

express it find different ways to tell

stories about things that I observed or

uh was immersed in around me whether it

was outside the uh the the the apartment

or or in the family and you know what I

observed and absorbed at home out in the

street as I said in the church these are

things that form me just as the very

different worlds in which say Michael

Powell or St kuber or Don seagull grew

up formed them so I can only speak from

that

[Music]

world film Mak that I tried to do

particularly when I first started out

was stories that came from my own

experience or uh subject matters that

interested me only or solely I should

say and um um that slowly developed into

other projects or stories scripts even

that um um I was able to work with uh uh

interests or concepts from other writers

but um primarily uh I really the the

story has to come from me or at least be

I'm interested in this particular

character idea in some cases actors in

the case of Nick pedi for example uh he

wrote that wonderful book wise guy which

became Good Fellas and you know he has

such a uh the book itself spoke to me

immediately um and uh the structure of

the book too I found a way to uh uh

along with Nick to be able to uh pull

together uh a representation of that

world that um was depicted in the book

but also in my own from my own

experience because Nick has an

extraordinary knowledge of U the world

he's chronicling but beyond that it's

not just a very dry uh it's not a very

dry uh how put a systematic uh didactic

way of talking about that world or

depicting that world war or uh

representing that world he has a a

philosophical point of view uh with a

great sense of humor and irony about it

uh

about

that part of us or that part of human

nature which is imminently uh for many

people corruptible um and the thinking

that goes into that and how uh one step

leads to another and eventually is a

complete

um complete chain of events a disastrous

chain of events and so he has this point

of view about it uh and a way of

presenting it and so we would have a

great deal of enjoyment working on

[Music]

that Taxi Driver really the script was

very so strong uh and was a situation

where

Paul who uh whom with whom I've worked

for many times since then um he has

something else besides his powerful

sense of structure um this very strong

understanding of loneliness retribution

but really just the

philosophy and a theological point of

view that I certainly couldn't

verbalize at that time reading the

script but created a

a an Impulse to make the picture pict to

to and what I mean by make the picture

that film was not makeable it was not

doable even then and so uh we tried for

a number of years um and finally through

a series of circumstances and uh very

very low budget we were able to pull it

together but it had became a passion

project when something happens like that

it's a script that you did not write

then it has to have a point of view it

has to have more than a point of view it

has to have the the theme itself has to

be something that's very close to you my

case I keep looking at questions

of sin or the concept of sin good and

evil sin and Redemption weakness and

strength from new angles and New

Perspectives if I can and exploring it

constantly which is really part of you

know The Human Condition the other way I

could answer the question is to say that

U the moral issues for somebody like uh

Harvey Kel's character Charlie in main

streets I mean you know ultimately what

is he doing this for why is he

committing himself to Johnny Boy how far

is he really prepared to go for his

friend am I My Brother's Keeper are we

our Brother's Keeper um am I really

Charlie saying am I really helping him

at all or is it more for me is more

helping Charlie in a way uh and these

things come from directly from my own

life and experiencing things like that

mean you don't in a sense um in the case

of Charlie he talks about a religious

concept Catholic concept of Penance but

you know you don't get to choose the

Penance that's the thing he

misunderstands so when the opportunity

arises it arises I don't think when I

I've ever set out to say I'm going to

make a film with this moral theme um

maybe I did uh but not in those words uh

and I do think that uh often I find that

uh those themes are always there and uh

what I mean by that is that they attract

me to the story if the story doesn't

come from something that I've thought

myself or thought up myself uh some

moral choice is uh certainly there every

day of our lives and I mean it's it's

inherent in everything we do and every

action that we see or observe and as we

get older I think um of course a sense

of a moral conflict and choice changes

and

[Music]

deepen I have been drawn to different

stories for different reasons of course

the key the key element of course again

is a passion for wanting to tell that

story like a Mean Streets or uh taxi

driver that Paul Trader wrote uh or

uh elements of Raging Bull or uh Age of

Innocence that sort of thing there was a

desire and a need or gangs in New York

to really not rest until I was able to

express this these thoughts and these

stories on film and go through that

process I mean sometimes it's uh um

because I'm just intrigued by something

and uh would enjoy I think um the

process of the film making itself in the

case of like The Aviator um was early

Aviation which I'm fascinated by and

Aviation pioneering films that were

being made in that and the story of

course the um aspect or one section of

uh early early part of Howard uses his

life with the character who was so

powerful and had such genius but at the

same time had the seeds of his own

destruction um and so this was

fascinating to me or like in gangs of

the recreation of New York uh at an

earlier moment in history like The Gangs

of New York or the Age of Innocence I

always talk about the fact that growing

up down there at the age of 10 11 12 I

could tell from the cobblestones in the

street that they had stories to tell in

the old uh Basilica of St Patrick's

Cathedral the church um First Catholic

cathedral in in New York um the fact

that they had to protect and defend the

cathedral in 1844 against the no

nothings and the wi awakes the nativists

who wanted the immigrants out of the

country so I knew things were had

happened there and that there were

Generations that had died away and had

lived lives in that area and struggled

and fought uh and so for me I was always

uh uh intrigued by this in the case of

Shar Island I was interested in working

with with a kind of material that

recalled certain kinds of films I really

Lov uh great you know film Wars like uh

out of the past or Laura or

Crossfire I thought that the uh

character played by Leo uh Leo DiCaprio

I mean the way he perceived the world

around him would have been in his mental

state at that time Visions uh in the key

of those movies of those pictures

um that sense of noirish post-war

America even uh the black and white

photos um in the tabloids all of this

sort of thing would have been what was

in his head how he perceived that world

around him in Shar Island uh twisted and

hallucinated as was oh in the case of

Last Temptation Of Christ I obviously

very interested in in that material for

my whole life in this case of um an

exploration of the Dual nature of Christ

of being Christ and what it means to the

faithful in the case of Silence uh

obsessed with the questions of Faith

won't go away

[Music]

one of the key things no matter how

great a screenplay is or no matter what

form it takes really one has to remember

that um that's not the final project the

final product is the film so the

screenplay is a step to get to the film

and a lot L of things could

happen uh between the two stages of

development so to speak uh terrific

director filmmaker named Alexander

mckendrick said that scripts aren't

written they're

Rewritten I remember once I was trying

to work with a really great writer and

it was a friend a friend of mine warned

me listen this guy's great he said but

you only get one draft out of him um for

this writer one draft and his job was

done uh but for me it wasn't done I mean

working that way I had to find

uh I have to find that uh for me it's

somewhat it's really just the beginning

I have to go further with it I mean I

read the draft and then you know I read

the draft and I react to it in terms of

what I'm seeing in my mind or it Sparks

something new for me and we build on

that or we alter it and then the next

dra Sparks something else and so on and

so on WE it really is a a process of

discovery but primarily uh in the case

of um coming up with an idea or uh

having

a theme that I wanted to explore or

working on an adaptation of a novel or

um a uh adaptation I should say of

non-fiction

material in a sense particularly

non-fiction material it's just the

beginning in terms of the script

especially if you don't have a

structural concept you know visual

structural concept and it's not on the

page yet um it's almost a matter of U of

taking it down and and uh in a sense

distilling the non-fictional Source

material until you get it to the size of

a film in a way U I think it was the

story of um SRA writing uh Freud for

John Houston where he came in the

screenplay was 200 pages and Houston and

this is paraphrasing Houston supposedly

said it's really good but it's it's too

long could you go back and see you know

I can't you said I think I can make it

even clear CLE and said good well go

ahead and do that he came back with a

screenplay of 300 pages and it was

clear it's just that it still wasn't it

wasn't a picture that that Houston could

make at that time under those

[Music]

circumstances I love the richness of

elements that we put into the film based

on research um the rules of the world of

the picture reveal themselves as it as

you develop it so your re resarch into

the way of life or the period or the you

know particular customs and habits of a

particular part of the world are are

going to be something that uh you must

feel comfortable with something that you

could you could rely on something that

gives you the Bedrock of the picture but

again um it's really important not to

let the research lead you away from what

sparked you making the film in the first

place when we were

researching oh the Age of Innocence

gangs in New York and silence um the

research led us into you know many

fascinating directions and at times

these directions could have threatened

to overwhelm the entire picture but

again you have to keep remembering okay

this is fascinating and Rich but it's

leading me away from what drew me and

excited me to take certain things to uh

let's

say in the case of Age of Innocence

which was

um fascinating because we were able to

go into the story uh discover the actual

families that the families in the book

were based upon and then do some

research to get a sense of the type of

paintings they had in their houses um

and then base our paintings on that

actual paintings um but again we didn't

lock ourselves into anything this was an

enjoyment of the process in a way um

accuracy is good but it's it's well

there's there's a famous quote there's a

there's nothing more boring than

accuracy on a film so so one has to have

a sense of how to use it and how

to transform it you know and in the case

of silence for example the research was

something that I done over a period of

years because I had to feel comfortable

with uh as much as possible with 17th

century Japan by the end of the the film

um the character Rodriguez is uh laid to

rest it's played by Andrew

Garfield and

we had it worked out so that he's laid

out

um in his in his uh wooden coffin and

his wife is allowed to see him for the

last time Etc uh and during the during

the uh the progress of the

pre-production we learn that the it's a

Buddhist uh ceremony and he's not laid

out he's buried in a uh a barrel you see

which Chang the look of the shot of

course and um also changed the uh the

staging of the film and the scene

because the way the wife had to move in

and place the momentto Mori in his hands

the guards watching her uh all of this

changed the whole tone changed um and I

must say what I mean by the tone is that

even the tone on set changed so that

when we see the barrel and we see all

the paraphernalia of the of the Buddhist

ritual um for the Dead uh this created

kind of dictated the framing

dictated

sound and the movement of the actors so

it was a major change it was like making

a different

[Music]

film this is really important in the

scripting uh which usually comes by way

of lots of discussion days and days and

then weeks and weeks

but also in rehearsals but the

rehearsals become almost writing

sessions in a way well for Wall Street

was very much that way at po at times in

the rehearsal uh rehearsals of Wolf of

Wall Street I'd have to tell the actress

to take it to a certain point stop and

save it for the cameras uh because I

knew I'd be going there and I knew that

I would shape it in the cutting in

certain ways between Leo and Jonah Hill

and all the others Margo and that sort

of thing so um

getting the actors involved let's say in

in the characters of Casino you

know jira's character and Sharon Stone

and and uh Joe pesy I mean the

conception of who the character is

sometimes changes subtly and sometimes

changes greatly but we're really trying

to find in that particular instance

Truth for the characters so that if

something develops a different way in

the scene they know how to move so that

it's within character they know how to

respond so that's within character

because if you have to explain something

constantly to the actor about the world

that they're in um and that this person

wouldn't say that to that kind of person

or she wouldn't move here she would uh

then it's a matter of um then it's just

a matter of recasting at that

[Music]

point TX driver was so strongly scripted

that it allowed us

to open

up two or three scenes not much but two

or three scenes couple of one scene I

think one or two scenes with Harvey

kitel and Robert dairo where we improv

improvise improvise dialogue from a

rehearsal from rehearsal and uh uh to

the street when we shot the scene uh

some stuff was kind of reconstructed

with uh Cil chaper and Albert Brooks but

but primarily the the the most exciting

call improvisation or happening use an

old term on camera was um Rober tenero

in front of the

mirror and that was in the last week of

shooting and that's when we were over

schedule and I knew that it's written in

the script that he's practicing with

these guns and this sort of thing and

devices in front of the mirror um and

he's acting out this fantasy but I

wanted him to I wanted him to say

something I really didn't have much I

could offer we found out myself sneaking

the scene into the schedule and um uh

him what you see on screen is really him

reving up and finding that moment

finding that character fully but that

really took I'd say about 8 weeks of

shooting before getting to that and we

shot it within two hours you know um

already pushing against the end of the

day so it was not a relaxed

easy what I mean by easy nothing's easy

but what I mean is a

relaxed um atmosphere so to speak in

fact we had to lock the doors and keep

the U assistant director

out because they kept pushing us to

finish and I give me five minutes two

minutes so you know but this this

allowed itself I think allowed itself

to the combination of the actors myself

cameraman all of us uh and the script uh

we were allowed or the script allowed us

to to open it up in places that we don't

think there might be those that disagree

of course but we don't think that it um

Disturbed the structure of the

story of course Good Fellas in Casino

was something

entirely uh different they were very

clearly written but then we went from

the page and opened those scenes same

thing particularly in Good Fellas you

know and then of course what you really

hope for particularly in

films like Casino Good Fellas let's say

or Wolf of Wall Street what happens on

the

set and it's always Rewritten on the set

right there meaning that you you need to

allow the life to come through you know

uh because you're depicting worlds that

have a lot of life in them you know in a

very overt way um and so that gets us up

to a point where you get into the

editing room and that's Rewritten there

too sometimes

dramatically altering the structure or

in some cases you do ad narration or you

try not to had narration to

explain uh uh to explain the U

progression of the story like Exposition

but uh a kind of another element of of

uh commentary um or you do something

small but significant that changes the

whole tone of the picture so in to a

certain extent you you're really you

rewrite

it and you rewrite it again and you

rewrite it again and then you rewrite it

sometimes in the Final Mix you know uh

and some people well we always find we

take it even to the color correction at

this

[Music]

point I found that at times in terms of

shooting a

film some films that have a pretty

strong uh plot Point uh plot line um I

was able to go in um with the actors

with the writer and uh rework each scene

consistently to the point of uh uh uh

staying on on track with the plot but

changing characters changing motivations

all sorts of things all the way through

and experimenting and trying different

things all the way to the point where I

think uh keeping one character uh in

this case it was ver farga in U uh The

Departed keeping her to the end uh

because um I wanted to see how we could

incorporate as best we could in that

world of that film The Departed how you

could incorporate uh her character

uh since she is non-active that way

they're all very active you know and so

um the same thing with Leo we worked on

with Bill Monahan and ourselves on the

script Matt Damon Alec Baldwin uh Mark

wallberg um Everybody basically and Jack

Nicholson of course and so uh all of

this changed radically while we were

shooting the film you see and so uh it

was constantly it was constantly going

off into new territory and sometimes it

may not it worked I don't know in terms

of my own head while I was shooting it

and thinking well maybe I'll try it I

don't know and then finally we had to

come back to the plot so to speak I

always joke about that but it's not

funny it's not a um it's not meant to be

funny it's it's a uh ironic uh uh I like

the plot very much but I found I was um

um feeling straight laced about it and

so I wanted to open up character and the

world of the uh fatalistic Irish

Catholicism and the underworld you know

in Boston and so we just uh pushed and

pushed and push them finally it was

redone completely in the editing we

figured out new scenes to shoot shot

them for four days put them in the

picture and that's the final picture but

um it was a work in progress more than

uh a number of other films I made over

the years so uh talking

about new

elements for example um oh there's a

scene with Jack Nicholson and Matt

Damon in which he taunts Matt uh about

his manhood you know and there was a lot

of friction a lot of tension in the

scene that

onset uh and during it I realized well

Matt you know one thing is interesting

since this element came up in the scene

it was in the movie theater I said what

if part of the problem he's having with

um meline the Fe figz character is his

inability to

perform as uh

sexually uh and so this is something

that Matt and I hit on at the same time

and so later we shot another scene uh uh

um underlining that which also opened it

up a little bit for at least her

attraction to Billy you see but this

came out of something that happened with

Jack and Matt uh and it started to go a

skew and we pulled it back and found

another value and um in a sense uh uh we

thought enrich the character um Matt

Matt Damon's character in the picture

there are many different instances of

that sort of thing uh some succeed some

don't some I don't know some I don't

know people tell me if they're if they

think they succeed later on people are

watching it and it means anything to

them I have no idea

[Music]

that first um I was a casting director

so um I I did uh we put a few ads in

backstage newspaper I think it was and

we uh found Harvey kitel uh in 1965 he

came to uh an audition quote unquote at

myu which was actually just myself and a

friend uh and uh a couple of other

people for some of my short films um but

primarily you you uh at that time uh

just grab your friends and your parents

and put them in because they're going to

have to do it for you you know your

parents and if they're around and if

they're available to do it and it isn't

so complicated they've got to do it so

from that basically a home movie main

streets is like a home movie in a sense

uh not literally but uh well at some

cases yes but at some points it is but

uh primarily a lot of the people in the

frame and um even think Senor Robert

dairo who grew up in that area so he

knew many of the people making the film

about and shot in the hallways of where

where we grew up and people around us uh

it was kind of

a a community effort so to speak since

then I was able to work on a couple of

films uh two or three films was a very

very key casting process with CIS Corman

who did Raging Bull king of comedy and

Last Temptation Of Christ originally um

but in the late 80s began to work with

the same casting director Ellen Lewis

and Ellen kind of of course we discuss

the project she reads what I'm going

after and U she usually knows exactly

what I want for Good Fellas for example

we were taken up to Roo's restaurant and

in one night we cast about five rolls

just from the people in the resta

so we've been doing that ever since and

for that kind of picture for that kind

of film um but she gives me a range of

choices and I respond to them make

decisions we can the reason we work

together is I could tell that um the

people she brings to me I connect with

for the most part so we kind of have the

same taste in a way um and uh I always

say that you know casting is 85 to 90%

of the picture from me so

you know all of you just starting out I

want to repeat you know again ins syst

on what you want and you don't settle

for close enough for second best and um

don't imagine there's a shortcut it's

meeting the people spending time with

them talking with them then putting them

together with the other actors that's a

key thing and see how the other actors

respond um it's somewhat different I

think

than I could imagine a studio system

where in the case of uh certain key

films uh filmmakers had to work with

certain actors because with contractual

issues and um very often they didn't get

along uh with each other uh but that was

the contract and they had to do it here

that may not be the case I don't say you

have to become friends uh but you have

to be here's the key thing with casting

and this is why casting director is so

important he or she has to know that um

with the actors primarily you want to

work with the actors you all agreee

you're making the same film that's the

key now how you get to make the same

film that's part of the process how you

work with the actor that's a give and

take somehow but if you are making the

same film if you know that and your

casting director knows that and she

knows to pull actors for you to choose

from that are of the same mind then you

have possibility of making the picture

and you get this unexpected dimension

[Music]

I found that I responded to actors

pretty much through the films I saw now

for many years through the 40s and early

50s uh the films I saw the acting was of

a certain style right of a certain time

coming out of U Hollywood tradition or

from England for

example wonderful like Alec Guinness and

Olivier and James Mason and so many

others um and Hollywood of course you

had the greats you know Stewart and

Carrie Grant and Henry Fonda and so many

others and Marino Hara and John Wayne

and all of this sort of thing but

they're from another world you know and

of course in England another world then

I saw kazan's

films I saw on the waterfront in East of

Eden and those were both in the same

year I think or a year apart and those

were Revelation in terms of behavior and

so it's really been um inspired by what

I so they on the screen and what I

experienced watching those films over

and over again that's my gauge I guess

that's where I go and to a certain

extent I do like like cavet worked the

where I worked on Italian americ my

parents documentary where they're

telling stories they're acting in a

sense but are they acting and I I uh

certain subject matter and certain

stories that I make lend themselves to

that kind of directing of actors or

guidance of actors um but primarily the

actor has to already be there in a way

as I said you can't tell a person how to

lean against a car in 1955 on Elizabeth

Street or you know I don't know other

worlds of course I had to be told in the

case of Silence um what a um

interrogation is like and the

Magistrate's Office outside Nagasaki in

1632 so again I see a certain thing work

around that uh work with the actors that

way but primarily um primarily it's uh

it's

a a combination if I can finding the

person on screen as they're doing it as

they're in the process almost something

that's that may not be it certainly

doesn't feel like it's scripted in many

cases that's what I'm hoping for you

know something natural um but not I

don't know what naturalism is I don't

know realism is I'm just uh it this is

where I was talking about the business

of the mixture of non-fiction and

fiction

where it all becomes a film I don't know

what you want to call it but that's what

it

[Music]

is I do think um for me coming out of a

situation where I often used uh worked

with u people who are around mixed with

actors they have to come from that spot

they have to come from that that part of

the world they have to come from that

culture I should say particularly in

certain um um uh films depicting certain

periods of certain worlds like a Mean

Streets or a taxi driver Raging Bull Etc

King comedy uh that was contemporaneous

to me you know and I felt that mixing um

non actors with the actors partially I

must say again going back to the

beginnings of making films we had no

choice but to use non-actors so it

became something that was um natural to

me uh um and so we uh uh kind of relied

on that it Al so meant that by placing a

non-actor in with the actors as long as

the actors as I say are making the same

film as you as long as they understand

the environment that they're they're

they're working

within um they could maybe lose if there

is any artificiality lose that by being

around the non-actor you

[Music]

see sir Ben Kingsley doing uh

George

M he uh finds the posture and that's

George I there's there I know it's there

you see I know it's there um his look

his Manner and his use of the language

and the text he's one who sticks with

the text and that particular film uh and

even in shadar island with Ben you're

able to work with that text I mean he's

there um his behavior as the uh the

doctor in sh island is there it was

there the way he moves and the look in

his eye and so um that's another way of

feeling uh how should I say that the

person inhabits the role you see um I

had a confidence in fact I never even

thought of him as Ben Kingsley and when

we were doing Yugo it was always

George I remember um the

great-granddaughter I think was sitting

on the set one day in Paris and she came

to say hello and we got to meet and uh

and Ben came out it was in it was in the

sorbon and Ben came out of the door came

out of the main Auditorium into the

lobby and she suddenly teared up because

it was her great-grandfather whom she

never

met um and this was spontaneous it's not

oh this is so and so and he's portraying

this is just happen to

be at the moment so there was some sense

of authority really the character you

know it's something I admire greatly I I

can't do it nor can I think I can

really um excel in directing or creating

that with certain actors or certain

kinds of pictures I don't think I can

but when I experience it on the set with

people like uh like Ben and and Daniel

day and oh a number of others uh it's

something of u a sense of awe um a sense

of uh

a sense of

uh a beauty and power that uh something

you respect and admired

[Music]

I think it's important for a director to

know something about acting it's good if

he or she gets in front of the camera

and fails miserably uh and then succeeds

a little bit I think it's really

important to know what it's like to hit

the light to make sure you're there in

the to make sure you're there for the

other actor to

respond uh to get a sense of um how you

walk across a room because you could

become very self-conscious what you do

with your hands you

know it's always good every uh C after a

certain period of time for you to get in

front of that camera to play apart or in

somebody else's film be directed by

other people or any bits and pieces even

if you're playing yourself um I mean I'm

not saying you should read all of

stanislowski or play Kowalski or

Cordelia but it's it's good to know

something about the challenges and the

fears that the actors face and the

techniques they use and the different

approaches they take to what they

do because again I'm looking for the the

connection that sparked between

us sometimes it proves to be more

difficult on set with certain actors and

you might have realized and every once

in a while it just doesn't work out and

you're somewhat disappointed you might

get something else uh and you may not

even like that something else but it's

enough for that moment and you realize

okay in the future I have to be careful

of this or that and may not always work

um

so you do work with what you get

ultimately you know and that's a rule I

guess in film making uh or many things

but uh you may want one thing but you're

going to through circumstances whatever

you wind up with other things and that

has to do with the actors so uh

hopefully you want what you get um and

there's the spark of humanity is the key

with the actors

I guess the term director is misleading

sometimes when it comes to actors of

course in one sense it's on target I

mean I could not uh think about uh

working on stage or utilizing uh

techniques U by by directors who have

gone through certain methods I I

wouldn't know um one thing I mean I

would think in a a raw situation actor

at least needs

needs the director to kind of Orient him

or her because I mean you're always

going to be shooting out a sequence

that's one of the problems and they're

going to look to you to you know tell

them where they are in the story and

where they're feeling emotionally it's a

very difficult thing I think think we

have the training uh uh of a director a

training of directors worked in theater

uh it might be it's never easy but at

least you might be more familiar with it

for me I always find it rather difficult

but this is where you work together um

but on the other hand they also need to

explore and I always tell I like to tell

the actors too

particularly try anything you know um

and if you had the time on set which you

don't usually but if you do if you make

the time have the time to fail as much

as you can and tell them it's okay just

go ahead try this try that and uh you

need that freedom you need to give them

that freedom particularly you can do

this in the rehearsal there's no mistake

you just go you do it and explore the

instincts and then you try to shape from

there in discussion if something has

gone in a different direction I don't

want to say gone wrong but if something

has gone in a different direction where

people don't agree or something and it

right you find yourself you can cover it

in such a way and you never at times I

must say you have to be careful you you

you know sometimes you think something

is dreadfully wrong and later when you

look at in the context of a cut might

work you know uh there are things I know

don't work immediately but you shoot

them just shoot them because it's a

process for the actor to go through

that and if I say no you can't do that I

found when I did that it threw certain

kinds of actors off not all not all but

certain kinds and um I found that um

it's best to uh let that person he or

she work it out and if it's a matter of

shooting it by the time you discussing

you could shoot

it then you use it or

[Music]

not I think in terms of um uh being able

to work with dairo in eight movies or so

and DiCaprio so far in five I

mean again it's all based on uh a

similar experience life experience and a

similar way of looking at life then um

in the case well in the case of dairo he

did actually

um he was actually part of the

neighborhood I was growing up in at the

same time so he knows the world he knows

the the uh the codes of that area he

knows the behavior he knows the uh the

culture you know DiCaprio something else

with 30 years difference um yet his

instincts uh are very similar and um his

curiosity is very similar uh to mine um

and the ability to take chances uh not

be afraid is something that uh uh is

remarkable and feel comfortable this all

goes the way of trust trusting each

other you see so when you're trust that

way and we have let's say in the case of

Mean Streets or taxi driver we have a

really solid story in a way if they want

to take a scene a certain place I'll go

with them there you know uh see what it

is uh to the point where you know either

we do it or we don't do it and in

discussion and rehearsal or or um and

setting up the shot um or we do it and I

don't use it and that doesn't mean you

you you do it um and intend not to use

it but you try it later in the cutting

it doesn't quite work um but there's the

uh there's a trust to uh open the

character

and enrich it within the context of the

way the character is written and who he

he or she is that's the key uh if they

start to take it and go off to uh

suddenly uh uh doing things that we

don't think the character really should

should be doing or who that character is

we'd find it I think we'd find it and I

would felt comfortable with them Harvey

kitel too Mean Streets taxi driver for

example Judas when he played Judas in U

in last dation of Christ but I was very

lucky Barbara Hershey Willam def all

these people felt that way you see um

and so uh

this is something that develops with

time I mean I was very lucky with dairo

because was on the first film main

streets we had it um we had that

relationship it it was it was solidified

in taxi driver because we weren't

playing a neighborhood guy quote unquote

who playing something else uh Travis

pickle that reflected positively or

negatively emotion psychological states

that we uh

understood or felt you know that Sher

wrote and so um that's why there was

very little discussion about who he is

we didn't have any discussion on that we

just did

[Music]

it there's aspects too where actors are

completely you get in a situation where

somebody's completely uh incapable of

working whether it's uh chemicals or

just I don't

know in a case like that only once I had

to recast I think was lucky

but once or twice maybe and there was a

time where an actor decided to did a few

scenes and 20 years ago this was 25

years ago and then one morning was

supposed to show up for the next scene

and left a letter saying that he decided

not to continue

acting and

apologized and so he said all right we

cast another fellow and reshot the

scenes squeezing it back into the

schedule um these things happen but if

it is a picture where um you need the

dialogue and you need a certain scene

being done and person can't do it or is

incapacitated It's tricky sometimes

you're able to get them to do just

enough and cover it in such a way you

know and that takes a lot of time and

patience you know and sometimes it's an

issue where you can't reach shoot a lot

of things you have to utilize that

person for another two

weeks and so you just go through it you

know the only thing you could think of

in the future you try not to if the

film calls for it you try not to uh

meaning if the film is of that of that

uh style where you do need a person to

go from A to B to C maybe or a to c or a

to F whatever in a scene somebody who

could kind of stay track no matter what

what's going on in their minds or their

bodies they chemicals some can't

[Music]

after um World War II primarily they

began to shoot films in New York um Kiss

of Death uh um Cry of the city uh a

sense of a docu drama house in 92nd

Street things like that and um uh more

and more films were being shot in Naked

City being shot in New York that way um

and so uh began to

mix soundstage work with actual location

photography and that slowly developed

into uh what we do now uh by the end of

the ' 50s and the early 60s the

equipment got lighter and we're able to

shoot anywhere supposedly uh but back in

the early 90s Federico felini he never

shot uh outside of outside of Italy you

know he said he didn't understand any

other place so he was going to make a

series of films about um the different

jobs different figures in film making an

Hour film let's say on the actor an hour

on the producer an hour on the director

an hour on the writer that sort of thing

and we were trying to help get it off

the ground I remember we

actually um actually got some financing

for uh uh the film he was going to make

on the producer and he to in in the

script uh it was purely felen esque of

course um he went into great detail

about location

Scouts and uh he said it's really

important to get a production uh manager

and producer to understand about

location Scouts particularly when you

start early in the morning you know and

then you have to stop somewhere and then

continue on the key thing uh was to um

choose a location midday uh that you

really aren't going to use but it's near

the best

restaurant so you can have a great lunch

you know and this is this was the tone

of the kind of thing he was talking

about in terms of uh uh describing uh uh

the different roles of filmmakers and

the crew and uh have to make a picture I

mean a location scout when you when you

you want a location scout to go out

there kind really knows exactly what you

want if you know exactly what you want

and what I mean by that um is that you

may feel you need something that

has a sense of this particular place or

that particular time uh brick work but

uh maybe with some stule over it you're

not quite sure so that person has to go

and choose maybe four to five six maybe

more different looks and bring that back

to you so you can help make your

decision you know um but you know

shooting Stills um of location or even

taking

video of locations today it's really

deceptive you have to be very careful

the best thing is always to go there um

I personally don't like location

scouting anymore we can't get anywhere

in the traffic traffic is too heavy cars

it's bumpy

roads takes a long time to get to a

place you look at it you're not

satisfied with it but look this is part

of the process you do as best you

can in pictures and in um on video

sometimes things look really great you

say I've done this before I'm going to

shoot that I don't have to go see it

well when I got there it was different

and I should have gone you know um in

some cases we were able to move to

another place other cases not

um there you you you if you don't

actually go to a place you may find that

you think particularly working from

Stills or from overhead diagrams you may

think you have more room for example

than you actually do um you get to a

place and you realize oh I can't put the

camera here because the door is over

here or it's not a set it's not

something you can move you know when I

was doing Shutter Island we had a uh uh

scene that we were were trying to get

out of this this location that wasn't an

actual location it was a a place we're

using as a sound stage in somewhere in

in um Massachusetts outside of Boston

and Dante Fetti and myself the

production designer and we had the

spiral staircase and it was meant to be

against Green Screen and we were really

under a lot of pressure to finish the

film and we had this big scene the next

day was going to run up this spiral

staircase um to kick in the door Etc to

you know big climactic scene in the film

and um as I'm about to leave after the

day shooting and another part of the set

we had built sets inside this thing um I

went past and Dante said come look at

the spiral staircase I'm sure it's going

to be okay so yeah because he knew what

it was we had many models and drawings

so I looked at it and I said yeah it's

really good and as I was about to leave

I said could you turn it he said what I

said could we turn it he said well I

have to dig into the ground B I said

yeah yeah so there's always something

that uh that uh uh is best to always see

it I should have probably seen it the

day before but he was able to to do that

because I think he anticipated what I

wanted we had discussed it earlier that

we would turn the spiral staircase at

the same time as the camera was going

around it um and we turn it the opposite

way counterclockwise so um he knew that

but it was an issue um in a case like

that there were so many sets and so many

different changes in weather that it was

very difficult to keep up with checking

out the locations and so that I was

constantly being

surprised and this happens a great deal

constantly being surprised by the actual

location itself and the limitations then

you have to figure out how the

limitations could become advantages you

know I become something else um and so

it's always best to U if you're not

building a set uh to go to location and

spend time

[Music]

there the only important thing the only

thing that really matters is what it's

going to look like on the screen and I

find that I'm still surprised sometimes

when I sit it on the screen

um very often we've had situations where

actors find it difficult to do something

in a scene because their perception the

reality around them is U affecting how

the character is supposed to see this um

but on film it looks right and there are

there are times uh people could do it

other times you have to make some

adjustments but um ultimately this is

what Hitchcock told Fran truo it only

matters what it looks like on screen he

was absolutely right how's it going to

look in the frame the feeling of the

place when you visited the

mood uh it's all great but what will the

viewer be seeing there

so you have to be thinking that all the

time because that takes in if you go see

a place for example with the wrong light

if you go uh to a place that has a floor

to ceiling windows and you go at 9:00 at

night and you're doing Day scenes in the

place it doesn't pay to see to see it

you have to get a sense of what it's

like in the morning you got to get a

sense of what it's like about 2 o'clock

in the afternoon this sort of thing um

you know because you're going to you're

often going to wind up shooting in a

wide variety of places I mean from the

Age of Innocence the Age of Innocence we

shot in in New York um in Troy New York

in Boston in Philadelphia and you always

have to think of how it's all going to

come together as one coherent world uh

the New York of the 1870s really doesn't

exist some Interiors some in um in

um areas of Brooklyn some Interiors

exteriors in the city of Troy um and

Interiors in Philadelphia too so we had

to put all this together Dante Fetti uh

worked this out to create the impression

of 1870s New York it isn't like uh

uh period films in England so to speak

when you go to a a manor house or an

estate of some kind it exists it's there

you know it's a matter of the U

certainly not nothing easy but it is

still a matter of the building existing

um uh here it became very difficult

in the case of a taxi driver the

locations were all in New York we built

um were like sets we were able to take

um a building that was going to be torn

down and we were able to get this

building we were able to use the

interior hallway at 89th Street in

Columbus Avenue it was just the

beginning of gentrification a lot of the

stuff is being swept away so you see the

last of it in in Taxi Driver um

and we were able to get uh the building

where we used the interior of the

hallway for the shootout ultimately at

the end of the picture and on the end of

the at the top of the first floor

landing on the first floor was um iris's

apartment we're able to use that uh and

then down the hall actually we made

Travis's apartment which was in a

different place but we were able to use

that as like a base that entire building

uh so much so that um because sha had

written into the script that the uh

camera at the end of the shootout is

staring straight down overhead tracking

past um uh the

spectacle of what has occurred out into

the street you know out down the stairs

I should say and we were able uh by

getting that building and acquiring that

building we were able to uh build those

apartments in the building and at the

same time start to cut through the

ceiling

to put a track camera up there and when

we find took three months to get that

pulled together they just the the track

on on the ceiling to be able to take off

the the uh elements of the ceiling that

were still there Etc or from when we

were shooting we needed the ceiling so

they put some things in and take it out

and we were able to to to um it took

about three months to be able to cut

through all that and create the track

that you see at the end of the film and

then because of um certain restrictions

it took uh we were only given 20 minutes

to do the

scene um which caused a lot of anxiety

but we got the shot

[Music]

the production design for example of um

uh Good Fellas is somewhat different of

course from the production designer

Raging Bull I mean Raging Bull is a

black and white um and takes place in

the 40s and into the early 50s I think

um we uh very often

um did tests on black and white film of

the black and white Interiors black and

white clothes that sort of thing uh was

a very different approach but in

Goodfellas it was to be truthful to the

time and place um and what they had to

do with costumes and particularly uh

production design or the use of actual

locations and I just drew on memory

really a great deal uh some of it is a a

heightened memory you know uh but the

Copa cab I could tell you was quite

accurate I was there a lot and uh that's

what usually happen I didn't go in the

back way but um if we did get to to sit

at the ringside by the uh by the Dance

Floor uh inevitably and we thought we

had great seats inevitably there' be a

table that would come in and be placed

in front of you and these Wise Guys

would be sitting there so you couldn't

see anything but um in any event um we

just really had to be as truthful as

possible to uh uh the period but also

what I remember

now when you take it to casino which was

an extension of Good Fellas in away uh

goes to Las Vegas in the 70s and um we

had to um I feel um give the impression

first of all 235 aspect ratio as opposed

to 185 was wider screen give the

impression of a spectacle um the

spectacle like a a Las Vegas show B

basically you could say Glitz you could

say theatrical to a certain extent um

yes you know but a lot of this is played

out against theatrical backgrounds I

mean one of the best films made about uh

Las Vegas uh was in 59 I think or 60 it

was the Oceans 11 the original one first

half of the picture is like a time

capsule of Vegas at that time in

widescreen and color uh to what these

places really look like um and shot on

location

here we had to um

make references so to speak to certain

places uh we couldn't use names of the

Stardust um Casino we had to make up

another one uh because there were

certain technical uh problems in terms

of a lot of some of the people still

being alive and not wanting any uh

connection with it the major element

that changed in Casino was to blast it

open and to make it like a a sequences

of fireworks almost across the

screen starting with the explosion in

the car and the the sa and the Lan bass

titles um the idea was to uh make it a

uh a Vegas nightclub act really and so

we went that way along with first time I

worked with Bob Richardson along with

the lighting um and the camera moves and

that sort of thing we had references for

everything I mean there were pictures

there was some motion pictures not

really a lot but lots of Stills lots of

use of color that we saw costumes we

knew um the idea of um the Tangier hotel

which was really supposed to be the

Stardust or something I'm not quite sure

anymore but in any event we knew that it

had a certain tone or quality to it for

example a palm tree would look a certain

way in one of the real hotels and we

could take a palm tree and make it

another way um Tangier with the te I

believe became like a sword and so all

of things as long as it captured the

spirit of U Vegas of the 70s that's

that's what we were going for and then I

told him to open it up to go even more

to go further um the excess is what the

film's about too you know excess and

control and power so we have um uh the

idea was not to shy away from it to

really really uh uh dive into it and I

use the word immerse but you really do

live and breathe it when you're making

that film you know all the way through

to finally when it opened up when it

opened and I I remember going to cinema

1 I think it was on 59 Street or

whatever on Third Avenue introducing the

film saying hello to a few people

walking home locking the

door I lived two blocks away went home

alone lock the door leave me

alone that was it it was the the way you

see that film The the manic nature of it

and the splashing of the whole thing and

the people that were involved in it and

everything I just you needed to be alone

for a while

afterwards but in any event um I thought

we could really in that particular film

open it up and um make it more Lush in a

way because that's part of the

attraction that's part of the attraction

uh of That World um particularly the

show scenes the the scenes of the show

girls on stage and that's all backstage

and this sort of thing so that's

contrasted later you know with the

confrontations for example there's a a

wonderful scene I think between Joe and

Bob Dair in the desert there's nothing

there just the two of them in the desert

arguing um and you feel you feel the the

the change again the contrast builds so

that you see the people who really

control things the older Italian Guys in

uh a place called back home because we

weren't allowed to say

Chicago at that point there was a

technical issue legal issue so we just

sit back home and um uh

you'd see that

they basically meet or congregate in

places that are pretty um you know um

modest really on back of uh garages you

know they have a little place where they

could sit and have coffee and talk um

you know let the others let the the

clowns and the Jokers and the the strong

armed guys go to Vegas and make us money

basically so that again played um I

think really well against the flashiness

of of

Vegas there was something about the uh

quality of the pasolini films that um uh

had a sense of

um I say a free quality to them uh that

didn't seem encumbered by too much

production design yet they really had a

sense of authenticity uh Dano was the

production designer in costumes Pi toi

all these people working together and I

really admired uh doing so much with so

little and uh for example in media Maria

Call's uh necklaces wood wooden pieces

of wood I believe um all of this kind of

thing uh for me uh opened up another

world um add to that the uh uh

extreme uh uh when one takes it to the

extreme and that's felini satian where

uh you do

feel that particularly in satian that

it's science fiction but in Reverse it's

sci-fi in reverse and so um in Gangs of

New York particularly Gangs of New York

I did

intentionally create um uh as much as I

could with a sense of a naturalistic

setting but with that element of Science

Fiction in reverse and and I must say

that even in gangs there are things um

that were not in the film that uh do

feel like science fiction and that come

from reality um that come from um um

historical records but uh I wanted to

take you into another world and and time

so the um uh the inspiration from the

Italian filmmakers uh uh enabled me to

do that um and so Dante Fetti for

example designing uh the Five Points

was understood understood intrinsically

what to do and then we take it further

uh for example uh the Satan circus I

believe it

was build a butcher's uh club or bar had

a Long Bar you know and we looked at it

and we designed and I said let's put a

tree in the

middle because they're using they

they're working and they're building

these places that are you know these are

not uh a strat of this is not a strat of

society that has a construction and that

has a

designed that is sanctioned by the

government or or the city council and

this sort of thing they're just building

as they go it's almost like uh shanty

town in a

way so if there's a tree in the middle

working around the tree it's almost if

they're coming out of the earth and

they're trying to live in this seemingly

Urban

environment it's all being created

different from the the towns in the West

where you'll see like a mcab and Mrs

Miller the wood the wood is is new it's

clean it's not uh worn it's not uh it's

not weathered because it is fresh but

New York uh judging from the writing um

of the judging from the historical

accounts um

and first images uh actual photographs

of things in the 1870s I'd say uh and

being around some of the buildings

growing up downtown on the Lower East

Side some of the buildings were

definitely from the 18th century uh

there was one chicken Market that I know

the the top floor there only two stories

but it wasn't even it was like a a Hut

in a way and the the shingled roof was

collapsing and that was the second floor

I don't know what was up there down

below was this live chicken Market where

you'd have to go and get the chickens

theyd kill them in front of you and so

um you know it was very Primal that way

um and these places were used and used

and used until they collapsed basically

you know because there were hardly any

newspaper reports about any of that

stuff uh prior to the draft riots in

1863 you know um it was just something

that was cut off and forgotten about you

know and so uh in a way um it was being

built as they were living in it but at

the same time it didn't appear in my

mind to be as fresh let's say as a

western town that was being created

where you had space there was no space

downtown you everything was on top of

each other so you know you have the

caverns below the city that we were

criticized for by some people because

they took it too realistically I said no

no you understand growing up we knew of

these tunnels under the city we just did

I guess uh and one could say well you

you might as well talk about the

alligators and the sewers but I must say

below those tenaments they are there now

um they are Sellers and there are sub

Sellers and a lot of this was because of

people trying to get away from you know

scams that they would doing or trying to

get away from police or rival gang

members and that sort of thing you go in

one building and come out on you go in

the building on Elizabeth Street and

come out on malberry and uh you get away

it's just common sense um a lot of it's

been closed off and these things exist

so we took that and pushed it open like

the U um the old Brewery and the shot in

which we slic the set in half and you

see all the compartments you see all the

uh the different going on nefarious

goings on in in that old

Brewery number of films uh certainly

reference there including of course the

you know the Ladies Man Jerry Lewis

where he just splits the set and you

pull back uh it's an extraordinary

moment but we kept that idea and um uh

obviously when you see a a place like

that cut in half and you see these

different compartments these different

rooms and all this activity it's not

meant to be uh natural it's not meant to

be realistic you could hopefully expect

anything to happen um in terms of the

look of this picture and uh behavior of

the characters in the film um and so we

imply that the uh uh tunnels were bigger

or more intricate than than uh one would

think but I do know it's the implication

of people hiding out people doing things

underground constantly and it still goes

on

everywhere and uh we just took that as a

concept and opened it and made it

U maybe slightly uh um eccentric in a

way I

became involved in a project called New

York New York um and uh right at the

height of

7576 where I was in Los Angeles and

right at the height of my exuberance and

love for the old Hollywood which was um

being destroyed at that point uh and an

attempt to um uh retain some of it or at

least um how should I say explore uh

aspects of the old Hollywood I decided

to make that film in such a way that the

production design the look of the

picture would be the codified look of

the studio Cinema of musicals um from

the 40s and 50s in Hollywood meaning

that uh we knew that it was a code um

before before Stanley Don and Jean Kelly

did New York New York it's a wonderful

town and they shot actually in New York

that opening sequence before that uh New

York was usually codified uh interior

sets uh curbs were always um a foot high

and we knew that was not a real New York

but we accepted that as a real New York

we accepted the dream the fantasy of

that I wanted to live in that world so

to speak and put that again on the

screen and at the same time

incorporate the new style uh style of

improvisatory um development of the

story improvisatory work with the actors

and place the two together particularly

in a musical with the use of I tried to

get with Lazlo kov a look of three strip

Technic color was very difficult at the

time I tried to shoot it in 133 but we

had to resort to 166 uh for number

technical reasons but what was it like

in those films what were they trying to

tell us I always felt in the use of

production

design and uh the glorification of the

image so to speak and uh uh the

implication of fantasy uh and I always

said well what happens after the end and

they go off and it's uh supposedly live

happily ever have to do they and so I

sort of went against the whole the whole

idea of it by exploring that part of it

exploring um uh whatever truth I can

find at the time and a love relationship

that had to do with two very creative

people um and the ups and downs of that

uh ultimately ending on the reality that

they don't get along

um which was the antithesis of the style

I was showing the style I was I was I

was presenting um we even went as far as

to shoot everything with a 32mm lens to

keep it um in a sense if you see it on

television it should look right it

should look like an old film you know

but um I think stylization was was

really important in this codifying I

mean particularly in the style of acting

that was in the foreground and uh when

the time came to to do the exterior

Green Brier uh we decided to go all the

way on that uh Boris had a way of

Designing things where he would strip

away the

unnecessary um and in this case the

lines the vertical lines of the trees

was what it was all about and the fact

that we know it's a backdrop all right

you're upset because I didn't come to

you in person and Say Goodbye right

right which brings up another thing you

don't say goodbye to me I say goodbye to

you in no way shape or form do you say

goodbye to me I say goodbye to you

really it's about the people and when

you look at the two of them the coats

they're wearing all of this uh

ultimately is about the two of them uh

and in a sense

uh I think I may have been trying to get

at why was I so involved with these

people in the films that I saw when I

was younger knowing full well the

background is fake

so why don't we just throw it right back

at you and see if you could go with it

um what does that mean you know you can

have someone on a

stage she or

he delivering a monologue just on a

stage in black and yet you see

everything what is that

about you know there is no set you see

um granted at times I feel you're much

more comfortable in an actual location

or more naturalistic sets but I liked

the abstract nature of it because I

wanted to stay with the people and had

the spectacle around them that was

abstract you know um you know this is

something that

uh was an experiment in a sense and it

was a time we could experiment that way

it was amazing

when you talk about costum design all

right let's say the block of of

classical Cinema from Hollywood or from

England from Italy whatever that's

costume design you're talking about Pi

toossi you're talking about the house of

trelli in Rome Visconti films and you

know extraordinary things uh but they're

of a time and place in other words they

are depicting um uh period and uh there

there's an aspect of accuracy to say the

least and some um what's the word a

flourish to that accuracy a touch of the

artist so to speak beyond that um you

know in the case of um Manelli directing

uh Madame bovy uh they changed the the

period cuming I believe to be around the

1870s is so in Paris because they felt

they were was more interesting than the

book then the actual period the book was

written about I believe could be the

1840s and so these things are you know

once you make that kind of decision you

do have drawings from the 1840s you do

have drawings from the 1870s you do have

pictures from the 19 19 uh 20s um one of

the key things I found like an age of

innocence for example costumes um where

uh it was an upper strata of society was

um I always wanted the the the the

costumes to feel lived in um that they

shouldn't look like costumes that was

the idea um particularly the people in

the street the extras or what they call

now the atmosphere um in the case of

gangs in New York it's different uh in

the gangs in New York we had we had

license to go as far as we wanted with

costumes we got the Daybreak boys and

the swamp Angels they work the river

Luton ships the Frog hul of Shanghai

Sailors down around the bloody angle

Shir Tales was rough for a while but

they become a bunch of Jack rolling

dandies Ling around murderers alley

looking like Chinamen The Gangs did

dress differently gangs dress

differently today each one so they know

each other they could see that person's

wearing that they can see the block away

you know all right be careful there's

this this group coming and uh those

persons this person wears a suspenders a

certain way they call them gises um the

bowry boys behaved a certain way they

all had their own uniforms there's a

plug ugli they from somewhere deep in

the old country got their own language

no one understands what they're saying

they love to fight the cops and the

night walkers rap Pickers roll and they

work on their backs and kill with their

hands they're so scurvy on me to plug

ugli to talk to them but who knows what

they're saying we could take license

with that uh in the case of um uh uh the

very few uh characters in the film with

the upper classes were more uh uh

conventional but everything else uh you

can you could let you could let your

your mind go

of course uh films like Mean Streets or

um taxi driver or uh

or going up to um after hours things

like that it's a different kind of uh

costume design um in other words it uh

shouldn't be confused I think with the

custom designers and uh of the uh

classical Cinema it's something else one

has to understand the world around them

uh and the the world that they're

depicting um and so in a way a custume

designer has to understand for character

what that character could be wearing um

where that character would shop for

clothes where that character would

inherit

clothes certain colors that would look

right on the character certain colors

that would right on the character but

change because the actor is somewhat

different so you have to rearrange it

somehow or rework it rethink it and so

you need somebody who understands

contemporary um uh uh expression in

costuming uh expression in dressing

whether you go from Armani to uh oh I

don't know what to me today uh people

wear those um uh uh down jackets black

and they from far away it looks like

those garbage bags that uh so the style

is is gone in a way so um it's more

practical but it's a different uh

statement it's a very different

statement about who you are and what the

world is and one has to know that one

really has to know that and so uh

costume designers of of a modern film

really comes from and it always does

whether it's period or modern but even

more so with the modern now comes from

the character always from the character

what that character would she or he

would wear um and particularly uh when

they would wear it um what's appropriate

for that world and if you want to take

it and move I'm not talking about

fantasy films I'm not talking about uh

period pieces I'm talking about present

day uh

Cinema I go back to Mean Streets for

example I'll get the costumes I got the

costumes with Harvey and with David

proval and Richard ranus and everybody

and Amy Robinson we all worked together

and I got costumes I specifically knew

what I wanted Bob knew kind of what he

wanted but he found that little shirt I

think it was a a knit shirt with a uh a

little uh chain that you pull down a

little uh zipper chain which was popular

for like uh 20 minutes I think in uh

1969 or something and he thought this

was good character thing I said yeah and

then one day I was talking to him down

in his Loft he had a LOFT at the time

and he came out of the back room and he

had this little hat on and he said uh I

think this hat and I said that's

absolutely right that's the Hat

CU he understood having spent a lot of

time in the Lower East Side when I was

growing up around 16 years old we kind

of knew each other uh he knew the people

and he knew

uh he knew um the culture you know and

so uh the hat made me understand that he

he really understood everything now I

think over the years he said he didn't

do that but I know he did

it I know he put the Hat on okay so uh

because and I said H you know whatever

he's going to suggest I think he's he's

on he's on to something accurate and we

know it and he knew the people that

somehow the picture was written about

and that sort of thing when you go all

the way down to um Taxi Driver the

jacket of the uh King Kong company

whatever the uses of Browns brown plaids

and Away uh beiges um all the way

through to Raging Bull Raging Bull is

interesting because ultimately and it

was his passion to do Jake lamada But

ultimately um I watched him sort of over

a period of a couple of years between

his working out that he would do

especially when he was doing New York

New York he was always working out uh

for the possib possibility doing this

film which which included boxing you

know Raging Bull and so he would um uh

work it in such a way with photographs

of Jake and the people around him um the

the curling of the hair the the way the

hair would um the way the hair would lay

um a different times in Jake's life

testing I'd say 20 to 30 different noses

uh um it's not exaggeration because the

noses Chang because of the fights you

know but what looked like the right nose

for that sort of makeup Prosthetics and

that sort of thing that wouldn't look

like a prosthetic and so ultimately that

all came together when we started to

play around dick Bruno and all of us uh

playing around with the costumes racks

were brought in of um existing costumes

and they call today vintage basically

it's used clothes you know and uh period

pieces you know uh uh and I remember

we're here in 58th Street somewhere and

I forget I was in a uh um Production

Office of some kind there was a rack of

clothes he'd be putting on jackets and

putting on jackets it was an exhausting

experience because we were trying so

many different things we knew that

ultimately he didn't wear as many suits

as the other people did in the film and

that sort of thing but what did he

lounge around in you know uh and he

suddenly picked up this jacket and put

it on it was a jacket 3/4 length uh

black and it had a white um top to it um

and we looked at it and it was strong

enough and off enough and made a

statement a character statement and he

said uh we looked at each other and he

said look at this I said yeah that's it

that was

it and that's the basis of that

character that jacket which he uses in a

few scenes in the beginning especially

when he uh talks to um Kath Mor arity

tells her to come out and join him in

the car

whatever but there was something about

the boldness of it and maybe the

shoulders maybe the shoulders I don't

know but it felt

right king of comedy was really

interesting because king of comedy we

tried something different that Paul

Zimmerman script uh something I didn't

want to do again but he convinced me

over the years because I wasn't aware of

the element of celebrity at that point

at which Bob was he became aware of it

right around the time he DET taex D

because he had done Godfather too and he

became aware of a certain kind of uh uh

his relationship to the people around

him started to change or people would

come up to him in the street in a

different way um and this whole

strangeness about uh uh The Cult of

celebrity uh and so by the time we did

Raging Bull I began to sense what what

they were talking about um and I was

still on the cusp of it in a sense I

still

uh felt in a way like one of the U

cultish fans so to speak of a Jerry or

uh The Tonight Show uh New York

television uh filmmakers and that sort

of thing but at the same time trying to

work as a a filmmaker so that you're on

both sides of it um and so with Rupert

pupkin uh which is a name I think Paul

zimman got from a uh a taxi driver I

think he took it off somebody he was in

a car and taxi and saw the name he

thought it was really good with rert we

just didn't know what he'd wear we

honestly didn't know dick Bruno is a

great guy he was our uh costume designer

and Dick and I and Bob we

were uh up on 59 we knew that we should

go to certain places on 47th Street on

48th Street 58th Street maybe I think no

not 58 but 53rd Broadway 7th Avenue that

was still very much the brill building

was still very much Broadway and all the

film making centers were really up up up

at that in that place now they're all

downtown um in U Tribeca Soho but in uh

the the 60s and 7050s 60s and 70s it was

really um between 47 Street the screen

building the brill building and um the

sense of Broadway Danny Rose the sense

of uh you know uh clothing stores that

sold to Lounge singers you know this is

they had comics from the borch belt

would buy the clothes there so it's like

really Showbiz but on a real

hardworking day-to-day foot soldier uh

World in a way um and they'd have all

the 8 by10 Stills in their glossies

signed to the different store owners

thanks for everything that sort of thing

from Milton Burl or you know um movie

stars uh but primarily

New York Comics New York performers um

and so we were walking around I think

around uh Central Park South or whatever

we had just gone from one store to

another and we weren't quite sure we

said what does he we ultimately and we

were just narrowing in we had some

thoughts we had some thoughts it was a

little easier with Jerry Lewis and and a

couple of the others but with rert what

is he you know and as we walking by

there was a store I think it may have

been on Seventh Avenue or Broadway I'm

not quite sure it was called Lou magram

shirt maker to the

stars and a small storefront and we

always used to see it you know we'd

always walk by and strip me the Shir the

shirts were you know interesting looking

uh they had a kind of a Showbiz feel to

them um a kind of

um flourish so to speak big wide you

know bow ties all kinds of things fluff

uh ruffled shirts and we looked in the

window and we were stunned we saw this

mannequin and the mannequin was wearing

um a sear sucker um blue and white

striped suit three-piece I believe um

navy blue um or dark blue uh shirt with

a white collar a yellow knit tie and a

kind of a white leather uh

slipons and Not only was the costume

right but the face was right the hair on

the mannequin was right the mustache was

right

in fact the mustache

was a fraction of um an inch shorter on

one side than the other and we looked at

him we looked at each other said that's

him that's him even the hair is him so

that's what we did I tell you

boy hi Eliza good seeing you ger good

seeing you Jerry don't get

up ah boy I'll tell you every time time

you come back from a tour I don't know

what it is but there must be something

in the air or the tour it really becomes

you it's like you become rejuvenated I

don't know what it is isn't that so

everybody you have to see it came out of

that part of the world at that time in

New York was show business but it wasn't

the necessarily the successful Show

Business it was just show business

because you had no other choice you you

wouldn't get out of it you always

looking for you know the big break and

it didn't come maybe you know and um for

us uh it was uh uh it came out of the

very how should I put it it came out of

um the actual environment that the film

takes place in that the story takes

place in so it wasn't something imposed

on the environment

[Music]

there's so much to know that you don't

know um and I always found this to be uh

something uh about film making um no

matter what the technology is um you

shouldn't be cowed by the technology you

shouldn't be cowed by the uh the uh

process in a sense you should have um

the kind of passion and bravery and um

um ignorance I think to a certain extent

of wanting to get something done um you

know because if you really thought about

making a picture if you really thought

about it step by step you never you

never do it it's always a situation

where you wind up like three days into

shooting or so or two days and you you

say what have I done what was I thinking

but um you have to do it when it came to

light I never really understood light I

still really don't um I don't really

need to I don't think I never really

became something that was uh prominent

um uh in designing scenes I uh and I

think a lot of that had to do took me

years to to understand a lot of that had

to do where I grew up I grew up in the

actually the tenements uh and on

Elizabeth Street in the 19 late 40s or

through the 50s the 60s and basically

all I needed to know there was uh

daylight and

night yeah I didn't really uh it was

dark it was dark there was maybe a light

bulb in a hallway yeah um it wasn't

complaining about any deprivation of

Nature's Beauty it was where you were

and it had its own Beauty you know uh

yes there's a Nuance that I did learn uh

on a daylight in a daylight situation

there could be clouds and that could be

sun I got that but aside from that where

the sun is and where things to be shot

at a certain time of day I really don't

I still don't know I still don't know um

uh maybe that's why I like a lot of

British cinematographers too because the

overcast in the in their country um but

in any event uh I uh learned to um work

very closely with the directors of

Photography over the years um and in

designing the shots um they would add

the element of light I would change I

would work it uh I began to understand

something about it um and so um uh this

is something that I think can be if not

learned um can be uh

coexist with the uh necessity of making

the film you deal with it you if you

don't know something ask try it you know

learn as much you may forget afterwards

but you learn a little bit each time a

little more more but it's something that

shouldn't stop you if there are certain

elements of uh the actual production or

how to get an image on screen or how to

tell a story um you'll find your way

through Freddy's work I had seen as a

cinematographer but also he was the

camera operator on Tales of Hoffman and

a couple of other films of Paul

pressburger so he came out of that group

and got to know him a bit um I was there

the 91d award for Glory and said he he

was looking for a job and so I thought

of possibly working with him on um this

film Cape Fear which was a uh um a film

I hadn't plan to

make and uh was an attempt at trying to

U make a a extend or enrich a genre so

to speak or or revise a genre possibly I

don't know but in any event um Freddy

agreed to do it and Freddy had um he had

a set of five

lenses that he used um on the Innocence

for example like I think I think on Sons

and lovers I'm not quite sure but it

must have been but in any event

certainly the Innocence um which is a

beautiful film U that Jack Clayton

directed based on turn of the the turn

of the screw Henry James Deborah Carr um

extraordinary focus in the film in black

and white scope black and white

anamorphic but extraordinary deep focal

length in this picture and um there's

Deborah Carr walking through the um

Halls of this Victorian

house um dark and she's wearing a black

a black dress which is very full but

everything's in crisp crisp focus and I

asked him uh how did he achieve that and

he said he shot at

f11 which meant that it was the smallest

opening uh and uh that means means he

had to pump in more light and I didn't

fully understand this until later on

Cape Fear when I would ask for certain

scenes to be even more focused in terms

of the characters this character and

focused with that one and this one he

said I he would always tell me well I

think I can give you what you want if

you give me a few moments which we

[Music]

did and that's when I fully understood

um the impact of U the intensity of

light to focus of the screen and focus

of the

image imagine Greg Tolen from in best

years of Our Lives a citizen C all the

deep vocal length work must have

Incorporated extraordinary uh lighting

um the heat of the lighting the

intensity and uh I mean naturally you're

talking to you know somebody here who

I'm I'm speaking from a different

experience I I the impulse for me to

make movies was uh the New York

independent cinema cavetti sherley Clark

very often um a number of people who did

those films I think Barett Bryant shot a

cool world very often we using available

light this was inspired from the French

new wave that sort of thing um available

light is isn't always available light by

the way there's always some fill or

something like that but in any event it

was lighter equipment uh I didn't

understand the necessity of arites and

the power of the heat for Focus um and

so on Cape Fear that that was a a

revelation he had a sense of

um transforming the image um there was a

moment in uh uh in other words a shot of

an eye I would say a shot of two eyes

person looking uh

um there a shot of two eyes unless you

interpret it he had one point I remember

very

clearly I designed this action sequence

at the end of the film um in a storm at

at Cape Fear the actual Cape Fear boats

flying around house boats and that sort

of thing but prior to the the the boat

breaking as's Nick Noti staring through

the window through Venetian blinds um of

a storm tossed house boat of his wife

played by Jessica L being terrorized by

um Robert Dao's Max Katy um and I said

he's he's out there he's looking through

the window there's penan blinds we're on

the eyes and there's um rain hitting the

the window so it's streaking and that

sort of thing and we lined up the shot

in in um anamorphic and two eyes and I

told Freddy it it doesn't feel right it

doesn't it's just a shot of two eyes

looking through a window

and so he said one

eye I said what do you mean he said just

show one

eye when he did that it took on some

other aspect and that is that uh it was

like something from the ocean depths one

you didn't quite know what it was at

first and you realize it's an eye

covered with raindrops covered with

Shadow light all kinds of things so that

it it it it created a mystery

um an understanding of how to tell a

story uh with pictures that was

extraordinary for that for that mood and

tone um and from the one eye we tracked

out I believe but uh this is the kind of

thing uh uh was really kind of a

learning experience for me and I I also

kind of bothered him a lot because I

would ask him about how he shot certain

things in his films and then say well we

have to get going and goes well you give

me a few minutes and stop asking me

questions I could work so um but he was

extremely um uh gentlemanly about it um

and the uh it reminds me of the story

and I've just been telling some people

about this for a while now but he was

the camera operator on this uh Valiant

effort to do a u a version of Moby Dick

that John Houston did in

1956 but on that film um Freddy was a

camera operator and he was told at one

point by Houston to uh go and get a few

shots of whales um in the North Sea and

obviously sending to the spot where the

whales are and the fins come up and that

sort of thing and you know three strip

Technicolor big camera and he brought it

back uh he went there shot it brought it

back to London they screened it and he

looked at Houston and Houston said

well it's a shot of a

whale right it had very little

interpretation and so um

this is the lesson I learned that it's

still it's simply saying okay we're

going to get a shot of the door are

we're going to get a shot of the car

well what's the angle what's the light

um is it moving is it not moving

um I've seen that sometimes where I

start to uh work on an image

um of a telephone for example infinite

amount of ways to do that I'm talking

about a landline uh infinite amount of

ways and it needs a lot of thought you

know

which leads to the use of inserts which

leads to Bron and Hitchcock and a number

of others but uh um with Freddy it was a

very very interesting experience because

it took me to the um the Old Pros in a

way as opposed to other directors of

Photography i' been working with up to

that time um not to to uh not saying

that not to to say that one was um

superior to the other it's a different

thing

[Music]

I felt that I had to learn how to make a

picture faster cheaper um and still have

um still have the energy in the film in

fact go further with a certain kind of

camera move and cutting and this sort of

thing and I first met um Michael

ballhouse in um having had gone through

having uh had gone through uh a series

of films up about

1981 uh King up to king of comedy uh and

sort of the bottom fell out of

everything after that um but I did meet

Michael when we were

preparing the last notation of Christ in

1983 and i' seen his fast Benda films

that he that he had shot and I wanted

the a sense of um

Freedom with the camera again and

freedom with light um in a sense I was I

felt that with the Bigger Productions

from

uh as as as this not the cam that's not

the directors of

photography's um issue this had to do

with the how a film is made the amount

of people the amount of equipment I

wanted to get something trimmer and

faster you know um and so I felt I

should go back to uh independent Style

film making and uh I saw the fast Bender

pictures and Then followed up on that

with meeting Michael and we were going

to make Last Temptation um but by the

end of the year the film fell through

and we were out in the diaspora so to

speak out of Hollywood everywhere and

couldn't get a picture made but um

finally it was time to start all over

again I felt and we stumbled upon I

think it was uh Amy Robinson and Griffin

Dunn gave me the script of after

hours and so um

um I thought this was a good opportunity

to uh try to learn how to make a picture

again uh and also a project of course

that I really responded to because of

the nature of the of the story in the

character being out of his element and

being in a place where he couldn't

believe anyone or anything and he sort

of Trapped um and I thought this was

that's the way I felt myself at the time

um and so uh I called on Michael again

there and that's the first time we

really had the ability to work together

we shot it in 40 nights um averaging

about 25 to 26 setups a night and so

Michael um would be on the set and it

was you know downtown somewhere and the

old Soho which at that time was really

isolated at night there was nobody there

uh and I'd get there and I'd be kind of

grumpy um concerned about getting

everything done uh proving to myself if

I can get uh something shot uh in a more

efficient manner that still had

everything I wanted not quite sure of

this particular scene and uh he would

look at me and says Ah Ah but tonight

tonight we do the shot that begins on

the chair tracks up goes around the face

comes over to the telephone goes to the

Juke Box says oh you're right you're

right yeah yeah that's something so we

don't do it first no no of course not

we're going to do it a little later

because I have certain lighting issues

okay okay but he gave me something to

look forward to and brought back the

excitement and the love of the process

you know he said look this we're GNA

have some fun tonight I mean and fun I

use that word fun for many different

things one could have fun at uh say well

we're going to have some fun and ironic

tone of course but it really was

bringing back to me

um the uh energy and the excitement of

film making that he reins stilled in me

and I remind you I had design all these

shots and drawings and uh diagrams U uh

smaller story boards in a way on the

edge of the script rather than in bigger

drawings uh but bous studied them and

made his own

versions um trans transferred them to

his script and made his and he studied

the shots studied the understanding

tried to understand how the camera would

move the use of the lens which lens size

lens all sorts of things n then

transferred over to uh Last Temptation

Of Christ we were shooting in Morocco u

a very very very lowbudget film the

whole picture was designed on paper

mainly because uh that's the way I

always design uh film as much as

possible but even more so in that case

because I knew that if I had the chance

to make the picture it was going to be

very um a very low budget and I had to

shoot very quickly so I had to know

exactly what I wanted in terms of the

framing camera movements editing and

that sort of thing

the first day of shooting we knew it uh

we understood that it was going to be a

an arduous shoot um and after the second

setup where just trying to set up a

tripod and in the ground and things

falling and uh he looked at us and said

well this is the way this film is going

to be every Movement we make everything

we set up is going to be hard to do so

just accept it now which uh which we did

which we did and we worked as uh

furiously as possible um and later on

too at one point things were so

difficult and I was so

uh in despair about uh losing time and

not getting the right amount of extras

and this sort of thing I and I was just

sitting there at one point I think about

eight weeks into shooting saying uh well

I said I maybe I should have waited

maybe I should have waited to have more

money in the budget maybe I should have

waited and knowing I had waited six

years seven years you know uh in order

to take the opportunity to make the film

then at a very very low budget and he

said to me no no he said this film has

to be made this way um the um

arduousness um the

physicality um and the if one could term

it uh suffering that had to be done

that's the nature of this work of this

particular film not that any film is

luxurious in that way but um this really

um became more than making a film it

became a a life experience and he was

want to point that out to me we had one

company move from

maresh to um mares we shot outside mares

a little village called umran about 25

minutes outside of

maresh then we had one company moved to

a city called mcness which gave a flavor

of an

urban

center suggesting Jerusalem we thought

um and so uh that was one big company

move and that meant it was we couldn't

afford a third we wanted to go to

another place wasat but we couldn't do

it and so um the only thing was that we

found a quarry uh for the crucifixion

that um was really very very good we

thought and um we wanted to keep the

crucifixion for the end of the film The

shooting um but we had to shoot it in

the middle and um in order to take

advantage of this this

location and I had designed and I

remember very clearly 75

shots whether they were notes or whether

they were drawings didn't matter they

were designed that figured 25 shots a

day right now it's a very hard scene to

Stage um

but we were under such uh uh pressure

particularly because we were gone days

over schedule and running out of money

um that we had to make that move at that

time and I remember mem and my ad and my

producer sitting in a small room um five

days before uh shooting or four days

before shooting the crucifixion scene

and um going through all the shots and

saying okay instead of three days for

these 75 shots we have

two

so what could we

lose and it became 50 shots 25 and 25

and we got them all and how he did that

was uh referring back to something he

did with fast Bender in particular film

called beware the holy [ __ ] where I

think a few days into shooting fast

Bender fired the lead actor um and then

took the role himself and so they had to

re-shoot everything that they had shot

for those those three days in one day

and

night and uh how they worked it out was

um timing it so that for example in the

crucifixion scene um if the first shot

we would give 10 minutes um the fourth

shot was a little more complicated 15 if

it goes to 17 we have to move on accept

what we have and move on um there was

one shot uh uh where uh William to cries

out you know father father why have you

forsaken me I think and the camera

twists and turns he said that's that's

45

minutes and that's how we did it that's

how we did it we're just literally

within that 10 minutes I used to call it

quality time we'd be intent on getting

what needed to get um or if not shooting

an extra two takes squeezing it in to to

to figure out later uh certain elements

of the different takes which want to go

with uh in the editing that was a a very

uh uh logical and a very uh also

passionate way of going about it saying

we're going to get it but we'll have to

combine these 75 shots into 50 and we'll

have 25 setups a day or 26 we can do it

uh and the thing was was like a uh

Commando group uh we got there in the

dark and the moment light broke we

started

shooting immediately um and it was like

being in

a like a battle of some kind very very

physical he always made it clear uh to

me uh about the um um the value of what

we were doing in that particular shot or

that particular day you know um and so

uh what to go for what to emphasize what

I mean is what to go for what to uh when

I say go for means where to put the

energy um and what to look forward to he

was very clear about um in a case like

that he didn't really say this is the

way this film has to be made but he kept

saying we will make

it I kept I kept knowing that everything

was being taken away or the script was

being changed and there were lots of

production problems but he look at me

and say we're going to finish it

we're going to make it and whether we

did or

not ultimately doesn't matter but it's

how we got through um each day of the

skirmishes and the battles to make the

picture

[Music]

it's really good if you have people

around you that you trust um uh which is

a a basic element in in the film making

process or any anything really and uh uh

and goes for any film you're making the

trust is important between your director

photography you your assistant director

co-producers that sort of thing um what

I mean is that if it's a passion project

and everyone's invested in it the way

you are um that's really rewarding

that's uh something very special you

feel you've gone through some sort of

experience together I've been lucky over

the years to I've had a few of those uh

just recently with silence for example

mean streets to a certain extent

although a lot of that were a lot of the

crew a main streets I learned how put a

film together through Roger corman's

crew but they felt the energy of the

whole thing and they knew uh somehow

because my enthusiasm and and uh uh just

passion for making the picture they kind

of were infected by it in a way um but I

think um primarily it's uh it's great

when um the crew is tight enough and

like a real working unit that feels that

they're creating something special you

know um with you uh there's there's an

alternative of course and that is that

uh it becomes something impersonal it's

a bigger bigger set a bigger situation

but still even there people are hard

doing very very hard work whether it's

uh uh making sure the uh the rain

machine works perfectly or that sort of

thing um but as long as you have your

inner core of of key people sharing that

desire to make this film sharing it and

ideally

um not necessarily

overdoing their role so to speak um but

pulling it all together to help you get

what you want or what you think you want

you know because very often as I say

when you get it to the set or when you

get it to location and you've designed

something and you're working with the

actress and things start changing

sometimes you you lose your um uh sense

of exactly what the shot should be

if the people around you you're key

people understand what you want based on

conversations before you started

shooting reading the script designs all

kinds of um uh especially if you're on a

location where people are working

together eating together and that sort

of thing you begin to get a sense of who

you could depend on and um

uh they would be able to tell you and

help you through the hard times really

uh so this is something um that that's

really um a key factor it's a core unit

now when I say a passion project that

core unit could be the whole crew

because it's a smaller crew usually it's

a lower budget it's a different thing

but when you're on a bigger picture that

small core is really your your life core

your Lifeline um I come from a time too

when there was a lot of experimenting

with the movie making where we actually

thought at times although I don't know I

didn't try it but bet uh in the 60s

there were experiments in making um

what they call Collective decisions

Collective film making as the Director

you can't score points with false

modesty you have to assume the

responsibility of being the one who

makes those guiding

decisions but you also have to remember

that every single person on your your

set plays a role in making your film you

need them you need them you know and you

need their dedication you need their

expertise don't forget that's what

Stanley kurick said they said what is

the um what's the hardest part of

directing he says getting out of the car

in the

morning because once you get out of the

car you're besieged with questions and

usually you get out of the car there are

problems and like I used to tell my ad I

say get out of the car look at them and

say aren't you smiling no I said what is

it I said well what can't we do today

you know and you just get used to that

you get used to what it is is that um uh

it's it's true getting out of the car

begins a process I'd always said I

wanted to do a uh an article for and

these days I guess would be online or

something um but just I have a little

recorder on me taping all the questions

that you're asked including uh um have

you got uh your right shoes uh what

would you want do you want coffee now um

uh an actor coming up to you talking

about I really disagree in this line at

this point changes the entire character

maybe I shouldn't have done this and I

know it goes on and on to the biggest uh

uh problems to the smallest minuti and

tiniest Manu and uh I I always wanted to

do it but um that's why it's always

advisable to have less questions Le less

questions the better during the day

unnecessary ones should be eliminated um

and you have to cut through all of that

cut through all of them all of the

equipment and everything to get back to

the idea you had and you had when you

thought it was a good it was possibly uh

a good suggestion to take up to make

this particular film you know um and so

you got to

focus and you have to eliminate

everything else around it and I don't

think you should be um uh there's no

there's no way to say don't be

intimidated by the enormity

of U the uh the machine so to speak

because very often certain kinds of

films it is that way but uh particularly

because technology of today I don't

think you should

let that stop you in other words um if

you feel you want to say something you

feel you want to express it through

Visual uh visual means uh you have the

technology to do it yourself you know

now that could uh build exponentially to

a bigger production and there's always a

way of there's always because of that um

it'll always be a learning process how

to deal with the machine you know but

don't let the machine get in the way and

also don't let the machine tell you what

you can't

do that's I mean you may not be able to

do pretty much anything but don't let

them tell you you

can there's a lot of very knowledgeable

people really good people especially if

they they like working with you Etc

they're going to try to find a way to

get what you want or what you think you

want until you have to get what you need

as they say this of course takes us back

to the um to the point where

there's a a core a group of three or

four people that um deal with trust and

uh excitement about what you're doing um

and trying to help you uh trying to help

you achieve it uh it doesn't matter I

mean yes it' be good to have they it

works it works in a in a way with the

core of people uh together with you

working for the same goal and then it

branches out then they have a core

people this one has a core this one has

a core and they're all working together

that's the ideal you know particularly

when you're in a location somewhere you

get there and there's a typhoon

seriously I was surprised we were

shooting uh silence in Taiwan and one

day towards the end of the shoot there

was a uh a scene that we were doing by a

stream with these rocks it was very

quite dangerous to walk on because it

was slippery uh but it turned out to be

the hottest day of the year and I

started to pass out people were it was

really very very difficult and um that's

towards the end of the shoot um because

the weather there sometimes too hot to

shoot in the summer so the next day we

had a scene on a a beach in which uh

people were being martyred uh thrown on

funeral PES and that sort of thing um

and I got through they drove me out to

the location and Remer this is after a

day of intense heat and humidity uh

we're going further out location further

I've noticed it's beginning to rain

I you know don't think anything of it

and I get there finally get into this

little trailer they had for me or bus

actually it was a little bus and uh

suddenly the door opens and I I feel the

place is rocking you know and suddenly

the door opens and these two figures

come in and they're covered in

Slickers and they're wet completely

soaked and they look up and it was my

assistant director my Director of

Photography I didn't recognize them and

I what are they doing making everything

wet what what's happened and they said

and they pointed out to me he said he

looked up and said we could do it we

could shoot

today

um first of all I didn't never in my

head that we weren't going to shoot

secondly I they said there was going to

be the tail under a typhoon but not like

this this was but thirdly they were so

beaten that I didn't even recognize them

and yet they were out there ready to

pull it together and shoot and which is

what we did um we did it we we did it

rapidly because uh

um the weather dictated uh these things

the movement of the crew and the camera

moves the crane Etc but uh also would

help because the uh we were able to do

the same because these are different

elements that come together uh the

dialogue was a pretty much a scene

without dialogue that sort of thing and

also because the um people playing the

parts the

Japanese

um were so uh committed to playing these

parts that as soon as you set action as

soon as you started rolling that camera

they're tied to a stake and being set on

fire I mean they were they were already

there in the scene there was no way and

there was no uh trying to coax these

actors they were on you see the crew was

set you know they were going to shoot

and that was it you know whether I like

being in the rain or in the typhoon or

not we were doing it

for me uh the editing room itself is

something that uh is a is as sacred a

spot as as as the the set is you know so

here is where the film really comes

alive I feel um and when people talk

about movies or Cinema they usually

speak of images or the image you know I

think what they're really talking about

is sequences of images so when we edit a

picture A movie we put one image next to

another image to create the impression

of a continuous action and then there

are variations I mean you play with it

um discontinuities ellipses surprising

cuts that sort of take you and reorient

your sense of time and place you know

but creating the impression of

continuous action is how we tell stories

in time but there's something else for

me um it's what I think of as the heart

of Cinema because every time I get into

the editing

room I'm struck by it all over again and

this is every time uh one has to

understand sometimes you get in you're

very tired and sometimes it's very roote

kind of work um it's hard uh um physical

work at times and then something happens

and I'm struck by it all over again see

you take one image and you put it

together with another image and there's

a third Phantom event that happens in

the Mind's

Eye you could call it an image or maybe

a thought or a

sensation something happens that's

absolutely unique to this particular

combination or Collision of moving

images and if you take a frame away from

one shot or you add a couple of frames

to the other shot the image in the

Mind's Eye

changes this will always be a Wonder to

me and by the way often in the old days

we used to see films and very bad prints

uh which uh involved uh which had uh

jump Cuts in it or scratches or pieces

missing um and the scenes were different

by accident they were different so this

addition and the subtraction of one or

two frames one frame everything depends

on that one frame it is storytelling one

frame each frame is important you know

eisenstein Sergey eisenstein talked

about well he talked about this on an

extremely theoretical level

[Music]

I would say that the power of his films

Isis siiz films happens to me despite

the theoretical

ideas and this is where you know a good

film Comes Alive as something more than

just a succession of beautifully

composed rendering of script Pages

basically this is film making

[Music]

you have to understand that when I

started making films in the early 60s

short films in myyu which became a

feature towards the end of the late 60s

before Mean Streets Etc these things

were you made the film yourself you know

you were expected to as I said not only

write the film um but know how to shoot

it with a camera but um I found that

ultimately too we were expected to edit

the films ourselves which is what what I

did I had a couple of friends who helped

me um at myyu we kind of switched jobs I

did photography on one of uh one film

and he would come on and do editing on

mine with me without me somehow we made

the films

ourselves and so ultimately uh when I

did Alice doesn't live here anymore and

taxi driver in New York New York I

ultimately wanted someone um that could

work with me who would allow me to

direct them in the editing and edit with

them um and so uh I Met George Lucas and

Marsha Lucas and uh she felt that she

could uh adjoin me in the cutting of

these films and which is what we did um

it wasn't a matter of um uh we were

younger and it wasn't a matter of

uh professional versus

nonprofessional uh threatened uh uh

threatened creativity versus versus uh

non-threatening in any way and that sort

of and we just made the filmm um and

they would listen to me which is what I

wanted and we did have some other

editors come in from time to time do

certain scenes and uh wonderful editors

actually helped remarkably for example

with taxi driver and two or three scenes

are really brilliant um but the style

their style of working their way of

working just was not conducive to what I

did after a very difficult period I

decided I was going to make Raging Bull

I realized that um

I needed to work with uh an editor who

would uh know who I am accept me uh make

the picture with me and uh most

important if the studio came in or the

finances came in and said we cut this

film without him they wouldn't do it

because again it's about control and

again it only comes off experience it's

the nature of the game um there are a

number of friends of mine in the 70s

whose films were taken away from them by

the actors by the studio re-edited um in

some cases the editor stayed

on were hired by the director but the

editor stayed on it's a different way of

looking at things you know you're a

professional uh in one in one in one

realm and that's your job and that's

your work and does friendship or loyalty

where does that begin and end it's it's

a complex uh it's not as cut and dry

um and it's complex and it changes with

every every uh situation of course but

um ultimately there was always the

danger of the film being taken

away and it was happening all the time

uh whether right or wrong it was

happening and I didn't want that to

happen so the person I knew was thalma

scoon maker and um so I saw if she was

available and what she wanted to do gave

her a call and told it to come in and uh

there was an issue I believe that Iran

Winkler and Bob got for Winkler got her

in the editor Union finally um uh and uh

I knew that I I knew that in those

circumstances there was a trust um that

um ultimately uh I wouldn't walk in the

editing room one day and see a scene

that we had worked on the week before

re-edited without me um and so this is

very

important and so that began a a long uh

collaboration and editing and um we went

out to do king of comedy and there was

another break and then eventually

decided to come together again on after

hours and continued up over the years um

one of the other things about working

with her is the trust there's no doubt

it's a same mind a

like-mindedness um and also is not part

of the industry that way I mean

particularly in those days just not part

of it doesn't think that way and so

she's gone through these Journeys with

me and in so doing we kind of know each

other's people and when you look back

1963 64 it's a long

time there is no process I mean I yes I

could tell you that you know we look at

the rushes uh these days it's getting

harder and harder to look at russes

because of

locations hour and a half to go to

location hour to go to location come

back an hour then you need to go to

sleep to get ready for the next day so

it's hard to see rushes U but when I can

see the rushes and we try to do it daily

or every two days uh we make selects

tell her what I want tell her where I

want it um she pulls all those selects

uh so that you have for scene 14b you

may have five or six sections in a row

uh this may this may be not very

different from what other people do but

the first one is the first select uh

preferred second preferred third

preferred in that order as we were

watching you know then there are others

and we say I probably won't use them but

pull that pull it pull it and ultimately

in recutting the picture you wind up

using some of the stuff you thought you

wouldn't use but they're there already

in that uh on that roll of film in the

old days and now in that I guess uh

folder or something or pamphlet or

whatever they call these little folios

or whatever they have on a computer I

don't know a window or something but in

any event it's there um and it's easily

retrieved that's the thing and also

during that process she memorized the

stuff as I try to memorize while we're

shooting so she knows of footage and

remembers different things sometimes

from takes that decided not to use where

you need a different look on the face of

the actor in relation to a certain line

of dialogue it's maybe too harsh too low

too much too high I don't know but in

any event there's a an awareness that I

of that I have that she knows that

footage so from that uh period of U

doing the pulling for the selects we

then get together and direct the cutting

of the scene uh particularly if the

scene doesn't have an edited sequence to

it in other words particularly if the

scene doesn't have shots that are

designed to go from 1 a to 1 B to 1 C to

2 a to 2 B to 2 C that sort of if it

doesn't have a mathematical u u design

uh and it's more open and you could feel

it out whether you start with a wide or

tighter I'm not quite sure move in um we

we uh work on the scene and then uh uh

often I'm able to go do something else

come back and she's uh put the scene

together uh or we do two or three in a

row she takes a day or so come back and

we stay and we work on it very often

it's late at night or something and you

know we have uh done a great deal and we

get very excited about something and we

come back and see it the next day and

have to redo it completely so that's

really the process and then ultimately

it's putting it all together and seeing

it in the case of um certain films uh

less footage is an advantage and it's a

disadvantage disadvantage because you

may be missing things okay uh but

there's always ways around it you know

uh Advantage because there's less

footage to play with less time you you

have less choices to make um the case of

Mean Streets for example or um the taxi

driver you know um even raging bll to a

certain extent uh uh particularly the

fight scenes because they were all

fairly well laid out and drawn so um

except for the last fight where he's

given a a kind of a brutal beating at uh

by Sugar Ray on the ropes that was shot

differently and edited differently but

um the majority is that that were they

were U they were um not easy to cut but

they were they went together uh more in

a more fluid way because of the

designs when I discuss let's say David

Le who was a film editor when I discuss

what he was able to do what he what he

um perceived as Rhythm and pacing for

actors in his films the films he

directed it comes out of editing I think

uh he would rehearse the scene with the

actors now mind you this is a very this

is a very specific way of working a very

specific kind of film uh traditional

narrative film very often um the text

being extraordinarily important written

by Robert Bolt or or other such

excellent writers um and

so there's respect for that um and it's

a different way from thinking that I

that I that I'm aware of so uh what was

fascinating what lean said and that he

would have the actors work on the scene

and then Mount the scene on in the

rehearsal Hall um and time it so a scene

uh from Brief Encounter say uh was

running 2 minutes and 30 seconds

he get it to a point where everybody

understood what was happening um uh the

interpretation of the lines by the

actors and guidance by the director was

all there and then he started a kind of

a a process of uh uh cutting in a way

editing he would say now if we did it in

2 minutes and 30 seconds let's do it now

in

220 and they would do that and then he'd

say let's do it in two minutes and they'

do that and he was picking up the pace

and then finally to about a minute 40 or

so um and when you when he shot it and

when it's in the film um the pace seems

right what he was pointing out is that

on film often um things

appear to be longer I have a feeling

that the the explanation is in um our

perception of 24 frames a

second I think it's a a a uh

I think it has to do with how the brain

perceives the image I think it's purely

scientific and I found it too I feel the

pace is Right sometimes and I'm shooting

and then in the editing room I realize I

maybe went I allowed it to be three or 4

seconds too slow uh or not slow

enough the idea is to I find myself um

uh trying to pick up the pace as much as

possible may not be successful but or at

least I get it to a point where I think

it's right uh but it's an interesting

thing because it's the medium itself the

um uh moving image itself whether it's

on film or on

video so uh it's something to keep in

mind

the key thing is that I usually

Envision a great deal of the film um in

terms of editing on the page in drawings

in editing sequences in edited sequences

in um editing designs uh

some come to fruition some don't but

mostly do uh mostly they do for example

the fight scenes and raging bll and that

sort of thing for the most part were all

designed on paper diagrams drawings Etc

okay uh the thing about is that she

knows how to put it together she knows

what I intend in the original drawings

um even if not looking at the drawings I

could describe it to her and she knows a

certain patterns she knows what I like

that way and knows how to achieve it

technically and then I said okay now

it's going to go from here to here to

here and why isn't this working in the

mid shot why is the third the middle

shot not quite working uh it's a it's a

series of three Cuts one two three in

why is the second one okay maybe two

frames too long on the second one take

two frames off the second I said what

about adding a frame on the third yeah

add a frame on the third see that still

off how about taking one frame off the

second and putting two frames on the

tail on the third and that sort of thing

understands what to do and doesn't turn

to you and say oh this is ridiculous I

don't why don't we just leave it as it

is and go in a pure way and simpler no

this is what I'm doing you know um and

doesn't argue with you on that point you

know uh it it it winds up too in the

editing where

um uh certain things that you think are

clear when you shoot them are unclear

and so we find different ways together

to uh clarify those things that I agree

should be CL clarified um in in many

cases uh this has taken me into

Uncharted Territory in a way uh films

that are uh pretty much based on uh

strong narrative or strong story lines I

should say plot more than narrative plot

um and I I have an aversion to that

sometimes and so screenings are very

important and we get a feedback from

people whether you understand certain

things or not she deciphers it with me

for me and then we talk about those

issues which we try to to

clarify and then at a certain

point I realize the ones I don't want

clarified that's the cast of The the D

is cast that's it and these won't be

clarified some will get it some won't

some will like it some won't and

together we we we work that out um and

it's uh never been a a situation of um

um

losing touch with the picture because

she'll keep me there you see and it's

always for the

film not for the with respect to the

studio respect to the financiers and

other people other people have great

deal of power in the process the loyalty

is to the film and me rather than anyone

else and in some cases too that's one of

the reasons I kept working with dairo uh

in the 70s you know a lot of the actors

number of actors great actors did at

certain points have that power to recut

a picture uh but he um never took

advantage of that and so um you tend to

work with the people who you see eye to

eye with in terms of philosophy life

background and no matter how many

suggestions no matter how much they work

at you uh the

real uh support is um my editor

collaborator at thalma to keep me on the

line

there are certain scenes that I love

very much but we've had to lose them you

know one of the key uh films we learned

that are relearned to a certain extent

well least we'd think anyway um was

after hours uh we didn't have the ending

of the script for some reason I forget I

it's a again as I say I was trying to

learn how to make try to not learn but

yeah I guess learn is the way or trying

to find a way to make a movie again um

along with Michael ballhouse and the

style of the film all of this sort of

thing um and

so the ending of the script wasn't very

clear but I figured let's get there

which is not a thing to do by the way

don't try that uh I wasn't even Roman

palansky a few years ago I told him

about the the the Ghost Rider I said

that last shot is great he goes always

get the last shot first that works for

him

but it worked the last shot in that film

is terrific all those films you know so

once I get the last shot I know how to

do the rest of the film it's a it's it's

great um but again that's a process for

him here uh here I was talking about oh

after

hours we didn't really have the ending I

don't know where the hell he was going

to wind up you know and so uh I shot the

script as uh as it was structured

originally and the first cut I think was

2 hours and 35 minutes and you know it's

funny the film is funny but uh at 2

hours and 35 minutes it wasn't funny it

was

heavy and disturbing I don't know what

it was but it wasn't the picture that we

uh had in mind um I found

that reading something and imagining

something when you shoot it it goes it

takes longer uh uh time on screen is is

uh longer for some reason and so um uh

we we had to find ways to trim the story

down um until finally we got it to 90

minutes or 87 minutes the film I forget

exactly what and we tested it with

audiences too um for the laugh lines for

the laugh to see if the audience was

going to go with the game you know today

it's different today they have cell

phones something like this wouldn't

happen happen a different way but at

that time there were no cell phones and

um he could not get back up town and of

course you couldn't take it literally

anyway but if you're not willing to go

um if you're not willing to to to play

the game then you're not going to watch

the film so that's something you're

going to lose that person that's it but

here when we got them hooked and they

went with it the faster the picture went

the better and so I had to rewrite some

scenes and do some re-shooting uh for

like four days or so um I had shown the

picture of Terry Gilliam uh Michael

Powell uh Steve Spielberg they would

call me with suggestions and things and

um and so what we wound up doing was

cutting two to three of our favorite

scenes out of the picture that was a

painful painful uh situation again what

I mean by that is to

um we're very lucky because the film was

very low budget we were able to

experiment and the idea then was to um

learn about script construction even

more you know and understand that

certain things read one way play out

longer um

and uh it's advisable to at least kind

of to know where the story is going for

an ending to a certain extent uh not all

the time but in a case like that it

was ultimately uh uh we'll screen a

picture first we don't show it to

anybody it's just

ourselves um there something George

Lucas always said he says if you like

your first cut you're in

trouble if you don't get physically ill

seeing your First Assembly or rough cut

something's wrong you always think by

the way you're not going to get

physically ill but you

do maybe a lot of other people even when

the final the final product is shown I

don't know but um you know it's not what

I want that this is complet this is

misfiring here that isn't happening

there and we use the edited patterns but

it's not working here and there and so

um we then hone in on what could be

uh for certain reasons maybe special

effects uh visuals or certain problems

with availability of actors certain

sections of the films first may have to

do the middle first or the end or we

find that we got to keep going back to

the end because we always when we got to

the end we were getting tired and wanted

to screen the picture and we did less

work on it so that needs all the work

then we fix that and the beginning is

long so we go back to that and it goes

been it it just is is a a work in there

is no way to describe a process you know

um now there are some uh directors who

uh give the same scene to three

editors and they work that way and

they're brilliant brilliant there are

some directors who give a scene to three

or four editors and don't tell

them and come up with some great

films they used to do that with writers

too they maybe still do have two or

three writers working on the same

picture nobody knows um uh so so there

are different ways to go everybody has a

different process UL though you do have

to look at it when it's finished or you

think it's finished and it's never

finished right it's never finished so

I really loved color when I was a child

watching these

films and I found um U that as the color

uh process changed the color changed you

know um and eventually U by the early

50s um the uh Chang from three strip to

monopack changed the nature of the color

and colors became more muted I thought I

happen to like the very bright colors of

uh early Technicolor that doesn't mean I

don't like black and white uh that's

that's the difference that the black and

white was color and still is but I was

really fascinated

by that projection on the screen and I

think it may have been because the first

film I saw was duel in the sun uh was

three strip Technic color and that the

credits the opening credits come up and

it's the the blazing hot yellow sun and

the the titles come up and you hear

gunshots and it was absolutely a a a

overpowering um feeling watching that

film or trying to watch actually

terrified me I was about 5 years

old but the use of color in that I think

set set the tone for me and there's no

doubt that I uh um I respond to vibrant

use of color in uh that or for the

moment like in 1948 when my brother took

me to see a re-release of Wizard of Oz

when the sepia sequences at the

beginning in the house lands in Oz you

know and it's still in sepia but she

opens the door and it's

Technicolor um that moment have always

been something that I I love I love when

films uh in the late 40s were in black

and white and then there was one

sequence in color like the Portrait of

Dorian Gray um or the end of portrait of

Jenny where um it's tinted green the

storm and uh ultimately the last shot is

in color of the film this made it very

special for me and then seeing

um uh the uh two color films uh which I

I felt were magical to me and so this

all revolved around that technical

process that oswal Mars and John hon

used on Moby Dick the desaturation of

the color which I try to do many times

basically coming up with an image that

looked um so desaturated that uh it was

almost like a colorized deera type in a

way and had a red great sense of almost

like looking at paintings or I should

say

scrimshaw um etchings done on um

whalebone uh it was quite quite

beautiful I

thought you see when a picture is made

in color you also have to design in

color that means the color means

something

uh and uh color is special you know um

and the use of color was something new

in a way but just to shoot because it's

color doesn't quite make sense so the

use of um primary colors is important as

I say color means something uh even when

you don't want it to it does and so you

have to be very careful the colors you

allow in the frame when color became

somewhat uh um expected all the time it

lost its uh special nature for me there

was a different way of using Color to

different lenses then different um film

stocks so you really had people

utilizing color to tell a story also uh

in a different way from um the studio

films um because they did tell a story

there

too all this this obsession with color

on film uh found its way into one of the

reasons why I did The Aviator and I

decided that we're g to try to do um

color in the film that represented the

color as it as it was um available in

whatever process uh Technicolor had at

the time so if the film starts in 1922

or whatever the color looks like

two-color or represents two-color of

that period And so uh Sandy pow had to

design costumes that would play in that

color often I think there's one scene

where they go to the Coconut Grove and

uh Cape blanchett's dress which is a

kind of lame I think um

I believe is a kind of a gold color but

I think in actuality it was

green and so we tested all of this the

thing about creating that is really an

obsession with color uh and slowly the

color in Aviator slips into uh a feeling

of a more saturated three strip techic

color and then finally a colder color in

the

end but timately that was really one of

the reasons for making the picture and

that was not possible really until the

use of the digital intermediate part of

this part of this is beyond me in terms

I was learning as I was going along um

uh with um on Aviator and it was it was

really a an exciting um experience

because I was able to use prev

visualization for the first time taking

my notes and little drawings and

transferring them into um the um

previz Rob legado was doing with me and

so the storyboard came alive in a way um

and um um it was a new way of making

pictures in a sense for the action

sequences I'm talking about the flying

scenes um we had seen a beautiful show

on color and film right before we did

The Aviator um at the Academy in LA in

which they first screened a beautiful

black and white nitrate of Midsummer

Night stream sections they screened

sections of it then they screened

beautiful examples of tinting and toning

from syum films and night trade prints

they had leading up to full use of color

um and it was really a revelation even

the beautiful um uh print they had of

East of Eden uh at that time because I

recall that color in 53 and 54 Warner

Brothers scope films had more of a

brownish blue feel to them um as opposed

to as opposed to Fox um and the films

they were making so um uh there was

always a slight difference um and it

became sort of uh encoded in my head um

and so we use them as references but I

must say that the uh the use of the Di

has increase the

uh possibilities of color uh

and in a in a way it's strange because

there is no limit very very there are so

many possibilities now and and it's

exciting but at the same time you have

to force yourself to uh limit those

possibilities

uh and don't let the technology take

over you know because you can do it

doesn't mean you should do it

I'm finding that when I see some new

films modern films um that yes I miss

black and white to a certain extent and

this is a person who who's saying that I

was fascinated by the three strip

Technic color yet black and white

existed alongside it and had its own

sense of color light and Shadow it had

its own style um it had its own meaning

in a way but uh I found that just

transliterating in a sense a reality

that in front of you with some light

Illuminating it and uh trans

transliterating it to u to Celluloid at

that time uh isn't very creative you see

I just didn't think it was however I

think in the past I don't know 10 15

years or so I'm seeing a kind of um in

some of the new

films and in many cases Independent

films um but I'm seeing something happen

with the color that um color has become

for certain subjects and certain very

very intentionally done by the

filmmakers um in most cases I would

think have become kind has become kind

of neutral at times that

neutrality um that

neutrality uh has kind of taken the

place of black and white

it's uh it's in color but it's not

making a statement the statement that

you don't notice it's in color is the

statement and it doesn't have the

complexity and design and style and

meaning of black and white uh but that's

gone that's gone that's another time and

place uh there are some films made in

black and white today um I find that

they're digital though and there's a

difference between digital black and

white and actually shooting on Celluloid

black and white so um this is something

that it's it's to be encouraged there's

no doubt but some uh films that I'm

black and white are uh in a way not not

all but uh some are self-consciously in

black and

white it's kind of

a on the on on a on a spectrum of

positive negative and negative it's more

pretentious and and positive um it feels

right you know um but black and white

has been hijacked also by advertising

and well by everything really you know

people punch up an image put it in black

and white kids sh you could shoot

anything you know I'm talking I'm

illiterate in terms of computer but I

noticed that you can do anything on it

you have every possible trick and every

possible color and color combination and

um every possible uh special effect that

you could do immediately without working

through the special effect so in a funny

way at first I was concerned about about

that sort of thing for young people and

then I realized let them get it out of

their system let them realize it doesn't

mean anything because again has to go

back to the core of who you are and what

you're trying to

say while we were doing research on

Raging Bull um there was 8 mm sound

footage in color of uh Bob dairo

sparring with the sparring partner

trying to work out Cor ography with Jake

lamada for certain scenes in the film I

remember projecting him my apartment

projecting my apartment in in New York

projecting them on a white wall and uh I

forget it was with me I think Jay Jay

coxman Michael Powell and um the gloves

were um U modern gloves um now mind you

I just really began to realize the

extent to which uh so much of this was

being lost in in uh Cinema history uh so

many films that we take a look at for

the second or third time we can get a

print was completely faded and gone and

so uh I was very

very um very alerted to this at the same

time a number of other boxing films are

being made around this is

79 so I'm looking at this footage and as

Bob uh C graphing someone choreographing

for Bob and Michael Powell's looking he

says there's something wrong I said what

is he said the gloves are too

Red I said yeah you're right they are

the color is throwing me said the color

is throwing me that led to realization

to that the fight scenes um would be uh

rather bloody and I said all that blood

flying around the screen in color I

remember becoming

uh unconvinced by the use of the by the

by the by the intensity of the color red

in the shootout and taxi driver and

that's one of the reasons I was able to

um desaturate the color I felt it look

fake and I said that that would limit

what we're doing in the ring and then I

began

to I've been thinking about it a lot I

was realizing why design this picture in

color especially a period piece when um

it's going to fade in a couple of years

you know and at that time video was

maybe just beginning but was no

guarantee you going to see these things

in the original

form and so ultimately we decided to

shoot it in black and white um and uh

the studio was against it and I remember

them coming up to talk to us about it

and I said but look you have I think

five films this year opening or when

this film is finished it'll be five

films about boxing that'll be opening

you have the main event or stri in you

have uh the prize fighter with um Don

knots and Tim Conway yeah have Rocky 2

and um Matilda the boxing kangaroo in

color I said now number four okay but

still we'd be the fifth in

color I mean it just it doesn't what if

we're black and white it's different and

so there now people want to see black

and white so IR wiler says don't forget

Lenny Bob F's Lenny black and white

paper moon Peter banovich black and

white people liked it and I said well

all right and so that's how we got it

that's how we got it uh we did put a

color sequence into the home movies

which um when thma went to check out the

projection on on Broadway and the film

is being screened in Broadway uh I used

to say very often the last or tour of a

film is the projectionist because he

figures out you know how much head room

you're going to have the aspect ratio

whatever if it screws up it screws up so

uh she walked into the booth to check

the sound and see if everything was

working out this is the first two day

first two days of the film being uh the

film playing in New York and he said I'm

glad you're here you're the editor of

this I'm glad you're here said because

it was a real problem there's a whole

color sequence in the film we had to cut

it

out

so see it never ends

when films were first

created two things actually three things

were

uh were expected and looked forward to

and experimented with that was sound um

color and

3D and you can go back to the very

beginnings of film and you'll see

examples of that people trying

constantly so sound is something very

natural of course uh and uh that

complements the medium right complements

it sound or lack thereof you know and so

um the sound

design uh could be anything it again has

to come from I think One Vision or and

best as possible um combine with those

around that Vision who adhere to it who

feel

similarly about it and um are all on the

right track to expressing

it sound design has developed into a

situation where because the technology

is there because there are so many

choices because there's so many things

you could do in the um mixing room um

people use it and uh I think they're

using it because they could use it

rather than it should be used uh and so

you know uh I'm always told that a 5.1

then there's a 7.1 I said how many how

much more sound could you have in a film

in a theater um but there are certain

films I would think or the majority of

the films that are being made in the the

big budget pictures have a a sound

design um that an audience kind of now

in a theater I would think expects in a

way uh there uh I find that when I go

into the mixing room with Tom fman and

our crew

I find that I start stripping away the

sounds um for for many films that we'

worked on and I find that um um group I

work with Tom fman and everybody do

incredible job but um technically at

times I know that I'm I'm told yes that

dialogue is clear it may be clear but

it's not registering and it's uh being

being covered or being uh uh kind of

immersed in a in a sense of sound

and so I try to clear away as much as

possible um but again um uh films that

are uh spectacles so to speak or the uh

you know

um fantasy films or films that are in 3D

and IMX and yeah the sound is uh sound

has always been a very special part of

um a presentation of a film or a play or

anything in in history to an audience

you know but we're in danger here of of

expecting a certain kind of treatment of

sound that isn't necessary let's just go

with what's

necessary everything is set up to go

against you so to speak um because there

are ways that people do things and there

are ways that the system works or there

are ways that the technology works and

you know if you're new and you come into

a situation say I I want I want this I

want that they kind of know more than

you do in terms of Technology so there

is a fine line where even if they want

to help um you may find that you have to

be very firm about uh standing by what

you want because sometimes uh people say

just isn't done well it's a good reason

to do

it you know I think in Orson Wells and

Greg Tolen in uh citizen can they I

think he told I may be paraphrasing I

may have this wrong but I think he told

Greg T let's do everything we were told

not to

do and he said the greatest thing I

could bring to cinema was

ignorance now tech technology today

certain things work a certain way that's

true learn how to use it uh don't take

uh uh that monolith of the technology

and don't let it forbid

you you know forbid you from uh

achieving something now years ago was uh

the mixes were not easy

of course never was easy but there was

always a problem of wanting something a

little louder and they'd always say it

was going into the red because that

meant it would distort on the optical

track of the film there's so many fights

about that you know technically yeah it

may be going into the red technically it

would distort but how far could we get

it before it could distort you know and

um it's it's a tricky situation because

a lot of people um have to protect what

they do uh they are assigned a certain

role in a picture and they have to

protect it has to come out right in

terms of uh

uh in terms of their professionalism but

yet you have to find how to how to work

within the professionalism of others to

help you um achieve what you

want I remember we were very proud when

taxi driver was being mixed I think it

was mixed in 5 days

um in La where they they complained they

said these dialog tracks are the worst

dialogue tracks we ever heard I said

that's right that's right I wasn't you

know it wasn't being

um feisty in any way with the with they

were the worst tracks there's no doubt

about it that we're shooting in the city

there are Sirens there are horns

everywhere there are people screaming in

the streets I mean this is what it is

this is the city the city and that those

sounds under the dialogue or around the

dialogue that's part of the character of

the film you see I find that these days

very often people want to

uh weed that out to a certain extent uh

in uh the famous scene that dairo

improvised are you talking to me if you

listen to it there are bongo drums

outside there are Sirens there are

planes going over you talking to

me you talking to

me you talking to me

then who the hell else are you talking

talking to

me well I'm the only one

here these days people say you want that

plane out you know maybe in some cases

but the object you find is they're

saying it'll sound better you'll be

clearer in the dialogue and sometimes

the dialogue doesn't have to be that

clear you know anyway again it depends

on where you are in the movie at that

point as the filmmaker and what you you

think is important the most important

element you know um but it is a good

example of sound design today um uh

taking control ultimately in the wrong

way you know um I always thought sound

design was a concept of

uh interpretive concept um I

remember skip livsey I remember the

sound of the fan in Blood Simple and

liking the way that sounded it's not

it's a fan on the ceiling

but it was it implied something else and

I thought that was interesting well

Frank Warner's work of course of Raging

Bull

um yeah Frank Warner uh with sound

effects he was so protective of his

sound effects that U he didn't want

anybody else to use them so he would

burn them

afterwards for the most part uh don't

forget this was a time before video

before digital so he had the power to

throw them away he came up with sounds

um that were elephant uh elephant uh

trumpets trumpeting of elephants and

wild animal sounds and it was mixed in

with the uh with the sounds of

the the punches that were being thrown

[Applause]

refere on his feet now and the referee

is wiping off his gloves he is

done l comes at him being knocked down

Robinson is well ahead on point he hooks

the left to the jaw left and the right

to the head by Robinson

L all of these kinds of uh sort of

philosophical approaches to each uh each

fight scene uh yes uh cinematically I

had worked it out and we had shot it and

we edited it but the sound was layered

in later in the mix with Palma myself

and of course Frank Warner um and

ultimately at that point in the TW fight

that punch was so was so uh decisive to

say the least that um how do we make it

important in terms of sound and we tried

it the problem taking out the sound

there is when does the sound come back

in and how hard do it come back in how

strong does it come back and come back

in softer does it fade in all of this

sort of thing so we were feeling this

out as we were doing that mix it was a

very long mix because of that

when I was editing uh Mean Streets there

was a a scene where in a bar that I I

simply did not get um the right angle to

be able to make um the transition

between a wide shot and a tighter of uh

these uh characters men coming to

walking to a table I believe in the bar

and then suddenly they're sitting down

uh and I may be oversimplifying it now I

haven't seen the scene in a long long

time but remember just breaking through

the form I had no choice but to cut to

them sitting and the jump cut didn't

work and so what I did was um in the

wide shot first part the the the first

shot they pull a chair out and there's

there's a uh the dragging sound of the

chair and I use that sound over the cut

next thing you know they're sitting um

and I think in the Mind's Eye you think

you've seen them sit down but it's a

sound of chair dragging

and uh so um it's this kind of thing

that broke through the form for me um

and it relates back to relates back to

uh the things I was talking about about

what heg minian said about the value of

a shot the value of a sound take it and

use it

for use it for purposes that you never

intended you know and it yet it it it

you hope you should be able to test it

to see but um yet it IT projects forth

the um forward The Narrative of the

[Music]

picture I always find that uh the use of

sound in some of the films that had very

low budget was interesting because um

they had no choice but to use certain

sounds or to use it to use it

imaginatively more imaginative to

suggest things and um for example

um cat people valuten

particular scene with the young woman

walking at night in the street basically

only had the sidewalk and a wall behind

her I believe um and uh she feels she's

being followed by a um um a leopard or

Panther I should say and if you study

that scene and if you study how it

builds in sound between the footsteps

and what she thinks of the sounds of the

panther um camera angles uh if you study

up to that point in which the bus

arrives and the the bus driver opens the

door is kind of like a hydraulic sound

the doors opening it's almost like a

piercing scream and you reached um a

climactic point in the scene with very

little in terms of production elements

you know granted the lighting is very

dark it's it's a nighttime scene but um

this is something that uh uh I found

inspiring say the least you find it in

Sam Fuller's pictures too shock Corridor

take a look at any of the sound Cuts in

shock Corridor and he had no choice

because was so low budget um and there's

a rawness or a uh it's a different

effect from the valuten films but

there's a a rawness and a power to the

use of sound has an authority to that

use of sound uh which is was on based on

a very limited budget

as I was growing up uh music was a very

important part of our our lives

uh it wasn't a bookish culture I came

from um but there was a great deal of

Music records radio eventually uh music

everywhere in the streets uh through

people's windows in the summertime um

and as I started to put together the

impulse to tell a story I found that

very often the music was something that

created that moment of u u visualization

so to speak and often the music that was

being heard or being played in the

street or in the car radio uh

counterpointed to the scenes I was

seeing around me created the films and

eventually this all led to my use of

Music in uh who at knocking them

particularly main streets and eventually

uh um even Alice doesn't live her

anymore and event and eventually Raging

Bull um into Good Fellas Etc but um in

in an odd way pulling on those scenes

together hearing that uh uh everybody

talking about movies at the time in

1950s and my father my uncles's talking

about certain films and then mentioning

other stories that that are going on in

the in the family or in the street and

somebody would say something like oh

they could never make a movie or that

and that's what I wanted to do I said

why not you know so all this was coming

together and music was uh so prominent

and uh almost like what you would call

the sense memory in a sense so um it

really begins with the music for me and

once I hear the music I mean I really

start to feel the story you know uh

sometimes a piece of music reflects a

character for me and I start to imagine

scenes it isn't that I sit down and

start to they start they sort of come to

you while you're listening to the

music when I finally started making

feature films I knew that uh my movies

uh would not have a proper score um they

weren't meant to to have that in a way

they weren't deserving of that because

those films or the pictures that were

made up to that time around the world

are you know they were something that

were

unattainable they were the guides they

were the um something we aspired to um

couldn't really do something like them

you know even though you try you know so

the kind of films I was making just

didn't lend themselves to this kind of

thinking a kind of at times not more

negative sometimes in terms of Hollywood

scores or uh traditional scores uh

sometimes they were coded and the

narratives were very different there

different ways of

um of um indicating emotions and

characters in music in uh in that

tradition and I was not from that

tradition I felt the only thing trying

the only thing that that um the only

thing that restricted us to a certain

extent was that at that time we did not

have the budgets to pay for licenses and

so uh we did want the films to be shown

in theaters if possible um and so that

became uh a bit of a problem in terms of

how much we could use where we could get

it who would allow us to use it Etc well

uh for example the use of Ray Beretta's

El Watusi and uh Who's That Knocking at

my door was a pivotal um moment for me

in in in trying to shape a film together

um or you know in in main streets was

where it all finally came together um

where somehow uh the producers Jonathan

taplan all of them somehow found a way

to um in a very very low budget able to

pay for some licensing and music

including the Rolling Stones Jumping

Jack Flash the scene was designed around

that song and uh Rubber Biscuit designed

uh Be My Baby By The Ronettes all this

all the all the scenes in the film were

designed around those particular pieces

of music and we were able to get for the

most part some of the licensing done and

so um for me that's how movies movies

were made the I didn't even never

thought of making a score for a film or

having a score created for a film at

that time um the music that I was using

was part of the world in which the

characters live they Echo I would hear

them echoing through the hallways and

the streets and the windows and car

radios and it was like a physical as

well as mental architecture of the world

I was trying to create uh and in a

way the music I chose very carefully

chose and music that inspired me for

certain scenes and certain films they're

part of the spiritual life of the

characters this was not common practice

in Hollywood film making it really

started later um but there were certain

pictures in which it was a very

important factor for instance um there

was use of of uh popular music in the

early 30s but not the actual recordings

that where they use now the entire score

there is no score for this particular

film The only popular music and that was

the Public Enemy the James Kagney

William Wellman film uh classic which

use the popular tune I'm forever blowing

bubbles as a key element though it's not

the original recordings uh but all the

music in that film comes from the source

or um whether it's a band at a nightclub

or record on a machine there's no

scoring the way we know the way we know

of it today and then in the early 60s it

was the great Kenneth anger film Scorpio

Rising which was of course a revelation

to to me and many others um of course

that was not a feature film it's what's

termed as an avangard film and wasn't

made for the general public um so when

when I started to make my own

films uh the score for that film

um freed me in a way uh and I was I

realized that I would be able to use the

music I was growing up with the music

that was around me all the time whether

it was um standards uh rock and roll um

Opera uh classical swing jazz

anything when I was growing up I

Remember Loving the music from the

Hollywood films uh you know I

immediately could tell you of Demitri

tiamin did something I love Mich loso's

music David rexon uh his scores were

extraordinary especially for force of

evil um the 50s Elma Bernstein scores

were remarkable also for the breath of

his work

um whether you know his first two scores

were man with the golden arm and um The

Ten

Commandments I think it was in the same

year

uh me memorable and as I used to say is

sort of his his music inhabits the film

in a way um and um I do love traditional

scores and I did wind up uh I did end up

uh working with many myself myself in my

own films but the the tradition scores

were tended to have a uniformity to them

as I said they they they were locked

into certain thematic codes um nowadays

of course A different kind of uniformity

pop songs or lyrics and sometimes they

actually just literally Echo the

emotions of the characters or whatever

and the comment right on the action or

ironic comment on the action um which is

something else entirely but by the time

I finished king of comedy again there

was no traditional score in king of

comedy um and what I found was uh

through a series of circumstances I

found myself starting all over again in

a way make movies and I wound up making

a um an independent film in New York

called after hours and I

found there

that that needed a score and

I felt at that point in time I could

experiment with actually working um uh

with the new composers Howard Shore and

I thought it was a beautiful score so um

Howard was the one uh that really began

a series of films for Me Howard and I

was able then to work with Elma

Bernstein so uh they were the ones

actually who uh created the um the score

uh uh which one uh relates to straight

narrative film they were the ones who

created first for

me when we finally did work with scores

a score like one that Howard Shore did

for The Departed which was an electric

guitar a Tango

Rhythm they work in Counterpoint with

the popular songs in the soundtrack and

the Tango itself of course is a a sense

of U danger it becomes a kind of Dance

of Death between these two characters

played by Leo and Matt uh leading

parallel false lives and slowly

converging

um different kind of example U again

here this was

scoring uh not using a score uh the

score for shter Island which made up of

pieces of modernist composers in that

film I wanted a sense

of otherness of constant intrusions

which sort of echoed the inner

experience of this character played by

Leo DiCaprio and something that could

couldn't have happened with a really a a

composer I felt uh somebody once pointed

out it's almost as if you hear the music

seeping through the

walls like coming out of a waking dream

that was the idea I didn't want one

voice but many different ones and you

never knew which voice was going to come

at you we kept going back to the music

of Leti which most filmmakers know from

kubri um and this kind of score also

starts with him this is the opposite of

the scor for taxi driver where I was

lucky enough to work with Bernard Herman

uh there the music is a singular voice

growing from deep within the tension

between Travis and the world around him

the city of New York in the

1970s when I told people that I wanted

to ask Herman to compose the score for

taxi driver and by the way it turned out

to be sadly his very last score um they

weren't quite sure what I was what I was

getting at um but I knew that I wanted

something that would be kind of at odds

with the rhythm of the city and the way

it was being depicted was Travis's

Rhythm you see that's the thing I didn't

want to use popular music because he

didn't listen to music so it had to come

from inside of him something that was

obsessive that was coiled and sort of

ready to strike and explode you know

it's all happening inside he doesn't let

the outside world in doesn't let the

music in there is one piece of popular

music uh um Jackson Brown too late for

the sky but he's watching television

with that uh it's coming off the TV uh

the rest that is the score of course by

Bernard Herman by the time we did Last

Temptation Of Christ the score again was

somewhat experimental with Peter Gabriel

uh after that was good Fellas which

again was the popular music or music of

the source music so to

speak I was very disappointed when I

learned uh as a starting to make my

first films that playing back music on

the set

and having the actress talk over it

ruins the soundtrack of the

actors but it kept the energy going and

I figured well you know you could Loop

some of it I didn't want to do that

because I wanted the energy of the

actress plus the music and so over the

years we've been finding ways to try to

play with that sometimes um and I've

done it often in the case for example of

Good Fellas when uh um the uh last

section of Leila is heard I would play

that back on the set to design um I I

would played that back on the set um for

the pace of the camera

tracking and the the sense of the whole

uh quality the spirit of the film at

that point

and this uh helped with the crew it

helped with uh the actors um uh and made

it something very special I would do

things sometimes uh and use music that

would not be used in the film but I like

the feeling of it for camera moves uh

like the lantern from um satanic

Majesty's request by the Stones uh

playing that back on set sometimes so um

uh primarily though if I do play it back

on set it's in the film and it creates a

great atmosphere on the set

ultimately a film when it's completed uh

there was a period of time where I

remember um my first films opening up

doing some interviews press interviews

very little television uh well the point

is this that I you know if you're in

narrative Cinema and you're making films

you're an American filmmaker and whether

you make them in New York or Chicago and

Austin Texas and everything kind of

around the world they feel they're

Hollywood films even if they're um of a

different style uh but particularly back

in the the early 70s all the way through

the 70s they were coming out of

Hollywood in a way um 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 distri

ition companies with the Hollywood

companies at least the films that I've

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

got to let people know it's there you

know uh you do a film you got to let

them know it's there whether you do it

and it's uh Michael Snow's wavelength or

whether it's uh you know uh um Godfather

one you know Godfather 2 I mean there's

an audience a certain kind of audience

too I don't say the the you know um each

film every film is for the widest range

you can once you do that you're you're

uh creating an effect in the film that

is uh 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

you know people want to see certain

actors in there u in the case of um

certain individual films made in the 60s

and early 7s there was critical reaction

critics there were certain critics

around were very very powerful at the

time you had to let the audience know

that the picture's out there so you find

that um particularly at that time you

could have input in the trailers Coming

Attractions you certainly could have

input in the posters um in the uh

publicity campaign you got to be part of

all of

it I remember when Bonnie and Clyde uh

was made um Warren batty produced it and

uh it was killed by the New York Times

the the the review and 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 in these cans and went

from town to town and went on every

television show and promoted the

film um the uh as a side as a side point

the New York Times re reviewed the film

positively um but that was also a

watershed moment because American Cinema

was changing so much and Bunny and Clyde

was the Forefront of that Arthur pan and

and batty 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 uh there are

different kinds too of reasons for doing

it um 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 uh that work on

the film with the studio people and if

it makes it it makes it you know it

doesn't it does at least you've tried

other times you've invested so much of

your own money and your life into it

you'd better go out and and talk about

it um without over saturating the market

uh with yourself so to speak U that

includes the actor includes the 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 it

you got to let them know it's

there taxi driver did very well um at

the box office I hadn't thought it would

uh I was I was uh intent on using a

certain kind of poster for the picture

and uh they allowed us to get the

posters made there are different images

One Beautiful One by GRE pilart is is

extraordinary but the one that did the

most uh for the uh for the picture was

just a simple still from the movie

itself kind of a black and white but

lavender finish to it and just a shot of

dairo walking up 8th Avenue that sold

the picture if you had asked me to say

what poster or what image was going to

sell the film I wouldn't have said that

but it did

so I find that you know I have to I have

to uh be very patient and be uh very uh

open to many different ways of um many

different ideas from uh people who do

sell films so to speak so it's a very

complicated thing because in in certain

cases some films uh was subject to a lot

of uh contention during the shooting

during the editing the studio fighting

as I say years ago people could still do

it actors take away a film uh Studio

takes it away the financiers take it

away so there's a lot of contention and

very often nobody can agree and 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 uh behind on that so I

can't really uh it just seems the

information is out there but all the

information's out there so how do you

find it

[Music]

the whole thing here of course is

establishing a pace and a mood and a

context of the period that has to do

with the behavior of the people in the

frame the pace of the camera pulling

back from the statue and the use of

music it's a a scene that

somehow I remember upon first seeing

this um through the use of natural light

the beginnings of the voice over that

doesn't intrude in the picture but uh

adds to the uh the world that the film

is depicting First

Love what a change it makes in a

land what a magnificence secret it is

that he carries about with

him the tender passion gushes

instinctively out of a man's heart the

behavior of the actors and particularly

the whole

piece just cut to this medium closeup

the look in her

eyes this whole piece kind of has a a

it's a wonderful example of a kind of

excruciating um enjoyment uh the

withholding of the

sexuality and this is done through the

very slow pacing

compositions look in her

face and also sets the entire tone for

the film uh in terms of um the behavior

of the characters behavior of the actors

and once again I can't express enough

the use of the imagery to revoke 18th

centur the 18th century 18th century

paintings the cousin here of course is

is directing everything if you find it

she has a kind of um single-minded uh

approach to everything here in this

scene is you know she's

ruthless the use of natural light places

you in the emotional and psychological

state of the characters every image

embodies the structure of an entire

society and the savagery that it

contains so immediately from the first

scene you have such a powerful

understanding of how people behaved and

related to each

other I cannot

find you haven't looked properly the

deliberateness of the dialogue and the

pauses between the sentences it takes

you back like a time machine into

another way of living and thinking

because nothing was fast around them it

was all slow and intense I cannot find

[Music]

it I'll give you a hint I think the

filter on the T shut has to do more with

uh conscious effort to uh to evoke

painting there's no doubt

[Music]

I feel the

ribbon why are you

trembling

[Music]

okay she talks about trembling but the

whole scene is trembling in that way and

you really feel here the the the angle

change is setting up it's a beautiful

light still on her but it really is

setting up the light for Ryan O'Neal's

face here

and the

kiss but the key to this whole scene is

the the

excruciating uh enjoyment of the

trembling there's an authority to take

take a film like this and um have the

command of that pace of a narrative film

and demand this from an audience you

know and it it doesn't

seem that far um uh that far out of the

uh out of the out of the norm for

Stanley KU particularly because he EST

established this kind of

concentration of um of viewing for the

audience in 2001 Space odyy and so here

it's the similar thing only back in time

[Music]

I'm a great admirer of Turner's films so

here you see an extraordinary example of

it in terms of the use of light and

Shadow and the subtlety of his visual

language particularly in the next cut

here dark and Shadow he looks down the

camera simply tilts and you realize

there's a body there Cuts back up full

light on his face now the camera stays

behind the seat through

curtain tracking to the right and really

the whole scene becomes about the way

Rober Mitch moves through the through

the shadows in the light and how he

cleans up quote unquote this uh horrific

scene so to speak as scene is something

again with the Shadows um uh very strong

Shadows one of the key elements in this

film is how well it's the epitome of

cool in a way and it it's it's it

processed through Mitchum you know young

people have seen the picture suddenly

turn and say at the end boy that's the

coolest film I've ever seen it's

restrained and yet extremely powerful

and rich as opposed to the camera moves

for example an 8 and A2 or uh the very

bold use of um movement and color in

Vertigo this seems to be the opposite if

anything would have become iconic of fil

Noir this picture is it

obviously I think I was 5 years old and

I saw this in a theater I was concerned

I think it was on the bottom half of a

double bill on a re-release of Bambi

actually and both were RKO releases so

it could be um and I remember uh uh my

aunt who had taken me to see the Bambi I

was complaining that this film was going

on too long

um and she told me to be quiet because

she was really enjoying it but I'll

never forget the body being put in the

uh in the uh

closet um and the impression it left on

me the picture because of the use of um

Shadows and Light I think it may have

been the first true Noir that I saw yeah

five or six years old inadvertently

[Music]

this the beginning of Jules and Jim the

first three or four minutes which

influenc the style of Good Fellas in

casino and Wolf of Wall Street and so

many but here you see I think a lot of

it has to do with the Rel lessness of

the voice over and the rapid speech and

also the pace of the music under it it's

pushing the images forward pushing uh

all of this uh storytelling forward

they're saying so much about each

character there's no connection straight

narrative with the images it just goes

everywhere particularly at this moment

when he's introduced to the girls that

image comes on very quickly and

leaves the pans now the change of

location

is uh something that is uh completely

unexpected but here between the

voiceover the movement of the actors in

the frame the compositions in each frame

and um the driving force of the music

the Beat of the Music under all of this

gave me the impression the possibility

of doing an entire film this way or at

least having the freedom it feels like

it's a sense of Freedom anything can

happen any moment you weren't tied to a

direct story even in a even if it was a

story to the extent of a character

walking in a scene sitting down getting

up walking around or walking in a park

this is um The Narrative is completely

fractured I

think by this uh uh extraordinary

sequence

this is the Ernie seene alred

Hitchcock's vertigo where he first sees

madlin that's steuart's move as he moves

away which makes him vulnerable camera

pulls back and it's the entire

restaurant there's no music just the

sound of the people in the restaurant

um the use of red but you begin to

notice a color that stands out and

that's the green the folds of her dress

actually uh the background actions very

important people are being sent across

the frame to a table and suddenly a

focuses on

her we don't see her face yet but she's

a figure and the angle on Stuart looking

at her from the side of his right where

he's looking over her here's his point

of

view again framed and reframed and red

around her angle over his shoulder she

comes forward now and here's the key

moment she comes into this beautiful

lighting and the

profile and the actual color the wall

starts to change

notice the closeup on him has changed

over his shoulder certainly makes it the

most vulnerable she slips out of that

frame and that two shot as she walks out

but she feels like a ghost of some kind

maybe that has a lot to do with the

nature of the dress she's wearing but

particularly in that shot she floats

away you know he's already in love with

h a person who's died now mind you when

I first saw this film at the Capitol

Theater in New York in Vista Vision By

the way um we felt in the emotional

power of this but we didn't understand I

mean we didn't know it was done we

didn't understand how and why it had a

sense maybe with the music we sensed

that the color got more intense but it

really has to do with her face and uh

the angle on James Stewart

[Music]

eight and a half for example is a very

surprising film um once you get the idea

once you begin to feel that these are

memories or these are fantasies it's all

right but you try not to I remember

seeing it I was about 18 years old so

you try not to follow it you were sort

of uh uh along for the ride so to speak

and um the beauty of

the shifts back and forth in time or uh

the shifts to Fantasy um the

effortlessness of the cut for example

even the cut of him standing in line for

the special water that's being given out

at the at the spa and uh the wonderful

moment where he moves his glasses down

like so and then sees it cuts to clod

cardali dressed as one of the nurses

coming out and offering the water to him

it's an obvious um uh flashback or no I

should say a fantasy in a way uh but one

looks at the composition on mastriani

his costume his glasses the use of

rasini music and ultimately the cut to

um CL Cali is Overexposed too it's

Overexposed and it becomes very quiet he

was able to play with uh the image in

such a plastic way kept stretching the

images and stretching The Cutting of the

film so that uh it exists in some uh

subconscious level these seemingly uh

neutral frames if you if you take a

really close look at that picture have a

composition or a lighting effect that

throws one off in a sense that that that

um is uh somehow uh imbued with the um

uh

perception of Guido the director um in

the film his perception which might be

off might be emphasizing one thing over

the other and when he goes to the um the

uh steam bats to uh try to get uh uh

some sort of spiritual guidance from the

Cardinal just the shots of

him uh going down into the bath and how

everyone's talking to the camera talking

to him saying he can fix my Mexican

Divorce he can do this his guy

support us and this is what we need for

the film it's how one chooses to show

impressions of that encounter and his

choice of angle and his choice of

lighting and his choice of size the

composition and the size of the people

in the frames um are all something that

becomes uh uh fluid these are things

that because Guido is feeling so

strongly about the need to have some

sort of guidance or maybe to have some

sort of spiritual guidance it's what he

takes back from this meeting he

remembers the shadow he remembers the

frail body of the um of the Cardinal um

uh this Godlike figure who is judging

him almost in a way um the steam um the

steam which is from Dante's Inferno you

know all of this all of this uh uh

hallucinogenic uh perception of um a

filmmaker

[Music]

well that's the end of U my master class

and I I want to go back to where we

began and say once again that you have

to find your own way I mean there are no

manuals no shortcuts no secrets you

write your own manual you develop your

own shortcuts you find your own

secrets you go where you're drawn to go

and you learn by doing the work I mean

if you're scared if it all seems like

too daunting if the the Machinery of it

all seems too big and scary and

overwhelming it's great you wake up in

the morning and you do it anyway if it

seems impossible it's even better you do

it

anyway and as you go like I said

remember that amidst all that

Machinery you're the one who's going to

make the

picture it's just you and the thing that

sparked you to make the

film you and the spark in the end

they're one and the same you guard that

because it's

precious now it's time to get to work

[Music]