Episode 684 - William Friedkin

Alright, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck buddies?

What the fuck in here is what the fuck a hollocks? What's happening? I'm Mark Marin. This is my show my podcast WTF.

Welcome to it. Thank you for joining me If you are new to the show or if you're not you pick the hell of a day my guest is the film director William Friedkin who I was ecstatic to talk to I had made this this guy was a mythic being in my head I don't know when you saw the French connection or the exorcist I don't know when you saw either of those movies, but when I saw the when I saw the French connection I think I saw I went and opened somehow or another maybe my parents took me to an R-rated movie would they have done that? Yes, I mean I was I was eight years old would they have done that instead of get a babysitter probably I bet you they did because I feel like I saw when it came out and it scarred my brain It was one of those sort of portals into a underworld into a sort of grittiness that I was not supposed to see it I guess made if I lived in that neighborhood if I lived in New York or Queens Maybe maybe that would have been my reality But no I was I think I was eight-year-old kid living in New Jersey or that point Alaska Anchorage But I saw it and there were certain things that resonated with me that I could never get out of my brain Gene Hackman being one of them just Gene Hackman as a force of nature. Oh my god changed my brain Then the exorcist of course went yeah for some reason the stuff that stands out my mind is not the puking It's not the cussing it's when she started talking like the priest's mom that that was haunting whole goddamn thing was haunting But he of course directed brings job cruising deal of the century I remember seeing I remember 1985 when I was in college very excited when to live in dying LA came out Because me and my buddy Devin were film heads and we were very free can oriented and you know more recently He's directed a couple of Tracy Latses plays bug and killer Joe which were pretty unruly pretty amazing There's quite a few movies here But the one that always took this sort of you know mythic presence in my head again I'm gonna throw that word around a bit mythic William Friedkin.

He was one of the fucking dirty 70s directors, man He was like he was a had the swagger. I just you know I never knew what to be like to talk to I never thought I have an opportunity in my life to talk to him But sorcerer was always the film you heard about the film that you'll cost all this money that people said was either self-indulgent Or people didn't see it. Well, I saw it recently for the first time and it's a great fucking movie It's out on blue right now. It's a it's I believe if I'm not mistaken It's a movie based on the wages of fear, which is a French film I believe I didn't see it.

I know some people are like well, you know, it's not as good as a way Just a fear fine. I didn't see that I saw a sorcerer with Roy Shider And it was it was fucking awesome and that new prince is just awesome And I talked away and freakin a lot about that, but man the first time I saw the French connection Jesus I was nervous, you know this dudes, you know, he's been around. He's done a lot of stuff. He never stops working He directs operas now, but I'm telling you man if you're my age even if you're not my age if you were obsessed with that crew From the 70s the guys that changed it all that changed American film forever You know I read that that whatever that book is what is it?

Easy writers and raging bowls. I mean whether it's all on point or not I don't know but I'll give you some historical context to this idea that in the late 60s the Hollywood infrastructure the guys who were making movies they were all out of old guys that have been in place since the studio system and They didn't they no longer knew what the hell Americans wanted to see or to watch and the Vietnam War was starting and going on And during this time, you know, they were at a loss They were at odds they're a transition needed to happen and they didn't know exactly how to do it Not paraphrasing the whole historical idea of this book and I might be wrong But it's my understanding that there was a window of opportunity in the late 60s for a lot of young directors to do almost Whatever the fuck they wanted because the older executives didn't know what the fuck to do and that's where you get your George Lucas Your Spielberg your copa your how Ashby a Scorsesey your Friedkin by Donavich Bob Rafflson Even some Altman. Yeah, I would even argue that you know peckin pot early peckin pot when he shifted out of making a studio movies That those types of studio movies, but I would argue listen to me like like anyone's calling me on this but free Kim was one of them and I never knew his story and It's kind of fascinating how he got a feel for a camera and and these all these movies the ones that I really Remember seeing when I was younger because my parents would let me see movies or they take me movie to the movies was Five easy pieces or the last detail or shampoo or easy rider, which I didn't love I didn't there's a part in that movie I liked a lot of it, but that commune part I could do without but the French connection man the French connection I watched it again recently twice holds up when you really think about that car chase and that character and the intensity of that character in That car chase based on true story, but Roy Shider's in it and Gene Hackman a young gene happen fucking Gene Hackman man And I talked to freakin about that casting choice. I mean Nothing happens like you think it happens, you know We see these movies they imprint themselves in our minds and we think that they you know that had to be the guy for the role There was no other guy in our mind It's one all the stories don't matter because you don't know them You just see this movie and it's perfect and you think like that had to happen exactly the way it happened without knowing how it actually happened So getting the opportunity to talk to William freakin about how this stuff happened I just watched his most recent films bug and killer Joe which were out there, but Tracy Wats the playwright is he's out there And they're great, but how do you sort of tap into and I've talked to directors?

I'd like to talk to more directors They're really actually the hardest guests to get on here And I love talking to them because as a film goer Like I said You just take in these pieces of art and these these films in their entirety as what they are and you don't really realize The intelligence or struggles or or a vision that went into it necessarily and a lot of times It's not what you think happened or what you would assume would have happened But man talking to freakin what a trip what a treat and a trip so without further ado since this is a long one This is me and the master of filmmaking mr. William Friedkin talking right here in this garage There's no filters here. I've heard the podcast. You have I know there's no filters other than my own self-imposed Yes, well, we all have those I guess oh, yeah So I I've been you know what I did in order is very when I was in high school I mean I'm 52 so I missed in real time I think as a grown-up the early movies, but I remember like we were all very excited all the time when you were putting out a new movie Me and my friend Devin who was sort of a film head, but I watched for the first time a sorcerer director's cut on the plane I I rented it and I watched it because I'd heard about it You know, it's it's a legendary movie and I watched it for the first time and I thought it was fucking masterpiece Well, thank you That's not the best way to see it.

I know of course not but I mean worse way to see what am I opportunities? What are my options? What would you have a beautiful Blu-ray? Oh, yeah, fantastic I mean looks better than any print of the film Well, I just wanted to get to you know See it the best I can and see it you know compared to like a French connection and the extras and that early that sort of that tone You were getting back then and to feel what because I don't we heard about I think it's one of those movies where initially People didn't respond well, and then now people who were smart realized that they fucked up.

Did you find that that's the case? It's new people. Uh-huh. It's different people the film came out in 1977 Yeah, and the zeitgeist was different And now the zeitgeist has changed radically but there's still some people who looked to discover stuff that was made before the last few years By the real guys well the real guys were before me mark.

Who do you consider them to be orson? Well, yeah Billy Wilder George Stevens, uh-huh William Wilder the French New Wave. Yeah, who are fantastically Italian neo-realists There's nobody around today making movies like that I can tell you only or I fellini dar pellini all those guys Yeah, yeah, they really through the switch And it's a different world today completely different most of the people going to films today don't know who we're talking about isn't it? No, things change.

Do you really have peace around that idea? Oh absolutely Things change as you get older you watch them slowly change and manifest into something else But I still think change is a diplomatic word when you look at the quality of some things that are happening I mean can you really name a dozen movies as a guy who's still on the pulse that compared to the movies and the people you just spoke of I can't But some people may I mean okay? No, I still watch the same stuff. I always love yeah It's like listening to a piece of music You know you seldom tire of a piece of music whether it's pop or classical or rock whatever that you once loved right you you find different things in it So I tend to watch the films that influenced and inspired me and I get more out of them the way I continue to listen to one particular Recording of Beethoven's fifth symphony right conducted by a guy named Carlos Clyburn Must have been made in the 70s or 80s with the NFL harmonic and I can listen to that recording I've listened to it hundreds of times and I hear different things in it every time I listen Yeah, that's what happens when I see a film like Citizen Kane right or the verdict I just I'm compulsive about the verdict verdict is one of the great Oh my god, that's a masterpiece.

It's the same movie. Yeah, it's the greatest and to find new things in something so subtle Oh, yeah, little moments. Uh-huh little ticks little things on the soundtrack a moment that Paul Newman takes are James Mason. Yeah, it's it's a legendary film and I just love it But there's such an intelligence to it like in something like the sorcerer I mean that obviously was a personal journey not only as a director But I imagine in your heart and in your mind and whatever the hell you were dealing with that as a person that you were gonna Move through these characters that that you know They revealed a certain amount and there was a certain amount of surrealism to the setting in a way that we know Why did they all end up there?

There are things that you know were obviously poetic and metaphorical I think but but it assumed that That the audience was there to see a piece of art in a way I mean it was not a you know wasn't something that you weren't on some level worried about like, you know Well, there's a narrative hole here. No, that's correct. I wasn't trying to make art ever I was just trying to tell stories on film. Uh-huh.

I love the medium Uh-huh and what got me into it was when I first saw Citizen Kane. Well, where'd you grow up Chicago? Really? I lived in Chicago for the first 20 odd years of my life Jewish family Jewish family religious.

Yes, they were I was by Mitzvah, but I don't come away feeling close to The Jewish faith like in a synagogue right like that I'm much more drawn and have been for years to the teachings of Jesus Yeah, not through the Catholic Church. Yeah, but just through the New Testament. It's I also continue to read. It's a simpler poetry in a way It's beautiful words to live by yeah, you know the Old Testament.

So while fragmented not it not a straight narrative It's difficult to read about stories some of the New Testament reads like journalism. Yeah, yeah, the book of Mark Mm-hmm. He describes the crucifixion. It's like you are there you can experience it through whoever wrote the book of Mark Did you ever think about telling that story on film?

No, it's been done. I know not too badly by but well Mel Gibson's film the Passion of the Christ was a powerful experience Yeah, it was and but there's more to just a Christ than the crucifixion. I've seen the shroud of Turin I've been to Turin many times and I just finished directing an opera there I just did I eat it in the Teatro Regio and Torino. How many have you been doing a lot of operas?

I've done about 15 operas since 1998. You understand Italian? I have to understand whatever language I'm doing the opera in the libretto I have to completely understand the libretto while I might not be able to order a ham sandwich in the language, you know Yeah, but uh you do have to learn the libretti and I for the story. I study them And I get my inspiration for the productions and I set up through directly from the music and the libretto You know, it's not something I make up right like a film is generally sometimes there's a script sometimes not But when you're filming it, you're making it up and you got shot by shot right and each shot is different in a way Like with an opera, I guess these performances different but once you set once you get everything set in motion You're hoping that outside of perhaps an amazing performance by the performers that shit holds together and that oh yeah It's pretty well planned and rehearsed.

Yeah, whereas I don't rehearse a film. Well, that's why you get that raw feeling I'm interested in cinema in um spontinati and spontinati comes from working with the actors before you ever get to the set You become in in the way I work sort of like I guess what a psychologist does sure and you will talk to the actor You'll find out what it is that moves he or she him or her emotionally. Yeah from their past. Do you do that?

Oh, yeah How would something like that go like say because you got a heavy an example, okay But just how about actually just because you got a hell of a performance out of her and bug hell of a performance It's more graphic if I tell you I would happen well happen was young right which younger the french connection. Yep, and In talking to jean I found out from him and you have to give up a lot of your own information when you do this But I found out that he grew up in a town called dandy, Illinois Which was near the indiana border and there were Ku Klux Klan guys around and it was a extremely right wing conservative area and his father left the family when jean was young so Consequently, he wanted to fight this Prejudice that he grew up with and he hated his father. He hated his father once I realized that Yeah, I knew that I could get to his anger by becoming his father even though I was 10 years younger than jean I was the authority figure right on the french connection Yeah, and jean did not want to go to the dark places of that character He he fought that most through most of his youth and all of his adult life not go back to that mouse inside the elephant Yeah, and I realized he had to show this anger and the cop he was playing was Performing the role of a racist cop in new york in order to survive right these guys were guys who made their living Among the dead yeah, and in order to survive they had to be tough guys and in fact come off like racists And jean did not want to go there. He was not my first choice for that part who was uh, Jackie Gleason the studio would not go with Gleason and then I wanted uh, Peter Boyle who had just made a film called joe Yeah, and I found out that by treating jean harshly in fact cruelly on the set I could get to his anger and a lot of what motivated that character was the appearance of anger He had to appear to be very angry in fact the guy was not really a tough guy eddy egan the character of the jean's also in the film He's in the film, but he was very vulnerable But to survive and to make these busts and not get killed he had to be a tough guy And that meant push people around and use the n-word yeah, um all the time Yeah, and jean didn't want to do that.

Yeah, the first day of shooting I shot the interrogation of the young black kid Who these two cops pick up in a bar chase? Uh, they sort of rough him up good cop back up. It's probably one of the first times that you saw that yeah And they ask him questions that are unanswerable. Yeah, so he tends to answer the questions He knows he's more comfortable with like did you pass that nickel bag to that guy in there?

Uh, or did you ever pick your feet and kip see you know and you know we did 37 takes of that Holy shit jean couldn't get to it. Yeah, and then I realized and I used what I had learned in discussions with him that he Absolutely hated authority. Yeah, and he didn't like acting that much although he became one of the greatest Film actors Abulable. Yeah, but we had a lot of problems on that that worked themselves out on the set because we were on the same page in understanding Each other what does now if he were to tell the same story would he say well what uh bill was doing was he was Putting me in a position to be angry at him or what he had said like you know He was a pain he asked to work with he drove me nuts.

No, I'm not Here's what he has said and you can look it up. It's on the blue ray of the french connection And one edition of it. There's interviews with everybody and jean says after the first day of shooting I wanted a quit. Yeah, because I wasn't getting it and bill friedkin Didn't let me quit.

Yeah, he held me in there. He kept me in there. I'm forever grateful to him Now do you watch that film occasionally only uh rarely like if I go to a screening of it And I haven't seen it for a while and I have to talk about it And what's your what what do you feel when you watch it? Does it take you anywhere?

Do you I think it's pretty well made Yeah, it's not bad I can't say that about everything but I've seen a few of my films and I honestly think where the hell did that come from in a bad way or good Way. Yeah, uh, I don't I tend not to watch the films where I know I'm gonna see bad stuff in which ones are those oh If I name them, I'll be putting down some actors But all of my films are definitely not of the same quality What do you think would have happened if you had Jackie Gleason's pop by dole? I think he would have been great Yeah, but at that time the film was made by 20th century fast and I suggested Gleason and I called Gleason Got his phone number told him the story. We didn't have a script but I told him what it was and he said okay kid That sounds interesting.

I went to the head of the studio dicks. Anik. He said no way. We will never make another film with Jackie Gleason He had made a film a silent film about a clown called Jigo.

Yeah, G. I. G. O.

T It was a silent move right right but it was the biggest disaster in the history of Fox at that time And um so he was against Gleason but Gleason was my idea of the character a big heavy set what we used to call a black Irishman You know a dark brooding Irish guy who loved to drink and break heads and yeah, you know and carried a great girth along with him What compelled you to do sorcerer, you know from wages of fear? What was your relationship with that film the original film? I thought it was great, but not many people had seen it the wages of fear in this country in America Was was not widely seen at all But I thought that it was a metaphor for the world situation Four strangers writing a load of dynamite and if they did they hated each other they were all flawed but if they didn't cooperate they would blow up together and that to me then and now seems a metaphor for the world situation You have all of these great powers all going in different directions And if they don't get on the same page, everything's gonna blow up And that's the metaphor of sorcerer and the wages of fear. Did you see it for your own self?

I mean, I don't know what the 70s were like and I don't have a specific Sense of your reputation at that time, but it seemed like a pretty crazy time You know in terms of uh, you know the shifting of uh of the the business and the sort of weight that you That crew had of directors at that time that that did you find that that movie was a like a journey for yourself and confronting your own potential self demise through your own uh Ambition and creativity. I didn't think of it that way at the time I thought of it as a story that I wanted to tell. Yeah, I did not want to do a remake of hg kluzos film Yeah, I wanted to do all new characters all new incidents and all new events Just the central notion in many ways. It's like doing another production of a great play like hamlet I mean larn soliviate did hamlet You know back in the 40s and 50s and was it supposed to stop then?

I mean the first production of hamlet I think in 1601 was done by an actor named richard burbage And at the globe theater and in fact at the globe theater the audience used to stand they didn't sit down They stood they ate roast beef they chicken Yeah, and they talked to the stage and when richard burbage played the death scene in hamlet He was cheered and the audience yelled out die again burbage die again. He played the death scene three times Now there were no critics around to say this was great or burbage was terrible Nothing there was just this play and if there had not been the first folio of shakespeare that came along some I guess 50 or 75 years later. Yeah, you wouldn't have hamlet, but every production of hamlet is different. Yeah, and Sorcerer is different right but inspired by the wages of fear Because you see can you see yourself like it where you sit now with your your life experience all that you've done When you look back at that time shooting in those jungles.

I mean, do you do you know that guy still? Yeah, I'm not all that different I would not take the same risks now because I put people's lives in danger on a number of the films I did Did you know you were doing it? I didn't care. I didn't think about it And the people that followed me did not think about it.

I would not do that today I would not film a chase like the french connection today with no clearances no permissions No nothing just send a car for 26 blocks 90 miles an hour through regular traffic No, I wouldn't do that. I don't think they would like you do that. Well, they didn't want to let me do that then But I had all these cops around me. Yeah, and With their badges they were off-duty cops and they were with me when I shot the chase in case we got busted So they were watching your back.

Yeah, but today no one should do that today There have been guys who have taken similar chances in recent years and people got killed Yeah, and it's only by the grace of god that nobody got hurt or killed on a film like the french connection And that was the farthest thing from my mind I felt that I was bulletproof and I felt that the people around me were not going to be hurt or injured You were conscious of that like there was a mania to it almost I felt that what I did was the only possible way to do it I couldn't get permission to do something like that or would give you permission You know to go 90 miles an hour for 26 blocks through traffic The only thing we had was a gumball on top of the car Yeah, that hadman and the stuntman drove so you couldn't see the gumball when we were inside the car and we took it off when we were shooting exteriors But you had you know a screaming siren as I was blowing through traffic Yeah, that stuff is all real now today. They do Just as good if not better on a computer. Do you think that really? Yeah, I do and the audience does too The audience doesn't mind that these effects are computer generated images But I think that that there's been some new neural pathways created for that expectation Like I think they that you can do a lot more with the computer But I think you and Nate we know that it's not real and you watch a french connection And there's a there's a grittiness to it where you're like, holy shit But it's still not real markets a movie.

No, but you just told me people's lives were it's dead Yeah, and that's not a good thing. I get that but it's on film It is on film and um, I don't uh boast about it I think the french connection is a damn well-made film and people's lives were in danger including my own And I frankly didn't give a damn I mean, I don't mean I devalued human lives. I never thought about it. You were caught up in your process We're gonna do this.

Yeah this way. Did you fight for it? There was nobody to resist me That's the freedom I'm talking about. Yeah, we were there alone.

Yeah This was you know like being um castaways Well, let's talk a little bit about that like, you know, because I know like there's something comes into my mind You know, Nicholson, I think was one time Nicholson was uh, you know talking I think it was one of the last times I think he went to the Golden Globes I don't remember what it was but he was talking was reflecting about when he started acting when your generation of filmmakers started to really You know take over Hollywood that there was this crossover for a while there between you know, your generation and old hollywood Like everyone was sort of around so you got to spend time, you know with it with it filmmakers that you respected and admired And it was all part of the same community now who were you able to sort of like when when you were coming up and you were starting When you made French connection, I made I imagine I gave you a lot of access to yeah So who did you seek out and what did you learn from the generation before you my closest friends from the golden era? Hollywood or Billy Wilder Richard Brooks bud yorkin who was a great Television director who created all in the family right with Norman right with Norman Lear and a number of other people like that But the names have come to mind Right away our wilder. I should have a hamburger with Billy three four days a week Yeah, the old Johnny Rockets and over here. I'll tell you a funny anecdote About Billy being in Billy's apartment and Billy had jock-a-metis and rocks and Picasso's and Great artworks.

He also had on one of his walls a little framed postcard like Object was framed on the wall next to a Brock And I looked at it and I said Billy what what the hell is this? And he said this was one of the cards that they passed out When they had the first preview of the film nanachka with Greta Garbo that Billy wrote and earned slu bitch directed and Their habit then was when lu bitch When they'd stop finished looking at a preview. They were in a limousine going from Pasadena back home Lubitsch would sit in the back of the car with Billy and he'd flip through these cards that the audience used to fill out And he stopped at one card and burst into laughter and Billy said what is that and lu bitch handed it to him? And that's the card that's framed on his wall And this is for the film nanachka, which is really a work of art.

The card says This is the funniest film I ever seen this film is so funny. I peed in my girlfriend's hand And he framed that and you know when I was a kid and I went to previews in Chicago I used to fill out all kinds of crazy right. I'd say you know, I said, what did you think of this film this film stunk? It was terrible, you know, just a rat fucked the you know, the guys who made it Yeah, but I guess that card was sincere.

Is it funny? He'd been his girlfriend's hand. Billy Wilder loved that. Oh, yeah, but Billy was great Richard Brooks very interesting deep intelligent guy made looking for mr.

Goodbar and In cold blood right a lot of great films. I knew John Houston. Oh, how was that made one of my All-time favorites, which I still watch and we go home and watch it today again, which was the treasure of the Sierra Madre Yeah, which is boss crazy right that nothing like it today. It's great.

There you go. Nothing like it today in my view But you know, there are people listening to this podcast or who can't wait to see the next spandex movie You know where guys where spandex and fly around and save the world. You know, okay, that's what the theater is today the best Platform for films today is the digital platform places like Netflix and FX and HBO, you know, not the theaters for me Well, let's go back. So you're in Chicago and you see you see worse than well as a citizen caner When did you see that?

What would you do when you were a kid you got brothers and sisters? No, I was an only child. We lived in a one-room apartment in Chicago. No larger than this garage, which I guess is about 15 feet by 10 feet something like that the three and that's was my mother and father I mean we had a little burner not kitchen one bathroom They had a bed that came out of the wall and I had a cot Right and I never knew we were poor because everyone else around me lived the same way and my dad never made more than $50 a week What did he do?

He did a number of things. Yeah, and he wound up In a men's clothing store that was owned by his brothers. Oh, yeah, and he worked there And did they were were they from another place or they all grew up here in the States were the immigrants all of my parents? Origins were in Kiev, Russia the Ukraine and they came over when they were very young My mother had 12 brothers and sisters my father had 11 and as you can imagine I was an only child be very tough to have other children in a space like this mark Yeah, you know with a child in the room.

We think that was why they didn't have more undoubtedly Yeah, I mean I was unaware of anything to do with their sex life And you would know I mean, you know, I crashed there and so today. Yeah, did you have a relationship with that huge extended family? Oh sure. We were very close a lot of my relatives did well very well to do one was a very famous cop in Chicago named Harry Lang Harry Lang and His partner were the two guys who brought in Frank nitty against it Yeah, yeah, yeah And they shot nitty eight times in the stomach and then my uncle put a bullet through his own left arm and claimed that nitty Shot at him first but nitty didn't keep a gun in his office My uncle's partner's name was Harry Miller and Miller and Lang were the guys who brought in nitty nitty lived No kid with eight bullets in his gut And for a variety of reasons my uncle had to leave the Chicago police force And he opened a tavern in Chicago and as a kid I used to work there Oh, and I met all these characters for both sides of the law right and did that was a fascinating deal?

Oh, yeah, I mean I can't yeah, they were on another planet. Yeah, you know, oh, yeah And these guys were cops But it was the first inkling I had that the best cops were guys who could think like the bad guys right they were bad guys themselves That's right. Well, that's what you get with Popeye Doyle in a way There's a moral there's a sort of like a moral ambiguity about how to do the job. Well, the precincts Where they worked the 81st precinct in Bedford Stuyvesant the 28th precinct in harlem These places were known as murder factories.

Yeah, you know and in order to survive They just broke every law that was there. Yeah, and I realized that as a cop, you know what drove you in the street was um Your instinct and the fear of getting killed yourself sure and so they had to assume an attitude that persisted for many years In police departments across the country and it's based on adrenaline Yeah, I have I was out with the french connection cops when and doing the scenes like in that all African-american bar where they roused at the joint and found all the vials of under the counter and stuff and That scene I saw played 30 or 40 times and when I went and saw it eddy egan gave me a 38 a policeman special and he said cover the back door And I used to pray to god that nobody would try to go out the back because I didn't it was in real I'm emotionally unable to pull the triggers sure okay before it's supposed to but But I had and I watched them do that and get away with it And I know that they were driven as our most cops today by adrenaline You're a young cop you got a family at home a couple of kids a wife You get up in the morning strap on a gun and a badge and go into the street and you don't know if you're coming back Now that's not to say that there aren't some cops is there are people in every walk of life that may have racial prejudice But the cops I met did not and many of the cops I met and rode with all across this country and in europe Some of them black uh had the same adrenaline drive sure why it sounds to me that during that time You know certainly with friends connection you seem to be driven by some of that same adrenaline Mm-hmm now after that movie so you okay real quick though in chicago what got you into show business? Uh, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I graduated high school Yeah, I went to high school never paid attention to anything didn't want to spend another day in a classroom So I didn't go to college. Yeah the Saturday I graduated I looked in the chicago newspapers in the one ad section And there was a a job available for young people who wanted to work in the mailroom of a television station Yeah, and uh I went to the wrong place Yeah, there were two stations and they were across the street from each other there was wbbm Which was a cbs affiliate in the rigley building.

Yeah, and in the tribune tower there was wgn which was Known as the world's greatest newspaper, but they owned uh wgn radio and television channel nine in chicago I went there on a saturday to apply for a job in the mailroom and the guy in the mailroom was an interesting guy's name was ray Demalski and uh he uh was there on saturday and he asked me about myself I answered a few questions. I had had a lot of After school jobs before that and he uh at the end he said okay kid He said you can start monday, but he said tell me something Are you stupid? And I said I'm sorry and he said are you stupid? I said I don't know possibly He said because look at that piece of paper where you have the ad for an opening in a mailroom He said what does it say?

I said said 444 for north michigan avenue. He said that's wbbm across the street. This is 441 Yeah, north michigan. We didn't place that ad you came to the wrong place But you seem like a nice kid so I'm gonna hire you and that's how most people Came up in the business then.

Yeah, there were no film schools or no television schools Television was new you took an entry-level job in the mailroom or as an usher and you worked your way up What year's that uh in my case it was about 1956. Yeah, so so television is pretty new Oh, it was very new it was a miracle in people's home. You have no idea none of your listeners Yeah, have any idea what it was like to see an image in your house We used to wake up at like six in the morning just to see the profile of a of a buffalo Indian Yeah, which was the only thing showing on a tv screen and used to tune your screen to that image Of a it was a drawing of a buffalo indian like what used to be on the nickel, right? And you would focus on that.

Yeah, but we would just sit there and look at this We couldn't believe there was an image didn't move it didn't do anything But there was an image in our home was a miracle. Yeah, it was magic Yeah, I guess like the ancients when something happened that was out of the ordinary thought it was a miracle To me television was a was a miracle and you remember radio radio as was no inch television, right? I remember dramatic radio. Yeah, that's the thing that influenced me most as a filmmaker really matic radio the story telling Yes, and with sound the use of sound effects and music and the human voice to tell a story and a lot of those things creeped me out There were amazing radio dramas then on shows called suspense and inner sanctum and uh Orson wells the world the shadow.

Oh, yeah, I was too young for the war of the world's broadcast. I heard it much later Yeah, and I think it's probably exaggerated on the effect that it had sure because that show had a very small audience compared to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Yeah, who was a Edgar Bergen was a ventriloquist, right? Which was weird right?

More than more snurred to right? Mortimer snurred and Charlie McCarrey did the voices, but when you saw him on television It was a terrible ventriloquist his lips were moving in while Charlie's were I guess that's the one downside of television You saw that Edgar Bergen stunk as a ventriloquist, but the characters and the dialogue were great So television was like mind blowing. Oh, yeah, it was a miracle in everyone's home And we could afford a television set. Uh-huh, which was about as big as this computer You have in front of you what shows you remember studio one and playhouse 90 Right these were the shows that grabbed me Playhouse 90 was done live in several sound stages in what is was then called television city at CBS on Fairfax Go there.

Yeah, and they did all these live shows with live cameras everywhere And there were some of the greatest things I've ever seen they were directed by people like John Frankenheimer Sidney Lumet Franklin Shafter The guys who became the great film directors of the 70s. Yeah, the generation that had just preceded mine So you when did you start directing? But I was about 18 years old directing local television in the studio. Well, yeah, it was all stupid Well, I occasionally did remotes like an auto show five cameras and you'd have a live camera You know and there would be livestock or something walking around at the international amphitheater While there was an auto show and a cow would walk in front of the camera take a dump No way to cut around it.

You know, there it is The glories of live TV, but most of the stuff I did was in the studio I did every every kind of show cooking shows news programs interview shows I was the floor manager on a show called they stand accused which was a live courtroom drama They came on just before the Jackie Gleason show on the old Dumont network was now gone It's interesting that the things you're saying are still on TV The the step the arc types and the standards were set cooking shows live court shows, you know, remotes from places I mean, there's still staples they are they're still on but then they were pretty much the only thing that was on so now you have Hundreds of things to choose from so when you start going three networks. I know is a small bunch of local stations. Do you miss that time? No?

No, that's what got me started though. Yeah, so what how'd you make it out here? I mean when did you come what what compelled you towards the the films in that period? I think it was around 1956 yeah Somebody told me that there was a great film playing at a art house on the near north side called the surf theater And the film was called Citizen Kane.

Yeah, I knew nothing about it before Citizen Kane I just used to go to films as a kid on Saturday afternoon and see the three stooges and a cartoon and a newsreel and a couple of funky shorts and stuff and you know as a place for kids to go for a quarter on Saturday afternoon somebody said you should see this film called Citizen Kane which It was originally originally came out in 1941. This was 15 years later. I went to see this film And I was captivated I stayed in the theater all day I went to the first show which was a noon show and I watched it until the 10 o'clock show and left it midnight Yeah, and I came out of there thinking I don't know what in the hell this is but whatever it is. That's what I want to do Yeah, and but I was in live television.

Yeah, and then a strange thing happened. I hate going to parties Yeah, still to this day. I like to see and talk to people in small groups or one-on-one But I don't like gigantic parties. There was a woman in Chicago very wealthy Social woman who loved and supported the arts and she did a few produced a few programs at the TV station where I work Yeah, and she used to try and get me to come to her parties on Friday night And you're like 25 now or what less?

Yeah, and this she lived in what was known as the gold coast area of Chicago Near north side. She lived in a mansion and on a Friday night She had people from all walks of life. Lenny Bruce used to go there and Oscar Brown Jr and aldermen from Chicago Dr. Bergen Evans of Northwestern universities English department Putting together like these dinner salons almost where you engage in conversation?

People salons massive with food and drink right and one day I found myself squeezed against a corner I went there finally Yeah, and there were a hundred odd people around and I'm standing next to a priest a guy in a priest college And I'm holding a drink and he's holding a drink and I know what to say to him But I just I just blurted out father Where is your church? And he said oh, I don't have a church He said I'm the Protestant chaplain at the Cook County Jail on death row and I said oh And I instinctively I said have you ever Met anybody on death row that you thought was innocent and he said yeah, there's a guy now a black guy who's 32 years old he's been in for nine years He's up for first degree murder and both the warden and I think that he was beaten to confess by the Chicago cops and I it just Went right through me and I thought about this conversation his name was father Robert Surfling And I thought about this conversation all weekend and I called him at the Cook County Jail on a Monday morning I said father you remember me? He said yeah, we talked to Lois Solomon's I said could I meet this guy whose name was Paul Crump Z. R.

U. M. P He said why would you want to meet him? I said I don't know but I said I work in television And I might be able to do him some good.

He said you can't do him any good His all of his appeals have been denied. He was denied twice by the United States Supreme Court He was denied certiorari which meant that the court would take his case The court denied hearing his case twice by one vote five to four against He's finished the only thing that could save him is a pardon from the governor who is then auto-curner democratic governor. Yeah, and I thought well look I don't maybe I could get his story in front of the public and something could happen And he said let me ask the warden now the warden was a guy named Jack Johnson Yeah, a big heavy set pull of a guy who had executed three people in the electric chair and did not want to execute anyone else And he liked Paul Crump and he felt that Crump had become rehabilitated in prison And he may not have been guilty in the first place So he let me come down and meet him meet Crump and I went to the television station where I worked I totally believed in Crump's story as did many others And I went to the tv station and the general manager said we don't make documentaries. We do live television We don't want to do a documentary film and So I went across town to the abc station Which was channel seven in Chicago run by a man called red Quinlan who had wanted to hire me But I stayed at wgn because I was doing the chicago symphony orchestra program live And that was a great experience at wgn So I stayed there but Quinlan financed a 16 millimeter documentary that I made with another guy who was a live tv cameraman named bill butler who later was the cameraman the director of photography on jaws one flew over the kookus nest Number of other great films, but he and I started together and we learned by rote how to make a film We had access to death role and I knew nothing about how to make a documentary I had never seen one yeah, but I was motivated to make this film as a kind of court of last resort for this guy Yeah, we made this film.

It's very primitive whatever, but it was shown to the governor of illinois Auto-curner And he sent me a note and the note said I've seen your documentary And though my parole and pardon board has voted two to one to send mr crump to the electric chair I'm going to pardon him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole And that was a first I mean it had happened once before that i'm aware of in chicago the low bleep hole case right where clarin starrow defended low But leopold and they got life imprisonment instead of the chair they were kids t agent anyway the film saved this man's life and Red quinlin then entered it in a whole bunch of film festivals where it won The best not only best documentary but best film it won the golden gate award at the san francisco film festival in 1960 Uh has that thing been re-released it's been re-released. It's out there You can what they call the people versus paul crump But it saved this gentleman's life and I thought my god the power of film right what you can do with film Yeah, and then I had offers to come out to hollywood to do documentaries and I came out to california in 1965 After I had moved to abc in chicago and bill butler and I had our own documentary unit So you're doing docs I started after having done over a thousand live shows I went into documentary film and did three or four in chicago for abc And then uh, david walper brought me to l.a. Where I did documentaries for walper and the abc network And how did the how did the opportunity for the first uh narrative film come the first narrative film The first thing I ever did on a soundstage was the alfred hitchcock hour The producer of the hitchcock hour who is norman loyd at that time. Yeah, i've been on for 10 years Norman loyd was a great ag still alive.

He's 101 years old. Oh, yeah He was the guy who played the saboteur in hitchcock's film saboteur and he worked with the mercury theater and arson wells Right he's still around god bless i think i think jad abatow just used him in uh train wreck didn't he? I don't know but he could have yeah, yeah, yeah, um, but uh, there's norman and he was the producer and he saw the william morris office Started to represent me. Yeah, and they showed my documentary around Hollywood yeah as like a calling card Yeah, and norman loyd saw it and he said that there was more suspense in the first five minutes of that film than anything They had done that year and the hitchcock hour and I went to meet with him And he gave me a script that was written by james bridges who later became a fine screenwriter urban cowboy and yeah number of other I think he wrote uh the china syndrome all right Yeah, and uh, but he had written the script for the hitchcock hour and it was starring john gavin who was in Psycho norman said look i have to let john gavin see your film And he has approval of who's gonna direct it and if he had said no i probably wouldn't have a career Yeah, but john saw the film and said okay, I don't imagine this guy's any worse than some of the other guys you got directing these shows Yeah, um, and so he approved me and then how does he and then the first big movie was was a french connection?

No, the next the first feature I made was with sunny and share Sunny bono wanted to work with a young guy on their first feature film And they showed him some of my documentaries and then the hitchcock hour and yeah sunny and I met we became great friends And we wrote the script together. We had lived a movie called good times And it was just a joy to work with them Yeah, and the film did well it was made for nothing and the producer sold it to columbia for I think Five million dollars, which was not jump change in those days, sir And they were big act at that time they were big they had all kinds of number one. So right, right? I got you bay.

Yeah, yeah, uh, the beat goes on. Yeah better sit down kids. Uh-huh sunny was one of the few geniuses i've ever met Yeah, he didn't he couldn't read a note of music all the music was in his head started with phil specter I think he was a gopher for phil specter. Yeah, and did you guys remain friends throughout his life till he died and ski accident Terrible.

Yeah, and I occasionally still see share. Oh, yeah, uh, and I've gone to a lot of her shows in vegas But you know I don't know where she lives now. Sure different work, but we were close for many years after so through the sunny and sharing through the stuff You were doing you were offered the french connection. No, uh, the next thing I did was a film of harrel pinters play the birthday party That you're right.

I saw when I was much younger in san francisco And it mesmerized me as did citizen cane the movie pinters play the birthday party was Just an incredible isn't an incredible piece of work. Heavy, right? Well, yeah, it's called a comedy of menace But there's more menace than comedy And it was at your first experience with really, you know taking a piece of theater and trying to imagine at his film Well, I was as I say, I really moved by it and they came to me a company called palomar pictures Uh, which was owned by the abc television network. They said what would you like to do?

And I said the birthday party I called harrel pinter. I got his phone number in england We spoke and he didn't know who the hell I was Uh, but I guess something I said intrigued him right and I went to england to meet with him And we met for two or three days at his house and he said okay Let's do it and he wrote the screenplay and I spent a year with pinter where I learned pretty much everything I know about drama. Uh-huh. He was encouraged.

You know, he's won the Nobel Prize for literature toward the end of his life and he was Probably the most fascinating man. I've ever met and I learned so much from him What are some of the the things that you carry with you that aren't having just become second nature about drama that that stand out in your head from him? Well, uh in Pinter's style, which is not a style that I totally adopted Every single word every comma every period had meaning there were no throw away. There was no throwaway guy alone Every single word he wrote in the pauses and a long pause was different from a short pause and He made it a practice never to explain the meanings of his work if you didn't get it The hell with you.

Yeah, he got it. Mm-hmm. And he um, he wrote stuff that was completely off the radar in the late 50s and early 60s birthday party. I think had been written in 1958 betrayal that he wrote betrayal Which is a story told backwards a play.

Yeah, where the last scene of the play appears first right works at bay Which way back to when this couple first met and um, so he experimented with form, but he taught me that every word does count He would seldom use useless adjectives like the word very. Yeah, what does the word very mean? If I say to you I like you very much does that give any indication of how much I like you? No very much.

What is very? This is this water is very good or not very good Or whatever you might say there are certain words that carry no meaning like interesting Interesting is the worst thing you could say about somebody's movie or podcast if somebody says this podcast is interesting It's an abject failure. You know, it's the worst thing you could say because all of the arts are created for a purpose Which is to draw out an emotional response from the listener or the viewer. That's all yeah Not to be interesting.

Yeah, who in the hell wants interesting But pitters work was gripping and involving there was not a wasted sentence a wasted word or a wasted comma And that impressed me very much to this day and in writing my autobiography I actually made a pass on my autobiography where I took out every time I used the word very As a meaningless word. Did you leave him out? Took him out. I did one pass of the book Which is pretty thick book and took out the word very but pinter also Uh When he came to the rehearsals of the birthday party and the actors would say herald What does this mean or what does that mean?

He would say I have no idea what it means or why it's there You have to figure that out for yourself now. There are many actors that work today from like backstory Harold provided no backstory like How how were these two people or in conflict with one another? How were they when they were children? How did this guy feel about his parents or he doesn't care about any of that crap I'll give you an example of how I've used that.

Yeah in a film I made a film called a hunted yeah with Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro and this is how Tommy Lee Jones works If he's cast right you never talked to him about meaning or backstory or even what's going in front of the camera You will just sit with him. He knows all of that. That's why he's agreed to take the role Right, so all you do is all I do is I say Tommy you come in that door you walk over here You sit down you talk to this guy over here, then you get up you look out the window over there Then you come back sit down you take a drink of water say something to him then you leave Yeah, I just give him the action. He says let me see if I got this right I come in that door over there.

I sit down over there. I talk to this guy over here I get up and look out the window come back sit down say a line to him take a sip of water get up and leave That's right. He's okay. I'm ready and he shoot it one take done With Benicio del Toro in the same scene in the same movie you come in that why do I come in the door?

What if you discovered me lying on the floor? Well, um, how did I feel about my father when I was 14 years old? And I would say to Benicio and other actors like that of that ilk who need a backstory and Really from which to work. I would say look I don't know if it isn't on the page It's not on the stage and I could make up some bullshit I could make up a story about how you felt about your father when you were 14 But I don't really know yeah So I could lie to you and if it helps you I will make up such a story And eventually we'd come around to him doing the staging that I asked him to do right or suggesting a better staging Because when you're a director, you must consider that there are many ways to do a scene infinite number of ways to do just to shoot the two of us in this room sure and The best idea works.

Yeah, wherever you get the best idea of how to do the scene or where to put the camera high low straight on From the floor from the ceiling from behind a monitor whatever to pan around the room and see what's here The best idea usually comes to the fore and it could come from the prop man or a stage hand Which is I don't pay why I don't pay a lot of attention to the art tour theory Because they're film is a collaborative media right you work alone. Yeah with one person. I imagine sometimes you've had I've done tv and you know it's but collaboration is necessary Well only in like the performing arts I mean like if you're a painter, sure all you need is a blank canvas and paint in a brush Right and your imagination photographer the same. Yeah, if you're a writer You just need a pencil right type writer or a computer sure and you work alone Yeah, your imagination a composer works the same way right but in any of the performing arts you work with many people It's a Orson Wells once called the equipment that is used in the making of a film a one ton pencil It's actually about a 20 ton pencil.

Yeah So you basically you're saying that that in the big picture Tommy Lee is a little easier to work with It's different because these backstories which pinter never right dealt with yeah, he would he would ridicule them Uh, but these backstories Are meaningless. I mean an actor To produce an emotion ordinarily does work from something called sense memory. Yeah, but it's their business You remember what frightened you or made you happy or made you fall in love when you were much younger and you utilize that Experience to produce an emotion as another character. Let's get to the actresses You win you win best picture you win best director your friend's connection You know it sort of your your maid guy.

We didn't really talk about how the friends connection happened how that happened Everything happens by luck or accident and everyone turned it down every studio turned it down for two years really and I actually was on the unemployment line. I hadn't made done anything for two years I had just finished the boys in the band two years before But I wasn't working and finally one day dicks anick called and said look I don't know what the hell this thing is you guys are trying to do I'm sort of intrigued by it if you can make it for a million and a half dollars Go ahead. You better make it soon because I'm gonna be fired out of here in six months And he was and but he greenlit the film we had a budget of three million dollars But we anticipated having a star like paul noumen right who was getting the top salary then which was five hundred Thousand dollars a picture today. It's chump change.

Yeah, of course for a movie star But it wasn't then and dicks anick said you don't need a movie star Just get the right actor in this thing. Yeah, and I remember saying to him would you go with a non actor who was right? He said well, I cool who are you talking about? I said you ever hear of a journalist in New York called Jimmy breslin He said yeah, yeah, I love breslin's writing style.

He wrote a lot like Damon run. Yeah I said I know Jimmy breslin. He's a good friend of mine Let me go back and audition him and see how he did I had hired shider. Yeah, and I hired people based on instinct Yeah, I don't read them right if I thought you were right for a part.

I wouldn't ask you to read it in audition Uh and this with Roy shider He walked into my casting director who was not a casting director He was a film and theater critic for the village voice in New York He knew every actor in the country and he discovered whoopi Goldberg and a lot of people and one day He brought Roy shider into my office and Roy sat down opposite me as I'm sitting opposite you. Yeah, and uh, I said how you doing Roy? I said oh great. I said what are you doing now?

He had never shot a film. Yeah He said I'm in an off-Broadway play by Jean-Jean-Jeanne and I said well, what kind of part do you play? I knew instantly he was the guy and uh, he said I play a cigar smoking none. I said oh, yeah, he said yeah I said okay, you got the part what do you want me to read something?

I read something there's nothing to read. Yeah, these guys just run after guys. I chase guys get your hands up, you know stop Hey, you ever pick your feet and pick hips? There's nothing to read.

Yeah, you are right for this part and I hired him And then I had him rehearse with Jimmy breslin and the first day of rehearsal breslin Was great. It was all improvisation. He was wonderful and he improvised scenes with shider Yeah, and I had the young African-American actor Alan Weeks And we would improvise scenes outdoors and the second day breslin would forget what he did the first day on the third day He showed up drunk the fourth day, which was a third day didn't show up at all right and on friday I knew I had the firearm because it wasn't gonna work. He came in very contrite, but he said to me Um, I was a good friend so I didn't know quite how to fire him, but he said to me.

Sorry. I was drunk and all this and he said Um, isn't there a car chase in this movie? I said, yeah, he said well, I gotta tell you he said I promised my mother on her death bed I would never drive a car. So I don't know how to drive.

I said you're fired That's how he got out. Hackman was not even on a radar and where he come from well. He was suggested by his agent We met with him the producer and I I wasn't convinced he had never done a leading role either But he was a good supporting actor. He had been in bonding and clapping.

Yeah, yeah played Warren Beatty's brother Good in a number of things as a supporting actor, but I didn't see him as his dark Irishman Yeah And uh, but he was the last man standing the last guy and zanak was going to get fired and so we had to go and it worked out By the grace of god, you know, not my genius. Yeah, believe me And he would capture it like immediately with that documentary style. So you got all that life. No second takes Yeah, there.

No second takes in life mark. Is that true? Try it. So try to do a retake on when you were 15 years old You know, I feel like I don't think there's too many things.

I need to retake you I would if I could but I can't so what the hell what would you change? You say what the fuck? Yeah, right? No, what can you do change?

No, but you know the Robert Frost poem about the road not taken Yeah, you walking in a forest and there's a path that breaks left another that breaks right And the decision you make right there to take that path is what leads you to the rest of your life And why did you make that decision then who in the hell know you know the great story the lady in the tiger? You do no oh when I was a kid. I read it. You know about some guy in ancient Rome who falls in love with the daughter of one of the Caesars one of the kings and the The king says okay I'm going to put you into the arena where the Christians are thrown with the lions and there'll be two doors out of one door Will come a man eating lion Yeah, if you choose that door and out of the other door will come my daughter And if you choose the right door you'll have my daughter and if you choose the wrong door Your memory.

Yeah, and the story never reveals what door this guy took That captured my imagination. Although I read almost nothing and I was in high school Yeah, but that story captured my imagination every door we take is the lady or the tiger. Yeah, sometimes both I guess so I had to think about that. I hate blank air, but you know sometimes you hit me with something I have to think about Sometimes both yes indeed Indeed Oh, yes But who the hell knows I'm sure that you know when you started and wanted to be a stand-up comic There probably wasn't such a thing as a podcast.

No there was not Yeah, you know sometimes desperation yields the most amazing things when you're up against the wall and you got nothing But a tunnel of darkness looking at you, you know, you can't give up. You open a door. Yeah, you got open door You can't go back. There was a time when if somebody said to you I like you to do a pod game So what the hell is that?

A pod what pod we're even talking to people you know I never saw myself talking to people So you go from the French connection to the exorcist and that must have been here's how that happened But I mean you have this weird fascination It's not weird But this you know about menace about thrillers about it seems like from when you were a kid listening to radio that the haunted nature and the Sort of a supernatural and the magic Oh fascinated me as it does pretty much everything sure and you know, it's My philosophy is basically like what hamlet said to his friend her ratio There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy or ratio And that's what I believe things. I don't know or understand. I can't deny The power of religious belief. It's just there Do you believe?

Well, I believe in the teachings of Jesus as I've said to you There are a number of things that don't Filter through my consciousness easily But the mystery of faith is something that you have to pay attention to for example You take Jesus a guy walking in the desert and in the diaspora Yeah over 2,000 years ago with a robin sandals no television no internet no podcasts You know nothing written he might be back like you get him on here. I hear he might come Because you know, you've got a very intelligent audience, but here's a guy that spoke under the radar. He spoke in synagogues He didn't come to start a new religion Yeah, in fact, he's written about in two histories of first century Jerusalem one by phylo another by a guy called Flavius Josephus Who was a jewish historian of first century Jerusalem and all he wrote about Jesus was there was this man called Jesus Christ He went among the people he was he healed the sick and he was beloved of the people that's all it says now you read The gospels which were written you know a couple of hundred years later the first one There's nothing in his own handwriting right nothing that he published. Yeah, no recordings of his voice To our knowledge.

There was only one remaining thing that showed him in a drawing Just called a mandillion of a desert So people who weren't in his immediate presence didn't know him read him see him There were thousands of people crucified by the Romans many of them were called Jesus This particular guy Is still worshiped by billions of people who have no way of seeing him literally hearing him literally other than through the mystery of faith And I respect that Sometimes I don't respect something like that when you get a guy like Adolph Hitler Who also preached to the masses but we did see him People did see and hear him and saw his recordings and his newsreels and everything else and they followed him any stage production Tremendous stage production. Well, yeah, the guys who produced Hitler were friggin geniuses But to me the two most interesting figures in recorded history are Hitler and Jesus and it's good and evil Opposite ends of the pole and I don't understand the origins of either one I don't know if I was around at the time of Christ Whether I would have been a follower or a believer or not, but I can't reject the teachings of Jesus Right not in so far as they're presented by the churches Right. No, but just the poetry and the story and the the wisdom the ideas and the wisdom and a way to live And how to treat your fellow human beings and but you must possess a dark side as well Of course I do everyone does every human being sure you and every listener We have within us both good and evil and life is a constant struggle for each of us to suppress our worst angels And to to try not to do harm and often we lose that battle. Yeah, we don't succeed.

Yeah, unfortunately You have a few rounds. You hope that you know at least the struggle like there are different times where the we're the darker angels are running I think I believe that There is a good and bad side to every human being of course and and and so, you know the exorcist is about that But if you want I'll tell you how I got to do that or not I hate to direct the well no no But I love the thing that I find amazing about it is though that you know even with you know the evolution of special effects The theatrics of the exorcist and the pacing of the exorcist and the story and it's still riveting It's a powerful story And but like I don't mind the effects they work for me still it's still horribly creepy And I think that you know when her head spun around that changed a lot of people's lives It was like the fucking shark and jaws like I can't go in a pool when it's at night But you know in the same with the exorcist you're never gonna forget that thing you can't go in a swimming pool at night I got my dark side, you know my dark side is kind of how I'm exaggerating a little bit the ocean I'm not gonna go in the ocean and I do you yeah, I have but I mean it's not I have a I have a kind of sleepwalkers faith yeah that when I walk out that door I'm not gonna get hit by a car I mean I have some of that you know that's the only way to live you never had moments where you like I'm not gonna do that because My faith tells me that maybe I shouldn't I don't remember anything like that I usually just follow my instincts, but here's how the exorcist came about I have to go back I was asked by a great producer director named Blake Edwards, sir Julie Andrews husband and yes, but boy and that and he had a television series on the air then he was a great film director Um, he did breakfast at Tiffany's and you do all the pink panther movies to the pink panther later Yeah, pink panther, but he um had a series on television then called Peter Gunn which had this great theme by Henry Mancini Which sort of became the foundation of rock and roll This was in the fifth and then that's it yeah You know and it was really cool Yeah, and those were the foundation chords of rock and roll which came a couple years later And but Blake was gonna make a feature film of Peter Gunn He didn't want to direct it only to write and produce it and he invited me to meet with him at his offices at Paramount Get the script read it and if I liked it, I was gonna direct it I go to the first meeting. I really thought this guy was an absolutely great filmmaker And I lived at the Sunset Marquis then it was a it's a little Place on Altaloma off Sunset. Yeah, it's now become more prominent But then it was like a funky motel with a swimming pool and um I lived there I took the script home and I read it and I was really disappointed and I had to Sit down and think through what I was gonna say to him because I hated the script And how was I gonna tell this master filmmaker?

Yeah And so I went to his office the following Monday and he prepared the same breakfast for me that he always had it was a It was a english muffin with strawberry jam and a little pot of tea And we sat opposite each other and he said well, what did you think and I said Blake? I think your worst enemy would have not have written this script for you. This is a terrible piece of shit. That's what you went with?

Yeah, and I said I could only be honest. Yeah, I said I hate it I think what you've done is you've taken two episodes that I remember seeing of Peter Gunn Which I loved on television and you've sort of spliced them together and it's not fresh It's not gonna be for the movie not for me right? and he was a 9th degree black belt karate. Yeah, he stood up.

Yeah in all of his majesty And he said to me at the top of his voice. He said what in the fuck do you know? You don't know anything. What do you know about scripts?

You've done a couple of middling to lousy pictures and I just see some telling you and you're telling me about this script Yeah, I said Blake. That's how I feel. I'm sure you don't want me to lie to you and then go out and fail He said he put out his hand. He said thank you very much for letting me meet an interesting person And I left as I'm leaving and walking to the parking lot at Paramount I hear a voice behind me mr.

Friedkin and I see a guy running towards me with dark hair and a mustache a swarthy complexion Yeah, because in Blake's office, which was cavernous There were a lot of people sitting in the shadows who I wasn't even introduced to and this guy was one of them And he introduced himself. He said mr. Friedkin. I'm William Peter Blattie.

He said I wrote that script that you just not Lost a job. Yeah, and I said, oh jeez. I'm sorry mr. Blight said no.

No, you're right He said we all know the script doesn't work. I said I didn't see your name on it It just says screenplay by Blake Edwards. He said yes, Blake often does that He said but I wrote the script Blake did summary right now But everyone who works for Blake knows it doesn't work Yeah And he just wants to get the movie made while he's directing something else and he said I admire you for that because you lost a job doing that And I admire it. He wrote the damn thing Yeah, we shook hands and then I didn't see him for maybe three or four years Yeah Now three or four years later I'm on the road doing publicity for the French Connection Yeah, I'd not come out yet And I was going to various cities across the country.

I started on the east coast and before I left the sunset marquee A script or I a manuscript arrived in a manila envelope From William Peter Blattie. This is four years later and I looked at and I thought oh who's oh this is the guy that wrote that terrible Peter God's grip Yeah, I tossed it in my suitcase And I didn't read it I went from New York and I wound up my tour in San Francisco And then I was going to come back to LA And the last night of the tour in San Francisco I was going to have dinner at eight o'clock I had a beautiful view of the whole city out my picture window And I finished my last interview at five and I finally opened this envelope After nine or ten days on the road Yeah It's the exorcist by William Peter Blattie And I sit down a very comfortable easy chair and I start to read it And I had the same feeling that most of the readers had it totally Sombeed me out. Yeah, I couldn't believe this. They were so believable Yeah, yeah, and I canceled my eight o'clock dinner I read the whole thing in one sitting and he had his phone number on the leech and I called him and I said bill What the heck what is this and he told me it was he was inspired by a story that had happened when he was an undergraduate at Georgetown in 1949 Yeah, he had written it as a novel.

Yeah, I said why do you he said what you think I said it's great It's fantastic. He said do you want to direct it? I said well first of all why me? He said because you're the only director I've met who didn't lie to me And he said but I have to tell you that there are three other directors that Warner Brothers has in mind They want to give it first to Stanley Kubrick then to Arthur Penn if Kubrick passes and then to Mike Nichols Wow, and he said so I've got to go through that but I'd love for you to direct it now the French connection had not come out yet It was about to the other heavy hitters Kubrick passed because he said he was only developing his own stuff right Arthur Penn did not want to do any more violence on screen He had done Bonnie and Clyde made his point made his point Yeah And Mike Nichols thought you could never find a 12-year-old girl who could give a performance that would carry that film Right and by the way when the film did come out the first call I got was from Mike Nichols in which he said how in the hell did you do it?

And but so now the studio insisted on them They went through them one at a time. Yeah, and then Bladie said what about Bill Friedkin? They said no Who the hell is Bill Friedkin? Right?

He's done a couple of art films below the radar what the hell no And now the three guys pass They had actually made a deal with another director who I will not name. They had a deal with him to direct Why would you name him? Because I don't want to embarrass him. Sorry.

And uh, and I know him and we were friends and he was offered this picture Now finally they have hired this other guy. Yeah, and the French connection opened. Okay, and Bladie was still so insistent on me because he had director approval. Yeah, and When they said no, we're not gonna go with Friedkin.

He said okay Friday night, which is what the night the French connection opened He had not seen it. Right. He said on Friday night I'm going on a Johnny Carson show and I'm gonna tell Carson's viewers that you have refused to grant my Deal where I get director approval of this picture and I'm gonna tell them that you have broken my deal on national television Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute that day the French connection opened in theaters And Bladie was about to take off for Burbank to do our Johnny Carson show.

Yeah, and he gets a He called Frank Wells who was the head of the studio then and he said and Frank said bill He said is this about Friedkin and Bladie said yes I'm about to drive over to the Carson show And they said well bill we've seen the French connection and now we want him more than you do And that's how I got the film the rest is history That's yeah, I would say so about a month well October 30th I went to Washington to Georgetown where the city of Washington DC put up a plaque on those steps when we film Exorcist they put up a plaque officially designating them the exorcist steps and designating every October 30th as exorcist day and the mayor of Washington Spoke and the president of Georgetown and the city councilman from and I spoke and Bladie spoke and Our names are on this plaque and it's one of the top five tourist attractions in Washington that movie blue minds And but we never Discussed a horror film. We never talked about what we could do to make this scarier It was inspired by a true story. Well, you could feel that because the young priest was so compelling that guy is a genius What was that guy's name Jason Miller? What a great actor?

He had never been in a film before or don't you think the same? This is all the movie god Yeah, as with French connection. He was perfect for that unbelievable I had originally hired another actor to play that part, but I had Jason Miller was a playwright He had done a few small acting jobs Road companies outside of New York bus tours, but he'd never been in a film and never had a lead You know, great. So how did you get that performance out of Linda boy?

By becoming like her father more accurately her grandfather She told me I asked her you know What are the things that moved her the most when she was younger when I met her she was 12. Yeah, and she told me that the thing that really Really destroyed her was the death of her grandfather and But she was highly intelligent. She was a straight-A student. Yeah Westport Connecticut.

She was a champion horsewoman. She had never acted before she had only done some Modeling little girls dresses and stuff in the newspaper, but I talked to her and I learned a lot about her and her what she was like growing up Yeah, and what scared her and what disturbed her the principal thing being the death of her grandfather Yeah, which I would refer to again and again with her I would go to those things that made her laugh off camera Yeah, and before she had to do a scene on camera I would whisper to her very close to the camera and remind her of things that she had told me and I became like a surrogate father to her Although either her mother or father are both were on the set at all times So she made it a game. Yeah, she was 12 years old She had no idea of the implications of a lot of the stuff she's doing right for example when I first met her She said we had seen tapes and interviewed thousands of young girls And I felt as Mike Nichols did that you'd never find a two-year-old who could do the range of this stuff, right? And now I was interviewing 16-year-old girls and 17-year-old girls who looked younger To try and find someone who would not be totally destroyed by this One day when I was I remember sitting at my desk at Warner Brothers in New York at 666 Fifth Avenue Which is where they were located and address everything was everything's winding up Which had since come down on address and my head was in my hands because I thought we could not cast this role I had everybody else and My secretary buzzes me my assistant and says There's a woman out here named Eleanor Blair and she's come with her daughter She doesn't have an appointment, but would you see her?

Yeah, and I said sure yeah, I'll see her Why not the minute she walked in the door again like Shider? It was like a gift from the movie God I knew it was her the first thing I look for in an actor of any age Whatever is not even experienced but intelligence. That's the first thing I'm looking for intelligence which you can sense in someone. Yeah, even before you speak Yeah in the eyes in the attitude.

She sits down her mother sits next to her I said Linda do you know anything about the exorcist? She said yeah, I read the book I said well, what's it about? She said well, it's about a little girl who gets possessed by a devil And she does a whole bunch of bad things and I said well like what like what sort of bad things and she says well She pushes a man out of her bedroom window and she hits her mother across the face and she masturbates with a crucifix And I looked at her mother who was still smiling and I said do you know what that means Linda? She said what I said to masturbate she said and they were not a religious family either But I said, you know what it means to masturbate.

She said yeah, it's like jerking off, isn't it? I look at her mother who's still smiling. I said have you ever done that? And she said sure haven't you that was it That was her audition.

She made it I knew this was not gonna hurt her as a person right She was comfortable with the language comfortable with the ideas and I made it a game every day on the set And that movie made a fortune right? 800 million dollars so far. That's insane Basically a three dollar ticket, but much of it has been made through blue ray and dg Reissues every Halloween and going back it was reissued constantly. I'm movable But also it streams now.

Yeah, yeah So what led to sorcerer? I just want it because like it's the way it's characterized in some histories of movies is that you made this Indulgent film that was over budget and you're out of your mind And then when it was released the star wars buried it and you you went into a hole. That's pretty accurate That's hey if you want the short version you just nailed it But you know when you finish that movie because I saw the director's cut I imagine and you know when I read about the movie They didn't seem to realize that there was a gunshot at the end. There's a gunshot at the end of no other french connection No, no, no, no, oh the Oh, it's a sorcerer.

Yeah, or it's a truckback firing because the last thing that you see going through the frame of the long shot of the town Is a truck with workers Yeah, and right before that you see two gangsters going in two gangsters go in and it's the lady or the tiger ending Okay, they go in but he's surrounded by people who own their lives right and a couple of sheriffs Local sheriffs. Yep, and other guys who are armed everybody there is armed If not with a gun with a machete and the question is can these two gunslingers just take him out and leave or not And so you hear what sounds like a gunshot but could be a truckback firing In fact, the sound I used was a truckback firing. Ah, it sounds like a gun. Okay at the end of the french connection There's an unexplained gunshot As hatman runs down the long corridor and makes a turn still looking for the french guy Yeah, the camera holds on the empty long basement corridor and you hear a shot fired and then it goes to black Huh, and the ending is in the mind of the viewer as was the lady or the tiger I really had a hard time processing.

Yeah, if if shider died at the end of sorcerer like it should You it is up to the viewer. You should have a hard time. I didn't even indulge the truck by backfiring I just figured he got it. That's okay.

You welcome to your opinion bothered me. Uh, I don't know if he died or not I know you don't know about it. If I don't show it. Okay, it doesn't exist But you weighed this decision you put the sound in for this is the sound of a truckback firing Which you interpreted as a gunshot all right?

I like to have my films go into the mind of the viewers and let them process it or not Did you lose your mind during shooting sorcerer? That might be too strong away. I characterize it. I was always in control of it Yeah, and I always tried to get what I envisioned on the screen Yes, and as a film that came the closest to the way I saw it my mind's eye.

That's the one I loved it. Well, I thank you It reflected my view of life as I told you and this is just the way the Vietnam war is still going or just over it was Was all basically over a couple of years nixon had basically ended the Vietnam war You know Vietnam reverberated throughout this country and to some extent still does and I think that at that time in the mid-seventies to the late 70s America not so much that it lost its way, but it certainly became A new country, you know after the seven America went through a national nervous breakdown after the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King And the Vietnam war that took America through a national nervous breakdown And that was sort of the source for a sort of the end of that in a way the sorcerer in many ways reflected that These men doing absolutely stupid things Which may or may not have resulted in their survival and in fact three out of the four of them don't survive and But they were desperate like I tried to picture that movie coming out and what an audience at that time and how they would receive it Well, it wasn't well received by the critics or the audience there I can't believe the critics what kind of critics would not receive that well the same critics that rejected citizen Kane Right and Vincent Van Gogh who never sold a painting in his lifetime I'm not comparing myself to Vincent Van Gogh by any means but he made over 36 or 3700 works Drawings watercolors oil paintings you look at them today You say this man died without ever selling one of these and today You it will cost you a hundred million dollars if you could buy an oil painting there was a great store Why what changed in the tastes of the art-loving public that we're buying the impressionists at the time of Van Gogh But not a Vincent this is an outrageous mystery of fate not faith as I mentioned earlier, but fate Why didn't those people back then recognize this as the great art that it is? I have no idea and that movie was about fate Sorcerer's about the mystery of fate. Yes.

When Sorcerer released and Star Wars released Were you were you mad? No, I mean I was unprepared for that radical a shift in the zeitgeist and it was it was a major It was like from silent movies to sound. Did you know Lucas? Yes I met Lucas when he used to serve the food at Francis Copeland's house That Ellie Francis's wife used to cook and Lucas was a kind of acolyte employed by Francis and Francis had given Lucas some money for THX THX some help and he was an assistant to Francis and he would serve dinners at Francis's house in San Francisco then and Then Francis backed him in American graffiti after THX and here comes American graffiti and the guy who ran the studio they had a preview of American graffiti that Francis sort of Grandfathered.

Yeah, he had to be there in case Lucas didn't know how to make a movie and They have a preview in San Francisco where they all lived and the guy who ran Universal was a guy named Ned Tannen And after the screening where the audience went wild loved it screaming cheering out in the hall At the theater Ned Tannen says to copula and Lucas. He said you guys let me down He's that's not the film we talked about this doesn't we got to be in the cutting room Monday morning This was at the north point theater in San Francisco. It's now gone and he said you know I don't know where this went wrong, but it's it's wrong everywhere and we got to go in the cutting room and fix it and Francis said You don't know what you're talking about. Did you hear that audience?

Did you see the audience in there? They went crazy for this. What is wrong with you? He said how much money have you got in this picture?

And test what do you mean? How much is how much money do you have in the picture? You don't have a million dollars in this picture What do you have about nine hundred thousand at the most and Tannen said yeah, that's about right and Francis whipped out his checkbook And he said I will buy this film from you right now I will write you a check for nine hundred thousand dollars and take this over and he didn't have Nine hundred thousand dollars or anything like it, but Tannen backed off and the film went out the way George made it You know when you talk about a mentor or a guy who was an inspiration to another filmmaker That's copula and Lucas and of course they went down super paths But you so you you sense with Star Wars that it was just a shift in the culture. Oh totally Yeah, I mean it that's rarely happened It happened at times when you know color black and white gave way to color and silent gave way to sound There's nothing wrong with a great buster keaton and chaplain's movies But along comes sound which in many ways was a regression of the art form But that's what people wanted.

They wanted sound to go with that. You thought it was that big of a shift without a doubt That's what it is today. Yeah star wars came out in 1977 But every other film is an offshoot of star wars all these comic book superheroes that star wars if star wars had failed I don't know which direction film would have gone. Where did you go?

I stayed on the path that I had set right after sorcerer after you know, I imagine there was a Period where you were like I got to get my head together Uh Yeah, but I've always thought of myself really not as an artist but as a working director where'd you go? I made a I didn't make a film for a while. I didn't find anything I really wanted to do but Almost two years later. I made a film called a brinks job It was intended as a comedy about the actual brinks right peter fock Paul sarvino Peter Boyle warren oats Were no jenna roland Ellen Garfield and we had a lot of fun and I went to boston to make it because I was a huge seltic fan Oh, yeah And I got to know red arbak And very well and for the next 10 years I basically went to seltics games and practices and I and eventually they let me practice Oh, yeah With the the 80s team bird mckayle and parrish Oh, yeah, and I got to suit up and I could run the place I could never rebound right with those guys But I became very close to red and bob koozy.

That's great And what about cruising that blew my mind in high school that was a couple of years later. It's a crazy movie That came about I don't know if you know this when I made the exorcist. There's a scene It's an arteria gram scene. Yeah, you know where they try to uh where they put a needle Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah In a neurosurgical room Yeah, and they inject a fluid that outlines the arteries of the brain to see if she has arterial brain damage And I shot that scene at the n.

Y. U the new york university medical center Yeah with an actual neurosurgeon and his assistant and I noticed something about the assistant then this was back in 1972 When I shot it. Yeah, the assistant who was a male nurse in effect had an earring and a studded leather bracelet Yeah In the workplace and that was rare and especially in a hospital setting and I just I didn't comment to anybody about it. I just took note of it as being strange.

His name was paul baitson He's in the movie. Yeah about uh four years later Five years later. I read on the front page of the new york daily news. I see paul baitson's picture And he's charged with several murders of gay men Who body parts were found in the east river of new york in plastic bags And I see it's who is this guy paul baitson?

I know this guy And oh my god and I read on I see these being held at rikers island And I see the name of his lawyer And I find these being held because when these body parts came to surface in these plastic bags In very small print at the bottom of the bag. It said new york university medical center neuropsychological Neuropsychiatric vision And that's how they traced the bags and the parts to him and they charged him So I call his lawyer whose name was in the paper I didn't know and I said Look, I directed the exorcist and and paul is in it. He said yeah, I know I said would would paul see me or would you allow paul to meet with me? He said I'll ask him And the answer came back.

Yes, and I had to go through about eight layers of bureaucracy To get into where he was being held pending trial for several murders And I'm sitting with him in a room as big as this one as I say it's about uh 10 by 50 Approximately And I'm in a room with him and there's a guard outside not inside. Yeah, and we sit down. This is a 1978 or so the exorcist has been out for five years and Paul's estimate first thing he says is yeah, how's the film doing? And I said well, it's doing great paul.

It's still running. I said paul Did you do these murders? And he said I only remember doing the first one he said I was so high On the rest of these I honestly don't remember But I probably did because they got me on these bags And the first murder was actually the theater critic For variety in New York his name was Addison Verrill Yeah, and paul used to go to the s&m bars on the west side of New York He'd pick up guys take him back to his apartment They do a lot of dope and he'd wind up hitting them over ahead with a frying pan And then he cut them up and threw their bodies in these bags in the east river And he remembered doing the first one, but he told me didn't remember all the rest. I said how many were there He said I'm not sure he said but they've asked me to confess to eight And they've said if I confess to eight They will lower my sentence And I'll get out in 25 years.

I said for eight murders. Yeah, I said what are you gonna do? He said I don't know I'm thinking about it. He confessed to the eight murders and got out 25 years later He's around somewhere.

He may be listening to this broadcast I'm sure he went into witness protection. I don't know if he's still alive or still uses the name paul baitsen But that's who he was and that's what gave me the idea for the film cruising And that and that was taking place not only these murders in the s&m bars But the mysterious deaths of gay people which did not have a name in 1978 But by 1980 when cruising came out it was hiv aids So there were these mysterious deaths and murders And there were articles by a guy called arthur bell in the village voice who wrote You know sort of warning shots to gay people about not going to these bars And I happened to know the guy who was The head of the west side mob the Italian mob. Yeah, who owned all the bars And he owned the Mindshaft where I on little west twelfth street. Yeah, it's now a gentrified restaurant In the west side again for a treat.

Yeah, he owned the bars and I went to him to his house He lived like tony soprano. Yeah, he's a big fan of the first direction. No, he lived in long island And he had his grandchildren running around on the floor while we sat in the kitchen And he would cut up pieces of salami and we and cheese and we need salami and cheese and talk about stuff and one day I said to him His name was maddie. I know Maddy the horse and I said maddie.

I want to talk to you I want to make a film in the mind shaft. Yeah, and he went like this He put his finger in front of his mouth. Yeah, yeah And he held his hand out stop don't say another word and then he said so you're working on another film my kid And he changed the subject went to something else and Then we talked for about another 15 20 minutes. We go outside.

So I'll walk you to your car. We walk out of the house Toward my car. He first walked me in the opposite direction because where my car was parked He said you see we said without moving his lips. He said you see down the street there.

You see that little dark forward There's two guys sitting down there and they've got binoculars on us. So they're gonna try to read our lips. So we're gonna go this other way for a minute He said first of all never talk about my business in my house Never say a word about my business in my house. Now.

What do you want? And I said I want to shoot in the mind shaft. He said don't write this down I'm gonna give you a name and a phone number You remember this number and he gave me the phone number and the name of the guy who managed the mind shaft for him And he said call him and tell him you spoke to me. He will have heard from me So I called the guy a few days later Went down and met with him and I had permission to film in these bars with the guys who are members of this club There were no actual extras.

They were guys into this They were a lot of them are members of a group called the FFA the fistfuckers of America And and this was a private club and I filmed there for oh at least a week A lot of stuff I filmed I couldn't use in the final cut Yeah, it was a heavy movie man The story was heavy and you know a lot of people came out of the time and said this is anti-gay and it absolutely was not It was it was specific. It was an unusual Background yeah for a murder mystery. That's the only way I had viewed it now I had also made boys in the band some years earlier and a lot of people thought that was anti-gay it was written by a gay man It's a great play. Yeah, very funny I think the movie we made is terrific and I think cruising in its own way is damn good Yeah, but it these were obviously not anti-gay films But they were a peak behind the curtain of a culture that not too many people anywhere were aware of right most of the reaction to cruising has Changed as well.

It's mostly positive I remember when to live and die now they came out because I was excited that you made a new movie again It was about the thin line between the policeman and the criminal yeah or between good and evil and that's my subject What was that? Billy Peterson? Oh my god. It was his first film first time ever song first film He had a walk on as a bartender in Michael Mann's movie thief would you be shot in Chicago?

Yeah, but I saw him up at the Toronto Shakespeare festival the same guy that brought me Roy Shider So you got to go up and see this guy Billy Peterson do street car named desire at the Toronto Shakespeare festival And I said I don't want to see street car Marlon Brando owns that part Yeah, everyone who's ever done it just imitates Brando. Yeah, and he said this guy does not he is unique and original and I go up there I saw the performance guy was great. I met with him offered in the picture It's interesting now that I'm realizing it that you've always had a relationship with theater in the films That like even with boys. Let's come from mark.

No, but I mean like you shoot you shoot plays. I've done a couple I did boys in the band the birthday party and the reason and killer Joe but though but you know these are your most recent films great scripts Tracy lights as a genius. These are great. Well, we're on the same page what pages that we have the same worldview We look at life in a similar way started with an ironic view, but we are Obviously disturbed by the same sorts of things and we we see that you know, there is this mystery of fate That's a part of life and also that people often do stupid things unintentionally That's what the point of view is that's one of them.

It's a when I say we're on the same page You and I are probably on the same page. Yeah, I don't know what your politics are and I don't care But I imagine we have a similar outlook. I don't think either one of us suffers fools gladly, right? That's where Tracy and I that's the point at which we meet but we don't believe You know the codes we don't believe the codes Well, what about like in terms of the emotions and the the visceral and violent nature and the sexuality of these plays And they're very it's not easy to shoot a play as a film I would imagine because the script in the pace is different correct Well, if it's a great script, it really doesn't matter and you're shooting on digital right I shot I shoot now on digital Yes, you have no problem with that.

No, it's great when they release the picture. Yeah, it has no dirt No scratches. Yeah, no splices. Yeah, you can tune you can go into a frame of film and Tune the color.

You can make the sky bluer or lighter blue You can make people's faces warmer or colder stuff You could never do from frame to frame with 35 millimeter. So yes, I love it And by the way over 90 percent 95 percent or more of all the screens run only digital I know I know I just like I guess I romanticize the the the commitment necessary Budgetarily and and and technology wise to to film most 35 millimeter films are not in good shape enough to be seen It's like you want to hear keroso sing on an old 78 rpm record and his voice sounds like this With needle scratch. Yeah, that's what 35 millimeter is compared to a digital print right or something that you stream Yeah on your computer right or ipad or iphone in 1080 IP high definition. It's beautiful I think and 35 millimeter.

I've seen prints of my films, you know Quentin Tarantino's guy like very much He owns a theater. Yeah new Beverly. Yeah, and he runs only 35s And I've given him prints He actually had bootleg prints of a lot of my stuff and he calls me and asked me if it's okay to run in there And I say yes as long as I don't have to be there and see it Yeah, because 35s suck It's like listening to a podcast versus listening to radio on a tiny little Am thing that used to plug into the wall and had nothing but static. Yeah, all right I understand that so I want the film to be seen as I see it through the viewfinder the camera I don't want the projection is to have final cut Where the film breaks in the projector is it often used to and you'd have to splice it and you lose frames Every time you run a 35 millimeter picture on a projector It picks up dirt and scratches and often splices and that was not built in Yeah, but I know that there are a lot of people who feel hell that's what the way I saw it That's the purest way I bullshit I want to see it clean.

So these two plays you did with let's We brought it up earlier a couple things I want to bring around in terms of working with actors Because it seems like sometimes when you work with someone like Tommy Lee Jones that you you trust his instincts He trusts his instincts, but there are other actors that you feel like you have to get in their head As we talked about with Gene with Gene and also Linda Blair a bit and but like you know, I noticed like right away when I was watching bug You know, I don't want to give short-shrift at some of the other movies like J to whatever way But uh, you know, that was one of the best things I ever saw her do Oh, she's great in bug and she understood that paranoia bug is about the ability of Two people who are who become romantically involved and one person passes not only their worldview And their good stuff, but all their bad vibes to the other person right there paranoia It's about mutual paranoia as deeply disturbing and involving the actors were great everybody in it. Well that guy uh, uh, Michael Shannon he nailed it and Ashley nailed it and a lot of it comes from In her case the way she grew up Feelings that she had that I was able to tap into but mostly she instinctively knew who that woman was She had never been able to play anything like that like Matthew McConaughey and killer Joe She had mostly done romantic comedies and sort of women's thrillers And with those performances like when you have these conversations with actors, do you sit down at a quiet place? Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, some really comfortable place You know, we don't do it in a restaurant or something. We'll sit down in a quiet room often at my house Uh, occasionally at their house.

I first talked to McConaughey about killer Joe at his house then out in malibu Yeah, he's moved to Austin, Texas back. Yeah, I think he grew up there. Didn't he? Yeah from there?

Yeah, he's from east Texas And the first time Matthew read killer Joe he told me and he said it publicly He threw it across the room into a big trash bin. He had in his room Yeah, he hated it and then the people that gave it to him said what you hated it. You better read this again His agent and his lawyer said him you grew up with these guys You know who these people are and this is the different role that you're looking for and it's in its own way It's funny. Yeah, it's really darkly humorous And so he read it again.

He said and he got it. He got it They called me and we met and we talked a little bit about how my approach to it I said I don't do take two unless a light falls in the shot or the camera tips over There is no take two always there just with these always I don't do take two You know let alone what a lot of take 37 I used to like every other swinging dick. Yeah, that made a movie I used to do endless takes looking for a miracle And I'd get in the cutting room You're looking for a miracle on about take 27 and I get in the cutting room And uh, I'd see that the best takes were the first or second one the most spontaneous They might not be word for word perfect, but they had the spontaneity and so I tell the actors now That's what I'm going for so we talk over the scene What is this scene about and then I give them a staging how I'm going to do it And I'll sometimes use metaphor in talking to an actor Yeah, or I'll say things like let's do it faster or slower uh, or uh, you know, um, let's do it more quietly or louder I've often done that but I don't stand there and try to bang out takes many directors have said and I agree What's the secret of directing? Casting yeah if you've cast the right people and you're on the same page with them.

It's probably gonna work Yeah, so let's get back and close with this the uh, you said you've seen the shroud of turn Oh, yeah, now, you know, given your fascination with jesus and given your fascination with the story and you've obviously done a lot of research and uh, uh, Have interest in it. What's what's your feelings on the shroud of turn? I when I first directed the opera aida at the teatro regio interino about 12 years ago I met you meet a lot of people socially when you come in as a director of an opera They call you maestro And it turns out that the people who control the shroud of turn are not the catholic church But the relatives of the savoia kings who originally Owned the shroud of turen, uh in uh france where they had their manaki and in the third century They moved and built a castle in torino and a basilica and in that basilica They brought with them from third century france the shroud that is allegedly the garment In which jesus was wrapped when he was taken off the cross and placed in the tomb of owned by joseph of aramathea That's the allegation I met the last remaining relative of the savoia family. His name is serge de ugo slavi Serge of ugo slavi.

Yeah, he's a nice guy. He was in his forties then young attractive I think he was in the stock market, you know in in in italy in various investments And we met and became good friend the shroud had not been shown to the public for over a hundred years And he had control of who saw it and uh, i still pull his leg. I say serge I lived in an apartment right across from the basilica. Uh-huh and i used to say serge you got to show me the shroud I'm dying to see the shroud knowing I'd never get to see it right it's not been open to the public Yeah One day after weeks of this where i'm basically putting him on yeah, he calls me on a thursday And he said on saturday after the noon mass You're not rehearsing are you?

I said no or I said something like i'll move the rehearsal if I have to yeah He said meet me right after the noon mass wear a black suit meet me on the steps of the basilica Tell sherry to wear a black Pantsuit not a dress and to cover her head and he said you wear a tie and meet me on the steps of the basilica saturday I said serge I don't have a black suit and I don't have a tie. He said you have a dark coat. Yes dark pants Yes, wear that and i'll bring you a tie we go to the steps of the basilica the noon mass lets out And there is serge and his mother who lives in florida and his mother had a new boyfriend She wasn't that old and she wanted to show the shroud to her new boyfriend And they both live in florida so serge arranged this private showing for eight people to which sherry and I were invited After the noon mass had completely let out a big black limousine came around the corner with a bishop of pimente the region the pimente pimente or pimente region And two or three priests accompanying him and serge said to us you will have to kiss his ring And we kissed the ring both of us and then we went inside to the empty basilica And as you walk toward the rather ornate altar on the left hand side is a long Room covered from inside outside with leaded glass and from inside with velvet drapes that remained shut for a hundred years Unless guys would go in there And serge handed the keys to this room to the bishop who opened the doors They rolled back the drapes and now we are in a room that was probably twice as big as this room 15 by 10 It's probably 30 by 20. Yeah, and the only thing you see in the room is just to the left of the altar The only thing you see in the room is a painting of Jesus And I don't know who it was by it does not seem to be a well-known or famous portrait And you see a rug and the priest their eight of us and the priest rolled back the rug and there's a foot pedal And the bishop placed his foot on the pedal at serge's invitation and up from the floor rises this Table that's about 15 feet long and it was covered After the rug is rolled back.

It's covered by a red velvet cloth with an embroidered gold crucifix and they roll that back And beneath leaded glass on the table is the outline of a crucified man in blood And the most current DNA has shown that And they're pretty good with the DNA now that that image of the crucified man is not paint Certainly not photography because its existence has been known since the third century Photography goes back to the 19th century It in fact is type ab blood And it's an outline of a crucified man including the outline of a crown of thorns and there's a Outline of blood in the chest where the centurion's spear is supposed to have gone and you're looking at the image of a crucified man whose Palms are crossed but they have been nailed through And his ankles are crossed and with one nail through both ankles You see the outlines in blood of this image And my wife and I and everyone else in the room burst into tears as I think of it now my eyes tear up and We see what is the image of a crucified man in other words. We see Before us man's inhumanity to man bang I don't know if it's jesus the latest dna has shown that the pollen on this Cloth is from first century Jerusalem now the Romans crucified thousands of people many of them called jesus We don't know that this is jesus. I don't know that there were that many people Or not crucified with a crown of thorns this I right didn't and don't know but I know that there were other jesus as crucified My wife and I who are both jewish burst into uncontrollable tears and because of the power of this image and then the bishop in atalian Translated by serge to us started to explain the images in a clear way And it turns out that when you photograph if you if we weren't I didn't ask to photograph it But if someone photographs this image it doesn't show up It only showed when it was when the negative had been photographed And the photograph of the negative Looks like this. This is it.

Yeah, I carry it with me And that's the image that you get when you reproduce the negative the positive image does not photograph But when you look at it by eye you see this outline in blood of a crucified man. Yeah and Now a few weeks or possibly a month or so later Bishop john paul the second wanted to see the shroud and he had to get permission from the savoyah family Through the bishop of pimanti and he of course was allowed to come and see the shroud and There were hundreds of thousands of people outside waiting for him to appear outside the basilica And he came out and he said words to the effect in atalian that this is a very important relic of the catholic church He did not say for certain that this is the shroud of jesus. He did not say that this was definitely What is claimed for it? He said it's a very important relic of the catholic faith and it should be seen by everybody So they then opened it to the public.

This is about 10 12 years ago and over two million people filed by This was shortly before turin got the winter olympics And then when I went back there to redirect the opera ayita in october, it had been reopened again 10 12 years later more millions of people filed by but I didn't go in then because I had been alone with that image You felt the opening of the original magic You know that moment how you're gonna recapture that moment never It's like to me with the way you described it and whether it was real or it wasn't that the mystical implications and the historical I'm gonna call it magic Of of what it represents and what it could possibly be and just the the procedural that went up to you experiencing it It was mind-blowing. Jesus did not want to be thought of as a magician And did not want to be thought of as someone who performed miracles He was always quick to tell the people where the so-called miracles occurred. Do not say anything do not talk about this He didn't want to be thought of as a magician or a role player Now it's possible to interpret from that that if I tell you hey mark Don't say anything about what we talked about that the first thing you're gonna do is go tell somebody that's possible but You know what draws me to the ideas of Jesus is not the miracles or the The supernatural right what draws me are the ideas the thoughts that are expressed in his word in his name None of the other stuff upon which the religion is built, you know being born Of a virgin birth none of that is really sweet, but you know I tell you that the mystery of faith just blows me away No one saw this man and by the way in those days in the time of Jesus not only single women But married women preached the gospel of Jesus and today they can't be priests and this great new pope They have this liberal pope I am hoping that he will change that because women preached the gospel in the time of Jesus Mary Magdalene for example only one example. Do you consider yourself a Christian?

No? No, I consider myself a believer in the teachings of Jesus I I do I think the ritual is beautiful. I find myself as I photograph The mass in the exorcist with Jason Miller saying the mass in a big close-up calmly and quietly and deeply felt that's how I feel about it when I went to church to prepare for filming the exorcist the priest would Rattle off the mass like it was rap poetry And how many poetry by the spirit of santes? I mean another you couldn't hear the words in the name of the father and the son of the holy god I have a I had Jason Miller say Take this cup and drink from it for this is my blood The blood of the everlasting covenant the mystery of faith He said it over and over again quietly slow in a close-up and you see the wafer and he said for this is my body Take this And eat of it, which is this ritual of the mass but I broke those phrases down to their essential meaning Because they moved me so powerfully that he was playing a pre-saying mass and I didn't want him to rattle it off like a rap record It was amazing talking to you mark.

I I look forward to this I knew because I've heard many of your podcasts and you're in a class by yourself I'm not kissing your ass everybody's listening to this knows that and I don't do this anymore It was great. I don't do I appreciate that. I don't do interviews. I've done it.

I've said everything Basically I have to say they're usually the same questions and accompanied by the same answers Because I can turn my brain on autopilot, but not when I'm talking to you. I thought it was great. Thank you I'm honored to you. Thanks for inviting me.

Thanks for coming, Bill That's what you call a racantour my friends. That's a story a long story woven together by a series of stories and life experiences Threaded through fate. I'd like to thank Wayne frequent being here. That was an honor and a pleasure And also go to wtfpod.com for all your wtf pod needs got a bunch of posters up there got stuff get on the mailing list check the episode guide It's actually wtfpod.com slash guide this year's been on the show get hooked up with the howl app For our archive and I'll just gonna play a little guitar.

I know you've been through a lot. That was a long show