- 2 days ago
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00:00:06good evening thank you for coming there are two bikes does that mean they're both mine or are we
00:00:14one is for the way making of the trial we're just a few stories about it and it would seem
00:00:23to me
00:00:23that this was the best place to get some questions and and try some answers you know hope not to
00:00:33bore
00:00:33you my cinematographer mr. Gary Graver all right real real one take one okay again I never did
00:00:43that very well all right okay any questions yes sir I noticed there were classical elements of the
00:01:04music in the score and also jazz and I was wondering how you decided on the different elements and where
00:01:09each type of music would go in the film well you know that's a there are two ways of answering
00:01:18that
00:01:19kind of question one is pompously to pretend that I had a master plan and the other is to admit
00:01:28that
00:01:29I put it in where I thought it would sound good you know which sounds like begging the question but
00:01:36is
00:01:36the truth the basis of course is the is the Jesualdo which is the basic music of it which became
00:01:46a hit
00:01:46as a result of that nobody had ever heard it and there was one very limited record of it and
00:01:53after
00:01:53that it was but Europe it was played all over like a hit tune in fact a lot more people
00:01:59heard that music
00:02:00that saw the movie anywhere that's it's extraordinary piece of music because it's a it's a it's got musical
00:02:10ideas in it that didn't turn up again for 200 years and it's a curiously romantic for baroque music and
00:02:21full of doom
00:02:23and and beauty and I liked it for the picture I don't know if I would now as you notice
00:02:30I came in afterwards I never
00:02:32like to see my movies because I like to remember them as being so much better than they really were
00:02:38and that's true
00:02:43sir what inspired you to make the trial well that's a story I take you to the mountains of Austria
00:02:54where with my family I was uh enjoying the winter sports hoping I would be able to pay the hotel
00:03:04bill at
00:03:04the end of the end of it and had just completed being interviewed by Oriana fellaci who had stated
00:03:14in the Italian press that I was undoubtedly the next American president my constituency at the time
00:03:26consisted of my wife and daughter so I didn't see much future in it for me and the White House
00:03:33and I
00:03:34was waiting for the phone to ring as it which is what all of you will be doing if all
00:03:41of you are
00:03:41rash enough to go into the film business and a family of people called the Salkins came into my life
00:03:53they are a dynasty of filmmakers old man Salkins who was an adorable little old gentleman who hadn't
00:04:04paid a bill in about 32 years but loved movies genuinely loved movies and his son Alexander
00:04:18came to see me now the old man Salkin has gone to dwell beyond the morning stars and Alexander is
00:04:27a sort
00:04:27of Dean of the Salkin tribe because it's his son who has made the supermans and the millions and millions
00:04:35and millions and so on that the Salkins have made the old man the adorable old man had made the
00:04:43a famous
00:04:44movie at least in my youth in the textbooks on movies it was considered a great movie which was the
00:04:52Don Quixote of
00:04:53Charliapin and he had made the first Garbo movie and he had a distinguished career they had then escaped from
00:05:03Europe and become
00:05:04Mexican film producers where they'd made about 40 Mexican pictures the quality of which I'm not prepared to speak about
00:05:18they arrived in this little tiny Austrian Alpine village in a taxi cab which they had taken from from Innsbruck
00:05:32and for which they did not have the money to pay this is really true and that didn't come out
00:05:40till later and they said we want you to make Taras Bulba
00:05:48and well Taras Bulba is a wonderful story
00:05:52Gogol is my favorite Russian writer and I thought that's absolutely wonderful these people have come all the way up
00:05:58into the Alps
00:05:58they're all ready to make Taras Bulba splendid I started to write a script of it and then
00:06:08I must stop and say that they had to borrow the money to get the
00:06:11in the cab back to Innsbruck but that was supposed to be because
00:06:16of problems with the exchange
00:06:20they hadn't been able to get Austrian shillings or something
00:06:24later I was to discover that they didn't have any money
00:06:27at all
00:06:29which I think
00:06:31is admirable
00:06:33you know here they were making a trip across Europe coming to ask me to make a movie for which
00:06:39they didn't have a cent they didn't even have to eat and they came back again in another taxi and
00:06:49they said we've just read that you'll
00:06:51Brunner is making Taras Bulba in the Argentine which indeed he did I saw a little piece of it for
00:06:58the first time the other night on television it was pretty bad but there it was
00:07:06Taras Bulba
00:07:07they said we can't have two of them I said that's true
00:07:12they said we have here a list of movies we are ready to finance you pick up the out the
00:07:19one you like they didn't say what do you want to make they said here is our list and I
00:07:26said I couldn't add to this list any no they said here they are and there were about 82 titles
00:07:35most of which were impossible
00:07:38and the most likely of which was the trial
00:07:42so I said we'll do the trial
00:07:46so we made the trial
00:07:50and I know that kind of answer
00:07:53is very disappointing because you want to think of
00:07:56a film maker
00:07:57as having studied at his library
00:08:00the work which sings the most perfect song to him
00:08:04and
00:08:05that I had spent my life wanting to realize
00:08:08Kafka on the screen
00:08:10I'd never given a thought to it
00:08:14but it was
00:08:16it was a book I admired
00:08:18a writer I admired
00:08:20and I was a challenge I was very happy to accept
00:08:23and challenge indeed it was
00:08:25because
00:08:27we went to Yugoslavia to shoot it
00:08:30and I designed all the scenery
00:08:33which was
00:08:34going to be physically a very different movie
00:08:38the scenery was going to come
00:08:40begins coming slightly apart
00:08:42all the time
00:08:43so that it was
00:08:44sort of flying away
00:08:46into the darkness
00:08:47it was very elaborate
00:08:48and
00:08:50I think interesting
00:08:52maybe
00:08:52maybe pretentious
00:08:54visual idea for it
00:08:55and all of this was to have been built
00:08:57by the Yugoslavs
00:09:00and we did those Yugoslav scenes
00:09:02which did not require sets
00:09:05we needed an enormous building
00:09:07where we could do that office scene
00:09:09where all the people are typing
00:09:10you know
00:09:12and they did
00:09:13indeed get from Olivetti
00:09:1510,000 typewriters
00:09:17and 10,000
00:09:20desks and all that
00:09:21we shot that
00:09:22and then the Yugoslavs
00:09:24did a trick
00:09:24which they sometimes do
00:09:26I don't mean the Yugoslavs
00:09:28as a race
00:09:29I mean the Yugoslavs
00:09:30as producers
00:09:32because like all people
00:09:34who have lived under occupation
00:09:36for a long time
00:09:38the Irish for instance
00:09:41and particularly
00:09:45the Yugoslavs
00:09:46had lived for 400 years
00:09:47under the Turks
00:09:49and
00:09:51we must understand
00:09:53that all people
00:09:53who are occupied
00:09:54for a long time
00:09:56learn
00:09:58as an act of honor
00:09:59to steal
00:10:00from strangers
00:10:03quite seriously
00:10:04in other words
00:10:05they won't steal
00:10:06from each other
00:10:06but it's a stranger comes
00:10:08with a lot of money
00:10:09from Hollywood
00:10:10or whatever it is
00:10:11steal
00:10:12if you can
00:10:13and
00:10:14in the case
00:10:15of the trial
00:10:16they did what they did
00:10:18to hundreds of Italian
00:10:20co-producers
00:10:20they got us
00:10:22right up to the day
00:10:23when we were going
00:10:23to be in the studio
00:10:25which we never got to see
00:10:26for some mysterious reason
00:10:28it was always a
00:10:29breakdown of a car
00:10:31so we never got to look at it
00:10:34finally they came to that day
00:10:35and they said
00:10:35we made a miscalculation
00:10:37in the money
00:10:38and we need another
00:10:39$300,000
00:10:42well
00:10:43the Salkins
00:10:44didn't have the money
00:10:45to pay our hotel bill
00:10:46in Zagreb
00:10:47much less
00:10:48for these sets
00:10:50which had not even
00:10:51begun to be built
00:10:54and the Yugoslavs
00:10:56believed that they had us
00:10:57by the well known
00:11:00situation
00:11:03as indeed they'd done
00:11:05with many co-productions
00:11:06and so on
00:11:06and I said to
00:11:07to old man Salkin
00:11:11get a train
00:11:12the night train
00:11:13tickets on the night train
00:11:14don't say anything
00:11:15we're all leaving town
00:11:18so we all left town
00:11:20to the astonishment
00:11:22of the Yugoslavs
00:11:23who had expected
00:11:25that they'd be able
00:11:26to get the other half
00:11:27of the picture
00:11:28and own it
00:11:29in order to provide
00:11:30the sets
00:11:31so we arrived
00:11:32back in Paris
00:11:33there were no sets
00:11:35there was no money
00:11:37I should explain
00:11:38that
00:11:39in my reading
00:11:41of the book
00:11:42and of course
00:11:43everybody reads
00:11:44the book
00:11:45as a different book
00:11:45and my reading
00:11:47is probably
00:11:48more wrong
00:11:49than a lot of
00:11:51people's
00:11:53I see
00:11:54the monstrous
00:11:55bureaucracy
00:11:56which is the
00:11:58villain of the piece
00:11:59as not only
00:12:02Kafka's clairvoyant
00:12:04view of the future
00:12:07but his
00:12:09racial
00:12:10and cultural
00:12:12background
00:12:14of being
00:12:15occupied
00:12:17by the Austro-Hungarian Empire
00:12:20and I see
00:12:23a curious
00:12:25combination
00:12:25of the book
00:12:26of
00:12:26an unthinkably
00:12:29sterile future
00:12:31combined
00:12:32with an
00:12:33unthinkably
00:12:33dusty
00:12:34accumulation
00:12:36of
00:12:37those traditions
00:12:39which bureaucrats
00:12:41set up
00:12:41in order to
00:12:42perpetuate
00:12:43their
00:12:43monstrous lives
00:12:45if I sound like
00:12:47our president
00:12:48I profoundly
00:12:49apologize
00:12:54so I have made
00:12:55a parenthesis here
00:12:57about that style
00:12:58to explain
00:12:59how it was
00:13:00that
00:13:03we
00:13:03came to do it
00:13:07we came to do it
00:13:08because I picked it
00:13:09out of a list
00:13:10and we shot
00:13:12most of it
00:13:13in Paris
00:13:14because I wanted
00:13:18a 19th century
00:13:19look
00:13:20to a great deal
00:13:21of what would be
00:13:22in fact
00:13:23expressionistic
00:13:25and in the first night
00:13:26in Paris
00:13:28I was in a hotel
00:13:29near the Seine
00:13:31and I am very
00:13:32very
00:13:33I hate to use
00:13:35the word superstitious
00:13:36because I take it
00:13:37more seriously
00:13:38I'm awfully serious
00:13:39about the moon
00:13:42I think
00:13:43Robert Graves
00:13:44was right
00:13:45when he said
00:13:46that the most
00:13:47blasphemous thing
00:13:48that has happened
00:13:50since Alexander
00:13:51cut the Gordian knife
00:13:54Gordian knot
00:13:55was when we landed
00:13:56on the moon
00:13:59and
00:14:00having
00:14:01let loose
00:14:02with a piece
00:14:02of eccentricity
00:14:03of that kind
00:14:04you'll see
00:14:04who you're dealing with
00:14:09a point there
00:14:10is that
00:14:11the only name
00:14:12on the moon
00:14:13is Nixon
00:14:14and that they
00:14:15played golf
00:14:18anyway
00:14:21we are in Paris
00:14:22and I am looking
00:14:24out of the window
00:14:24at three in the morning
00:14:26wondering how
00:14:26we can shoot
00:14:27and I see
00:14:28two moons
00:14:32two full moons
00:14:36and I go out
00:14:37on the balcony
00:14:38of my hotel room
00:14:39and I see
00:14:40that they are
00:14:41the two clocks
00:14:42on the Gare d'Orsay
00:14:43I went downstairs
00:14:47got in a cab
00:14:48went to the Gare d'Orsay
00:14:50which was empty
00:14:52it only had two trains
00:14:53that came in a day
00:14:55and I wandered around
00:14:56and I saw
00:14:57that that was
00:14:57where the picture
00:14:58could be made
00:14:59so that is
00:15:00how it happened
00:15:02to be picked
00:15:02and why it happened
00:15:04to be made that way
00:15:06I'll try and give you
00:15:07a fast answer
00:15:08to the next one
00:15:09yes ma'am
00:15:11this might give you
00:15:12a chance
00:15:12for a short answer
00:15:14in this film
00:15:15Joseph Kay
00:15:16runs down
00:15:17that hallway
00:15:18with those
00:15:18alternating arched
00:15:20mirrors
00:15:21and in Citizen Kane
00:15:22that famous sequence
00:15:25in that archway
00:15:26where she appears
00:15:27in between
00:15:28oh yes
00:15:29and you get the mirrors
00:15:31and lady from Shanghai
00:15:32and in Citizen Kane
00:15:33I wonder if you would
00:15:34comment on
00:15:36maybe
00:15:37on the frequency
00:15:39of multiple mirrors
00:15:41that you use
00:15:42in a number
00:15:43of your films
00:15:44in which
00:15:44a man
00:15:45usually a man
00:15:46but a character
00:15:47in distress
00:15:47sees himself
00:15:49over and over
00:15:50and over
00:15:51in these mirrors
00:15:52does it mean
00:15:53is it
00:15:54I can give you
00:15:55an impressive answer
00:15:57which will embarrass me
00:16:00and I can also
00:16:02remind you
00:16:03that I'm a magician
00:16:04and that people say
00:16:05that everything
00:16:06a magician does
00:16:07is done with mirrors
00:16:08you know
00:16:11which is a frivolous answer
00:16:13and then I can try
00:16:14to give a serious answer
00:16:16which is
00:16:16that
00:16:17the camera
00:16:18is a peculiar
00:16:19kind of mirror
00:16:20and that
00:16:23turning the mirror
00:16:24on it
00:16:27seems to me
00:16:28a kind of a magical
00:16:29thing to do
00:16:31I can't tell you
00:16:32why
00:16:34way in the back
00:16:35I was wondering
00:16:36whether you thought
00:16:36there was
00:16:37enough sympathy
00:16:38for the main character
00:16:39in this film
00:16:40were you satisfied
00:16:41I didn't hear that
00:16:42enough difference between
00:16:43do you think
00:16:44that there was
00:16:45enough sympathy
00:16:45for the main character
00:16:46in this film
00:16:47were you satisfied
00:16:49now
00:16:49that's an interesting
00:16:50question
00:16:51and I'm glad
00:16:52you asked me that
00:16:57a strange thing
00:16:58happened with that movie
00:16:59it got wonderful press
00:17:00all over the world
00:17:01even in America
00:17:03even in Time
00:17:04and Newsweek
00:17:05and everything
00:17:05wonderful press
00:17:06and Perkins
00:17:08got very bad press
00:17:09all over the world
00:17:10and the entire blame
00:17:12for that is mine
00:17:14because he is
00:17:15a superlative actor
00:17:16and he played
00:17:17the character
00:17:18that I saw
00:17:19as Kay
00:17:22and paid the price
00:17:23because nobody else
00:17:24sees it my way
00:17:26I find in the book
00:17:29repeated indications
00:17:30that Kay
00:17:32is a pusher
00:17:33on his way up
00:17:35the bureaucracy
00:17:36not Mr. Zero
00:17:38in the adding machine
00:17:39not little Mr. Nobody
00:17:41not the poor little
00:17:43faceless accountant
00:17:44but a young man
00:17:46very anxious to get ahead
00:17:48in this awful world
00:17:50and doing his best
00:17:51to do that
00:17:52and therefore
00:17:53in a state of
00:17:54real neuroses
00:17:56because he is both
00:17:58terrified of
00:18:00and anxious to conquer
00:18:01the same thing
00:18:03I recognize
00:18:05that I did
00:18:07Tony
00:18:08who is
00:18:09one of the best
00:18:10actors we have
00:18:11a great disservice
00:18:12because
00:18:14he deserved
00:18:16to have made
00:18:16a tremendous success
00:18:17and if he didn't
00:18:19with the critics
00:18:20the blame is
00:18:21100% with me
00:18:24yes sir
00:18:25in the filming
00:18:26of Othello
00:18:27you said you believed
00:18:28in the existence
00:18:29of evil
00:18:30and in this film
00:18:31the evil seems
00:18:32to come from within man
00:18:33from his people
00:18:34from his buildings
00:18:35from his laws
00:18:36they seem to control
00:18:37this man of society's
00:18:40life and destiny
00:18:41are you saying then
00:18:42that evil comes
00:18:43from within man
00:18:44and not from outside
00:18:45from nature
00:18:49wow
00:18:53wow
00:18:55I do indeed believe
00:18:57in the existence
00:18:58of evil
00:18:59and
00:19:00to that extent
00:19:02I'm at odds
00:19:03with most of the people
00:19:05especially of my generation
00:19:08I think evil
00:19:11is a force
00:19:12so great
00:19:13that it is beyond me
00:19:16to decide
00:19:17whether it is
00:19:18generated entirely
00:19:20within man
00:19:22or whether it is
00:19:23a condition
00:19:24a contagion
00:19:25as well as
00:19:29something that we
00:19:30generate within ourselves
00:19:31the power of it
00:19:33is so great
00:19:34that
00:19:35it humbles me
00:19:36it's
00:19:37the metaphysics
00:19:38are beyond me
00:19:39on that
00:19:40I could
00:19:41I'd like to sit
00:19:42at a coffee table
00:19:43and argue it
00:19:44but I wouldn't like
00:19:44to be on
00:19:47a distinguished dais
00:19:48of this kind
00:19:49in a great university
00:19:53saying something
00:19:54for quotation
00:19:55on such a
00:19:57majestic theme
00:20:01you made a new order
00:20:03on the chapter
00:20:04the way they were
00:20:05originally published
00:20:06did you do this
00:20:08for any particular reason
00:20:09did I make a new order
00:20:11with the story
00:20:13with the story
00:20:15can you pick this cable
00:20:16I can bring it in
00:20:17for me
00:20:19I'm so sorry
00:20:20I'm a little deaf
00:20:21and I have a mic
00:20:23and you don't
00:20:24my English is very bad
00:20:25your English is very good
00:20:28that's nothing to do
00:20:29with that
00:20:29it's
00:20:29I really am a little deaf
00:20:32did you reorder
00:20:33the chapters
00:20:34in the story
00:20:35for any particular reason
00:20:37reorder the
00:20:38what in the story
00:20:38the chapters
00:20:40the chapters
00:20:41the chapters
00:20:42the chapters
00:20:42everybody knows
00:20:44what's happening
00:20:48did I reorder
00:20:50the chapters
00:20:50in other words
00:20:51did I change
00:20:52the plot line
00:20:55the narrative line
00:20:57of course
00:20:57of course
00:20:58every film
00:21:00is an original work
00:21:01a film should never
00:21:02be an illustration
00:21:03of a book
00:21:04or of a play
00:21:06it should be itself
00:21:07and it cannot be itself
00:21:09unless it's creator
00:21:11a word for which
00:21:12I apologize
00:21:13because I hear
00:21:14the word creator
00:21:15and creativity
00:21:16much too much
00:21:17nowadays
00:21:18but the maker
00:21:19the picture maker
00:21:22is after all
00:21:23engaged in an art form
00:21:24which is entirely
00:21:25different from literature
00:21:26and the theater
00:21:28and he has not only
00:21:29the perfect right
00:21:30but the obligation
00:21:34to turn the work
00:21:35into something
00:21:36a little different
00:21:37than the author
00:21:38intended
00:21:40not to perfectly
00:21:41realize it
00:21:42if he perfectly
00:21:43realizes it
00:21:44we might just as well
00:21:45have lantern slides
00:21:46and somebody
00:21:47with a lovely voice
00:21:48reading the book
00:21:51one of the things
00:21:53that I find
00:21:53most interesting
00:21:54about the film
00:21:55is again
00:21:55your use of architecture
00:21:57and how all the
00:21:58buildings seem
00:21:59to be connected
00:22:00except I guess
00:22:01for Kay's apartment
00:22:03he seems to go
00:22:04through hallways
00:22:05and get to
00:22:06the different rooms
00:22:08even though the
00:22:09architecture is quite
00:22:09different
00:22:10and I'm wondering
00:22:10if you could comment
00:22:11more on this
00:22:12it's part of the
00:22:15I say in the picture
00:22:17that it's a dream
00:22:20that I made a picture
00:22:21like a dream
00:22:23I attempted to make
00:22:24a picture
00:22:25which is like
00:22:26some of the dreams
00:22:28I have had
00:22:28I think it's pompous
00:22:30and silly to say
00:22:31what a dream is like
00:22:32because we're all dreamers
00:22:33and we all dream
00:22:35different ways
00:22:36and I move
00:22:39from one kind
00:22:40of architecture
00:22:41to another
00:22:42in my dreams
00:22:42without any difficulty
00:22:44whatsoever
00:22:46and
00:22:48it's a little harder
00:22:49to do with a camera
00:22:50and make you believe
00:22:51you're in the same movie
00:22:53but that comes from
00:22:55years of
00:22:57hanky-panky
00:22:58and sidearm snookery
00:23:00Do you think
00:23:01pasta intended it
00:23:03as a dream?
00:23:04No
00:23:06No
00:23:07I don't
00:23:07but I had to say
00:23:09something to a mass audience
00:23:11I had to find a way
00:23:13to make this
00:23:14accessible
00:23:15to an audience
00:23:17of many millions
00:23:18of people
00:23:18and the way
00:23:19to do that
00:23:20was to say
00:23:21it's a dream
00:23:24so I've
00:23:25slightly evaded
00:23:26both questions
00:23:29One of the changes
00:23:30you made in the story
00:23:31was at the very end
00:23:33when Joseph Kaye
00:23:34is killed
00:23:35he's killed
00:23:35in a very alarmingly
00:23:38different way
00:23:39than in the book
00:23:40and I was really curious
00:23:41as to
00:23:42why you changed
00:23:44both the way he was killed
00:23:45and the way he was acting
00:23:45when he died
00:23:46because the book
00:23:47was written
00:23:47before the Holocaust
00:23:55and I couldn't bear
00:23:56the defeat
00:23:58of Kaye
00:23:59in the book
00:24:00after the Holocaust
00:24:02I'm not Jewish
00:24:04but we are all Jewish
00:24:06since the Holocaust
00:24:09and I couldn't bear
00:24:11for him to submit
00:24:12to death
00:24:13as he does
00:24:14in Kafka
00:24:17masochistically
00:24:18submit to death
00:24:19it stank
00:24:21of the old
00:24:22Prague ghetto
00:24:23to me
00:24:24and I had to let him
00:24:26I had to let him
00:24:28shout out
00:24:29defiance
00:24:30until he was blown up
00:24:32there's also
00:24:33an embarrassing thing
00:24:34in the picture
00:24:35which is the
00:24:36mushroom shaped cloud
00:24:39well it turns out
00:24:40that any big explosion
00:24:41you could make
00:24:42ends up
00:24:43in the shape
00:24:44of a mushroom
00:24:44so we spent
00:24:46an afternoon
00:24:46trying to get a cloud
00:24:47that wouldn't
00:24:48end up
00:24:49looking like a mushroom
00:24:50because I hate symbolism
00:24:52but there it was
00:24:54so I said
00:24:54alright
00:24:54there's going to be
00:24:55symbolism
00:24:56whether we like it
00:24:58or not
00:24:58you know
00:25:03yes sir
00:25:03in this film
00:25:04the computer
00:25:05is portrayed
00:25:06as sort of
00:25:06a dumb
00:25:07adding machine
00:25:08the people
00:25:08manipulating it
00:25:09are the ones
00:25:10evil
00:25:10is that your
00:25:12belief about
00:25:12the computer
00:25:13that it's merely
00:25:13a big adding
00:25:14machine
00:25:14and that it's
00:25:15not intrinsically
00:25:16evil itself
00:25:19well
00:25:21the question
00:25:22is interesting
00:25:23because there's
00:25:24an enormous
00:25:24scene in the
00:25:25picture
00:25:26which was
00:25:27cut out
00:25:28by me
00:25:29two hours
00:25:30before the
00:25:31opening night
00:25:32nighted Paris
00:25:33which was
00:25:34a scene
00:25:35about the
00:25:35computer
00:25:36which would
00:25:36have more
00:25:37fully explained
00:25:38my attitude
00:25:39at that time
00:25:40about computers
00:25:41my attitude
00:25:42has changed
00:25:43slightly
00:25:43but only slightly
00:25:44since then
00:25:45and I believe
00:25:47that the
00:25:49what that scene
00:25:51did
00:25:51which had
00:25:54played
00:25:54almost
00:25:55nine minutes
00:25:57and as I
00:25:58say I cut
00:25:58it out
00:25:59in the
00:25:59afternoon
00:25:59of the
00:26:00opening
00:26:01what that
00:26:02scene did
00:26:02was to
00:26:03show
00:26:05man's
00:26:05slavish
00:26:06relationship
00:26:08to something
00:26:09which is
00:26:09really only
00:26:10his tool
00:26:12that was
00:26:12a splendid
00:26:13thing to
00:26:13say but
00:26:13it turned
00:26:14out to be
00:26:14rather a
00:26:15drag
00:26:15in the
00:26:16picture
00:26:16so I
00:26:17took it
00:26:17out
00:26:17to
00:28:52You don't believe a word I say, do you, in the movie?
00:28:55You're not supposed to.
00:28:58That's the real, that's a real masochistic, that's the Kafka the masochist that is most narcissistic, you know.
00:29:11Look at my beautiful blood, you know, as it streams down.
00:29:16But, of course, nothing the advocate says is meant to be true.
00:29:22What is the reason that you like to dub the voices of minor characters in your films and which characters
00:29:27did you dub in the trial?
00:29:29I don't like to dub the minor characters, but by the time we get to dubbing, there usually isn't any
00:29:38more money, particularly if you're working with the Salkins at that period.
00:29:42And as in the case of Othello, where I did play practically the whole, my supporting cast, it was economic.
00:29:56Because you don't get a good actor for free to go into a dark room and spend all day trying
00:30:02to lip sync, you know.
00:30:05It's a thankless job.
00:30:08Why did you choose for yourself the role of the advocate and not one of the accused?
00:30:14Well, I thought that I didn't want to play the advocate.
00:30:18I didn't want to be in it.
00:30:19And you would be astonished at the different people I offered it to, including Gleason.
00:30:27I did.
00:30:30I played the advocate because there was no other actor of my caliber that I could afford.
00:30:43But I enjoyed doing it.
00:30:45Once I saw Romy in that white nurse's uniform, I enjoyed every minute of it.
00:30:55Yes.
00:30:56How did you cast the actors in the trial?
00:31:00How did you cast the actors in the trial?
00:31:04How did I cast the actors in the trial?
00:31:06The same as I cast in any movie.
00:31:12I don't want my answer to sound condescending.
00:31:18By picking the people that seem to be best adapted for it.
00:31:23In the case of the trial, of course, I had a co-production.
00:31:27And a co-production means that you have different nations involved.
00:31:34So I had to have some Germans and some French and some English.
00:31:43And therefore, there are some German actors who might not have been German otherwise.
00:31:48But I think all the Germans are very good at it.
00:31:54I had to get Tamaroff in, who was an American.
00:31:58So we had to have plenty of French actors.
00:32:01So I had a very good actor, Maurice Tenac, who played the manager.
00:32:05So I was very happy to have him.
00:32:08I was limited by the nationalities.
00:32:12But that's not such a terrible limitation.
00:32:14The world is full of wonderful actors who luckily speak our language, although they are getting fewer and fewer.
00:32:23Because after the war, every young actor quickly learned English, thinking that was the only way to get ahead.
00:32:32And nowadays, actors of your age do not speak English in all the countries in the world.
00:32:39Very few bother to.
00:32:42And you're left with those same old faces.
00:32:46Because they don't...
00:32:48Pictures have ceased to be international.
00:32:50Think how few international pictures play here, or in London, or in Berlin.
00:32:59I'm not speaking of festivals.
00:33:01I mean in theaters.
00:33:03So what everybody thought they're going to make English-speaking pictures forever, everybody learned English.
00:33:10So it was much easier 20 years ago to cast across the European continent as well as you could.
00:33:21And not be disappointed with the result.
00:33:25I miscast, of course.
00:33:27Every director does that.
00:33:28Every director makes terrible mistakes.
00:33:30And there's nothing you can do about it.
00:33:34But I don't remember that, except for my controversial reading of Kay, that there's anything that could possibly be called
00:33:48bad casting in it.
00:33:51But I don't know.
00:33:52Would somebody say if they think somebody else was badly cast?
00:33:56Be interesting to hear.
00:33:58It won't hurt my feelings a bit.
00:34:00I think Kay was very well cast.
00:34:03You do?
00:34:04Yes.
00:34:04Hooray for you!
00:34:06God.
00:34:07How much obligation do you feel to a mass audience?
00:34:11How much obligation do I feel?
00:34:13How much must you modify your vision so that people will...
00:34:16There's a missing word here, Ron, between what I feel and to a mass audience.
00:34:20Just stand up as a...
00:34:20Obligation.
00:34:21Obligation?
00:34:22Yes.
00:34:22Hooray.
00:34:23Hooray.
00:34:25Hooray.
00:34:27I would love to have a mass audience.
00:34:31You're looking at a man who's been searching for a mass audience.
00:34:40And if I had one, I'd be obliged.
00:34:44That's all I can say.
00:34:50Here comes a man who looks like he's about to shoot me.
00:34:53All right?
00:34:56Talking about money, do you think if you'd had a great deal of it, it would have made your
00:35:01films better?
00:35:02Or did your poverty help your creativity in any way?
00:35:09Did my poverty help my creativity?
00:35:14No.
00:35:20I think, however, that it is possible to spoil a young director by giving him too much money
00:35:29so that he does not learn one of the main arts of directing, which is the ability to walk
00:35:39away from something when it is not perfect.
00:35:45No fine movie was ever made by a director who wants everything to be perfect.
00:35:58And there are great lessons to be learned by not using money, by not using money, by not using the
00:36:13studio largesse unquestioningly.
00:36:17But there is no advantage in having to reach in your pocket and pay Madeleine Robinson her salary at the
00:36:25end of every week, otherwise she'd leave the picture.
00:36:29Which is what happened to the trial.
00:36:33A number of your films, obviously this one, but a number of other ones, generate a sort of a palpable
00:36:38feel of oppression.
00:36:40Are you as pessimistic as that seems to indicate, or is that just what you like to do?
00:36:43Am I as what?
00:36:44As pessimistic as it would seem to be indicated by the feeling of oppression in the trial, and the sort
00:36:51of visual oppression that comes over in a number of your other pictures.
00:36:57Yes, I am a profound pessimist, with a sentimental inclination to hope that Pangloss was right and that I'm wrong.
00:37:17I have a sentimental inclination toward hope.
00:37:21I believe in bravery and worship it.
00:37:31To me, it's one of the greatest virtues there are.
00:37:36And the fact that I'm a pessimist is part of what gives bravery such an importance to me.
00:37:43Don't call me a macho.
00:37:44That's not what I'm talking about.
00:37:47Yes.
00:37:48Every time I see this film, I'm so struck by the brilliant use of space in so many of the
00:37:53environments.
00:37:53And yet in the Kafka story, all the spaces seem very cramped.
00:37:57I wondered if you would talk about what led you to change the conception of space.
00:38:02Was it the different medium or your own vision or anything else?
00:38:07I mean, in terms of moving it away from the kind of space that was in the novel and the
00:38:12kind of space that you have in the film?
00:38:16That's a better question than I have an answer for.
00:38:20Honestly, it is.
00:38:23I don't know.
00:38:24I would want to think about it.
00:38:25I think my answer would be frivolous.
00:38:28And I'd like to think about it.
00:38:30It's a worrisome question.
00:38:33I don't know.
00:38:34I thought that I was being faithful to my reading of the book.
00:38:42And I know that nobody agrees with me, including those people who like the picture as well as those who
00:38:48dislike it.
00:38:49But I did not consciously change what I thought was its essential meaning.
00:39:00But that's as far as I can go, as big a boast as I dare to make.
00:39:07Yes.
00:39:08What do you what do you see as the role of seduction in bureaucracy?
00:39:13There seem to be lots of sexual symbols or sexuality is almost the second is almost the antagonist along with
00:39:25the bureaucratic oppression.
00:39:28But that's Kafka.
00:39:30That really is Kafka.
00:39:32It's part of the fascination of the book, is that insistent and almost onanistic eroticism.
00:39:44I find that in the book.
00:39:46It's not a it's not an obsession or a specialty of mine.
00:39:52I'm not I'm not I would be happy to make a movie in which I would be happy to have
00:40:0140 years of movie making ahead of me in which it would never be necessary for me to ask the
00:40:06leading man to take his pants off, you know.
00:40:10But the eroticism in Kafka is is it is inevitable.
00:40:15It's there.
00:40:17And it's very strong, I think.
00:40:21Yes.
00:40:26You have been quoted as in an interview that was taken before the trial was filmed that you did not
00:40:33think that you would be the man to film the trial.
00:40:35Tonight, you have said that you took the trial on own practically because it was the least intolerable prospect offered
00:40:42to you.
00:40:43Not least tolerable.
00:40:45Least intolerable.
00:40:46Least intolerable.
00:40:46Least intolerable.
00:40:47No, I didn't find.
00:40:48No, I if I said that I was making a bad joke and I expressed myself badly.
00:40:54The 80 or the most likely you said of the 80 that you were.
00:40:57It was it was the title I liked.
00:41:00Well, anyways, I would say that the main character is somewhat less passive than the characters I've read in Kafka.
00:41:11Taking all that together, do you think that your world vision is close to Kafka's?
00:41:18And do you think that's something to take into consideration for you to make a movie out of his work?
00:41:25No, I didn't follow that. Help me out.
00:41:27Oh, I'm sorry. Let me...
00:41:29What?
00:41:31It's...
00:41:31My world vision close to Kafka?
00:41:33My world vision close to Kafka? Of course not. Not at all.
00:41:37You know, he was a creature born entirely of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of his own people, his own religion,
00:41:49between the two world wars.
00:41:53There's every possible difference between us. We could not possibly have the same vision.
00:41:58Even if our genes were the same, there's no way we could see the world the same at this different
00:42:06moment in the turning of the globe.
00:42:09And therefore, you will say I shouldn't have made the picture and there's no answer to that either.
00:42:16Yes, sir.
00:42:17Can you tell us about your work as a cinematographer in planning the look of this film?
00:42:23My work as a cinematographer.
00:42:25Your work with the cinematographer in planning the look of this film?
00:42:30I never, never sit down and plan with a cinematographer.
00:42:35No storyboards?
00:42:36No, no, no.
00:42:38I had storyboards in Kane only because I was made to.
00:42:43Right.
00:42:44Did you go to the set each day, not knowing what you were going to, where you were going to
00:42:49plop the camera down or in rehearsal?
00:42:51I do, I do.
00:42:52I think, I believe I'm the only director that I know of who does this particular thing, which is probably
00:43:03the worst way to go about it.
00:43:05I didn't begin this way, but I have developed this way.
00:43:09I light a set before I decide where anybody will go with the camera, with the cameraman.
00:43:16And then when the set looks right to me, I put the actors where I think they ought to be.
00:43:21I don't put the actors and then light the set.
00:43:24It's the exact opposite.
00:43:28Because the set is all we have besides the actors and it ought to have a chance.
00:43:34And the only way to give it a chance is to begin with it.
00:43:38That's my theory anyway.
00:43:41How much did the trial cost to make?
00:43:44How much did the trial, well that will never be known.
00:43:48It cost me about $80,000.
00:43:52I never made any money.
00:43:54It cost me about $80,000.
00:43:56In fact, it's cost me a lot more money to be a film director than I've ever made.
00:44:01That's literally true.
00:44:05So let that be an encouragement to you all.
00:44:11In the program notes, it mentions that the film was not as great a critical success in Britain and in
00:44:20America as it was on the continent in Europe.
00:44:23That's wrong.
00:44:25We got wonderful reviews except for the character of Kay.
00:44:31Then my question is tossed out.
00:44:34No.
00:44:34What I was going to comment on was that while I was watching the film, I had a feeling of
00:44:42what I would consider something that comes from American traditions of law and British traditions of law of this can't
00:44:52happen.
00:44:53Exactly.
00:44:54This can't happen.
00:44:56And that I thought that maybe that was a very American thing and a very British thing.
00:45:00It may account.
00:45:01And not a European thing.
00:45:02Yes.
00:45:03Well, it is a very European film.
00:45:05It was made by me really as a European director.
00:45:14It was not, it was, it was made with a Europe, essentially European cast.
00:45:19There was no attempt to stick into it things which would make it seem as though it's also America.
00:45:26Because I don't think there's anything in Kafka which will support that.
00:45:31To me, he is middle Europe, middle Europe, middle Europe and no escape from it.
00:45:37It's part of his prison.
00:45:38It's part of his enchantment.
00:45:43You will use the same actor today or what actor you will choose today to make the trial?
00:45:50To make K?
00:45:52Yeah.
00:45:52Yeah.
00:45:53If I were going to do it again?
00:45:54Right.
00:45:55You mean, given the difference of age?
00:45:59I think, um, Pacino.
00:46:06But then I think Pacino in almost anything I can think of.
00:46:10I'm such a fan of his.
00:46:14Yes.
00:46:14But I think he'd be marvelous, yes.
00:46:16But that's accounting for the difference of age.
00:46:19Of course, Tony's too old now.
00:46:20We're not running him down.
00:46:22Uh, we're, we've got somebody there.
00:46:27The easiest one to reach.
00:46:29Isn't it unfair?
00:46:30All right.
00:46:31With, um, with all the escapist movies that have come out in the last few years,
00:46:36is there some topic that you would like to make into a movie that, to, to retaliate against all of
00:46:42this, uh, BS?
00:46:44To retaliate against, uh, escapist movies?
00:46:48I love escapist movies.
00:46:51I love them.
00:46:52I see, I see no obligation on the part of a, of a, of a, of a filmmaker to, uh,
00:47:00to be serious, uh, or even to be, uh, adult.
00:47:07I think it's very nice to make movies for children.
00:47:10And to make movies for the child, which is in every grown person.
00:47:17My difficulty with, with, uh, science fiction movies,
00:47:21I used to write it for my living, when there was a thing called The Pulps,
00:47:26which only the most elderly of you will even recognize as a word.
00:47:30But I was a pulp writer, and I used to write Lobster Men from Mars and all that.
00:47:36And, uh, I have a certain, uh, notoriety, uh, in the science fiction field.
00:47:42But, uh, it's never been anything I like very much, because I don't believe in the future.
00:47:50That doesn't mean I think we're, everything's going to end at this moment.
00:47:54But I think the future is a total hypothesis.
00:47:57I believe in the present, in so far as we can grab it, and the past.
00:48:02And the, anything about the future, I don't believe.
00:48:05All they've got to do is put on one of those, those, uh, bike helmets, you know, and silver things,
00:48:11and start, uh, off into the world of, uh, of optical printing, and I'm up the aisle, you see.
00:48:19And not because they're bad movies, but because I don't respond.
00:48:23I didn't like westerns until I was about 50 years old.
00:48:28And I began to see them rerun on television.
00:48:30I never went to them as a child.
00:48:32And I, now I adore them.
00:48:35And I might learn to like, uh, uh, you know, zing zing and up in outer space.
00:48:40But it, uh, for the moment it doesn't say anything to me.
00:48:42But I'm in favor of them.
00:48:43I think it's fine.
00:48:45I don't think that if, as long as they are not, uh, violent for the sake of violence,
00:48:50or, or, uh, uh, in any way fascistic in their tone, as long as they partake of a myth,
00:48:59or of the mythic quality which a film can, can call upon,
00:49:05I think it's a marvelous exercise in, uh, virtuosity.
00:49:09And I immensely admire the people who make them.
00:49:18Are there any childlike aspects to the trial?
00:49:21And if you made it again, would you, uh, insert any?
00:49:26Do you think so?
00:49:28Uh, I, I, I have a great difficulty finding them.
00:49:35Yes, I don't think there are.
00:49:36But there, there must be, because, uh, nobody is completely grown up.
00:49:43And no work of art.
00:49:45God, what a terrible thing have I said.
00:49:47No, uh, no movie, no movie, uh, uh, no, no movie is made by a complete adult, you know?
00:50:01First of all, I don't know any complete adults in civilian life.
00:50:05So why, how could they have infiltrated movies, you know?
00:50:09It's, uh, unthinkable, it seems to me.
00:50:13Yes, sir.
00:50:14In regard to that gentleman's last comment, I did find some, uh, a lot of childlike aspects
00:50:19in it, especially in relation to certain kinds of fairy stories, uh,
00:50:22In the trial.
00:50:23In the trial, especially Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz in your big scene when
00:50:26you're booming to Akim Tamaroff.
00:50:29I was wondering if you were thinking of, of that to some degree.
00:50:32Yes, they are, they are, they are, perhaps they're childlike.
00:50:36Uh, perhaps that's the right word for them.
00:50:38I thought of them as, as, uh, simple-minded and, uh, uh, I thought of them as being related
00:50:49to the, to Grimm, you know?
00:50:53And that, of course, takes us to childhood.
00:50:56But, uh, you know, the, the great, the great fairy tales which were invented, uh, by people
00:51:04living in forests, uh, before the electric light, uh, still live on.
00:51:11And our reactions to certain kinds of horror and delight and, uh, even to cruelty, which
00:51:18is in, uh, which is in this picture you've seen, is, I suppose, childlike.
00:51:23Yes.
00:51:24But I hadn't thought of it.
00:51:26I, you, I, you're teaching me things I didn't know.
00:51:31Yes.
00:51:32Having seen Citizen Kane and The Trial, it seems that both films seem to adopt a sort
00:51:37of Brechtian view of man and society or man versus man.
00:51:40And I was very curious, had you ever thought of doing a Brecht piece or did that ever come
00:51:45into your work?
00:51:46Well, uh, uh, uh, Dick Wilson here, who was my partner for a long time, was sitting in
00:51:52the front here, and I were going to do the first production of Galileo.
00:51:57And I worked with Brecht and Lawton on it.
00:52:02And that's as far as I'm prepared to go about, on the subject of what is Brechtian and not.
00:52:08Because I admired him enormously and thought that he was two people.
00:52:14One, a Jesuit-trained, uh, literature, man who wanted all of his works published in a, in a, the best
00:52:29leather and kept forever.
00:52:30And, uh, a dogmatist.
00:52:35And all of that was very superficial.
00:52:39He was essentially a very astute theater man.
00:52:46And his theory was mostly self-defense.
00:52:52Sex, sex, sex.
00:52:54All right.
00:52:56I was wondering, um, what you did to affect really the dizziness of Kay in that movie.
00:53:02Because I felt very closed in, uh, when he was getting dizzy inside that courtroom and when he was trying
00:53:09to escape.
00:53:11You felt very closed in when I was...
00:53:16Dizzy.
00:53:17Hell yeah.
00:53:17Uh, and trying to get out of the, the courtroom.
00:53:23Yes, that was the idea.
00:53:25I'm just wondering how you did that.
00:53:26I would have been awfully sorry if you hadn't.
00:53:28No.
00:53:28What did you do?
00:53:30Oh, how I did it.
00:53:32The Mastery of the Cinnamon.
00:53:38I'll tell you how we did it.
00:53:39We put entirely too many people in, in, in, in the, in the room that there was, you see.
00:53:45It was, we made claustrophobia by overcrowding.
00:53:53Could you, uh, tell us a little bit more about the ending, how you arrived at it?
00:53:57Uh, you told us a little bit why, but how did you come upon the ending as you did?
00:54:03I, I don't know how I came upon it.
00:54:05I wanted, I wanted Kay to make a final gesture even if it was fruitless.
00:54:14Uh, you know, if, if we want to be, if we want to pin a label on it, it's existentialist.
00:54:21Uh, I couldn't bear for him to have his throat split like a pig.
00:54:27And, uh, he throws the, he throws the grenade back.
00:54:32Uh, which is a, which is a way of saying no.
00:54:38And it seems to me, seemed to me that putting a man in a hole,
00:54:43with a bomb, letting him try to throw the bomb out,
00:54:48expressed that as well as I could think.
00:54:51It was as simple a way of stating it as I could think of.
00:54:56And I haven't since then tried to think of a better one.
00:54:59Maybe I, I, I would have.
00:55:01And I, having done it, I...
00:55:04Yes.
00:55:05You're fine.
00:55:06Okay.
00:55:07I have a question about your coverage of scenes.
00:55:10You've been noted for many rather exceptional long takes,
00:55:13such as the boarding house sequence in Kane,
00:55:15or the first sequence in the room in this film.
00:55:18Do you customarily cover everything in a master show?
00:55:21I cover nothing.
00:55:23Okay.
00:55:24Cover nothing.
00:55:25Never cover.
00:55:27So, you mean, when, when we see on the screen a long take,
00:55:31does that mean that that's all you've shot?
00:55:33That's all there is.
00:55:34Okay.
00:55:34That pretty much...
00:55:35I was taught that by Jack Ford.
00:55:37Uh-huh.
00:55:40Because, when, when, when, when Ford finished a movie,
00:55:43he never cut it.
00:55:45You know?
00:55:46He had nothing to do with the editing.
00:55:47He never went into the movieola.
00:55:50He never saw a rough cut.
00:55:52He usually went on a big drunk.
00:55:56And the way he had of protecting himself was to give them nothing to go to.
00:56:02So, if he wanted the, if he wanted the girl to say,
00:56:07yes, Duke, that was all she got to say.
00:56:11She didn't get to listen to all the rest of the scene,
00:56:13or say the dialogue that he expected her not to say.
00:56:17That's all he shot.
00:56:19And he told me to do it, and I followed his instructions.
00:56:24Yeah, with respect to the opening long take,
00:56:26how did you determine exactly when you chose to cut away from it?
00:56:32When to cut away?
00:56:33It's midway through the scene where you begin to break it up into individual shots.
00:56:37What, what determined the change in the handling of the scene?
00:56:39I can't remember.
00:56:42I just, it's a, I, all I have is a dumb answer.
00:56:44I really can't remember.
00:56:45Because I believe it occurs right in the, right in the middle of a section.
00:56:49There's no special reason why the long take necessarily ends at that point.
00:56:52Maybe, maybe there's a mistake there of some kind.
00:56:55I have, you know, I don't know.
00:56:56It seemed to me that we cut only when we went into the other room with a, with a woman.
00:57:05That was the intention.
00:57:06No, or what, I, I don't know this.
00:57:08I, I really don't know when we cut.
00:57:10Short ends of film, maybe.
00:57:12Yeah, that may have been that short end of the film.
00:57:16Yes.
00:57:17As long as we're still talking about,
00:57:19as long as we're still talking about the, uh, long takes,
00:57:22um, I was wondering if that tendency in the films
00:57:26is more out of, uh, your roots in the theater
00:57:29and presenting something in real time,
00:57:31or was it more for an expressionist, uh, reason?
00:57:34No, a long take for me is, uh, depends on two things.
00:57:40A very good technical crew,
00:57:43and there are less of them every day in the world,
00:57:46all over the world, because of television.
00:57:50And very good actors.
00:57:53The longest, I've done very long, I've done,
00:57:56I did the first real length takes that were ever made.
00:58:01And, uh, they ended up not that,
00:58:03because they cut into them in Ambersons,
00:58:05but they were real length.
00:58:06And in Macbeth they are real length,
00:58:08whole real in length.
00:58:10I believe that, uh, it is an enormous help to a cast,
00:58:15if they're good enough, to play the rhythm of an entire sequence,
00:58:20uh, rather than, uh, leaving it to the director entirely.
00:58:25Because the, uh, director has, I always suspect,
00:58:29a little bit too much power in movie making.
00:58:33I think the actor is, uh, in, in film studies,
00:58:38the actor is underrated.
00:58:42The story and the director is, gets a little more credit than is deserved.
00:58:48Because actors keep showing us things we never suspected.
00:58:53Any good director is constantly astonished by something that is cast as giving him, you know?
00:59:01Yes?
00:59:02Maybe I'm an incurable optimist,
00:59:04but I got a lot of hope out of the picture,
00:59:06um, partly out of the character's integrity,
00:59:09and, and that he was kind of a hero in his integrity and things,
00:59:13and he wouldn't stand for things.
00:59:15Did you mean for a lot of hope to come out of that?
00:59:16Well, I'm the kind of optimist that believes in integrity,
00:59:20and in all the, all these, all these virtues which, uh, illuminate Western civilization,
00:59:28and which are only, I hope, temporarily out of fashion.
00:59:32Uh, I don't believe that these, uh, that the, that the, um,
00:59:40physical outlook, uh, of mankind changes virtue.
00:59:49And only, uh, obliges us to behave better.
00:59:54Although that's awfully solemn.
00:59:56That's, uh...
00:59:57Can we do this first here, and then go back?
01:00:00Look at her, she's way down there.
01:00:02Maybe we could pass them on.
01:00:05How about, how about trying to shout it?
01:00:07I'll repeat it.
01:00:08I was, uh, noticing continuity between the, uh, the trial,
01:00:14and a lot of your films dating back to, uh, Citizen Kane,
01:00:18as your view seems to be opposed to some of the best interests of the corporate elite,
01:00:22of which you speak directly about in, uh, the trial.
01:00:27And I was wondering if you thought your personal financial position as a film director
01:00:32is directly related to the fact that a lot of your views and your films throughout these ages
01:00:37have not, uh, exactly expressed their interests.
01:00:49Would anybody like to answer that question?
01:00:54Uh...
01:00:54Well, my personal opinion...
01:00:57Good.
01:00:58Stand up.
01:00:58Let's hear it.
01:01:00Hello!
01:01:01My personal opinion is that it's true, and that, uh, from the...
01:01:06What I've read from your career, although I wasn't alive at the time you first were making films,
01:01:11that, uh, that you've had a tremendous problem with, uh, the press and corporate bureaucracy dating back,
01:01:19you know, since the earliest portions of your career, and that this is continuing today,
01:01:24and that's one of the reasons why you've been unable to finish, uh, some of your more recent projects.
01:01:30Well, the only, uh, there are only two main projects which are unfinished.
01:01:36One is, uh, uh, the other side of the wind, and when I tell you that my partner in that
01:01:42project
01:01:43is the brother-in-law of the late Shah of Iran, you will understand why we are having a little
01:01:49legal difficulty.
01:01:51The other unfinished film is Don Quixote, which was a private exercise of mine.
01:01:57And it will be finished, as an author will finish it, at my own good time, when I feel like
01:02:03it.
01:02:03It is not unfinished because of financial reasons.
01:02:06And when it is released, its title is going to be,
01:02:11When Are You Going to Finish Don Quixote?
01:02:19I appreciate so very much your use of depth of field, especially in this film.
01:02:25My question is, why do you think that it's being dropped in filmmaking today?
01:02:32You never get the same depth of field in color as you do in black and white.
01:02:37And, uh, secondly, a lot of the depth of field in the, in Kane was fake.
01:02:45It was split screen.
01:02:49People, you know, we made up, we said we'd invented a new lens.
01:02:53That was just publicity. No truth with it at all.
01:02:56What was it called, Dick?
01:02:58We had some great word for it, I've forgotten.
01:03:01And it was a fake.
01:03:01Whenever the shot became impossible, we, we did the old split screen.
01:03:06Have you seen that process?
01:03:07That's it. That's it. That's the word.
01:03:10Are you used to using that process in the films that you're working on now?
01:03:14Uh, I expect to use it in, I'm going, I'm about to make two movies.
01:03:20And one will have no depth of field whatever.
01:03:24And, uh, because it's a very romantic story.
01:03:27And depth of field is the enemy of romance.
01:03:32It is.
01:03:33And the other is a modern story about, uh, an American political candidate.
01:03:38And, uh, it'll have as much depth of field as we can get.
01:03:48Somebody that hasn't.
01:03:51Who's nearest the mic?
01:03:55Doesn't seem a fair way to go about it.
01:03:59Anybody who looks for justice in this world?
01:04:02Yes? Got somebody?
01:04:03Yes?
01:04:04Um, your implication or your statement that this film is a dream as you express it,
01:04:09It, uh, seems to say that the conflict within the film is within the main character's mind.
01:04:15Would you care to define the conflict within his mind?
01:04:20Mind?
01:04:22You know, you're all above my head.
01:04:25Do you mean, do you mean...
01:04:29Well, if this film's a dream...
01:04:31Yeah.
01:04:32...obviously it'd be the main character's dream.
01:04:34If you say...
01:04:35No, it's my dream.
01:04:36Okay.
01:04:37Well, if it's your dream, then the conflict is within your mind.
01:04:40What is the, what is the mental conflict in the film?
01:04:43It's not just, it's not just this one man against, against society.
01:04:46It's obviously something that's going on.
01:04:48Yes.
01:04:48I dreamt about him.
01:04:50Okay.
01:04:52I dreamt about him.
01:04:53And it's not a conflict with society.
01:04:57It's a failure to flourish and flower in society.
01:05:10He's not really in conflict with society.
01:05:13He's based...
01:05:14The man is basically a conformist.
01:05:17He's not in conflict with society.
01:05:20But you see that society is killing him.
01:05:24Even though he's not fighting it.
01:05:26He doesn't put up much of a fight.
01:05:29Yes.
01:05:30In the back, way in the back, blue shirt.
01:05:33I'll wait for the mic.
01:05:35Wait for the mic.
01:05:37Excuse me.
01:05:40Okay.
01:05:41Great.
01:05:42He fights for each, as each issue comes along.
01:05:46But you don't see a man in a real aggressive position against society.
01:05:54On that response, I'm wondering then, if you say that he's not really in conflict with his society,
01:06:03whether that makes him...
01:06:06If you say that he's not in conflict with the society...
01:06:09Society is in conflict with him.
01:06:10Okay.
01:06:11Would that make him an autobiographical character for you?
01:06:14No.
01:06:15I don't regard society as in conflict with me at all.
01:06:17At least in terms of your filmmaking career?
01:06:20No.
01:06:21No.
01:06:21I mean...
01:06:22Anybody who goes into films has to be a little crazy.
01:06:27And has to be ready for every kind of disappointment and defeat.
01:06:33And must be grateful for any kind of evening such as this that he can get out of it.
01:06:40It is an almost...
01:06:42It's mathematically almost an impossible medium to succeed in on any sort of important level.
01:06:51And to have achieved enough interest for you who have come into this room is the answer to conflict with
01:07:03society.
01:07:04I'm in conflict with the Reagan administration.
01:07:15I'm not sure in hell as in society.
01:07:21Yes?
01:07:22Or sir?
01:07:23Or what?
01:07:25Who's got a microphone near you?
01:07:28Who's near a microphone?
01:07:30There.
01:07:31Yes.
01:07:32I was wondering why in the prologue to the film...
01:07:35You chose to use the pin screen technique.
01:07:39When there really wasn't that much actual animation.
01:07:43Instead of just using charcoal paintings or something.
01:07:46Oh, this is the attempt.
01:07:48This is the attempt to destroy him.
01:07:51To destroy his faith.
01:07:54To destroy his character.
01:07:56That fairy story is part of the plot against him.
01:08:01We are all told fairy stories.
01:08:03Some of those fairy stories are in TV commercials.
01:08:06Some of them are in presidential addresses.
01:08:08Some of them are in editorials.
01:08:12Some of them are in skywriting.
01:08:16And that prologue, which by the way was made by a couple of wonderful mad Russians living in Paris.
01:08:22And they make their pictures by putting pins into blocks of wood.
01:08:29Little needles.
01:08:30And the needles are at different degrees of depth.
01:08:35So that when a light falls on it, you get the light and shadow from the pins or the needles.
01:08:43That's what those extraordinary pictures come from.
01:08:46And I thought they gave a...
01:08:50In other words, that was the marriage to the Brothers Grimm.
01:08:55And we repeat the story when I attempt again to corrupt him.
01:09:02I'm his chief corrupter.
01:09:04I'm the devil.
01:09:09If the fable is a lie, and what Hassler says are also lies, why do you tell the story at
01:09:18the beginning of the movie in character as yourself?
01:09:27Because the film is contained...
01:09:30The life of this man is contained within a lie.
01:09:34We do not have the kind of novel in which a character leaves a real or benign world and enters
01:09:45a world of nightmare.
01:09:47He was born into it.
01:09:50Conceived in the womb of horror.
01:09:53That's why I begin with it.
01:09:57In other words, he can't escape because that's where he was born.
01:10:03Any more than a baby in Bangladesh can escape dying of starvation.
01:10:11I don't know if this is a meaningful point, but when you were speaking at the beginning of the picture,
01:10:15you are not in character as Hassler.
01:10:17You are playing the voice of Orson Welles, as you were playing at the end of the movie.
01:10:21Now, that's the magician.
01:10:23I'm tricking the audience into believing that that's a point of view.
01:10:29So that in a certain atmosphere, because that kind of trickery is legitimate, I think,
01:10:33I want the audience to feel the doom into which K is born.
01:10:42And to believe that it is there.
01:10:45It's the voice of the devil.
01:10:49But it's not my voice.
01:10:50It's not my dream.
01:10:54Yes.
01:10:55You've made today continuous references to Spain.
01:10:57When you talked about bravery, when you talked about Don Quixote,
01:11:00when you talked about your project as talking to Spain,
01:11:04I think I once read that you wanted to become even a bullfighter.
01:11:08I didn't want to.
01:11:09I was one.
01:11:10I love America.
01:11:11Hard to believe.
01:11:12I did it.
01:11:13I did it by buying the bulls.
01:11:18What I wanted to know is, what does Spain culturally represent for you?
01:11:24Since you seem to have so much love for it.
01:11:26Anybody of my generation, Spain means enormous things you cannot possibly appreciate.
01:11:33Because the Spanish Civil War was the central tragedy of anybody's life who is my age.
01:11:46And it's hard to explain to anybody who's younger, but there it is.
01:11:51And it's part of the subject of the political movie,
01:11:54the contemporary political movie I want to make,
01:11:57which is called The Big Brass Ring.
01:12:03Sir?
01:12:03Are you just as politically engaged and politically minded now as you were in the 30s and 40s?
01:12:09Because at the time you wrote a lot about politics.
01:12:11Yes.
01:12:12I'm not as politically engaged for two reasons.
01:12:17I'm as politically minded.
01:12:18I'm more interested in politics than in anything in the world.
01:12:22Much more interested in politics than I am in movies or art or anything.
01:12:27The truth is that every work of art is a political statement.
01:12:35When you deliberately make it, you...
01:12:39The audience is going to get dizzy.
01:12:42When you deliberately make it, you usually fall into the trap of rhetoric.
01:12:48And the trap of speaking to a convinced audience rather than convincing an audience.
01:12:55I don't believe...
01:12:57I think some movies and some books and, God, some paintings have changed the face of the world.
01:13:07But I don't think it is the duty of every artist to change the face of the world.
01:13:12He is doing it by being an artist.
01:13:15That just automatically goes with it.
01:13:19And he may be doing harm when he doesn't mean to.
01:13:24But, oh God, deliver us from the people who tell us what is right and what is wrong.
01:13:31What is moral and what is immoral.
01:13:34From a political point of view, it's just as inexcusable as from a sexual point of view.
01:13:42It seems to me.
01:13:45Of course we hate the real vices of the world.
01:13:49Of course we hate racism and we hate oppression and all of that kind of thing.
01:13:53It goes without saying.
01:13:54If you didn't agree with that, you wouldn't be here.
01:14:00You wouldn't have sat through the trial.
01:14:01We wouldn't be getting along well together.
01:14:03I'm talking about that majority of people who can read a book and talk about something.
01:14:11Who are in general agreement about what you have to call the basics.
01:14:19Rather than dogmas.
01:14:21Yeah.
01:14:22I was wondering what scene in the trial that you felt...
01:14:27What did you say?
01:14:28Repeat.
01:14:32That's so cruel.
01:14:33It's just like a scene in the trial.
01:14:35Repeat.
01:14:36You know.
01:14:37Again.
01:14:40And, um...
01:14:41In reviewing your prints now, years later, I wondered if you could give us some hint as to what you
01:14:48thought you would change in the trial.
01:14:49What scene that you feel the worst about that makes you cringe the most.
01:14:52And how you would change that to make it a better scene.
01:14:56I would be able to answer that question if I'd ever seen the trial since I made it.
01:15:04But I don't go...
01:15:05I never see my movies after I make them.
01:15:07You don't have any regrets about the trial at all?
01:15:10As if...
01:15:10That's why I don't go to see it.
01:15:16It'd be one long regret, you know.
01:15:19There it is in a can.
01:15:20Forever.
01:15:23Uh...
01:15:23I can't see where our microphone is, so I don't know who has the best fighting chance.
01:15:30Over there.
01:15:33I remember your eulogy to Jean Renoir a couple years ago in the Los Angeles Times, and I was wondering
01:15:39if you'd share with us your feelings on the passing of Abel Gantz a couple days ago.
01:15:47I'm so sorry.
01:15:48I can't...
01:15:48I don't have the...
01:15:49We should...
01:15:50Can you be of Jean Renoir and what you comment on the passing of Abel Gantz?
01:15:55Of Abel Gantz.
01:15:56Of Abel Gantz.
01:15:58Uh...
01:16:04It's a very painful, very painful question for me.
01:16:09Because I have enormous respect for his inventiveness and his originality.
01:16:15But he is not in my top list of directors, and the fact that he died does not change that.
01:16:26Sorry.
01:16:28I made his last picture with him.
01:16:31And my opinion is not from that picture.
01:16:34It's based on Napoleon.
01:16:36He was a man obsessed.
01:16:38He had a magnificent obsession.
01:16:40He had an enormous visual sense.
01:16:43He contributed incredibly to our vocabulary in the cinema.
01:16:49But I'm much more interested in movies about people.
01:16:58And I don't think he made one.
01:17:02Napoleon is a big subject.
01:17:04And it can be dealt with with a cast of 20 people.
01:17:14Excuse me.
01:17:14Sir.
01:17:15Excuse me.
01:17:17Where is...
01:17:18Where is this person?
01:17:20The cast appalled at a meeting, I know.
01:17:23I thought there was someone up here.
01:17:24Uh, an actor friend of mine once told me that he thought
01:17:27the great moments of film was in The Third Man.
01:17:30And the light falls on you when you're revealed.
01:17:32Oh, it is one of the great moments.
01:17:37But remember, I didn't direct it.
01:17:40Carol Reed directed it.
01:17:41And do you know that we went...
01:17:43Do you know that every...
01:17:45That we had that set built on another stage.
01:17:48And every afternoon, for five days,
01:17:52at the end of the day's shooting, we went and shot it again.
01:17:56Until Carol had it exactly the way he wanted it.
01:17:59Because he knew it was the key moment of the movie.
01:18:02My question to you is, what you are casting,
01:18:07what do you look for in actors?
01:18:09And what do you also expect actors to represent?
01:18:13I think that you see...
01:18:15What do I look for in actors?
01:18:17I think acting is like sculpture.
01:18:24Uh, not modeling.
01:18:26The kind where you carve it out of marble.
01:18:28I think that, uh...
01:18:31A performance, when it is...
01:18:33Deserves to be considered great or important.
01:18:37He is always entirely made up of the actor himself.
01:18:44And entirely achieved by what he has left in the dressing room
01:18:48before he came out in front of the camera.
01:18:51In other words, it's what you take away from yourself
01:18:57to reveal the truth of what you're doing that makes a performance.
01:19:04And if an actor doesn't have an ability to do that,
01:19:07I use him only if he has a good face for a few lines.
01:19:11I think I can tell those actors from others.
01:19:13I've made disastrous mistakes.
01:19:16But I think essentially, uh...
01:19:20There is no such thing as becoming another character
01:19:23by putting on a lot of makeup.
01:19:25You may need to put the makeup,
01:19:27but what you're really doing is...
01:19:29is, uh, undressing yourself.
01:19:32And even tearing yourself apart.
01:19:34And presenting to the public that part of you
01:19:39which corresponds to what you are playing.
01:19:42And there is a villain in each of us,
01:19:44a murderer in each of us,
01:19:45a fascist in each of us,
01:19:47a, uh, a saint in each of us.
01:19:50And the actor is the man or woman
01:19:54who can eliminate from himself
01:19:59those things which will interfere with that truth.
01:20:03So I look for those kind of people.
01:20:05And I look for the right face.
01:20:07Because, after all, the camera...
01:20:10the camera is, uh...
01:20:13makes pictures.
01:20:15And it likes people and dislikes people.
01:20:18And you have to try to guess which ones it will like
01:20:20and which it won't.
01:20:21Yes, sir.
01:20:23Did you have any particular reason
01:20:24for updating the trial into the 1960s?
01:20:28Yes.
01:20:28When you made the movie,
01:20:29you made it as a present from the time that you made it?
01:20:31It was a present?
01:20:32I tried to do a rather tricky thing.
01:20:37I tried to make a picture
01:20:38which really existed in its own time,
01:20:41but which didn't abuse the eye of the audience
01:20:45and, uh, not abuse, alienate the audience
01:20:49by becoming a costume picture.
01:20:52But I made it as though it were happening in its time.
01:20:56And the people were accidentally dressed in our own time.
01:20:59That was the intention.
01:21:01Whether it was successful or not
01:21:02is for you to tell me.
01:21:04Uh, sir.
01:21:06I'm working on a project like the trial
01:21:08of some of your other films
01:21:09where you have written and directed.
01:21:12Um, does Orson Welles, the director,
01:21:14ever get in the way of Orson Welles, the writer?
01:21:16Or how closely does one follow the other?
01:21:20I think of it as a happy marriage.
01:21:25No, seriously, no, I don't think so.
01:21:28Uh, I rewrite, when I have an original script
01:21:32and in Shakespeare somebody didn't write it,
01:21:34I am rewriting all the time on the set.
01:21:38And the director never gives me any trouble at all.
01:21:42And, uh, I think, uh, because I feel a sense of obligation
01:21:47to the, uh, to the script
01:21:51which is rather more acute because it's my own.
01:21:55Do you find one more difficult than the other to do,
01:21:58writing or directing?
01:22:00Well, everybody finds writing the hardest thing in the world to do.
01:22:04You know?
01:22:05Hemingway used to describe to me
01:22:07how marvelous it was
01:22:09to have spent a morning when it was all true
01:22:12and it was all coming right and it was all,
01:22:14it was like the greatest lovemaking in the world.
01:22:17It was like a true moment in the arena and all of this.
01:22:20And about a week later, we were forced by our wives
01:22:25to go to the ballet.
01:22:27And I shared with Ernest,
01:22:30and I was his friend so long ago
01:22:32that I called him Ernest.
01:22:34He wasn't even Papa when I first knew him.
01:22:37Uh, I shared with him an intense dislike of the ballet.
01:22:43I only like great ballet dancers at great moments.
01:22:46The rest of the time, nod, you see.
01:22:48And, uh, we were sitting there,
01:22:53and I felt him moving around like this, you know.
01:22:57And he suddenly said to me,
01:22:59Christ, I'd rather be writing.
01:23:13Good, that's it.
01:23:14Good night and thank you very much, everybody.
01:23:18Thank you very much.
01:23:24you
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