Original subtitles

When is it appropriate to break the rules?

Honestly, except for traffic, I believe Mr. Eddie.

And I believe in Mr. Eddie.

Do you know how many fucking car lengths it

takes to stop a car at 35 miles an hour?

That tailgating is really bad and that people should stop

for stop signs and red lights.

But in cinema, I don't like rules.

We shot downtown LA.

I don't know that I even knew that you needed permits.

So we just went down there in a innocent way shooting

and found some fantastic beautiful places.

And this was in the early '70s.

And there was no graffiti.

Would I advise people to go out and steal the shots

without a permit?

You know, I know that Werner Herzog would want to do that.

I would want to do that.

But I think we live in a world now where it's better

to go and get those permits.

And a lot of times, they'll work with you if you're low budget

and, you know, a student film or whatever but.

And also it's very important to go, when you go out,

in a safe way so no one gets hurt.

It's better to be safe all the way around, I think.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

That was part of this Lumiere project

where they asked 40 different directors

to make a film using the original Lumiere brothers

camera, which is made of wood, beautiful wood, brass,

and glass.

And the deal was you had three takes.

And each take was about 55 seconds

in a beautiful, little, wooden magazine hand-cranked camera.

And you got three takes.

You had to use natural light.

You could not edit.

But you could put in sound or music.

And so it's one continuous take.

The camera was the same.

The lenses were the same.

The motion was the same.

And those were the rules.

I was in my wood shop.

And I got this idea of different sets and to move from one place

to another.

And then Gary D'Amico and Phil built this box.

You just pulled this little string.

And the doors just slammed shut.

And it's absolutely black.

And then we'd go to another set.

And they'd fly open.

And then they'd, you know, slam shut.

Then we move to another place or this--

we'd open up on smoke and go to four--

The mother in the beginning on the couch,

they find the little boy, the police.

Then it goes to the mother on the couch.

Then it goes to the women and the deer and, you know,

in this place.

And then they had to move the couch and the mother

out around into another part of the set.

We built these sets out of Gary D'Amico house.

It was so much fun.

Restrictions, sometimes, can conjure really great ideas

that provide solutions.

It's really true, necessity is the mother of invention.

These things flow out sometimes with restrictions.

And if you have tons of money, you just

don't think about those things.

You just know, you know, what the normal way to do it is,

and you do that.

But if you have restrictions, you

could come up with ideas to make it work.

And it could even be more interesting,

you know, than the solution with the money.