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THR's Director Roundtable brings together Guillermo del Toro, Greta Gerwig, Angelina Jolie, Patty Jenkins, Joe Wright and Denis Villeneuve. THR Roundtables air every Sunday on SundanceTV.
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00:00:09Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen Galloway and welcome to Close Up with the Hollywood Reporter
00:00:14Directors. I'd like to welcome Angelina Jolie, Guillermo del Toro, Greta Goig, Patty Jenkins,
00:00:23Joe Wright, and Denis Villeneuve. You're on a lifeboat. You happen to have a DVD or Blu-ray player.
00:00:31Oh my God, are you going to do that? Are you going to take with you to watch? Let's start
00:00:37with you, Guillermo.
00:00:38Oh, why? Because we're the cinephile of the group.
00:00:42Why? Emotionally, I will answer something completely non-prestigious. Yeah. It's because of what it did
00:00:51when I was a teenager, the World Warrior. It completely destroyed my brain. Wow. I thought
00:00:57you were going to say Frankenstein. No, that's the problem. The other one is I would do that. I
00:01:02would take James Wells' Frankenstein. And it's just the World Warrior for me, it's the first time I
00:01:08noticed how the camera worked and moved, and it was a ballet. And I would probably change my mind
00:01:15halfway through the lifeboat journey. I would go, where is Frankenstein?
00:01:19Because you haven't met George Miller. I met, I have worshipped George Miller, and I intend,
00:01:26my sabbatical this year, I'm going to do two two-week interviews, one with Michael Mann and
00:01:32one with George Miller, purely about the craft, to publish them in book form. Wow.
00:01:37Just because I want to talk with them about what we never talk about, which is the craft. Lenses,
00:01:44cameras, why? Why push? Why not push? When crane? When dolly? Why not? You know, to talk
00:01:51about the aspects of our painting that nobody talks about, which is vigor of the trays, amount of
00:01:58paint. We always discuss movies sort of in a dramaturgical way. If you had one question to ask
00:02:03George Miller, what would it be? To whom? If you had one question to ask George Miller,
00:02:07what would it be? Do you like me? I'm also insecure. Dad?
00:02:18Oh God, you're going to jump to me next. I'm like sitting here listening to him the whole time,
00:02:21and I was like, oh my God, so many movies go through my head because there's the, I have all
00:02:26my, I know where I'm going, Powell and Pressburger. Like, I just love that movie. And also like,
00:02:33there's the, the design of it fascinates me because it's like so romantic, but you've never noticed
00:02:38that it was really becoming that romantic. They were so romantic.
00:02:43And so good and timeless. What did it teach you that you then brought to your work?
00:02:48The pocket of emotion of romance, because I love romantic films and I love romantic things.
00:02:54What do you mean by the pocket of emotion? It's, it's the space where you get it and it's sincere
00:02:58and it's real and you just keep it from hitting the ground. It's almost the electricity of what
00:03:03love is to me is it's when fear is mixed with desire and it's, it's just, and so there was
00:03:11something so incredible about that moment. You never saw it coming. And all of a sudden you were,
00:03:15these two people are just sitting there and you're like,
00:03:18those people are meant to be together. Oh my God. And then the storm and that, you know,
00:03:22anyway, they do it in other films too. They do that.
00:03:24Oh yeah. They're, and, and they're so incredible, such incredible filmmakers.
00:03:29Is love in real life ever what it is in film?
00:03:32I think so. I think it's, but I think too often, well, anyway, I have theories about love,
00:03:38but the fear, fear and desire being equaled is the thing. And I think film, film allows that to happen,
00:03:45but that's what it is in real life too. Although we always want to shut it down. And like you,
00:03:49your desire is always to get no upper hand on. And then as soon as you do,
00:03:53it's not so much love anymore. So I think it's like film allows people to feel comfortable
00:03:59extending it longer. That moment or the, or just to talk about romance, I, I'm not choosing this on
00:04:05my boat, but, um, brief encounter that David Lean movie when they're talking and she has that moment
00:04:12where she looks at him, he's describing something and she looks at him and she says,
00:04:15you look like a little boy just then. And then he looks at her and it's like too late.
00:04:20They're already in love and it's too late. And it's like that moment of like,
00:04:24they both realized what had happened and they both knew that the other one knew it and then they have
00:04:29to go. And it's the most, it's like, all of a sudden you're like, Oh no, you and I,
00:04:34now you're already in love. Um, anyway.
00:04:37But your boat, what is your boat?
00:04:39Singing in the rain.
00:04:42It's a nice one.
00:04:43I mean, if you're on a boat,
00:04:46Do you find some artists that you're, um,
00:04:50trying to imitate the best in another work or, or that your job is to actually to, to react against
00:04:55it? You know, there, cause there is that theory, uh, that great artists actually have an,
00:05:01another artist that they react against.
00:05:03Against.
00:05:04Against.
00:05:06Why just one?
00:05:07It would be hard to pick just one that you're reacting against.
00:05:10There's a lot.
00:05:11But I think we're always, I think it's the, I think you're always absolutely
00:05:16studying and paying homage to the people before you and then turning it just a little bit yourself.
00:05:22Like that, that's the whole game to me, you know?
00:05:25But has it happened, sorry to interrupt the boat thing, but has it happened to you
00:05:31that there are directors that you start against and you end up realizing they're your favorite
00:05:36and you go, I love this guy.
00:05:40They're all silent.
00:05:41That means you're the only one.
00:05:42Well, yeah.
00:05:42Yeah, not so much, not so much.
00:05:44There are, there are filmmakers that I aspire to, I have aspired to be like.
00:05:49Personally, you know, very personally, um, it's probably a reaction against my father as well,
00:05:54his work, you know, who was a puppeteer.
00:05:57Oh.
00:05:58And Freud would have something to say about that.
00:06:01Exactly, yeah.
00:06:02He was a puppeteer and he made, and he made very beautiful marionette shows.
00:06:07Wow.
00:06:07He founded the first, um, uh, purpose-built puppet theater in London in 1961.
00:06:13And, um, and, uh, and he's, he, the, one of the burdens of his career was the fact that
00:06:19everyone saw puppetry as being a kind of children's entertainment.
00:06:22And he considered it to be a fine art.
00:06:25Wow.
00:06:25And so a lot of it is a kind of reaction against his perceived failure as well, you know.
00:06:31And, and, and react against it meaning what?
00:06:34Determination, uh, to, to, um, do better.
00:06:38Well, yeah, you're, you're, you're Anna Karenina.
00:06:40Yes, yes, yes.
00:06:41Has a little bit of that.
00:06:43Yeah, no, it's all, it's all about puppetry.
00:06:45It's all about how, you know.
00:06:46Oh, wow.
00:06:47It all comes from puppetry, really.
00:06:48Would you choose the lifeboat film with a puppet or without?
00:06:51Would I choose what?
00:06:52Your lifeboat film with a puppet or without?
00:06:54Oh, without, definitely.
00:06:55It would be what?
00:06:56It would be probably Wings of Desire by Ben Bendis, which I love because of its humanity.
00:07:03And I think on a lifeboat, I might need to be reminded of my love of humanity.
00:07:07So I'd take that one.
00:07:09Maybe even also, um, Brief Encounter as well.
00:07:12Denis?
00:07:12Yeah, yeah, I, um, I would say, I think I, uh, I'm reacting as a, uh, when I was a
00:07:19very,
00:07:20very, right out of film school, I had the, the, I would say the burden of being, uh, uh,
00:07:26liked, I made a short film.
00:07:27I was liked by an old filmmaker at home, which, uh, Pierre Perrault was like, uh, he's a master,
00:07:33who was like doing, uh, documentaries.
00:07:36And in the sixties, it was like a part of the film movement, uh, realistic film movement,
00:07:41where they were the first one to have actually, uh, taking the camera out of the tripod and,
00:07:46and go, uh, with, uh, real people.
00:07:49And they had, they made a fantastic movie, uh, called Paul et Suits du Monde on a small island
00:07:54in Quebec, where they spent three years shooting, uh, uh, uh, fishermen there.
00:07:59And they made a feature film there that was like, it was considered at home as a masterpiece.
00:08:02And he's, uh, and, but for some reason, he, he liked me.
00:08:07And, and, uh, he was very sad that I was going to do fiction instead of documentary.
00:08:13He was like, he didn't, because for him, fiction was like,
00:08:15why are you crying when Catherine Deneuve is crying?
00:08:18It's like, it's fake when you can read, because his movies are very party, very strong.
00:08:21And so I had, uh, all my life, uh, I, uh, I felt like, uh, I owe him a lot,
00:08:26because I learned a lot, uh, working with him.
00:08:28But I always felt that I was, uh, the bad son.
00:08:32The one who went to true fiction instead, because I was attracted to, to fiction.
00:08:37So would you choose his film to take with you as a kind of penance?
00:08:40That's a good, uh, there's, uh, that's, that's, uh...
00:08:43How deep does your guilt go?
00:08:46There's a, there's a, there's a trilogy of, about, uh, that island with, uh,
00:08:50amongst the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, yeah, about, uh, fishermen.
00:08:54And, uh, and, uh, I think, yeah, I might, uh, that could be the answer, yeah.
00:08:58Or, to prepare me for, to death, it would be 2001.
00:09:02It's, uh, my favorite film of all time, I think.
00:09:06And, and, and, uh, uh, one that I discovered through television when I was, uh, uh, young.
00:09:11Not allowed to watch it, because it was too late, and, uh, not for me.
00:09:15But, uh, I, I...
00:09:15So Pitten Fruit are always the best.
00:09:17Yeah, and, and still to this day is one of my, uh, movies I revisit with great joy.
00:09:21It's a very existential journey, you know?
00:09:24I think it would be a good one to prepare me to the, uh, passage.
00:09:27I don't know if you're on a live boat without hope.
00:09:30I don't know.
00:09:30I mean, it's a really interesting question, because it's not like a favorite film, right?
00:09:33Mm-hmm.
00:09:33It's, it's like if you were at the end of your life, and you had something, and this
00:09:36only thing that was going to come.
00:09:37It's a horrible question.
00:09:38That's the question.
00:09:39Sorry.
00:09:40It's more the film that prepares you for death, or prepares you for, or, or, or, or helps you
00:09:45through solitude, so.
00:09:46You still choose a role for her.
00:09:48So, which actually is a bit of a survivalist, though.
00:09:51Like, it's, so it's interesting.
00:09:53So I really, I don't know, I don't know if I'd want to be watching movies on your
00:09:58I think it'd be important to not go crazy, but I mean, I love, I mean, you know, I love
00:10:02Sidney Lumet, so I love The Hill, and I love The Hill because I love seeing, and maybe it would
00:10:06help on the lifeboat to see something just about how you manage through surviving against all odds.
00:10:12You know, I, I love Milos Formas we were talking about.
00:10:15I love Amadeus.
00:10:16I love Cuckoo's Nest.
00:10:17I love the idea of Cuckoo's Nest might just make me feel full of a certain level of humanity,
00:10:22but also, uh, maybe I'd be feeling like I'm going a bit crazy on my life raft, and I want
00:10:28to like, you know, connect to something that feels, um, alive.
00:10:34But my, my real answer is I think I, I don't know.
00:10:37It's hard with film does take you out of yourself, and I sometimes am somebody that can't listen to
00:10:43music because I, I get too influenced by it.
00:10:45I'm the same.
00:10:46You know, are you?
00:10:46Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:10:47Like I can't, I actually have none, and people think I don't like music, but if I hear certain
00:10:50music, I'll get dark, or I'll get light, or I'll start to feel.
00:10:53You mean emotionally?
00:10:54Emotionally, so I don't, I, I tend to not regularly watch film because I.
00:10:59You don't, huh?
00:11:00I get very swayed by things, I, it, it affects me, so.
00:11:05Mm-hmm.
00:11:05Does the actual process of directing affect you too?
00:11:08Yes.
00:11:09I mean, you did a very, um, heavy emotional drama, uh, in Cambodia.
00:11:14Mm-hmm.
00:11:14How did that impact you personally?
00:11:18Well, very much, and I think like for everybody here, and, and, uh, for those of us who acted and
00:11:22spend less time on a film, when you, when you direct, it's going to be years of your life, and
00:11:26it's going to,
00:11:26and you're only, I think you're only going to be doing it well if you, if you need to do
00:11:30it,
00:11:31and you need to do it well.
00:11:32In Cambodia, this is a subject matter that has been debated.
00:11:35This history is not known internationally.
00:11:37It's not known, and it's something that has made me upset when I was in country.
00:11:40I've seen how it affects the people, and I have a son who deserves to know his history, and, and
00:11:46I
00:11:46want him to know what his birth parents went through, and I want this country to speak, but did I
00:11:50feel I
00:11:51had the right to be the one doing that?
00:11:52It was hard every day to know if I was good enough, or the right person to do it,
00:11:57but I did feel so honored to be welcomed into another culture, and allowed to witness, and bear
00:12:03witness, and encourage, and share, and really put forward their history as, as this is what it will be,
00:12:10and this is what many of the young people, 70% of Cambodians are under 30, so this is how
00:12:15they're going to know their history.
00:12:47What changed in you in the course of making that film?
00:12:49We had this day where we were going to blow up, it was children, it was at night, and then
00:12:54suddenly we were going to have explosions, and we were all going to run, and the kids, and, and,
00:12:58and I got there with the crew saying, okay, we've got X amount of hours with the kids,
00:13:01we've got to get that thing up, we'd hardly have anything, you know, the logistics are impossible,
00:13:04you get the wire up the thing, we, and it blows, and, and, and it's not big enough,
00:13:09we've got to do it again, where are the kids, and, and suddenly somebody said,
00:13:12they can hear children crying in the jungle, and we didn't have enough lights to light up the jungle,
00:13:18and there are landmines in the country, and I said, this isn't so, gather the children,
00:13:21we've got to count the kids, and we counted the kids, and everybody was there, and then somebody
00:13:26came up to me, and they said, we're Buddhist, people died on this land, they're hearing crying,
00:13:32because it's the spirit of the ancestors, and you're, you're, you blew a tree, and so we stopped
00:13:39production, and I got incense and water, and got on my knees with the rest of them, and we took
00:13:47the
00:13:47time to think about the people who had been there before, what we were doing, and just stopped
00:13:53everything, and then carried on, and it went easily and beautifully, I was there just taking, and making,
00:14:00and moving, and shaping, instead of just understanding, really, my place in, not just in the country,
00:14:07or in a moment as a director, but as a human being, in a moment with other human beings,
00:14:13making something. When I had, in the past, a similar experience, but a smaller scale, I was,
00:14:19I did a movie in the Middle East, in the, about the war of Lebanon, being a, and I was
00:14:26just wondering,
00:14:27being a foreigner, coming there, how did the, the people, how did they felt about you making a movie?
00:14:33How did they feel about you first? Me, the thing is that what moved me is that I felt that
00:14:39there,
00:14:40there was a lot of willing to share, they were happy to share their stories, they were happy that
00:14:45we were talking about it, they were very, for them it was a very positive experience from what I received
00:14:52as a director, so I felt welcome talking about the story about other people, even if I was like a,
00:14:59technically a tourist going there. Have you ever felt not welcome?
00:15:06I made a movie once about Montreal, in Montreal, in my hometown, about the school massacre,
00:15:16and it was a very, it's a, it was a, one of the first one that happened, happened in a
00:15:21story,
00:15:22and it was a misogynist, it was a, a young man, crazy, that went to a school, polytechnic, and killed
00:15:29only women, and, and, and, and that was like very horrifying in 1989, and I decided to make a
00:15:37movie about that, and people thought I was, because personally I had things to say about that, and a,
00:15:43a lot of, I would say anger, and sadness, and strong emotions, and it was a trauma, and sometimes
00:15:49trauma, I think, cinema can be very powerful, to revisit a trauma, and to try to let emotions
00:15:56out of it, and, and, and, but I felt resistance, again, from my community at the beginning,
00:16:02a lot, I was not very welcome to make that movie at the beginning, I must say, yeah, in my
00:16:07hometown.
00:16:08Were you welcomed by Warner Brothers, when you made Wonder Woman? You're entering the studio system,
00:16:13you've done independent films?
00:16:14I was, I mean, my story to get in there was a long story, because I had first talked to
00:16:22them
00:16:22about it in like 2005, and then there were like so many different chapters of why they were and
00:16:27when they weren't going to make it, and so it's funny, it's funny how I feel about these kinds of
00:16:32movies, these big tentpole movies, I feel like it's more like dating than it is like, hey, buy my pitch,
00:16:38it's serious, it's a serious commitment, you are seriously signing on to the same thing,
00:16:44so I had almost done other big movies, and had seen that very little disagreements can mean, wow,
00:16:51I'm not the right director for what you want to do after all, and so when I was meeting with
00:16:55them
00:16:55at that point, I was really cautious, and at first, when I first was meeting with them,
00:17:01they wanted to do something different, and I was like, ah, it's a shame, but I don't think we are
00:17:05the right match, you have to do what you have to do, and that's not quite right, by the time
00:17:09that
00:17:09they came back, and they had realized they wanted to do something which was very similar to what I'd
00:17:13been saying I wanted to do for a long time, it was a much different conversation, because then they
00:17:18were like, we really want to do that now, and I was like, you really want to do this, because
00:17:22we only
00:17:22have X amount of time, and that's exactly what I would want to do, yes, so I was extremely welcome,
00:17:28you know, like I was extremely welcome, I was very supported, because all of that was behind us.
00:17:59It's the biggest advice I ever give young filmmakers, is like pick the right projects, and take it
00:18:05seriously, because you don't want to end up in a bad marriage, you don't want to be like idealistic,
00:18:10and say I could change their minds, maybe you can't, you know, and if you can't, then you're on that
00:18:15ride, so it was a wonderful experience, I don't think it's always that way, but because of the fact
00:18:21that there was such clarity about what we were doing, going in, and then it was kind of, you know,
00:18:25that I just did it.
00:18:27In 25 years, I've had one single bad creative experience, it was 1997 at Miramax, Dimension,
00:18:34and never again, I learned a great word, which was no, which was the same in every language,
00:18:41and the thing that I agree completely with what you're saying is, the small disagreements,
00:18:50if you're not frontal and immediate, it's like adopting a baby tiger, a year later, that baby
00:18:56tiger eats your face, it's like a baby tiger.
00:19:01I was just raising a flag about this recently, when we were talking about different artists to
00:19:05sign on together for the next thing, and as some little thing came up, and one person said one
00:19:10thing, and I was saying something different, and everybody was like, but you guys are saying the
00:19:13same thing, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not, no, we're not, wait, let's get
00:19:16into this right
00:19:17now, and we ended up deciding not to work together, this person and I, because I was like,
00:19:21but if you really mean that, if you're always going to want to go that way, and I'm always going
00:19:25to
00:19:25want to go this way, let's talk about it right now, because let's not find ourselves on a
00:19:30battlefield down the road, those things are serious, that strategy is important, because you're always
00:19:36going to hit those things anyway, but yeah, those tiny things turn into giant tigers, because people
00:19:41mean what they mean, you know? Yeah, and down the line, when given the opportunity to
00:19:47duke it out, they will duke it out, like it starts super cordial, and then later, you know,
00:19:53it's brutal. This was over which film? It was Mimic, and we started, I mean, there was a fantastic moment
00:20:02in which, I mean, for those that, millions of people that haven't seen it, it's about
00:20:07giant insects, and there was a moment in which we developed the creature beat by beat over the
00:20:14course of a year and a half, something like that, I do the first test, and I get a phone
00:20:18call saying,
00:20:19it looks like a giant bug, I said, it is a giant bug, and I went, oh god, this is
00:20:25going to be
00:20:26interesting, and it was, it was, it's horrible, the myriad of horrible anecdotes that come from that
00:20:32movie, you know, but I learned one thing, and it was an epiphany. I said, I lost this battle, that
00:20:39battle,
00:20:40but I look at the images, and I look at the camera work, and I say, those I won completely.
00:20:46It looks like I wanted it, the language of camera is the way I wanted it, and I learned,
00:20:51okay, there's, there's a realm that is seldom accessed, both in analysis and creation,
00:20:56which is the visual. I mean, it's funny, we are in an audiovisual medium, and we seldom talk about
00:21:02that, and, and, but that's why I'm so fixated in content, I'm forming one and the same, because I
00:21:09had that horrible epiphany after. So thanks to Miramax, you. No, I learned, I learned a lot from,
00:21:15you learn more from the horror than you learn from the success.
00:21:32What did you learn from directing your first film? Well, I learned that I could
00:21:36do it. I mean, I think I, I thought I could do it, but I think you don't quite know
00:21:40until you're on the
00:21:41other end of something like that, that you can do it, um, completely. You sort of have to take the
00:21:47leap and hope that there's a parachute attached. I mean, one part of my experience of being, of
00:21:53learning how to direct was being on film sets as an actor. Also, in particularly early films I made,
00:21:59I, I wrote them and produced them and held the boom and held the camera and did everything,
00:22:04because there was nobody to do anything, because we had no money. But I, I've been so lucky to be
00:22:10on
00:22:10different sets with different directors and DPs and all of these different people who took me
00:22:15under their wing and explained to me what they were doing, how they were lighting a scene where
00:22:19they were putting the booms, how they were, how we were, how we were actually getting it.
00:22:24I always hear about guys whose parents got them little Super 8 cameras and they started making films
00:22:30and I, it not, I mean, I'm sure my parents would have gotten me them if I had asked for
00:22:35it, but it
00:22:35wasn't something that you gave girls as much, but what I did was put, put on plays with everyone I
00:22:42knew and I would put on plays with my friends. It's still a very male oriented business.
00:22:47Was, did that make it hard to get a very female centered film off the ground with Lady Bird?
00:22:53Yes. How hard was it to get off the ground? Well, I mean, it's a female centered film that is
00:22:59not
00:23:00important with a capital I that people could identify as, oh, this is, this is worthy.
00:23:05This is Wonder Woman. Or, or, or just that it didn't, it's about people's lives in a quotidian way.
00:23:12It's not about something so large and it, I feel like as a writer and as a director, I'm picking
00:23:19up little
00:23:20tiny pebbles. I wish that you liked me. Of course I love you.
00:23:29But do you like me?
00:23:35I want you to be the very best version of yourself that you can be.
00:23:41What if this is the best version?
00:23:49When I was taking the script around and, um, and because it's a love story between a mother and a
00:23:54daughter, I remember every, every man I talked to who was raised with sisters or who had a daughter
00:24:01said, I know this, that's my wife and my daughter, or that's my sister and my mom.
00:24:06And guys who didn't, they said, I don't do women fight like this.
00:24:10Oh, wow.
00:24:11It's like, oh, you've never seen this.
00:24:15Because why would you know that this is what this relationship is?
00:24:20That being said, I mean, I did, once it happened, I never, I was not asked to change what the
00:24:25script
00:24:26was at all. I knew that the, when things came up that were problems or difficulties or something went
00:24:33awry, that that was not a deviation from the path, that that was the path. And I had that. And
00:24:40that,
00:24:41for me, that was very helpful because it didn't feel like, oh God, the whole thing is going to
00:24:45fall apart. It was like, well, that is, that is what it's going to be. We're going to lose this
00:24:49location and this person, it won't work. And we're going to have to move this around. But it didn't,
00:24:54in that way, I didn't have a moment of like, I had no idea that this was going to happen.
00:24:58I had a much,
00:25:00I think more strong sense of the problems are the road.
00:25:05That's, that's what it's saying is the obstacle is the path.
00:25:09Yes.
00:25:10And always the obstacle gives you solutions that you find far more interesting and far more crazy.
00:25:15It's there for a reason.
00:25:16Yeah.
00:25:16How did that happen on Darkest Hour?
00:25:18A better example would be the, the, the, the, the steadicam shot in Atonement,
00:25:22which, uh, during the battle.
00:25:25Yeah.
00:25:25On Dunkirk Beach, which was purely a result of the fact that we only had one day to shoot that
00:25:32scene.
00:25:32Yeah.
00:25:33And with Darkest Hour, um, the film was set in May 1940, uh, which was the hottest May on record.
00:25:41Oh.
00:25:41And we were shooting in December and January.
00:25:43Um, and so we had to find a way of kind of expressing the heat, um, uh, and the claustrophobia.
00:25:51And so Bruno de Bonnell and I came up with this aesthetic lighting wise, which is all about very,
00:25:57very dark shadows and then these extremely hot spots of light coming through the window.
00:26:02Um, which created the atmosphere of heat and also the claustrophobia.
00:26:08And so there are very, very few exterior, um, shots in the movie.
00:26:11You've wanted this your entire adult life.
00:26:13No, since the nursery.
00:26:16What do the public want me?
00:26:17It's your own party to whom you'll have to prove yourself.
00:26:19Ah, I'm getting the job only because the ship is sinking.
00:26:22It, it, it's not a gift, it's revenge.
00:26:25Let them see your true qualities, your courage.
00:26:27My poor judgment.
00:26:29Your lack of vanity.
00:26:30Yeah, my iron will.
00:26:31Your sense of humour.
00:26:32Ho, ho, ho.
00:26:35Now go.
00:26:36Go.
00:26:37Be what?
00:26:39Be yourself.
00:26:41What was the biggest problem you had solved on Blade Runner, Dindy?
00:26:45For me, um, I will, uh, say that the toughest thing as a director is like, because, uh, technically,
00:26:50it's, things are, you can do it.
00:26:52You can do everything.
00:26:53The only thing that I cannot do is to act for the actor.
00:26:57And, and, and, and casting is like massively important, but the first take, first, you know,
00:27:06you listen, and, and, uh, 99% of the time it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, uh, Christmas.
00:27:11Mm-hmm.
00:27:12But what happens if it goes, it goes, it goes, it goes wrong.
00:27:15First scene, that's my biggest nightmare as a director.
00:27:18And did it happen on Blade Runner?
00:27:19It, it, uh, it happened at one moment that, uh, I said, okay, I was wrong.
00:27:25And, and, and, uh, I was not able to bring that artist where it needed to be.
00:27:30At the end of the day, it's okay, because we, I push, I push, I push, I push, I push.
00:27:36And, and, and I was able to, but it was, uh, that was, that, that for me is the nightmare.
00:27:40Before I directed, I mean, I, I'd been, I'd been secretly taking notes a long time,
00:27:46but then I actually had a real phone conversation with, with a lot of directors.
00:27:49I know who I've both worked with and just people I know.
00:27:52And I got direct advice that were, some of it was very specific.
00:27:57Like, someone told me, if you don't like a shot, just start turning off lights,
00:28:01because you probably have too many lights on.
00:28:03And it gives you a second to figure out what you don't like about it, which I've, I've used.
00:28:08But somebody told me, anyone is replaceable if they're hurting the movie.
00:28:12Mm-hmm.
00:28:13And you just, if they're hurting it, it's, and I agree with you.
00:28:18You have to.
00:28:18Yeah, on a big movie like that, I learned that same thing and saw that.
00:28:22It's a massive organism.
00:28:24And you have to be a leader.
00:28:25It's so huge.
00:28:26You have to be a manager in a whole other level of, you have to identify where the problem is.
00:28:31It's not a true.
00:28:32And, and deal with it.
00:28:33Because you can't, you can't have, there's not enough.
00:28:36The problem with what?
00:28:36I mean, I had various little ones, but I had like various little interesting, massive group
00:28:42dynamics where I could, where I was like, this whole group of people works together great.
00:28:47And now all of a sudden, they're all complaining about each other.
00:28:50Where's the, oh, it's you, it's you, you're, you have a problem.
00:28:55And I tried to fix the problem and I couldn't fix the problem.
00:28:58And then I had to get rid of that person, you know, and it's, but it's the same thing.
00:29:01I was like, I understand why you're doing it.
00:29:03And I feel for you as a person and all of that, but you're a destructive personality
00:29:07in the midst of hundreds and hundreds of people who need to go to work every day.
00:29:11And we just don't have time.
00:29:12I think one of the things that is the hardest thing about being a director that, that I
00:29:16have is an, and a good lesson at one point for me, there's that moment where you,
00:29:20at least when you're beginning and you really want to, because you do, it's like a family
00:29:23and you want to keep everybody in the family happy.
00:29:25And you want everybody in the family to take care of each other.
00:29:28And you feel very much, especially if you're a producer, director and everything, but really
00:29:32that you are the one who's kind of being, you know, taken to places ahead of the family.
00:29:37So you better be responsible to everybody, make sure everybody's okay.
00:29:40And I think one of the hardest things is also your instinct to, when you have to push your
00:29:47family, right?
00:29:48So whether it's, you need that one extra hour or, you know, the actress or actor is in
00:29:54so much pain because they don't want to have to keep doing this, or this person is this,
00:29:57or, or you're going to have to push your crew and you know, they'd love to say, come on,
00:30:01just let us go home.
00:30:02Or, you know, or not even the length, but even just the, the way you have to push them
00:30:05to say, this is not going to be easy.
00:30:07We're going to have to do this and they're not going to like it.
00:30:10And I think when I first started, I was a little bit more aware of not wanting to upset.
00:30:14I wanted everybody to feel like this is the greatest experience and the greatest days of our life.
00:30:19Right. And then I realized, you know what, at the end of the day, there can be days that they
00:30:25don't like me because I'd rather them not like me and not have wasted five months of their life.
00:30:32Because I want them to be proud of the end result.
00:30:34I know that real leadership is, is pushing people to do something that at the end of the day,
00:30:41they're happy they did and they're proud of and they're happy to be a team and work as a team,
00:30:45not to try to...
00:30:46You're not there to make friends.
00:30:47Not there to make friends. And that's a very hard thing.
00:30:49That was, that's a...
00:30:50But also trying to give people a sense of ownership of the film.
00:30:53Always, always.
00:30:54Like so that it's not my film, it's our film.
00:30:57Yeah, it's our film.
00:30:57And that even, you know, the caterers have a sense of ownership and excitement about what they're engaged in.
00:31:05And if you then manage to create that sense of ownership, then they're willing to go...
00:31:10They want to work harder.
00:31:11Yeah, right.
00:31:11And then they help you.
00:31:14What was the worst day for you?
00:31:16There's been so many.
00:31:1825 years. It's been 25 years and I've gone through basically everything.
00:31:23Movies that are 19.5 or 195 million.
00:31:26And I've gone through all those...
00:31:29On Shape of Water, I know you had...
00:31:30Shape of Water, I'll tell you one that is...
00:31:32Sandstorms and...
00:31:33Everything, everything.
00:31:34Yeah.
00:31:34I had a first day that I cannot speak about.
00:31:39First day.
00:31:40So speak about it anyway.
00:31:41Second day, worse.
00:31:43And it went of 65 days, we had 64 really difficult days.
00:31:48And one day was easy.
00:31:50But we have a great example.
00:31:52There's a moment where Michael Shannon parks in front of the cinema, stops, runs up the stairs.
00:32:00We do a Texas switch because the staircase was fake.
00:32:03And I have another guy dressed like him on the other staircase, which was separate.
00:32:07And I do a Texas switch and he goes to the door and I said, I got it.
00:32:11And my DP says, like all DPs always say, get another one.
00:32:17I said, I got it.
00:32:17He says, well, take two.
00:32:19I go, okay.
00:32:20And we had scouted and there was a great crane I wanted to do.
00:32:24A techno, a post was on the way I couldn't do.
00:32:27I said, no, let's move to the crane.
00:32:29He says, no, get another one.
00:32:30We got to the second one and this is one of those days.
00:32:33Many things happened that day.
00:32:35This is one of them.
00:32:36Shannon parks the car, gets out.
00:32:38The car stays on drive.
00:32:39It's an old car, 1962.
00:32:41Same drive.
00:32:42The car continues going.
00:32:43Michael runs to try to stop the car.
00:32:45The car drags Michael in the middle of the rain.
00:32:49Michael lets go.
00:32:50The car hits the first post.
00:32:52A post destroys it.
00:32:54Shower of sparks goes for the second post is coming straight for video assist.
00:32:59I'm there and everybody says, run.
00:33:01Now, I've never run for anything in my life.
00:33:07I'm 53, I've never, I don't know what that is.
00:33:11And I go, I'm going to die.
00:33:12And the car stops on the second and final post, which is anchored to the ground.
00:33:17And everybody's in despair and horrified.
00:33:19Michael is, oh, what has happened?
00:33:21And I go and say, now I can make my shot.
00:33:24The post.
00:33:28So was that the one good day?
00:33:30It was.
00:33:32That day turned good.
00:33:33But there were many, many.
00:33:35The first day was brutal.
00:33:36That's crazy.
00:33:37What was the toughest day for you on Wonder Woman?
00:33:40Oh, I think it was, I mean, oh, you know what?
00:33:43It pretty much was that, it's funny, I really believe in shooting on location.
00:33:48And so at the end of the movie, there's a farewell between Diana and Steve Trevor that I insisted upon
00:33:57shooting on a real air base in the middle of the winter in the weather.
00:34:01Because I just know what happens on set.
00:34:03What happens on set is you end up turning the fan down because it's messing up sound and then people
00:34:08are standing and it's just not going to be the same.
00:34:10And it had these incredible, you know, these air base had these incredible bunkers for all the planes.
00:34:15And shot on film, I knew that we would never quite know what that would look like if we tried
00:34:19to replicate it digitally in post.
00:34:22So it was shooting in the middle of the night in the cold with Gal Gadot in a Wonder Woman
00:34:28costume.
00:34:29And it was such an important performance.
00:34:31And it was exactly what you were talking about where it was like, and I go through this all the
00:34:37time where I'm sort of like, there's something almost parental about being the director sometimes where you're like, I have
00:34:44to be the one.
00:34:44No, I don't want to be here either.
00:34:46I want to go home too.
00:34:47But I have to be the one that makes this work because this is really important to the whole movie.
00:34:52And if we don't do this, then all of us will have done all of this other work and it
00:34:56won't have paid off.
00:34:57So I have to be the one.
00:34:59You've got to go back out there again.
00:35:00Doing it to actors when they're cold and uncomfortable is very difficult.
00:35:03But it was a hard scene to get and it was freezing cold and Gal was literally nearly like losing
00:35:11it.
00:35:11Like she was like shaking and it was like, we got to go.
00:35:14We got to do it.
00:35:15Take the coat off, you know, and she's standing there and Chris is tired.
00:35:19And I think that was the hardest day just because I really hated doing it to everybody.
00:35:23But it was just really mattered.
00:35:25And I knew that if we tried to do pickups later, it was never going to be the same.
00:35:28Denis, on Blade Runner, what were you most pleased about in that film?
00:35:33Actors.
00:35:34I'm very proud of the actors.
00:35:37And it's more specifically the young actresses.
00:35:40There are four of them that did, I think, a fantastic job.
00:35:43And Ryan.
00:35:43Ryan was my muse.
00:35:46Where were you?
00:35:48Coantham?
00:35:53Must have been brutal.
00:35:56I don't take him here.
00:35:59Well, take a look inside.
00:36:03Mr. Morton, if taking you in is an option.
00:36:12I would much prefer that to the alternative.
00:36:14Something that deeply touched me was Harrison Ford because I felt that he was, you cannot fake that excitement.
00:36:24I felt he was really sincerely happy to be there with us working at 5 a.m. in the dark,
00:36:31in the water.
00:36:32I felt his passion alive.
00:36:34I felt that his fire was still there.
00:36:36And you know what?
00:36:37Harrison Ford was one of our childhood heroes.
00:36:40And I deeply loved him.
00:36:41And there's a saying, never meet your heroes.
00:36:43And that was, for me, it just increased my admiration and my love for him.
00:36:50Because sincerely, he's a committed artist, engaged.
00:36:54And he was very generous.
00:36:56So, honestly, that's what I would say.
00:36:58Among your heroes, filmic heroes, who have you met who surprised you or was different than you'd expected?
00:37:08Can you get back to me?
00:37:10You know I can't do that.
00:37:12I was different than I expected.
00:37:13Or any of you.
00:37:14Yeah.
00:37:15I don't know.
00:37:16I mean, maybe because I grew up in this business a little bit with my father, I early on realized
00:37:22how average everybody is in this business.
00:37:24You know, I grew up thinking, you know, there's nothing unbelievably special or unbelievably different about these people, except for
00:37:34sometimes they think they are unbelievably special.
00:37:37So, I think it's just whether you're pleasantly surprised that there are other just great people, you know?
00:37:43I mean, I tend to find that when you meet people who's a great actor, like a Daniel Day-Lewis,
00:37:47he's a great person.
00:37:48And I don't know if it's a coincidence that some people who come across a certain way or make films
00:37:53with a lot of humanity are people with a lot of humanity, you know?
00:37:57Then they're really complex artists that maybe are complex people, but their work's really interesting.
00:38:02And so, I don't know.
00:38:04I think I just, I kind of see it all kind of for what it is.
00:38:07I'm happy to be able to be a part of it.
00:38:09But I also have a kind of, I just see everybody at this table as like moms, dads, people, women.
00:38:17And like, you know, and then what comes out of us is what, you know, is the best it can
00:38:23be.
00:38:23Has anybody given you a piece of advice that you carry with you in filmmaking?
00:38:28Shoot the wide shot first.
00:38:32I can forget to do that as well.
00:38:34And then I just shoot myself into a corner.
00:38:36And I go, oh, I should have just done the wide shot.
00:38:39Do you storyboard?
00:38:39Do you do a lot of, because you're so visual and your shots are amazing.
00:38:43One of the things that surprises me when I meet, like, great actors is that they want direction.
00:38:48Oh, yes.
00:38:48And I'm always surprised.
00:38:50You know, Gary Oldman, for me, was a hero like Harrison Ford was to you when I was growing up.
00:38:55And I thought, well, I'll just have Gary will be on set and he'll do his thing.
00:38:59And I'll just arrange everything around him.
00:39:02And actually to discover that someone like Gary wants direction.
00:39:05What was the fundamental direction you gave him?
00:39:09Energy, pace, the rhythm of his character.
00:39:13I talk a lot about rhythm when I'm directing.
00:39:16I find that the film is most similar to music than any other art form.
00:39:21And so I'm always talking about rhythm and almost conducting a scene so that they know where the rise is
00:39:31and where the fall off is and so on.
00:39:33And it's almost, yeah, it's almost like conducting rather than going, you know, talking about backstory and stuff like that,
00:39:40which I think is fairly useless.
00:39:41Did you talk a lot about Churchill himself?
00:39:45No, we talked about this character who, in my mind, was entirely fictional.
00:39:50I wasn't really ever interested in the icon of Churchill.
00:39:53And, you know, one of the problems with making British period films is that they're generally about posh people.
00:39:58I don't identify with people like that.
00:40:01Well, Churchill's posh.
00:40:01Very posh.
00:40:03But so I try to just find the humanity in them.
00:40:06I'm not keen on method actors.
00:40:08I'm a bit of a method director in the sense that I have to feel their emotions.
00:40:12And I have to identify very, very closely with the character and see the world as they see the world.
00:40:19And so really those characters are always an expression of myself.
00:40:22In fact, every character is an expression of myself because that's how I come to understand them.
00:40:27And then I can love them because without understanding, you can't love.
00:40:31And so I try to kind of figure out how, you know, looking for the similarities, finding out how Churchill
00:40:40and I are the same.
00:40:42Which is ridiculous.
00:40:44Ridiculous.
00:40:45But, you know, I mean, for me, the film is about doubt, right?
00:40:47It's about self-doubt and it's about, which is, you know, I just had an experience of extreme self-doubt.
00:40:55When was that?
00:40:56I made a film called Pan and it lost about 100 million and it was universally slated by the critics.
00:41:04And I thought, I don't understand this world anymore and I don't know if I want to be a part
00:41:09of it.
00:41:10But you take it that deep.
00:41:11Yeah.
00:41:11You do take it that deep.
00:41:13I mean, people think that, you know, you move on and if you're worth anything, you don't move on.
00:41:19You're going to a deep, dark place.
00:41:22Because our filmmaking is an expression of our soul.
00:41:25Yeah.
00:41:25I mean, it's who we are at the most fundamental, you know.
00:41:29It's the closest thing to my essence there is, really.
00:41:36Because I'm not very good at, you know, expressing that in other ways.
00:41:39I'm not very good at talking to people.
00:41:41I'm not very good at dinner parties.
00:41:42I'm not very, you know, that's where I allow myself to be revealed.
00:41:48But you must have things that you, like, are critics or didn't like and it almost made you, if you're
00:41:53sure and you loved it, you know, there's the noise of the crowd and then there's the singular voice.
00:41:57And is there that, too?
00:41:59Have you had that?
00:42:00When has criticism made you feel stronger about your convictions?
00:42:03I had that on a film I did By the Sea, which I don't think is a perfect film by
00:42:08any means.
00:42:08But I had a moment when I put it forward.
00:42:13Even when we were making it, people were saying, well, people aren't going to understand this or this isn't going
00:42:15to be taken this way or this is more like this thing and that's not going to be what people
00:42:19want or they're not going to.
00:42:20But I think I needed, after I'm broken, to just be an artist.
00:42:25It was like a talk of myself, like, don't lose your sense of you've got to do what you've got
00:42:31to do your best and do what you feel and don't become safe.
00:42:34Don't become safe from this.
00:42:35If you become safe from this, you're never going to do anything worth anything, you know, and find some kind
00:42:40of, find your resolve in this moment and don't, you know, and turn it into, I don't know.
00:42:47Yeah.
00:42:48Patty, have you ever had a moment where you lost your resolve?
00:42:52Felt like leaving the business?
00:42:54All the time.
00:42:55I mean, no, I really don't, but I always am.
00:42:58Like, I find it's funny because it's interesting.
00:43:01I never decided to be a director.
00:43:03It was never like, I want to be a director.
00:43:04It's all the trappings of being, I have to be a director to do what I want to do, which
00:43:09is that I was at painting school and my first love was music and I was always listening to music
00:43:14and then it finally came together when I took an experimental film course.
00:43:16And I was like, that's it.
00:43:18I couldn't get enough emotion into painting and I didn't want to play music, but that was my thing.
00:43:23And then finally I was like, whoa, I love it.
00:43:25So I had to become a director to do it.
00:43:28I don't, it never like looked at the job.
00:43:30And so I've definitely had many moments where I was like, ugh, like you could just restore antiques or something.
00:43:37Like, are you sure you want to, you know, and I'm always surprised that it, that at every step.
00:43:41But I mean, there was a period of time, not long right before I made Wonder Woman, that the bottom
00:43:46had fallen out of the indie film market completely.
00:43:49So the films that I had ready to go, nobody wanted to make, they didn't even want to read them.
00:43:54And it was only IPs and I was meeting on IPs and then I was, and there was a period
00:43:58of time there that I was like, ugh, I just want to leave Hollywood.
00:44:01Like, I don't know that I'm going to, this is, it's ironic that I turned around and then made Wonder
00:44:05Woman.
00:44:05But at the moment I was like, I mean, this might not be for me.
00:44:09Maybe I need to move to Europe or something because I don't know how to fit myself into this.
00:44:13And I can't, they don't want to see my film and like, they don't even want to read, you know.
00:44:17And so, yeah, I've definitely had a pretty dark moment right before I made Wonder Woman where I was like,
00:44:22I'm having, where, why, I can't find the fit.
00:44:40If you left film, what would you do?
00:44:42I wouldn't leave film, first of all, because I love, I like truly love it so much and it just
00:44:48gets better all the time.
00:44:49The more I'm like, you know, like that, like, like finally, like, oh, now I know how to, oh, now
00:44:55I can, it just gets better.
00:44:56The more facile your skills get and the more you can try new things and different ways, it gets better.
00:45:03But, but, you know, I'd be a psychologist.
00:45:06Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:45:08It's my, because that, it's, it's my interest in art and film is, is greatly fueled on the other side
00:45:14by my curiosity about people,
00:45:16which is why I'm interested in telling their stories, whether it be about why you would become that serial killer
00:45:21or why, what it would feel like to have tremendous power.
00:45:24It's my curiosity.
00:45:25What about you?
00:45:25What would you do if you left film?
00:45:28Uh, well, I, I mean, my first love was actually a theater more than anything else, a theater and dance.
00:45:35And I didn't know movies were made by people.
00:45:38I, I, I thought they were handed down from gods.
00:45:41I, I didn't, I mean, I genuinely, I knew, I knew people must have made them, but I didn't know
00:45:46who they were.
00:45:46Or, and it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that, oh, these are made by people.
00:45:53And part of it was, I started watching films that, um, weren't products.
00:45:59They had personality behind them.
00:46:02And I hadn't really seen quite that.
00:46:04Like, I, in New York, there's Film Forum and Anthology Film Archives and Museum of Moving Image.
00:46:09And I started to see these very particular, strange movies that I wasn't totally sure what to make of.
00:46:15But they felt like, I remember the first time I saw, um, Tropical Malady, the Aputat Pong film.
00:46:23Where is that?
00:46:24Yeah.
00:46:25Yeah.
00:46:25And I thought, it made me angry because it's a bifurcated structure and I'd never seen anything like it.
00:46:32And I was like, what is this?
00:46:34It's clear to me that it's clear to him, but I can't figure it out.
00:46:38And I went back again and again.
00:46:40And I had the same experience with, um, we were talking about Claire Denis's film, uh, Beau Travai.
00:46:46I sort of couldn't, but I saw it, I suddenly saw it as art and as made by people.
00:46:52Um, but, yeah, theater.
00:46:54And I also think, I mean, I remember reading about why are there so, why are there so many more
00:47:00computer programmers that are men than women?
00:47:02There was nothing, originally computer programmers were women because nobody thought it was very, um, prestigious.
00:47:08And then later, it became all men.
00:47:10And part of it was, in the 70s and 80s, all the computers were marketed towards, um, young men.
00:47:17Like, get your son this computer.
00:47:19And then they would learn how to program.
00:47:21So by the time they got into college, they already had this basis.
00:47:24And so when women would be in programming classes and they'd come from the math department or whatever,
00:47:28they would be, like, way behind because they hadn't had the tools.
00:47:31It's interesting, as you spoke about psychology, what is, do you think, the most crucial quality that our director has
00:47:37to have?
00:47:38Has to think and film.
00:47:40Yes.
00:47:41Yeah.
00:47:42I just said he has to think and film.
00:47:44That's interesting.
00:47:45A director has to think and film.
00:47:47And, and, and, uh, and I think that's rare.
00:47:51I don't think a lot of people do.
00:47:52But, um, it's not about thinking visually or thinking dramatically.
00:47:59It's literally about seeing the world as film.
00:48:03As, as, as an audiovisual time-based experience.
00:48:07Also being fearless, I think.
00:48:10I think the same thing is not be afraid of.
00:48:13Because sometimes the most brilliant things are the things that are closest to being ridiculous.
00:48:19And if you don't know when you have to not give in and you have to pursue it, you know?
00:48:26So when people talk about vision, which I think is a very strange word that ayahuasca may provoke, but not
00:48:35this industry.
00:48:35You know, you just know that you're going to have to fight for that second ending.
00:48:39It's funny.
00:48:39I was going to say responsible vision.
00:48:41Because I think you do have to have, like, I see how this film could work out.
00:48:45But it has to have, you have to have some responsibility to, like, the realities of filmmaking and how that's
00:48:52going to work.
00:48:52And, and bravery and knowing that you're being brave and giving it enough room to have life.
00:48:57So I think, but a plan.
00:48:58I think you do have to have a plan.
00:49:00And because I was amazed, the most interesting thing in doing such a huge movie is that there really are,
00:49:06there's a huge insurance policy on you.
00:49:08And it's like, you can't ride, you cannot ride a bike.
00:49:11Because if you fall off that bike.
00:49:13And I had a couple moments there where I was like, oh my God.
00:49:17It's, I'm the only person who understands how 17,000 pieces that just happened in a row are going to
00:49:23fit back together again.
00:49:25And it's like, you have to, you have to have that ability at some point to be like, oh, I
00:49:32remember on the day we dropped that line.
00:49:34Because then I said, oh, that's fine.
00:49:35I'll do it by doing that shot over.
00:49:37I don't know that I told anybody that.
00:49:39I know that in the edit room.
00:49:41Oh, but you know what?
00:49:42We're going to do it this other way.
00:49:43Anyway, it would be fine.
00:49:44Somebody else would come in and take over the movie.
00:49:46But it's like.
00:49:47You're talking about practical and artistic responsibilities.
00:49:50Having a vision and seeing and keeping it whole.
00:49:53And I will talk about a different kind of responsibility.
00:49:56Kazan, many years ago, wrote a pamphlet about what a director needed.
00:50:01He needed to know architecture.
00:50:03He needed to know art.
00:50:04He needed to know literature.
00:50:05This, this, that.
00:50:06And I showed it to a friend of mine who's blacklisted.
00:50:09And he said, the only thing Kazan doesn't say, he needs to know ethics.
00:50:13Society at the moment where we, especially today, we're dealing with all sorts of ethical issues, particularly about harassment.
00:50:18What is a director's responsibility ethically?
00:50:21You just have to be a good human being.
00:50:23You can demand anything you want professionally.
00:50:26I think that you can be irrational professionally and say, when we're executing this operation, you need to do what
00:50:34you do or you're not part of the team.
00:50:35You can be that hard.
00:50:37For example, when firing someone, which I've done many times, I insist on doing it myself.
00:50:43I want you to know the studio is not forcing me.
00:50:45I want you to know I'm not a producer.
00:50:48I'm doing it.
00:50:49The same goes for ethics.
00:50:51If you tolerate something on your set from whoever it is, it can be a star, it can be a
00:50:56super producer, and you see it and you allow it, you're more than a father figure.
00:51:01If you direct properly, you are somebody.
00:51:04As a man, I will say exactly the word that came to my mind is father.
00:51:07Yeah.
00:51:08I mean, you are responsible for the people around you.
00:51:10You are supposed to want who's directing them and trying to create a safe environment.
00:51:16Yeah.
00:51:16And a creative environment.
00:51:18Yeah.
00:51:18And as a man, it's the thing that came always in my mind, the way I behave with this as
00:51:23a father.
00:51:24And you don't back, I mean, I've had very imposing executives, studio heads, stars, imposing physically and in terms of
00:51:38the stature and the business.
00:51:40And what you would normally back, you would back down in a traffic accident, you don't back down in a
00:51:46movie set.
00:51:46You go at it and you go at it and you go at it.
00:51:48But you want ethics, not just what you want artistically.
00:51:51No, no.
00:51:51What you want artistically, then the conversation is if you don't have anything to say that is crucial to you
00:51:58and that you think some people may walk out healed in some way or awoken in some way or aware
00:52:06in some way, then it shouldn't be.
00:52:09And it doesn't matter if it's a piece of fiction or it's a genre or not, however it's viewed, you're
00:52:14saying it because you do think that film needs to exist.
00:52:18So ethically, obviously, you don't have to respond to the pulsations of the moment.
00:52:24But I think that all of us in this table, all the movies that were made were made specifically for
00:52:31now, for one or different reasons, because we feel that they were needed now.
00:52:35I feel the urgent political human need that you can see the other and see the beauty and the divine
00:52:44in the other as opposed to the fear and the hatred.
00:52:47And it was urgent.
00:52:48I mean, this movie was so personal to me, doing The Shape of Water, that sometimes there are two scenes
00:52:55I cannot discuss without weeping.
00:53:26Why was that movie so important to you personally?
00:53:28It was a moment, like Joe, a moment in which I honestly said, is there a sense I'm doing this?
00:53:37I mean, I think that it's a medium that is not discussed in the way I remember discussing it when
00:53:45I was learning it, you know, in terms of is the one generator of mythological images we have.
00:53:53Because long arc TV is fantastic, but it does not generate those images that have the heft and the weight
00:54:00and the authority that cinema generates.
00:54:02I am the biggest fan of the Sopranos or Deadwood or you name it, and characters and arc, as close
00:54:10to literature as you can get.
00:54:11But I cannot quote more than two images.
00:54:14I can define the composition, exact lensing and position of images of Kubrick, of Hulz, of Visconti, time and time
00:54:22again.
00:54:23And I think we need to discuss film formally because of that.
00:54:27And it came to that crossroads.
00:54:29And I really, as a man of a certain heft and age, I said, okay, I've done nine movies that
00:54:36in some way or another have rephrased my childhood.
00:54:38I'm going to do one where I talk like an adult and about things that are urgent for me.
00:54:43And if it doesn't work, honestly, I'm going to read more and take long walks on the beach.
00:54:49Sometimes people have to do unpleasant things to get a performance.
00:54:52Is that acceptable?
00:54:53It depends what kind.
00:54:56Because there are very clear lines.
00:54:58To push an actor to do work that they're capable of, yes.
00:55:01To inflict trauma, absolutely not.
00:55:04Absolutely not.
00:55:05And I've had this argument with other people before where it's like, I am not here to bring trauma into
00:55:11people's life.
00:55:12And so I feel that's very ethically.
00:55:14They didn't sign on to be traumatized.
00:55:17So my job as a director is to conjure the best out of other people within what they have already
00:55:24to work with.
00:55:25And maybe new scenarios like cold or, you know, like, yeah, maybe I am pushing them in towards cold and
00:55:30things like that.
00:55:31But I've always thought that that was not for me.
00:55:34I've heard about those things about lying to people or really tricking people or messing with them.
00:55:38And I'm like, that's not cool for me.
00:55:40There's a line in the sand of where I'm willing to go to bring beautiful things into the world.
00:55:46Because how beautiful can they be?
00:55:48Are you willing, however, to inflict harm upon yourself?
00:55:52Yes.
00:55:53Oh, great question.
00:55:54Apparently.
00:55:55Because I think I would quote in a lot.
00:55:58I would quote in a lot.
00:56:00What do you have?
00:56:01Have you harmed yourself?
00:56:02I think I have.
00:56:03You have.
00:56:04You don't get this big by not harming yourself.
00:56:08I mean, it is neurosis.
00:56:09You fray your nerves every day.
00:56:12They're raw.
00:56:13I mean, you fray, which means that 90% of your personal life will be unbalanced.
00:56:18And you're always on the edge.
00:56:20And the more you do it, the less you get this.
00:56:22But you need to, there are things every day that you swear you would die for.
00:56:27Do you agree, Angelina?
00:56:28Well, yes, that you can take on a lot.
00:56:31I think I'm certainly that person.
00:56:33I never want to, I'll push myself to the ground.
00:56:37But I'm pretty thoughtful of other people and their limits.
00:56:44And maybe that's part of leadership, too, is feeling like I better be able to do it 10 times harder
00:56:49in order to have a right to ask somebody else.
00:56:51I used to think that directors, people who were directors, because had a certain personality and that's why they were
00:56:58directors, that they had this sort of relentlessness and they had this.
00:57:02And then I realized that the job makes you that way.
00:57:06It makes you, if you feel, if you have that connection and it feels essential and the thing that you're
00:57:12doing, it creates something that you didn't know that you had or it was dormant somehow.
00:57:19Because there's no way to do it if you don't have that.
00:57:23I don't know how you do it.
00:57:24I think you've got to have that inclination in the first place.
00:57:26Probably.
00:57:26You've got to be a bit mad.
00:57:28You've got to be a bit mad.
00:57:29You've got to be a bit obsessive.
00:57:29You know what I mean?
00:57:30Yeah, yeah.
00:57:30It's like doing, for me, I was thinking since you talked about your pan experience, for me, doing Blade Runner
00:57:39was the other way around.
00:57:40I mean, I do it because I deeply love the first movie so much.
00:57:43I don't want somebody else to fuck it up.
00:57:44I want to give everything, knowing that I will probably be banned for cinematic community about everybody who's going to
00:57:52hate me because I dare to do that.
00:57:56But there was like a strong call to do it, no more thing.
00:57:59And I agreed before I was able to do it because I made peace with the idea that it might
00:58:04be in my last film, doing this.
00:58:08And it made sense to me because I love that story so much.
00:58:12But to make the peace with the idea that I'm going to be hated by, and I just do it
00:58:19by pure love of cinema.
00:58:20And then that freedom that it's like was so great creatively, but it's like the reverse engineer having a, fearing
00:58:29the, not fearing, making peace with what could be the worst.
00:58:33But we have a right to fail.
00:58:35Yes.
00:58:35As an artist, you have a right to fail.
00:58:37And that's really difficult within this industry when there's so much money involved.
00:58:42I think it was Beckett who said that, but, and it's much easier in playwriting.
00:58:46Waiting for God.
00:58:46Yeah, right.
00:58:47Fail again, fail better.
00:58:48Yeah, exactly.
00:58:49And so that is always the thing.
00:58:51That unbelievable line.
00:58:53That line is always the thing that drives me forward, you know.
00:58:56And there's a reason why one keeps making films, because you're always going to fail.
00:59:00And it's a practice, and that's the important thing is the practice, is the process way more important than the
00:59:05product.
00:59:06And in that process, the kindness is the most important thing.
00:59:11And talking about the ethical, you know, if, you know, everyone, everyone's going through something, and as long as you're
00:59:17just kind as much of the time as possible.
00:59:20And the films are made to generate kindness.
00:59:22I mean, I think all the films around this table are, to some extent, about kindness and the aspiration to
00:59:28create more kindness in the world.
00:59:31And that's it, you know.
00:59:32And so if you don't, if you're not kind to the people you work with, then you're just a hypocrite,
00:59:36and there's no point in doing it.
00:59:38Last question, very quickly, speed round.
00:59:41If you had no limit in budget, in time, in historical moments.
00:59:46I would be suicide.
00:59:47But you had a camera.
00:59:48Limits are what gives you freedom.
00:59:50Yeah.
00:59:50If you cannot be free on freedom.
00:59:52Where would you want to put a camera to record something?
00:59:55In the Socratic dialogues, there's this, he has these dialogues with Diatima, who is a prostitute.
01:00:03And in ancient Greece, the only people who could read and write who were women were, were court whores, because
01:00:10they had to be good to talk to, in addition to everything else.
01:00:14And wives weren't allowed to read or write.
01:00:18I would have loved to have heard what those women had to say.
01:00:21When I made Monster, I ended up getting very sucked into the prison world.
01:00:25And so the thing that I was trying to make those years that I couldn't get my film made was
01:00:29a movie that took place in prison, in the California prison system.
01:00:33And I ended up getting very sucked into that world.
01:00:36And, like, so just for those reasons alone, I would put a camera inside of the worst, highest-level security
01:00:44yard in prison and let people watch.
01:00:48Because it's such a, it's, I would love for the world to understand better how people are not what you
01:00:54think they are, you know?
01:00:55And that was the thing that was so incredible about being there, was, like, it's just not scary enough.
01:01:00You want it to be really scary, but it's not that scary.
01:01:04It's just human beings stuck, you know, stuck and scared and sad and desperate and lonely and pretending to be
01:01:13hard because that's the only integrity that they have.
01:01:16And, you know, one out of every thousands of them are actually crazy.
01:01:20In the eyes of an angel, which is, I guess, Wings of Desire, but I'd continue that experiment.
01:01:28It would have changed the fate of the world if you had followed Jesus with a camera.
01:01:34What were those missing years?
01:01:35Yeah, yeah, there was, like, the things that you were going to say, okay, that's the truth.
01:01:39Okay, that's how.
01:01:40That's a good one.
01:01:41It's really difficult.
01:01:43I've been, honestly, really angry about how much has been seen on film from, you know, chemical attacks in Syria
01:01:51to Rohingya being displaced to people do see things inside some prisons to people seeing people abuse other people.
01:01:57And I see very little movement and very little change, very little calls to action, you know.
01:02:03And so I think we're more aware than ever about what's going on around the world and bearing witness to
01:02:09it with cameras.
01:02:10And yet people seem more distracted by kind of silly things they can watch than even.
01:02:14And if they see it, they can kind of dismiss it.
01:02:17So I don't know.
01:02:18I mean, if there's some things you see that could change, if there's something that could make people feel united,
01:02:23maybe it is a camera on the moon.
01:02:24Maybe it is something that takes us out of ourself and somehow sheds a bigger light on something that unites
01:02:33us all.
01:02:35Guillermo.
01:02:37No.
01:02:38There are certain moments of my childhood too personal to share that I would love to have a look with
01:02:48more accuracy than memory allows, you know.
01:02:51And I would love to see the people that I've made into a theater with a more kind eye and
01:03:00a more objective eye and myself in those moments and a more objective eye.
01:03:04And they would be perhaps the key to solving the puzzle that I've been trying to solve for 43 years.
01:03:14Don't solve it because the film's all right.
01:03:16That's what I would like to say.
01:03:17This is really extraordinary and all lovely too, which is nice.
01:03:22Thank you so much.
01:03:23That's the end of the roundtable.
01:03:24Thank you very much.
01:03:25You're in for everyone.
01:03:26So nice.
01:03:27Thanks.
01:03:28Thanks.
01:03:29Thanks.
01:03:41Thanks.
01:03:43Thanks.
01:03:44Thanks.
01:03:46Thanks.
01:03:48Thanks.
01:03:49Thanks.
01:03:49Thanks.
01:03:50Thanks.
01:03:50Thanks.
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