All language subtitles for Seduced and Abandoned (2013) 1080p Blu-ray AAC.eng

- Other than sing in
a Broadway musical,

I have done everything,
for better or worse.

I started in little
movies, big movies.

I starred in daytime soaps,
I did nighttime soaps,

I did miniseries.

I did Broadway,
off-Broadway, radio.

And you come back to movies

because when you get it right,

it does stand alone.

I have this belief that I've
never gotten this right.

I either felt that
I was a useful pawn

to a director who was
a skilled director.

To Mike Nichols, I just
was a spatula he used

to flip an omelet with.

I wasn't the omelet.

I wasn't the spinach or
the olives in the omelet,

I was just some salt you
might have sprinkled on it.

Or the directors were
outright obstructions

to getting anything done.

They were just
hideously unqualified.

When you try to ignore
the director on the film

and pretend he doesn't exist,

or try to kind of
sidestep in every way,

that's like trying to
sidestep the birth canal

when you're coming
out of your mother,

you know what I mean?

It's like, how the
fuck do you do that?

Great films with
great directors,

that's the pinnacle.

When I got a phone
call from my agent,

and I was in the Tet
Offensive of my divorce,

it was probably the
worst time of my life.

And my phone rang, and
my agent said to me,

he goes, "How's it going?"

I said, "It's terrible."

I said, "This is just a horribly
contentious and ugly day."

And he said to me, "Well,
whatever you do," he said,

"you go upstairs into
that conference room,"

we were doing depositions.

And he said, "You tell those
people that from now on,

"they have to address
you as Juan Tripp."

And this was his signal to me

that Scorsese had asked me

to do this smaller
role in the film.

- I mean, I wish you were
up there with me, Juan,

it was, it was exhilarating.

- Be that as it may,

you still have to answer
for The Spruce Goose.

- It's called the Hercules!

And it will fly, God dammit!

- I certainly hope so.

The American people deserve
something for their $13 million.

See, people think,

they think that
this is about money,

and they think that
this is about fame,

and they think
this is about ego.

And when Scorsese
called me and asked me,

I can't tell you
what it meant to me.

- I want to ask
everyone in this movie,

are you ready to die?

Because if you're
not ready to die,

you're not ready to live.

And I am ready to die.

I've been ready to
die since I was 19

when I flipped out on
LSD for eight days.

Making movies is the
oxygen of my being.

It gives structure to
the chaos of my life.

- Why do I want to
make a film with you?

- I'm sure people have
asked you that question.

- How could she turn
on me like that?

I thought she liked me.

- Can we just try to
keep our pants buttoned

and get out of this
town in one piece?

- I'm ready.
- Well, stay ready.

And stay by yourself
in your room.

- And what am I
gonna do for fun?

- Why don't you
learn your lines?

- I know my lines.

- You do?

- I just don't know
what order they come in.

I trust you.

But in the past,
I trusted people

who I should not have trusted,

like the guy that's the
dog wrangler over there.

I should not have trusted him.

You should fucking
whack him right now.

- What fascinates me about
what we're going to be up to,

and what excites me so much
is that on the one hand,

we're doing what I regard
as not a documentary,

not a fictional film,

but an uncategorizable movie

called "Seduced and Abandoned,"

about our journey to Cannes

to celebrate film,
and filmmaking,

and filmmakers, and the
festival that honors them.

And with the intention
of raising the money

to finance this intimate
movie we're talking about

against a big political backdrop

without being absurdly
grandiose about it,

our version of "Last
Tango in Paris,"

last tango in Tikrit, for short.

- Please give a warm welcome
to writer-director James Toback

and a man who needs
no introduction,
actor Alec Baldwin.

- Give me the scissors.

- What?

- Gimme the fingernail scissors.

- But what do you see in Last
Tango that resonates for you

that you want to
try to mine again

in a film potentially
we would do?

Ideally it would be
our analogous attempt to erase

the line between
role player and role

to create something bold
and dark from you for you.

- I want you to put
your fingers up my ass.

- What?

- Put your fingers up
my ass, are you deaf?

Go on.

I'm gonna get a pig and I'm
gonna have the pig fuck you.

And I want to pig to
vomit in your face

and I want you to
swallow the vomit.

You gonna do that for me?

- Yeah.

- Huh?
- Yeah.

- I want the pig to die
while you're fucking,

and then you have
to go behind him,

I want you to smell the
dying farts of the pig.

Are you gonna do
all of that for me?

- Yes and more than that.

And worse than before.

- Clearly here, what Brando
did was become Brando

when he was doing those scenes.

One of the master strokes
in the history of directors

directing actors was Bertolucci
getting this out of Brando.

- You have pointed the
way better than anyone,

which is to create a character

which is this close to myself.

And whether you have the
framework of a script,

it's improvisatory in one way,

but what has to happen
is it's this battery.

And you have to have
that other woman.

And as I said to you,

I can put my finger on
why, but to some extent,

what's wonderful is I
can't put my finger on why

we have the right woman.

Once I met you, I said to him,

there's nobody else we
want to do this with.

- My experience with Jim was
just, it was exploration.

There weren't limitations.

It was about finding
things, on the day even.

- But here's my question,
it's gonna be difficult

to get 20, $25 million
in Cannes for this movie.

- Especially without
us bringing down.

- That's right, exactly.

So what...
- It is?

What?

You didn't tell me that.

- I just wished to fuck were
coming with us, I really do.

I mean, what fun that would
be apart from everything else.

But we will be faithful to you
in trying to cast the movie

and raise money with the
absolute given that either

it's you or it's no movie.

We will not give in
when somebody says,

you have a movie,
as long as you use.

- Oh my God,

Claudia Cardinale and
Marcello Mastroianni.

So how does it feel
to be an hour away

from losing your Cannes
film festival virginity?

I'm already excited about losing

my French Riviera virginity.

You've been all over the world

and you've never
been to the Riviera?

Never.

And now that I see
it, I may never leave.

What would you say
distinguishes Cannes

from the other hundred
or so film festivals

around the world?

Two things, first, it's history.

Not just in years, but in
the range of who's come

with movies they've made
over the last six decades.

Practically everyone from
practically everywhere,

Hitchcock, Bardot, Welles,
Cocteau, Moreau, Kiarostami,

Groucho Marx, Gregory Peck,
Wong Kar-Wai, Gary Cooper,

Beatty, Mizoguchi,
Loren, Mickey Rourke.

- And second?

- The fact that it's a
market for buying and selling

and for finding financing,
as we're gonna do,

as well as a celebration
of film as art.

Sort of like a split
personality festival,

like the split personality
movie we're making about it

even as we speak.

We've set some meetings with all

the major foreign sales
guys over the next week,

as well as with
several billionaires,

at least one of whom
I'm assuming will beg us

to allow him to
give us his cash.

On his knees, I hope.

But first, we're
gonna see Bertolucci,

then we go to the opening
ceremony and we've got a slew

of other luminaries
we'll be seeing mixed in

with our quest for cash.

- First of all, Natalie,
Bernardo's assistant,

is gonna come down
and see us here now.

Now she is recommending that
we do the interview here

in the Carlton Hotel.

- In a suite or on the table?

- We could do, probably
we could do either,

but I would recommend
it in a suite.

- Let's have him
do it in my room.

Let's have him come rolling
into the Bertolucci Suite.

- That's a great idea.
- And just then I'll say

to him, I beg your
pardon, my lord,

but you're in my room.

- I think that we
got a movie in...

- I was told I was being
evicted because you are

taking this room from me.

I was told this...

- They take off your
name and they put mine.

- It's interchangeable.
- This peels off.

- The sexual dialogue
feels as if it's coming

not just improvisationally,
but from him.

- It is a kind of manipulation.

He did all the text
that existed before.

For example, when
he's next to the,

he goes to the dead wife.

I was starting with a
line from Strindberg.

- I might be able to
comprehend the universe, but,

I'll never discover the
truth about you, never.

- He starts with that and then
he took that and he started

to say, you big fucking liar.

And he goes on with this.

- You cheap God damn
fucking God forsaken whore,

I hope you'll rot in hell.

You're worse than the
dirtiest street pig

that anybody could
ever find anywhere.

And you know why, you know why?

Because you lied.

You lied to me and I
trusted you, you lied.

- You know, it starts with
something which is written

and then he changed
it completely but
he makes it his own.

- Did he feel grateful that
he had a chance to do that?

- He didn't speak to
me for five years.

I was calling him, I was saying,

Marlon, I know you're there.

Why do you
think he did that, why?

- Maybe he felt betrayed
by me because I stole

from him so many sincere
things of himself.

So many real,
- The real Marlon.

- Real things of him.

Maybe he felt tricked
by me, but I said,

but he was a 49-, 50-years-old
man, I was 30, 31.

- When I came first
time, I slept in my car,

and from Jeune it was easy.

So I came in car,
I was a student

and I just didn't know how
to be able to watch a film.

But I was here.

- In 1970, when I came
here the first time,

there were exactly three
American journalists in Cannes.

It was very rare.

- People here from the
first coffee in the morning

'til the last whiskey in the
night, they talk about film.

- You know, here is a
really amazing combination

of the high art of cinema,
there's a reverence for it here.

There's a respect
for it, I mean,

the whole tradition of how
they receive movies here

and how they honor
the filmmakers here,

it's just, it's not like
anywhere else in the world.

- I was very young, I was 24.

And "Before the
Revolution," my second film,

I was invited to La Semaine
de la Critique and here we go.

And the movie is seen, and
all Italian critics hate it.

And all the French loved it.

So I decided to become French.
- French, yeah.

- You've had in
France for decades,

this very entrenched divide
between Cahiers du Cinema

and Positif, Cahiers
du Cinema is famous

for in the late '50s
having had, as writers,

all of the filmmakers
who went on to become

the French new wave.

They were at the time
huge enthusiasts of a lot

of American genre films, like
Sam Fuller, and Nicholas Ray,

sort of B cinema that
hadn't really gotten

its due in America.

And very against what
Truffaut famously called

the Cinema de Papa,

the sort of French
tradition of quality movies.

- When the French and the
Italian new wave films started,

I mean, we always heard about
the Cannes Film Festival,

the Cannes Film
Festival, and so it was

like a Valhalla of
cinema in a way.

This was the place.

- And I never missed a festival.

It's kind of adrenaline for me.

It's where you plan
almost the whole year.

You see in 10 days, about half

of the important
films of the year.

So it's essential.

- Le Film Francais runs
a daily guide as to what,

a checklist of what
the critics thought.

And if you go down the
list looking at Positif

and Cahiers, they're
99% opposite.

And it's almost like they
consult each other ahead of time

to make sure that
they're not gonna agree

because they almost never do.

- Thank you very
much for doing this.

My great pleasure to see you.

- Thank you.
- Thank you.

I was invited to
the festival to participate

in the jury in famous '68,
was Francois Truffaut ran,

and he said you must
come right away.

We are gathering here to
support our Henri Langlois,

to have him reinstated
into the cinematic.

He was men adored by
youth, me included.

But he was a very messy
director of this cinematic.

He kept some copies of
some movies under his bed.

Langlois was an icon,
I loved Henri Langlois.

But he was not what
the government of
that period wanted.

And that started an unrest
among the students in Paris.

And it spread out
and finally became

the whole May '68 revolution
or whatever you call it.

When I came, I realized they
wanted to disrupt the festival.

They said that this
thing has to be stopped.

I remember Godard
shouting cameras, cameras,

the students from Nice
are just arriving.

Festival, as the word
suggests, is to have fun.

So they were in this mood
and stopping festival

couldn't change it, in fact,

added a kind of
absurd joy to it all.

- When "Mean Streets" was
there, it was a real joy.

And I went there and
I had a great time.

We had the Carlton terrace.

You'd be meeting all these
different people, all kinds of,

you know it's like, and
all these interviews,

talk, talk, talk to
everybody, me, me, me, etc.

- I came back with
when "Novecento," 1900,

which was very difficult to
handle because it was five hour,

little bit more than five hours.

They said, okay, we do one day
all dedicated to this film.

So the festival stopped.

There was only "Novecento",
the first part in the afternoon

and the second part
in the evening.

That was the peak
of my megalomania.

If I see the movie again
or a piece of the movie,

I can see myself in the
kind of ocean of pleasure

of one year shooting.

I was young, I was desiring,

and I was seeing my
desires accomplished.

- We went there for two days,
it was DeNiro, Jodie Foster,

I think Harvey was with us.

Tennessee Williams was
the head of the jury.

He came out, he said he
didn't like the picture,

it was too violent

But we had dinner with
Sergio Leone and Costa Gavras

and they liked the film very
much, they were on the jury.

And so we had a nice dinner at
Lo Acis, it was a restaurant,

and we all talked to Leone
and Costa, it was terrific,

and we thanked them very
much, and we went home.

And the picture won.

Fuck Tennessee Williams.

- I mean, what's the matter
with Tenn, it's too violent?

What the fuck
does he know about movies?

- I love his stuff. I never,

I only say good things
about him, I don't know.

♪ Well you never can tell,
but you're looking so well ♪

- When I was a kid
and we went to Cannes,

I had done a film called
"You're a Big Boy Now."

It was just with Elizabeth
Hartman, who was a wonderful,

wonderful young woman, and
Tony Bill, when he was a kid,

it was a dream.

And then little by little it
started to just become mean

and it wasn't any
more a film festival,

it was a film market.

It was one in which all
the people were in the know

and they knew whether your
movie was gonna go good or not,

even before you did.

And it became very
mean spirited, I felt.

And you never had to
avail yourself of that market

to raise money for...
- No, and I never wanted

to go back to it again.
- And you didn't?

- I didn't.

It's not the administrators
of Cannes's fault.

It's the people it attracts,

the press that is
attracted there.

It's the game, it's
like a bullfight.

- It was after, at the end
of the 1977 film festival,

when Robert Altman's film
"Three Women" was here,

Pauline Kael was on the
jury, was the only time

she ever came to the
Cannes Film Festival.

The film won the
best actress award,

but didn't get
anything for Altman.

I was at the Nice airport the
day after the festival ended.

Pauline is there,
Altman shows up,

sees Pauline, and his great
friend for seven years,

you fucking cunt, you were
supposed to like my film,

you're supposed to
be my supporter and
you didn't like it,

you didn't get me an award,
blah, blah, blah, blah.

In front of everyone, it
was a massive explosion

that was excruciating.

- Talk to me about Damon.

- He's a legendary figure in
this world of film finance.

- Truly, you use that
wording specifically?

- I do.

He's really the pioneer.
- Legendary how?

What did he pioneer?

- The process of foreign sales

where you get a movie
financed based on cast names

with a projection of what...
- For pre-sale.

- That's right.

- Show 'em a business
plan that'll work

and if I can project what my
sales will be and I can show

them what I think the US should
be, if I can project that

they'll get their
monies back in a profit,

I can probably finance any
picture that I want to.

I just finished funding
an $80 million picture

with Denzel Washington
and Mark Wahlberg.

- Where's the money
coming from now?

Where do you go get money now?

Different parts of the
world, different kind of...?

- It comes from
all over, all over.

My next picture, I have
some Saudi Arabian money

and some Russian money.

- Is there more money
available now than,

proportionately, allowing
for inflation or less money?

- I'd say less money.

- Do me a favor, 'cause
I'm gonna go text,

'cause we have to let them
know that we're running behind,

bear with me, I'll
be right back.

- I would like to ask you,

I have Alec for this next film.

It's a political
romantic adventure.

We're gonna be shooting
in the Middle East.

Would you be interested in
getting involved financing

a movie with Alec,
with Neve Campbell,

with four, three or
four other names,

political, romantic adventure
at 15 to 20 million?

- Neve Campbell is wonderful

but doesn't have
marquee value today.

Right, right.

- Alec Baldwin is sensational.
- Right.

- But does not denote
a theatrical movie.

- Just for argument's sake,

the kind of movie
we're thinking of

couldn't go much
lower than that.

But what would be the
number that that cast

would be feasible at?

- Four to five million.

- I'm too old for that,
you know, it's like.

- No kidding.
- Yeah, I don't have the,

- It's horrendous.
- It is horrendous.

- It's either very, very
big or very, very small.

There's nothing in between.

- There's never enough money.

- Never enough money.
- Never enough money.

Fighting with them,
perhaps about money or no.

- Never enough money,
with "Repulsion,"

I had lot of problems
shooting the film

because we doubled the
budget, unfortunately.

The budget of "Repulsion"
was 41,000 pounds

and it cost at the
end close to 90.

- Why?
- Well, try to make a film

for 90,000 pounds.

- I happen to have an
Australian distributor

and a Russian distributor.

- These look like two
gentlemen who've been waiting

to give me money.

There's politics, there's
adventure, there's sex.

- It's supposed to be comedy?

- And there Will def...

- No, no, no, no.
- No comedy.

- There will be humor
built into a serious movie.

- It needs to be comedy.

- Oh, you think so?

- Of course.
- Okay.

- Why are you wearing a tux?

- It's after six,
what am I, a farmer?

- I'm familiar with "30 Rock."

- But here's the thing,
submarines are your thing.

How close is that alpha, Jonesy?

- 1,000 yards.
- It's been a long time

since you did the
submarine picture.

We need action and
we need submarine.

Listen, you can
have sex, as well.

I don't have a problem.

That's what was missing
in the other one.

- Last tango in the missile bay.

- Well, absolutely.

- Unless it's a gangster
movie or some genre

that you're associated
with, unless you do that,

you have to scratch, I said,

how am I gonna get
to make this movie?

I don't know where to begin,

Who's gonna let,
no one wanted me

to do "Apocalypse Now."

I had finished two Godfather
films, won a ton of Oscars.

In fact, I took the
Oscars, I had six of them

and I threw 'em out
the window and they all

went down and got all
broken and everything.

And my mother went and
said you shouldn't do that.

And she gathered the
pieces of the objects,

- The shards.
- And she went down

to LA and she went to
the Academy and she said,

oh my son, the poor
boy, says the maid

was dusting the Oscars.

So I was so frustrated.

I said, what do you
have to do to get

to be able to make the movies
that you have in your heart?

- Can we help 'em
out with the actress,

a hot new star,
Jessica Chastain?

- Listen, here's my feeling,
'cause I don't want to throw

Neve under the bus, I love
Neve, I did a movie with her.

What I could do is invent a
role for Neve, another role.

- Have her play the spy.
- And we can,

yes, we can use Jessica.

- So we kill Neve.

- We don't kill
her, we wound her,

we wound her and she makes it...

- I seduce Neve and
then I murder her.

- Her arm in a sling.

- Neve's in the movie
and I'll kill her.

We'll murder Neve.
- Which will make you

an action star.
- Yeah.

So what do you make
of the odds of Damon

coming through for us?

- Two to one against.
- Really?

I say six to one against.

Well, even if you're right,

don't worry 'cause we're
meeting Avi Lerner tomorrow

and he's gotten
more stuff shooting

than all the other
sales guys combined.

- The way you make
it in this business

is you have to become a
really selfish motherfucker.

You gotta, this is it,

and you tell your mother,
and your wife, and your kids,

and everybody, when necessary,
you don't do it gratuitously,

you don't do it purposelessly,

but you tell everybody
that this is my thing,

this is who I am.

And along the way I was
incapable of doing that.

- And here is Alec Baldwin.
- What are you doing

in Cannes?
- We're making a film.

- You are?
- Yeah.

- During the festival?
- Yes,

we're making a documentary
that the festival

is a backdrop of the film.

- What's happening in it?

- Well, everything you see,
the film is about the festival.

- Is it a documentary?

- No, my partner Jimmy
Toback is the director.

- James Toback?
- Yes.

- The James Toback?
- Yes,

excuse me one second here,
let's go, be careful.

I don't want her in the street.

- Let's be careful.

What do you expect
from this festival?

- This is my first time
here, so I'm very excited.

I'm very excited.
- Thank you very much.

Thank you, Alec Baldwin.

- Is the film about the
Cannes Film Festival?

The reason I wanted
to do this with him

is that the movie business,
to me, has changed.

It seems very fragile.

I don't know how much longer
the film business can go

in the age of this splintering.

The technology is
splintering the audience

and it's happening slowly,

but something tells
me it's gonna shatter.

The movie business is the
worst lover you've ever had

in terms of you go back
again and again and again,

and you go back seeking to
recreate this experience

you want to have.

You go back with another chance

to do something that you
want to do in movie making

and movie going.

You are seduced and abandoned
over and over and over again.

- Why were you making films?

What did it give you as opposed

to other options in your life?

- I don't think I
had much of a choice.

The other option was
certainly a religious one,

which was the priesthood.

And I certainly wasn't,

- Literally?
- Yeah.

Literally I was in a
preparatory seminary

and I didn't make it
through the first year.

Between the world I was in,

which was the asthmatic
situation where the parents,

my working class family, the
doctor said, don't let him run,

I didn't run, don't let
him laugh, don't let him,

I couldn't laugh, don't do this,

don't do, so I was in a room.

You started
as an assistant director

to Pasolini, right?

- Pasolini was before being
a director, was a poet,

a great poet.

Then he came to live
in the same building

my family was living.

I was 17 and I was in
love with his poems.

I was writing poems,
I was writing a poem,

and running downstairs
to show him.

Then one day when I was 27,

so I will do a movie soon,
you will be my assistant.

I said, Pier Paolo,
I've never done a movie,

I've never done anything,
I've never been on a set.

Me neither, he said.

- I found a kind
of peace in a way,

in the cathedral there, the
old St. Patrick's Cathedral

as an altar boy, and just as a
kid I enjoyed being in there.

And it was a respite from the
streets and from the Bowery,

which was very, very ugly,

ugly, and crude, and
unfortunate, tragic,

and what's the word, sordid,
what was going on around me.

But then you had
this movie theater

and that was like America.

There was something about
this place called America

was out there and there were
people, they had houses,

they had fences,
I'm not kidding.

I mean, then there
were westerns.

You could, oh man,
you go and you see,

you weren't in like a hallway,
you were in like this.

- But these were the
hard times, as you know,

probably needless to
talk about the Communist,

Stalinist period of Poland.

As with everything that
I said, the advantages,

and one of them was film school

due to one line of
Lenin, among all arts,

film is the most important
for us, us meaning socialism.

That school was
fantastic, really,

and I have great memories.

- When I was a young guy, I
was a writer for Seven Arts.

And Seven Arts was a company
that bought Warner Brothers

from Warner, so I
was so enthusiastic
that they had bought

Warner Brothers that
I just showed up

on the Warner Brothers
lot and everyone thought

I was the new taking-over guy.

So I went and I went to
Errol Flynn's dressing room,

which was the greatest one,

and I just took it
over as my office.

It was a month
before they realized

I wasn't the
incoming management.

- I loved sailing then in the
most beautiful part of Poland,

which is called Masurian,

which has about 200
lakes somehow connecting.

And I love that part of nature.

That was a dream for me.

So I started writing a
little thing on that.

It was very badly
received in Poland,

particularly by the party.

The head of the party, Gomulka,

was pissed off and threw
the ashtray at the screen.

I went to Paris
to try in the West

and that was my dream anyway.

I never wanted to
stay put in Poland.

- By the time we were
able to say to myself,

I might be able
to express myself,

telling a story of the
stories that I know

that I heard my father tell,

that I see what goes on
with my father and my uncle,

that became "Mean
Streets" in actuality,

that goes on with my friends.

- That was your first story.
- Yeah, that was

the first one, but
it's always about

obligation to the brother.

That's what I've discovered
after 35, 40 years,

it's the same picture.

It's about my father
and his brother.

- What was his obligation
to his brother?

- To make sure he
didn't get killed.

- Literally.
- Pay the debts,

sign the loans, go
to the sit downs.

He was just one of those guys.

- Look, on payday,
at least show up

at Tony's place
to meet him, okay.

This way he doesn't
think that you're trying

to make a jerkoff out of him.

- Yeah, all right.

- Hey, I'm not asking
you, I'm telling you.

- Yeah.

- Bob Evans saw my films.

- So Bob Evans is your rabbi.
- Yeah, Bob Evans

was my rabbi and he called me

and he said that
he has a script.

So I came to the studio and
he had the script and he said,

wait, but also I have this

and he had galleys
of "Rosemary's Baby."

- What have you done to it?

What have you done to its eyes?

- He has his father's eyes.

- When I finally went to
Washington Square College,

NYU, it was great.
- And then you met Hague.

- That was the man,
Haig Manoogian.

What did Haig do for you?

- He had this extraordinary
passion that combined

with yours will make you
go out and do anything.

But he was very different,
we disagreed a lot.

And his idea,
- About what?

- Well, what cinema
should be, he said,

if I see any of these kids
come in and there's a gun

in the movie, I'm
throwing you out.

I said, yeah, but
where I come from,

Well, you really
must have broken his heart.

You really, really
betrayed Haig, didn't you?

- Well, with "Mean Streets,"
well, he saw "Mean Streets."

So we argued, he loved Truffaut.

- But not Godard, all you
need is a gun and a girl.

- Yeah, exactly.

Not in my pictures,
no he'd eliminate it,

that's it, out, don't
come in here with that.

- Where do we go?

- This is the world
film business.

- All these people
are here doing what?

Selling films they have?

- Or trying to find
a film to grab,

to set up, to become a partner
in, to get a distributor for.

I mean this is like the
Diamond Center on 47th Street.

You lost weight.
- I wish.

- No, you look, or I
gained, so by relative.

This is Alec.
- Of course.

How are you?

Come in, come in.

I don't like the
Cannes Film Festival.

I don't believe in the
Cannes Film Festival.

There's two things, the market,

which I been here all the
time, and the festival.

Most of the movie in the
festival are movie that

if the only person will go is

their mothers and
cousins, that's all.

- What is fantastic
about Cannes is that

a Romanian film,
or a Belgian film,

or a Danish film, or a
Uruguayan film is shown

at the same time with the
same number of journalists.

- Therefore, it has a chance.

- Exactly, as a big American
production with big stars.

- The big films protect
the small films.

The stars protect
the unknown actors.

- When I make a movie,

all I think is
what's the profit.

Before I make a movie,

I know how much I'm
going to sell it.

So it's got nothing to do
with the creative part of it.

I look at it as purely business.

- Cinema is not poetry,
it's not painting.

You need money.

And we had sometime
people saying, well,

it's a big commercial
Barnum Circus here,

say, but please,
it's very important.

The day we won't have anymore
advertising everywhere

will mean that there
is no money anymore.

No money, no films.

So we don't have to
be naive with that.

- But I think this is what
is great about Cannes,

it's an hybrid. I mean, Melhor
wrote an essay on cinema

and the famous last
sentence of the essay,

besides cinema is an industry.

And I think the fact that
Cannes has always remembered

that line, it was also an
industry, to combine the two

because this is the nature
of cinema, it's imperfect.

- We wanna make a movie,
which is set in Iraq.

It is something very polarizing.

We come together and we have

these bizarre sexual encounters.

- Do you want me to send
you a movie that we've done?

- Oh, you already
made this movie, okay.

That's a wrap, let's go.

And now I am coming off
the TV show, six years,

next year I have a half season,

seven years, then we're done.

And I'm going to, I
don't like to say this

in some lofty way,
but I'm going to

reenter filmmaking as a career.

Do you think you could
be in the movie business

with me again?

- Definitely, but
not by yourself.

I will have to support you.

- You lay out all
the cards, exactly.

- Listen.

- There's gotta be a woman.

- That's what they
know me about.

I tell people what I,

you need to get
support with other

movie style people around you.

Like Gerard Butler
supported with another four

and what's his name.

- So you want my
character to go to Iraq,

you want me to fuck
four women in a hotel.

- Five, if possible.

- Five.
- Make it better.

That in today world, very
difficult or nearly impossible,

one man to make the
movie on his own name.

- You know, years ago,

people would go
to movies to see,

oh, it's a Johnny Depp
movie, I'm gonna go see it.

It's a Marlon Brandon
film, I'm gonna go see it.

Or even when I was popular,

we're gonna see Jimmy, okay.

That don't work today anymore.

If you look at the reasons
they go and they make money,

those are all those
franchise movies.

Johnny Depp, who I
think is wonderful,

he'll make a movie that
he wants to make and

they don't care.
- Oh my God,

it's the cop we set on fire.

- Try and look normal.

- Usually that picture
would make as much

as the franchise movie because
they were Johnny Depp fans.

- You will not like me.

The gentleman will be envious

and the ladies will be repelled.

- What about Neve Campbell?

- Neve Campbell.

I like Neve Campbell,
she's a great this,

but you cannot sell that.

- In France, we use
the word bankable.

Do you use that in America?
- Yes, of course.

- Yeah, it doesn't
mean anything.

I mean, today, I would
receive all the script,

let's say, lots of scripts.

I can read the script
and see it's not me,

but because you're top of the
wave, you got the scripts.

I think people don't care
about the bankable anymore.

They care about the story.

When you have a good story,
then they go and see the movie.

- I don't read script.

- What do you think about Bejo,

if it was Bejo and I
together in a film?

- Who is Bejo?
- Berenice Bejo.

- I don't know.
- You can't raise

a lot of money with her,
she was in "The Artist?"

- I know, no.

- They won the
Oscar for last year.

- I don't care.
- She's gorgeous.

- She's gorgeous, so is...
- She's heart-stopping.

- She's beautiful, but she's
not a girl I can sell on her.

- The thing is, I'm not
20 years old anymore.

And I know today I'm
on top of the wave,

tomorrow I won't.

Especially actresses,
and I know how it is.

I mean I know the business,
so I don't expect anything.

- The one that
I'll do it with you

if you can get is,
what's her name,

Natalie Portman or Mila Kunis.

- So both me and Neve
Campbell having incredibly,

just kind of exploratory,

I'm not gonna say animal
sex, it's exploratory sex,

new sex, new frontiers
of sex in a hotel room.

You're gonna give us what, like
50 cents to make the movie?

- Your name and her
name, something like
four or $5 million.

- Okay.
- We may have to

adjust the concept of
this movie a little bit.

Fuck these foreign sales guys.

We don't need them anyway,

we've got our
billionaires lined up,

Taki Theodoracopulos, the
huge Greek shipping heir,

Johnny Pigozzi, one of
the richest guys in Italy,

whom Brett Ratner is
gonna introduce me to.

We have Denise Rich's
party on her yacht.

She's got a massive
settlement from her husband

before he went on the lam.

I know all that, there seems

to be billionaires everywhere.

But what makes you
think they're dying

to give any of it to us?

All we need is one.

And we still have Jeremy Thomas,

we still have Asha Armitage,

and we have several
other foreign sales guys

we haven't met yet.

I thought you said
fuck the foreign sales guys.

Yeah, fuck the
ones who didn't say yes.

But I always try to
keep an open mind.

There's a history
of coming to the Riviera

of people of great wealth
when they're in trouble.

King Farouk left Egypt,
Duvalier left Haiti

when he was in trouble,
Yeltsin left Russia

when he was in trouble, and
they all came to the Riviera.

It's not a bad place.

- Best buy in the
world to bump into.

You don't wanna
makes plans with him,

but you can bump into him.

Sit down, sit down.

Don't forget the
stars we're shooting

for "Seduced and Abandoned."

Gosling, Chastain,
we can sow the seeds

for "Last Tango in
Tikrit" with them.

Jimmy, your
optimism astonishes me

because I expect
nothing but frustration

and disappointment from
the movie business.

I know, but not
this time, believe me.

Of all the
male movie stars in the world,

who's your favorite?

Which actor do you
fantasize about the most?

Who is the hottest
leading actor?

Which actor would you
most like to be stuck

in an elevator with?

Ryan Gosling.

- Fuck, seriously.

It's like you're photoshopped.

- I get it, so the film,

you're making a documentary
about trying to get financing.

- That's right.
- We have a film

we wanna make.
- So you still have that,

but would this turn into just
a film about making films?

- We're gonna make this
movie no matter what.

But "Seduced and Abandoned,"

the celebratory
movie about film,

- But the narrative of
that is that you're trying

to get funding for this
other film you wanna make.

- That's right.
- Which is like

a $50 million drama?
- Probably,

probably, probably, probably.

- No, no, no, for that film,

we're gonna go in a time
machine and go back to 1990

and do the 50 million.

Now it's like a three and a
half million-dollar drama.

- Or, no, or it's a 12 to
15 million-dollar movie

unless you want to
be written into it,

which I'll be happy to
do, and then it becomes

a 35 to $50 million one.
- If you do it with us,

it's 150 million project.

- Hi, guys.
- What a dress.

- I just did the photo
call for "Madagascar,"

so I'm all Madagascar-ed out.

Hi.
- Beautiful.

I don't want to touch you.

- Oh.
- 'Cause you look too good.

I know we only
have you for 10 minutes.

- Do I need to get mic'ed
or anything or are we good?

- We're gonna boom
you, I think, correct?

- Ooh, you okay, you okay?

- Yeah, that works quite well.

We get her for 10 minutes
and you step on her,

that's great, thank you.

- I loved going to school.

A lot of people don't
like drama school.

I loved,
- You went to Julliard.

- I went to Julliard.

It encouraged you to be
crazy and be outlandish

and try the most
outrageous things

and then fail,
like fail terribly.

But you would learn so
much every time you fail.

And now what's different?

- Well, I try to,
- We have a result

that we have to get to.
- We do.

But what I try to do is I
try now with the director,

I try to make the
director my teacher.

- To recreate that.
- So every film

is like a master class.

- I just love movies.

I always loved movies.

Movies were like
friends of mine.

My mother wanted to punish me,

she'd take them away from me.

Sometimes I put 'em down
the front of my pants

'cause I liked
the way they felt.

- When I was little, my parents

showed me movies, old movies.

And that's how I grew
up, I couldn't watch TV,

I was not allowed.

And then what I was doing
is I would take books

and watch the pictures so
I could see Robert Mitchum,

Joan Crawford, and
everybody was very glamour.

That's what I liked.

Just the dream that you give
to the people and the pleasure

you have when you go and
see a movie in the theater.

That's why I wanna
be an actress.

- Because I knew I didn't
wanna go to the meat market.

You know, that was my,

I didn't wanna lug meat
down in 14th Street

the rest of my life.

So the only thing that was left,

I mean was I walked into
the neighborhood playhouse.

- I'm from a very, very
small village in Germany,

with 2,000 people, we
don't even have a bar.

I started out dancing,
I was a ballet dancer.

I studied with the
Royal Academy of London.

From a very young age,
I grew up learning

how to express emotions and
whatever anger or anxieties

I would have, because I was

definitely an angry teenager.

- My uncle was an
Elvis impersonator,

so I was in his act
when I was, like, three.

He had the jumpsuit,
he had the sequins.

He was sequining
the thing himself.

He was standing in the mirror,
he was working on the voice,

he's working on the songs.

- And you're watching this.
- I'm watching him

create the character.

- I'm always working
on something, but
I don't mind that.

Like I was the student at
school that during critiques,

my teachers, their critique
was, you work too hard,

you should play more.

- And at a certain point,
because I was there,

he thought, they should put
me in the act, it'd be funny.

- And what did you do?
- They made me

the head of security.

They pushed me out ahead of him

and there's hundreds of people,

and he's Elvis, I
mean Elvis Perry.

And he has no hair, a mustache,

and a big birthmark on his face.

But I swear to God,
he became Elvis.

Or at least he did to
all of us at that time.

- Being able to allow myself
to be so vulnerable and so open

to so many people staring at
you and being able to feel,

and the process of getting
to a certain level of emotion

is very, it makes me feel alive.

- I have an idea of
what my journey is

as the character in the film,

but I don't know exactly what
I'm gonna do in the scene

until I look into the eyes
of the person speaking to me

and what they're doing.

I always try to act with
people who are better than me

because it really
puts me on my toes.

I have to rise to the occasion.

It's this moment of
panic, I have to keep up.

- It's so rare to, as
an actor, to do a scene

and allow yourself
to get lost in it

to the point where you
don't know what you did

when you're way out.

And if Francis would
say, great, let's go,

I knew it was great, or good,
or at least satisfied him.

- And you just do
what I tell you to do.

God dammit, if I had
a wartime consigliere,

a Sicilian, I wouldn't
be in this shape.

Pop had Genco, look what I got.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean that.

- But most of the time
figuratively speaking,

you have to sort of keep
an eye outside of yourself

pointing at the
woods, so that's 10%

that's not really involved.

- Your job is to make it
seem like something new

is happening every time.

And that's out the window
when you come to set

and everyone's got
sides in their pocket

and even the electrician knows
what you're going to say.

You're stumbling through
this blocking rehearsal,

suddenly some guy's
putting tape on the floor

and now for the rest of
the day, you're married

to where you stood at 6:00 a.m.

They start with the wide shot,

which in most things
they never use.

And you're spending
all of the newness

of it on the wide shots.

Then they get closer
and closer and closer.

And by the end of the day
they're on the closeup,

which is all they ever use.

And they use the last one
because that's when you got it.

That's when you nailed it.

But it's now you're
talking like a robot and

you leave set feeling
like a failure

because you feel
like nothing changed.

- If we have the dialogue,

yes, there's a script
for "Mean Streets,"

but the reality is that
if you have Bob and Harvey

and the other
people on the scene,

they know the people that
they're dealing with.

I hope that they bring
something, I'm afraid,

at the same time I'm afraid,
can I, how should I put it,

can I create an atmosphere
that will bring out something

that I think is wonderful,

something I hadn't
expected at all?

- The best experiences
I've ever had,

it was the environment
that I was in

that got the best
work out of me.

Michelle and I, although
involved in the film for years,

didn't know each other at all.

And he structured
it so that we would

get to know one another on film.

So when we're walking
around, I mean,

we're dictating where we go.

And we wanna walk this way,

we walk that way,
we schedule a night,

we're just gonna walk around
and do whatever we want

and they're going to film it.

And that's us getting
to know one another.

- The good directors,
they're supervisors.

If I know my relationship,
I know what I want from you,

I know what the conflict is.

If I have trouble memorizing,

it's pretty much written wrong.

- For example, in that
"Goodfellas" where Joe Pesci

does, what do you
think I'm funny?

Literally, was something
that had happened to Joe.

He said, I'd do the picture
if you put the scene in.

- The fuckers.

Gee, I wish I was big just once.

We're the big cops.
- You're a pisser.

You're really funny.

You're really funny.

- What do you mean I'm funny?

- It's funny, you know,
it's a good story.

It's funny, you're a funny guy.

- What do you mean, you
mean the way I talk?

- It's just, you know, it's,
you're just funny, it's,

funny, you know, the way you
tell the story and everything.

- Funny how, I mean,
what's funny about it?

- Tommy, no, you
got it all wrong.

- Whoa, Anthony, he's a big boy.

He knows what he
said, what'd you say?

- You're right.
- Funny how?

- It's two cameras and
it's two medium shots

with everybody around
him because as the tone

of the scene changes,
the people's faces
around them change,

the atmosphere changes.

But I had to work it
with Joe so that he did

five or six
improvisations with Ray

and we were fooling around
with it and I typed up stuff.

But we had to hit certain levels

and I had to keep guiding
Joe to that level.

- Oh no, you said it.

How do I know, you
said I'm funny.

How the fuck am I funny?

What the fuck is
so funny about me?

Tell me, tell me what's funny.

- Get the fuck out
of here, Tommy.

- The motherfucker,
I almost had him.

I almost had him.

- Woody Allen is the
perfect director.

And who he reminds me of,
oddly enough, in the moment,

in the actual work is John
Hughes, the late John Hughes.

'Cause Hughes was a very
successful writer-director.

And yet, when I did one of the,

I did the first real movie
I did was with Hughes,

this movie "She's Having
a Baby" with Kevin Bacon

and Elizabeth McGovern,
and Hughes would sit there

and we would do a scene.

And if he wasn't satisfied
with the way it was playing,

he would jokingly stand up
and say, who wrote this shit?

And he'd throw the
script on the ground.

And Woody's the same way.

You think of all the awards
he's been nominated for and won.

And you think of how
essential his career is

and the first words out
of his mouth are, he goes,

and if you don't wanna say
any of this, of course,

don't say any of it.

You say as much of it or as
little of it as you care to.

And you're sitting
there going, my God,

I mean, the ego.

And I've worked with
guys who don't have,

Woody Allen has more talent
in his toenail clippings

than these motherfuckers
have in their whole body.

And they're sitting they're
going, you said perhaps,

but I think you should say
maybe we'll go to the party.

Not, you said perhaps,
we're gonna go again.

- I'm not precious
about my scripts.

I still feel like
a novice writer.

I'd certainly feel
like a novice director.

And I'm open to suggestions.

I like improvisation, you
know, once in a while,

your an idea that's
just totally fucked

and you have to humor.

- That ain't no Etch-a-Sketch.

This is one doodle that
can't be undid, home skillet.

- But I had a really
conventional upbringing,

Catholic, so that messes you up.

I went to college, I started
working at an ad agency,

answering phones, making coffee,

making coffees,
totally miserable.

And I realized I was
bored with my life.

I wanted to try something
that seemed kind of bizarre

and out of my comfort zone,
so I started stripping.

That was the first time my
writing got any attention

because I was writing
about it on a regular basis

and suddenly people wanted
to hear what I had to say.

- I always wanted to be a writer

from the time I began.

And so what I was going to use

with my better financial
situation was to really do

a great big art film.

I made some films that,
of course, I'm proud of,

but the kind of of film
that I have in my mind

or in my heart,
the kind of emotion

that I would love to get at,

I haven't quite ever
gotten to do that.

- Honestly, I'd been
writing since childhood,

but I was always
interested in prose.

I went through the
sort of standard

Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath phase.

- Does the choice of Anne
Sexton and Sylvia Plath

suggest that you had
early suicidal thoughts?

- Yeah, early, middle, recent.

- Yeah, right.
- Yeah.

- What do you use to block
yourself from acting it out?

- I think that is, I mean,
I think for a lot of people,

and probably for
yourself as well,

creating and writing
are a catharsis.

It's a form of self-medicating.

I am actually a
very driven person.

I'm always trying to
think of the next thing

I'm going to do.

And I think that knowing
that you're building

to something prevents you
from being totally nihilistic.

- We started shooting
without the end scene

because I had the
argument with Bob Towne.

Bob wanted the happy end.

When I say this is impossible,

if you want this film to have
any impact on the audience,

she has to die, there
must be some kind of,

the evil has to win.

- Forget it, Jake,
it's Chinatown

- It's a quick, what Mickey
Cohen used to call ankedote.

There's a great story that
Charlotte Chandler tells

about Mastroianni and
Fellini on "La Dolce Vita."

Fellini wanted him to do it,

offered him the part,
Mastroianni wanted
to see a script.

Fellini said there is no script.

Mastroianni said I need one.

Fellini handed him a manuscript,

a thick one with all blank
pages except for one page

in which there's a
drawing of Mastroianni

on a boat in the ocean.

And his prick was hanging down,

sticking down into the
bottom of the ocean

with a beautiful
mermaid swimming around

the shaft of his prick.

And Mastroianni looked at it
and said, I'm gonna do it,

that's an interesting part.

- The film we wanna make is

I am a government operative
and the woman is a reporter,

kind of a lefty journalist

and the two of them
are complete opposites

and they meet in
Iraq during the war.

So basically we come
together and it's like,

the world is ending, let's fuck.

And then they have this crazy,

we call the movie
"Last Tango in Tikrit."

- Okay, okay, wow.
- Two of them

in the same hotel room.
- It's deep, man.

- We wanna explore what
happens between men and women.

Now would that kind of
a film interest you?

- You know, I couldn't tell you.

I would be happy
to read the script.

Your pitch has not
convinced me yet,

but I'm willing
to give it a shot.

- This has been invaluable.

And it shows that we
have to polish the pitch.

We need to, we'll set up
another bevy of sales agents.

We need three or four more.

- We have one set up for
tomorrow morning at nine.

And you'll bring cash.

- Yeah, in a brown envelope.

I assume there's no car chases.

- No.
- Or explosions in there.

- No.
- I absolutely think

that Alec has the capabilities,

one of those few actors
who can kind of cut across

all of the genres and
has done it, obviously,

over his career.

Can you shoot the movie in
Russia and then maybe do

a part of it in China
and have perhaps

a Chinese, Japanese, Russian,
and Brazilian star in it?

Then you could perhaps
surround him with them.

- Yes, the answer's yes.

- And work with the emerging
markets in such a way

that your movie would
be financed to the,

- Yes.
- At one market.

- I can justify
just about anything.

- It's very hard to find
anybody today who says,

I want to do that,
I want to do that.

No, let's run the numbers.

So it's not anybody who's
got a vision anymore.

The visionary studio boss
is a thing of the past.

- Is the funding that we
potentially might be able

to get from you coming from you

or is it coming from sources
to which you have access?

Am I sitting with the one,

is this something that you
can do by your own fiat?

- I need my partners involved.

- You do?
- Yeah.

- But are you the,
I swear to you

I will not repeat this,

are you the strongest
voice in that partnership,

assuming we need between
15 and, say, $18 million?

- 15, 20 million too much.

- It shouldn't
exceed 10 million.

- Film has to have
better relation

to what you can get back for it.

- Five is always the best
because that's always,

I find that the threshold
is when that's the limit

when people still make money

and then when they
start losing money.

- When you said what you did

about an international
cast and locations,

was that 100% serious
or was it metaphorical?

- It was metaphorical.
- Okay, but I'm

a flexible guy.

Put it this way, I'm a
prostitute who would've done

what I'm doing as a
prostitute anyway.

What we can find out
here is logistically

what kind of cooperation
we can expect,

what kind of tax breaks,

what kind of advantages
to shoot in one place

as opposed to another,
Iraq, Tunisia, Abu Dhabi.

- Tunisia.
- Welcome.

- Bon jour, bon jour.

- Bon jour.
- Bon jour.

- Hi.
- Hi.

And she says, ay, ay, ay.

- We don't need a translator,
you speak perfect English.

- I certainly do.

- We are here looking
for film finance,

because the film we're
shooting is in Iraq.

Our film requires
a backdrop of war.

I am an American government
operative in the Bush era,

the war maker.

He's a CIA operator
who's a conservative,

he's a hawk in the
purest American terms,

who meets a liberal journalist.

- We could shoot Tunisia for
Iraq and make it believable,

right?
- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, it's the same.

- Which do you think is
better, Tunisia or Morocco?

- Yeah, yeah.

So if I'm in Abu
Dhabi, which is a city.

- Yeah, it's an Emirate,
it's kind one of several...

- It's like New York,
New York is in Emirate.

I live in New York.
- Okay.

It's a large area.
- Yeah, I live

in an Emirate, too.
- Right.

- We're trying to
get an idea of what's

the most physically beautiful

and also the greatest
governmental cooperation.

- Today, we just announced
an incentive package.

- We have an incentive,
a financial incentive.

- Do you have a film
fund that's similar,

that's government funded?
- We do.

- Does the government invest
in an American production?

Do they become partners?
- Yeah.

- Yeah, it could, it
could be possible, yes.

Yes, for sure.
- Yeah, Tunisia's beautiful.

We have walked the,

we have walked this complex
for a couple days now,

looking for the Iraqi
Film Commission.

Where is the Iraqi
Film Commission?

I don't know.
- Why don't they have one?

- No, I don't think
there are any.

- Why?

Are there films
shooting in Iraq?

- I'm not aware of any.

- Why don't the Iraqis have
a film commission to shoot?

- I think, again,
I think you need

to put the question
to the Iraqis.

- Okay, you're very good.

- This is a highly sexual movie.

Political drama,
- It's an examination

of the exchange of
energy, if you will.

- There is a lot of specific
sexual behavior in the movie.

- Eroticism, love scenes.

- Is there any
chance, even a sliver,

- I don't want to be in
a bed with Neve Campbell

with a camera rolling
and the Jordanian censors

kick the door down.

- It's me that reads the script

in the Moroccan Cinema Center.

- So if we make a very
sexually exploratory film

and you read the script,
- Yes, I would.

- And you agree that
we can make the film,

that's gonna tell us a
lot about you, isn't it?

- Yes.

Ultimately, immortality
is the goal of many,

if not most, of the people
who spend their lives

in the movie business, the
chance to live forever.

And I'm not talking
about in the minds

of those close to them, but
in the cinematic memories

of generations to come.

- Stella!

It's no coincidence
that Marilyn Monroe

is on the poster for
this year's festival.

Monroe, the greatest example
of immortality through death.

Johnny Pigozzi's a car magnate,

his father owns Simca.

He's got an island in Panama.

He's got an apartment in New
York, apartment in London,

an apartment in Switzerland.

He's got a lot of money
and he's a big investor.

He takes risks.
- So getting 15 million

from him for a movie
should be no problem.

- No problem, absolutely.

Johnny.

It's my friend James Toback
I was telling you about.

- How much time do you
spend here during the year?

- About a month a year.

- This is so beautiful.
- It is.

But I have to thank
my father for this.

I'm not responsible for
any of what is here.

- Well, I think it's
wonderful to have a father

who took care of you.

- Yeah, he did very well.

- And you'll do the same for us.

What do you take your real
sense of identity from?

What makes you just a
general lover of life?

Or is there one specific thing
that makes you feel the way,

I would say a filmmaker,
without which I have

no real sense of identity?

- Because in addition to that,
you have tried many things.

You've been writing and
you've been the tennis,

and the martial arts,
and everything, and
the writing books.

You're someone who
could have sat back

and you didn't have to
do anything, correcT?

- Well, unfortunately,
I hate to say this,

but without my father,
I would've been nothing.

Couldn't, you know,
let's face it.

It's held me back in writing
because a lot of people,

nobody wants to hire somebody
who can afford not to write.

I think it's terrible.

It's prejudice against blacks.

It's prejudice against gays.

It's prejudice against rich.

- It's prejudice
against trust funds.

- Yeah, trust funds, I mean,
I think that's terrible.

- Yeah, all prejudice is wrong.

- I'm for freedom.

- You're the victim
of a hate crime.

- They should make
it a hate crime.

- What I'm trying to
do here is talk you

into being part of a legacy
of a great work of art,

'cause you're an art collector.

This is, this film is
going to be a work of art,

and I need you to come in as,

were you ready to
put up 15 million?

- What?

- It was the right place
to go, in the Riviera.

Somerset Maugham
had described it,

sunny place for shady people.

But in the summer we
all came here because

they went to the casinos,
and there was dancing.

At, Sidney Bechet was playing

the clarinet in.

He was very glamorous.

And Monte Carlo didn't look
like Las Vegas on the sea.

It was sort of the magical place

which Fitzgerald had described.

And the Murphys had invented
actually in the '20s,

Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald.

Picasso came here, and
de Stael and all of them,

because of the light.

And now, of course,
all these people

who are anchored around us,
they all should be in jail,

but they're all Russian
oligarch crooks.

- Why did you think
he was a good shot?

- You know, he's a risk taker.

I don't know, but maybe.

- Are you a risk taker?

- Not in the movies.

- Well, I hate to say,
but I was a good friend

of President Nixon's and he
liked me and he wrote to me

when I was in prison
and he wrote me

a very nice letter,
and the screw came in.

I was just doing four months
for cocaine possession.

And a screw came in, he said,

censors wanna know if
this is true or not,

it was a letter from
President Nixon.

I sold the envelope for some
food to one of the screws.

- Wow.
- And I told him that

afterwards and he thought
it was very funny.

- Where were you incarcerated?
- In Pentonville.

- If Johnny's not gonna,
obviously not gonna invest,

there's a guy over
there, Arki Busson.

- He's big.
- Very big, successful.

And he's in the movie business.

He loves the movie business.

- What did he do?
- He financed

Walters Salas's new film
that's in competition here now.

- "On the Road?"
- Yeah.

- I'm proposing that you
take a serious step up

if we do this next movie and
maybe be the sole investor.

You are young, and
vigorous, and healthy,

but even if you live
another 20, 25 years,

you're in your last lap.

- Yes.
- I am, too.

- Definite, no, no you're not.

- So you can afford to make...

- We have a phrase we're using,

which is you're in the second

to the last reel of the movie.
- Right, yeah.

200 years after you're
dead, quite seriously,

the reason people will
know you are here and care

is that your name
will be on the screen

as the producer of my next film.

Next time it's a Taki
Theodoracopulos production.

You put up the 10, $15 million
necessary, maybe even less.

- Please bring me
some cigarettes quick

- Who has more
money, you or Johnny?

- Johnny by far.
- By far.

I wanted to set the
stage for a future lunch

in which the investment
is made on the spot.

- The investment will
be made on the spot

but depends who you
will bring at the table.

- Alex Baldwin?
- And seriously,

so Alec, yeah.
- Alec Baldwin.

- Yes.
- In Last Tango?

- Well, in our version.
- He can't do that remake,

he's a TV actor.

- So what's the one
thing you'd like to do

that you can't do or the
one place you'd like to go

that you can't go?

- I'm still figuring
out all the things

that I wanna do that I can do.

So that's tough to figure out.
- You can do a lot of things.

- But I've always wanted to
go to space and I guess if you

would say the one thing
that I really want to do

that I can say that I can't do,

but that I would
really want to do,

one would be to cure cancer,

so that nobody would ever
have to suffer from it.

The other thing would be
to have peace in the world.

- You know, Alec and I are
planning a film next year.

Would it interest
you independently

to think of investing
in our movie?

- I don't really get
involved in anything

that I'm not really
totally involved with.

- Ben Schneider.
- Hey, how are you?

Nice to meet you.
- Great to meet you

I'm actually the son
of Neil Schneider,

who's a big financier
on the film.

- Ah, I've been hearing
about you and about your dad.

He's the silent investor.

The other guys were
there with some fanfare.

What are you up to in life?

- Well, currently I moved
out to LA about a year ago.

I've been part of a
sketch comedy group

for the past six, seven months.

- Ah, I'm gonna
grab a shrimp here.

- Oh yeah, go for it.

- Where are you living?

- Currently, I'm living
in West Hollywood,

just down the street
from the Viper Room.

- And you want to be an actor?

- Absolutely, oh,
without a doubt.

- How old were you when
you moved to California?

- 16.

- Where'd you stay?
- West Hollywood.

- I could write an
interesting role for you.

Maybe we should try
to seduce your father

into being a partner.

I'm trying to put some
money together here.

- Was where you are
now, was that a goal?

Did you have a sense of that?

- But that's the best
part about Los Angeles.

It's filled with all these
Don Quixote-type characters.

People who have come from,
everyone's left their families,

their homes, their
friends, their jobs

to pursue a dream where they
know that the percentage

of them achieving that dream
is never and they do it anyway.

And everyone has shared the
same dream and no one's sure

if it was a premonition
or a delusion.

And there's only
one way to find out.

- Ben Schneider.

- Ben is the son.
- I know.

- Yeah, and he's
a budding actor.

And I said he's a handsome...
- You wanna be an actor?

- Yes, I've been
acting since I...

- Why?
- Why?

- You know you're lucky to get
an audition, then you get it,

you get there, you walk
into a room full of guys

that look just like you.

You realize you're
not the only one

that wore the cowboy hat.

Then you can hear the
other guy in the other room

auditioning and now you're
thinking about not doing it

like him as opposed
to doing it the way

that you wanted to do it.

Then before you go in,

you hear the casting
director negotiating the deal

for the guy that
already got the part.

Turns out Jared
Leto already got it.

Then you go in, you
think you're doing an,

you just think I'll do
it as an acting exercise.

I know I'm not gonna get it,

I'll just stick it
as an experience.

And then you get to the scene
where you're supposed to cry

over your friend and
you get the tears going,

and you're emotional,
and then she gets a call

and asks you to leave the room.

You're trying to keep the
tears up, but it's 10 minutes

'cause you're waiting out
there and you're trying

to keep in the zone and you
lose it, and you come back

and you want to pick it
up, you wanna start again,

but she makes you pick
it up where you left off.

You go to your car, you
got a parking ticket

because the street cleaning
sign has been covered

by the auditions this way sign.

Then you get in your car,
you change, you muster up

the guts to go back to

until you go to another
one, and you wait in traffic

for two hours and you
go through it again.

I think we
had a nice connection,

the three of us, don't you?

I bet if I write an ambitious
original role for him,

he'll jump on board right away

and the money will
click in immediately.

'Cause the one thing
we're seeing here

is that money
follows stars, right.

Jessica Chastain could be the
woman and Neve can be the wife

you divorced or who divorced
you before you left.

- Cover sales and magazines are

a very dodgy thing right now.

And so we had to retreat and
we talked about we could put

on the cover and how
we would change the way

we do our covers
and the number-one
person by a long shot.

But with men and
women in this culture,

it's harder and harder
to find somebody

who's both well known
enough to move the freight

around the world and who will
reflect well on the magazine

but it'll be something that
people wanna read about.

- Vanity Fair is not a
movie magazine, per se,

but it's become
the movie magazine.

Was that an intention of yours?

- No, I think that the one
thing that people in the east

may have is a fascination with
the, quote unquote, romance

of Hollywood, specifically
old Hollywood.

And maybe we see
it in a different,

through a different
prism than somebody

who actually lives there.

I mean, most of Hollywood,
it looks like a,

you go to a Hollywood party,
it looks like a casting call

for "Jersey Shore," I mean.

- You mean now?

- Now, yeah.

I mean, look, this weekend,

I mean the movies have
degenerated to the point

where you had a comic
book movie going up

against a board game movie.

So many people
with so much money.

You know what might
be a good idea?

Theft.

Just kidding.

Although, you know, maybe not.

The problem is it's so
crowded, so many witnesses.

The touching thing is that
they're gliding around oblivious

to the one undeniable
certainty that unites them.

That they're all gonna be dead.

What good is their money
gonna do them then?

They might as well
have financed us.

At least they'd have their
name on a great work of art.

I gotta be careful
or I'm gonna go nuts.

- I was actually quoted recently

and it was a bit of a
misquote, 'cause I said,

we make a lot of shitty
movies, I did not say that.

I said, as an industry,

we make some shitty movies
and we make some great movies.

The real problem in
this business, if you
make a great film,

if you really get down to it,

you make a great film
that no one goes to see

versus a bad film that
everyone has gone to see.

The way you keep your job
is you make that bad film

that everyone went to see.

You don't get points
for the good film

that no one went to see.

- It's not the
distributors who say, oh,

we're not gonna put
your your film out

because the truth is
no one will come in

the numbers sufficient to
justify the making of the film.

- Very important to me
what marketing thinks

and what they believe
can be accomplished

in the campaign for that movie.

- The marketability of a
movie has somehow or another

become more important
than the story.

- Very important what
international distribution

and home video thinks
about this movie.

- And that's driven so many
of the decisions today.

- Very important what
domestic home video

thinks about this movie.

- How do you think that
affects the quality of movies?

Because the way I see it,

one person making the final
decision affords a chance

at boldness and originality,

a committee decision guarantees
timidity and convention,

which is why people with
fresh ideas need to run around

chasing money outside
the system all the time.

- What it does to
you as a filmmaker,

what it does to the
sort of agent community,

it stops their ability,
when I was a an agent,

I could go in to
see Tom Pollock,

and I could convince Tom
Pollock or Casey Silver

to say yes to a movie
based on my enthusiasm,

my saying I'm gonna
take this to the studio

if you don't say
yes to me right now,

I could do it at that
moment, I could get people.

And those, by the way,
not just them, any studio.

I don't believe you could
do that at any studio today.

I certainly couldn't
do it at Universal,

but you couldn't do
it at any studio.

- But why, why?
- If I love something

and everyone else hates
it, we don't make it.

- I mean, all the movies that
won the Academy Award for us,

and I use the word us, so
it's never really about me,

were pictures that
nobody else wanted,

whether it was "Cuckoo's
Nest" or "Dances with Wolves."

- There was a wide
margin at the time

where pictures could get
made like a 'Taxi Driver"

and ultimately a "Raging
Bull" to a certain extent.

And also UA at the
time was fantastic.

- And we weren't forced
into doing those movies.

We knew we wanted to do them.

- All of that group at UA
were very, very supportive

of making the kinds
of pictures we thought

were gonna be the the norm.

- I mean, when we did
"Apocalypse" and "Raging Bull"

and all those things,
it was a different era.

There was a time when you
did one or two big movies

which anchored your
program of movies.

Now they make five of
them, and so what's left?

- But I've been able
somehow to navigate

that very, very thin margin
now of doing pictures

that I think I could put
myself into for two years

and devote that time and
get the backing for it.

The thing to tell very often
is that I could probably get

the backing now for
a number of pictures,

but it has to be their pictures.

- We were always
trying to make films,

we make a lot of money
so we could be rich

and then finance our
own little art films.

That was always the model
that we were trying.

- How can I just, I was
telling myself, survive

in that milieu?

How can I do that?

And has that margin that we
talked about in the beginning

gotten even thinner?

And by doing that, when you
do that and there's that much

involved in selling a picture,

you have to be very careful
or you have to fight

very, very, very hard
to do what you want,

to do what you think is
right for the picture.

And that means you
battle everyone.

And very often the battling
is very, very civilized,

which is even harder sometimes,

because it always comes
down to the money.

- They're never gonna
give you the money with me

in the movie, you, me, and Neve,

what we've learned is
that ain't gonna happen.

I mean, they'll give us $4 and
50 cents to make that movie.

Those people who really
excel at this business,

and whether they're the creative
forces, behind the camera

or on camera, and even
in the business community

even more importantly,
how they thrive,

could they have achieved
this level of zen

where they move beyond all
information is good information,

whatever you give
me, I'm gonna deal,

I'm gonna judo what
you do in order for me

to move forward with
my course and my path.

When I was
around in the old days,

there were some people at
the top who supported me.

- John Calley.
- John Calley,

a number of people.

I don't feel that those in
power, not that they're bad,

it's they come from a
different time and place.

Absolutely.

How have those guys changed?

- They're not, they don't exist.

- It's like what Scorsese said.

We have to learn to make
movies around these people.

- You see what's gonna
happen now, though,

is that we gotta get past them.

I mean, maybe not me,
I'm too old for it.

I've got my own thing,
I'm lucky to get a picture

made one more time, I mean,

to live and keep going
for a little while

and see what I can do.

Now you, there's gotta be
a way to make pictures.

You did it and you
continue to do it.

- Find individuals,
new individuals.

- New individuals, but
also new technology.

- Cinema is bigger than
all of this other stuff.

Cinema truly is an art form
given to us by the gods.

I've seen grown-up
men, people like, well,

Marty, or my friend
George, I mean,

just take two pieces of
film and put them together

differently than they
were and see that it means

something else and
just jump up and down,

enjoy with the magic of it.

So as long as it's
that, you follow that,

the other stuff isn't important.

- You find there are things
in the way and to stay angry

in a good way, which
is to, what is this,

this is getting in the way,
get rid of it, get rid of this,

get rid of that,
get rid of this.

You have to stay
true to that impulse

'cause there's nothing else,
especially as you get older.

- What's filmmaking
like for you now?

- Well, I would say it's
easier and easier to make it.

What's always
difficult is to get

the financing going
for everybody else.

- I'm looking forward
next to get to

different kinds of
equipment again.

To move away the
equipment, to move freer.

- Once I'm on the set,
once I start working

on the preparation, on
the editing, it flows.

And I try to simplify,

I don't have to look for some
kind of astonishing effect.

- Cinema now, luckily I
think, there are no more,

I don't think there
are any more categories

like a documentary, non-fiction.

It doesn't matter.

The idea of the shot, the
solid shot with a Bertolucci

or a Kubrick, or any great
cinema master is gone.

- Gone, yeah.
- It's been shattered.

Shattered, the shot
means nothing anymore.

You caught onto this quickly.

You understood it 'cause
you started doing it

with the video you went
to, you caught onto it.

- In black and white.

- It's a kind of a thing
where you never stop learning

because you physically
change, things happen.

But it's there's
such a difference

when it's a great
experience when you would,

- Is that what
you're still chasing?

- A good script, you
have to do shit now.

I mean, not shit, excuse me.

You know, I get down
on myself, I go,

Jesus Christ, you know,
I've never cheated anybody,

And I start going through
all this, oh, woe is me shit.

And what am I walking
around like a beggar here?

Why isn't anybody calling me?

I mean, you go through all that.

I mean, the bottom
line now is that

I'm happiest when I'm working,

And especially if it's
not something that

I can walk through, you know,
something, I like to work.

So obviously you have
struggled your health lately,

as you say, you didn't
make a movie for 10 years.

Was it part of it because
of your back problem?

- Yeah.
- Or was it all of it?

- It sounds a bit stupid.

I mean, I was obsessed
by recouping my back,

which was strange.

So I had three operations I
wanted to have and here I am.

Every operation was
worse and more pain

But who cares, now I
found out that I can do

a movie even on that.

So you're ready
to go back to work?

- I want to find
immediately another film

because I never felt
as good for 10 years.

Like in the shooting
this, me and you.

Going back to what I like to do,

going back to my
normalities to do film.

- I had in mind for years
and years doing a film

about my childhood on
the German occupation.

And I found "The Pianist"
book and I thought

that's quite well connected
with what I remember

without being
exactly what I know

because it was not the
Krakow ghetto where I was,

it was about Warsaw ghetto.

And I would never make the
film about Krakow ghetto.

- Why is that?
- Too close to home.

Once you make a movie
somewhere, you ruin it.

It's normal, your memory.

A memory, it's an
important part of my life.

- I'm never gonna make
a film as successful

as "The Godfather"
again, that's a fluke

for many reasons that happened.

So basically I started
anew from nothing.

"Twixt" was funny
because it bit me

because "Twixt" was
just gonna be fun.

But then the movie got
serious on me and that's when

the film took its more
tragic turn as it were.

So I didn't have an ending.

In the script, I kept asking,

what's the end, what's the end?

He says, do you want
to really go there?

Because if you want to go
there, you can't come back.

And I said, what are
you talking about?

He says, you are the ending
and you look in yourself

and you know what
I'm talking about.

- Then it is time
to face the truth,

to end this story
there is no other way.

- I never admitted to myself

what that scene is that
I should have gone,

I should have been there.

It was the weekend and I
was working on a movie,

and said, let's go,
we're gonna have boats.

I thought they
were little boats.

I thought they were pedal boats.

Had I been there,

had I been there, I don't
think it would've happened.

- And now you've had your drink.

- They shot Sonny
on the causeway.

He's dead.

- An alternative to
what you and I have been

talking about here is a movie
in which the essential subject

is the same, the characters,
the politics, the sex,

the background, the romance,

and all of the things
psychologically and emotionally,

- Psychology.
- But,

it is played against
a far more intimately

scaled down background.

In other words, it could
be that it's two people

who have come back from
the war and who are both

sort of lost and they are
living in whatever location

you want to put them in.

It is basically a domestic
setting, it is a local setting.

Work within a
financial framework.

Tell me how much money
you are going to give me

and I will devise the film.

It's a considerably larger
investment than the current one.

But would you guys be
interested in jumping in

and becoming either part
of or all of the financing

we seem to be pretty close to
getting for this next movie?

I'm looking at three guys, look,

it's as if this is
the parole board

and they've been told that I,

- And you're Sirhan Sirhan.

That's right, exactly.

- And you're never getting out.

- That's right.

For all I know, you would be

deeply damaged by a loss
of money in that area

or it might not
even be noticeable.

It's not for me to say.

Money is the one thing people
lie about, people conceal,

everything else is open.

They'll talk about their
gallbladder, their affairs,

the crimes they committed,
the drugs they've taken,

the times they passed out
from alcoholic poisoning.

- Originally, we were
gonna do it in Iraq.

And finally Jimmy has
this brainstorm, he says,

we don't need to go to Tikrit.

He goes, let's have them
come back from Iraq.

And they're completely
shell shocked

and ravaged by the experience.

We wanna make that film.

Jimmy's gonna write this film.

- Are you gonna finance that?

- Let's face it, this is much
more sexy and emotionally,

sure, I want to do it.

- With you, it is all,
- It's a lot more fun.

- Yeah, it is more fun.
- It is more fun.

- There's two ways of doing it,

from the emotional standpoint

and from the
risk-reward standpoint.

So you have to do due
diligence on everything.

- Sounds like a
good idea. I mean,

I think I'd have
to sit down and...

How much will you
give us to make the movie?

You know,
you could get $25 million

for that movie just by...

- Let's square the
deal right now.

- Oh my God.

- Let me write,

let me write the amount
of money that I'm willing

to give it to you.
- Okay.

- But you can't open
it until afterwards.

- Okay.
- Okay.

- Okay.
- Yeah.

- How much more of this
are we gonna do, fellas?

You get that lightning
bolt in there?

I bet you did.

How do you feel?

I must tell you, I'm optimistic.

Of course you are.

What else would I
expect from you?

I need to balance
your, how would you put it?

- Fondness for reality.

- Okay, look, Taki wrote
as much as you need.

- And you take him literally?

You don't think there's
a very large measure

of mischievousness
in his personality?

Absolutely,
but that doesn't mean

it extends to
funding our moving.

But even if it does,

we have our three "Seduced
and Abandoned" investors.

We have Medavoy's 25 million.

We have the prospect of
Gosling and Chastain.

What we have is
what we came here with,

which is hope.

That's not bad,
people lose hope all the time

and ours is intact.
- By the way,

the music for "Seduced
and Abandoned" must be

Shostakovich, the dark
poetic beauty of the fifth,

juxtaposed with the
perversely playful waltzes.

It's as if Shostakovich
wrote these for you.

Fatality and elegance made one.

- I love you.

I wanna know your name.

- Let me ask you that,

I've been asking everybody
in the movie that,

and it's, I think of
it myself all the time,

are you, I know you love life
obviously, and you wanna live,

but are you afraid of death
or are you ready for death?

- Thanks a lot.

At 11:45.

- No, because I wanna be a mom.

- I don't think about
it, so I guess, must be.

- You're ready for death,
you can handle it, right?

You don't want it, but
you're not afraid of it.

- Yes, of course, if you say so.

- I mean, I know I could make
it into that death montage

and that's all I care about.

- I wanna make
another 50 movies.

Would you settle for four?

- Not four, because
I make three a year.

- You're not gonna live
for another 60 years,

for another 50.
- What, get out of here.

- I was never really
willing to die

but I was always ready.

- To die, no, I'm
not ready to die.

- Still like to do a couple
things here and there.

- Maybe a little bit later on.

- I don't like to
worry about my death.

It's gonna happen and
interrupt what it is I'm doing.

- Still struggling with the
religious aspects of it, yeah.

- No, I don't think I'm
ever gonna be ready to die.

Are you ready for death?

- No.

- Now shut up.

- He's asked every
God damn person.

- How the fuck could
you be ready to die?

I'd be awkward, though,
crack pipe and fucking.

What are you talking about?

- The only thing missing
from this movie is us

actually being in the intensive
care ward of a hospital

with some 95-year-old fucking
guy with tubes coming out

and Jimmy goes, are
you ready to die?

- I'm aware of it,

but I'm doing my best to put
it off as long as possible.

- I was on a plane and it
started to go down for a minute

and the things came out of the,

people were looking to
the person next to them

and trying to bond with that,

you're the person I die with.

And people were crying,
it was very dramatic.

And my instinct was
to finish my steak.

And I just started
really shoving my face.

- John Updike, very, very fine,

wonderful poet as well
as novelist, obviously,

and critic for that matter,

who died in his 70s, without
complaint, of cancer.

No one knew he was
sick, no, he knew.

This is what he wrote
shortly before he died.

It's called "Requiem."

It came to me the other
day, were I to die,

no one would say,
oh, what a shame,

so young, so full of
promise, depths, unplumbable.

Instead, a shrug
and tearless eyes

will greet my overdue demise.

The wide response
will be, I know,

I thought he died a while ago.

For life's a shabby subterfuge

and death is real
and dark and huge.

The shock of it will
register nowhere

but where it will occur.

- You know I love you.

- Yes.
- You know I have

deep feelings
- I know, I know.

- Of great, tremendous
love for you.

- Yes.
- And you just

added to the menu why.

You know, you're a very
good reader of poetry.

- Thank you.
- You're very good.

You read that beautifully.
- Thank you.

- You read that beautifully.
- Thank you.

Thank you.
- In spite of all your

self-destructive tendencies,
- Thank you.

- I adore you.
- Well, thank you.

Come on, you
know, you want to kiss him.

- I said, I adore you, I
didn't say I wanna fuck you.

- But that's part of
the beauty of film

is it conjures up notions
of finality, of death.

The movie ends and
it's like, it's over.

You're sitting
there in the dark,

but there's light and you are
alive as long as the movie

is on, and then all of a sudden.