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♪♪

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[Brian De Palma]
I saw <i>Vertigo</i> in 1958.

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I saw it at Radio City Music Hall.
I will never forget it.

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Give me your hand.

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[grunting]

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[screaming]

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[De Palma] That left
an incredible impression upon me.

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What's so compelling
about <i>Vertigo?</i>

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It is the—

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He's making a movie about
what a director does,

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which is basically create
these romantic illusions.

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It makes you fall in love with it
and then kills it. Twice.

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And it's what we do
as directors.

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We create these beautiful women,

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these exciting virile men.

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We get audiences involved
in their stories

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and emotionally attached
to them.

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And Hitchcock made a movie which is,
you know, it's so Brechtian.

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It's showing what we're doing
as we're doing it.

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And it is something
that has fascinated me, you know,

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since I saw <i>Vertigo.</i>

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♪♪

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I was the youngest.

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I was born in North New Jersey.

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When I was about five,

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we moved into suburbian Philadelphia,
right off the Main Line,

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in a kind of fairly nice
suburban house.

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My father was a very successful
orthopedic surgeon,

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and then my mother was very close
to the three of us.

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She was over at school a lot.

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You know, going to our football practices
and soccer practices.

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My father basically drove into the city,
and operated very early and was teaching

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and then writing his books
when he got home at night.

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So, we didn't see
a lot of him.

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And we didn't have much
of a relationship with him.

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I went to a Quaker school,
Friends' Central.

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And I went to that school
for 12 years.

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Well, I'd say the thing that left the most
impression on me

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was, you know, meeting
at this Quaker school.

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Sitting in silence and thinking about
the moral aspects of your life,

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and if you had anything you wanted
to share with the community

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you stood up and talked.

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There was a lot of turmoil
in my family.

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My parents were not happy together,

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and at one point I got up
and talked about...

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the difficulties
going on within my family.

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I was very chummy
with the girls.

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I got along with the girls
very well.

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I would do sort of crazy things
occasionally,

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like taping
the girls sex education class.

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Debbie Deming,
as I recall her name,

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she dared me to do it,
and then of course I did it,

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and then of course I told her
and then she turned me in.

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I went to Columbia to study physics,
and math and Russian.

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I was basically a science nerd.

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I mean I wasn't really interested
in movies,

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not until I went to Columbia.

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There was a lot of excitement
because, of course, we had the war,

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had to worry about getting drafted.

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And we had all this French new wave
stuff coming in,

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all these foreign movies,

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So, it was
a pretty exciting time.

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It was like, that's what you
talked about.

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That was like, the new thing.

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There was no place you could take film
at Columbia.

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I signed up for a cinema society
called Cinema 16,

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run by Amos Vogel.

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And they would show all these
very avant-garde shorts.

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That was— That's what
you signed up for.

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I submitted my shorts every year,

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until the third year I won it
with <i>Woton's Wake.</i>

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<i>♪ What you hear it is fruitless ♪</i>

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<i>♪ You see it must be ♪</i>

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<i>♪ So here is the saga
of Wretchichevsky ♪</i>

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♪♪

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[De Palma] Bill Finley was a classmate
of mine at Columbia.

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So, I began to craft pieces

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for his particular kind
of characters he could portray.

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And that was the genesis
of <i>Woton's Wake,</i>

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<i>where he played everything</i>

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from the Phantom of the Opera
to King Kong.

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I'd seen a casting notice

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for a graduate project
at Sarah Lawrence

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and I said, "Oh, this looks like
a good idea."

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So, I went up to Sarah Lawrence
and I got into a graduate play.

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And that's when I met Wilford Leach,
who was very influential.

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And he was like my mentor.
He was a brilliant director.

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That's what really
started me going,

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in the sense of learning
all the things I had to learn

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in order to, you know,
be a director.

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My first feature came out
of Sarah Lawrence.

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We brought Will on to sort of
oversee the whole thing.

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And a lot of the people in it came right
out of the Sarah Lawrence workshop.

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Bobby was in
the Sarah Lawrence workshop.

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Jill was in
the Sarah Lawrence workshop.

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Jennifer Salt was in
the Sarah Lawrence workshop.

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Well, that sounds like free love.
What about purity?

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[De Palma] <i>The Wedding Party</i>
was De Niro's first movie.

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Bobby came into
a casting session

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and Will and I were
in the loft on Broadway.

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He's, like, the last guy
in the room.

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And he's very quiet, shy.

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And then he said he had something
he'd prepared in class.

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Then he went out, and Will and I
were sort of looking at each other,

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and, like, 20 minutes from—
We thought he'd left, it was at night.

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And then he burst through the door

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and does a scene
from Clifford Odets' play.

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<i>"Strike, I think about
the cab strike."</i>

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And it was like—

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You were, like, watching Lee J. Cobb
rant in front of the union guys.

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It was like, "holy mackerel!"

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The one place
where there's life, the beach.

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The dock,
where there's something—

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a connection
to the mainland.

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And you walk— Start walking
around the beach.

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[De Palma] The great irony was
that we co-directed <i>The Wedding Party.</i>

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That's when I saw and knew more about
motion picture directing than Wilford did.

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We had the scene with Bill Finley,
Bob De Niro and Charlie Pfluger,

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where the two boys are trying
to convince him not to get married.

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We were shooting it
and I could see

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that we were never able
to do the shot.

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Plus, it was not
a good shot.

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Because basically we're shooting
three guys against the hedge.

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You know, you weren't getting any value
out of the motion of the camera.

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And Will kept on insisting
that we do it this way.

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And then Will
kind of got frustrated,

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and I said,
"Will, let me block this act,

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because this is not the way.
This should work."

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So, I blocked it out
a whole different way.

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Broke the whole thing up
into a whole bunch of shots.

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And— And I made
the shot work.

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And he was wrong.

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I shot a lot of documentaries
in that period in order to support myself

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while I was in graduate school.

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I shot a documentary about the OP Art
opening at the Museum of Modern Art,

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which was pretty successful.

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I was a very good cameraman.

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You know, and I had
a really good sense

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how to follow a scene
and see what was happening.

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Well, the advantage of doing everything
yourself is that I did everything.

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I figured I'd really hit
the big time

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when I didn't have to pack up
the equipment at the end of the day

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and take it back
to the rental house.

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[screaming]

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You see a lot of the sort of Hitchcockian
things in <i>Murder a la Mod.</i>

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A lot of stylistic madness
going on.

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You have the scene
of Jennifer, you know,

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me trying to talk her into taking
her clothes off for the camera.

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Is this
supposed to be sexy?

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[De Palma] Well, yeah,
you're supposed to be,

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you know, doing sort of
strip tease for us.

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Which is very much like
the same scene

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that I did in <i>The Black Dahlia</i>

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where I'm interviewing an actress.

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- How long have you lived here?
- Two years.

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- You lost your accent?
- Yeah.

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[De Palma]
So, some of that stuff I,

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you know, started to play with
in <i>Murder a la Mod.</i>

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We had to release it
ourselves

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over on 12th Street
and Second Avenue.

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I was literally pulling people
off the street to go see it.

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When I was a graduate student
at Sarah Lawrence,

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Universal Pictures
paid my tuition.

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When I got out
of Sarah Lawrence

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I got into a new talents program
at Universal,

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and again I was writing stuff
but nobody ever read anything.

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And we became so frustrated
Chuck Hirsch and I,

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that we decided
to make a movie ourselves.

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♪♪

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♪ Greetings, greetings, greetings ♪

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<i>Greetings</i> was the more Godardian
influenced movie.

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Of course, we were seeing
all the Godard movies

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at the New York Film Festival.

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They were all a revelation
one after another.

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I especially remember <i>Weekend,</i>
going, "Holy mackerel."

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And very much influenced
by what was going on politically.

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What you— What are you
finding space for?

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Well, you know, I'm trying to get
in my pre-induction physical side.

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[De Palma] I mean, if you wanted
to stay out of the war,

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00:09:02,084 --> 00:09:04,004
and you were
a middle-class kid,

181
00:09:04,086 --> 00:09:05,666
you could figure out a way to do it.

182
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I finally had to go in
and I had a letter from a doctor.

183
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I took everything to make me allergic,
so I could hardly breathe.

184
00:09:14,221 --> 00:09:16,971
I was up all night and I was running
around, wheezing.

185
00:09:17,058 --> 00:09:19,448
We kept him awake for two days.
We can't keep him going like that.

186
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They took me right
to the psychiatrist.

187
00:09:22,021 --> 00:09:23,981
Hey, Lloyd.
You be the psychiatrist.

188
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I had to dead stare
right at his forehead

189
00:09:27,568 --> 00:09:30,608
and talked about
my homosexual feelings.

190
00:09:30,696 --> 00:09:32,046
Just walk right up
to the sergeant.

191
00:09:32,073 --> 00:09:33,623
You gaze.
Just walked right up to him.

192
00:09:33,699 --> 00:09:35,549
Get as close as you can.
Look him straight in the eye.

193
00:09:35,576 --> 00:09:39,496
Seduce him with your eyeballs
and say, "Hi."

194
00:09:39,580 --> 00:09:42,540
I was a communist.
I was a homosexual.

195
00:09:42,625 --> 00:09:44,125
I was crazy.

196
00:09:44,210 --> 00:09:49,050
And I think with my letter from my doctor,
that got me out.

197
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<i>Greetings</i> opened
in December,

198
00:09:51,300 --> 00:09:53,300
and was crucified in <i>The Times.</i>

199
00:09:53,386 --> 00:09:56,676
Fortunately what happened was,
the review was so bad,

200
00:09:56,764 --> 00:10:01,234
a guy wrote a reply
in <i>The Sunday Times,</i>

201
00:10:01,310 --> 00:10:02,730
which was huge,

202
00:10:02,812 --> 00:10:05,652
saying "Was that a way
to greet <i>Greetings?"</i>

203
00:10:05,731 --> 00:10:08,031
And then, at that same week,

204
00:10:08,109 --> 00:10:11,859
Pauline Kael's review came out
in <i>The New Yorker</i>

205
00:10:11,946 --> 00:10:14,776
and suddenly
the movie became a hit.

206
00:10:14,865 --> 00:10:17,235
I feel very strongly
about these political movies

207
00:10:17,326 --> 00:10:18,786
when I get into
that area.

208
00:10:18,869 --> 00:10:21,539
This— This clearly shows
that Officer [bleep]

209
00:10:21,622 --> 00:10:23,582
was in the front
and firing from the front

210
00:10:23,666 --> 00:10:26,456
with a Russian
6.76mm rifle, see.

211
00:10:26,544 --> 00:10:28,924
Causing a neck wound
in the president's neck,

212
00:10:29,005 --> 00:10:30,665
7/8ths of an inch
below the collar button.

213
00:10:30,756 --> 00:10:33,376
[De Palma] And it's the very
anti-establishment,

214
00:10:33,467 --> 00:10:37,007
usually comedic in the case
of <i>Greetings and Hi, Mom!</i>

215
00:10:37,096 --> 00:10:39,846
You know, looking around
and saying, "This is crazy."

216
00:10:39,932 --> 00:10:41,812
I'm studying people and I,

217
00:10:41,892 --> 00:10:43,852
you know, when you took the book
and everything,

218
00:10:43,936 --> 00:10:46,106
it was amazing.
It was just beautiful.

219
00:10:46,188 --> 00:10:48,648
And it was what I called
a private moment, you see.

220
00:10:48,733 --> 00:10:50,483
And I study people
like this.

221
00:10:50,568 --> 00:10:52,298
[Rubin] Okay, now—
Now, don't you think you're hot?

222
00:10:52,319 --> 00:10:54,069
Don't you want
to go to bed now?

223
00:10:54,155 --> 00:10:56,115
- Ah, I'm tired.
- Yes, you're tired.

224
00:10:56,198 --> 00:10:57,838
- I'm tired. And I want to go.
- You want to go to sleep.

225
00:10:57,867 --> 00:11:01,077
So, don't you think you should
take off your dress?

226
00:11:01,162 --> 00:11:02,582
- Sure. Take it off.
- My dress?

227
00:11:02,663 --> 00:11:05,963
[Rubin] Remember, this is a private
moment, and no one is watching.

228
00:11:06,042 --> 00:11:09,752
[De Palma] Bobby emerged
as the most captivating character.

229
00:11:09,837 --> 00:11:13,417
We said let's— I think we've got
to make him like, the main character.

230
00:11:13,507 --> 00:11:15,427
This guy is fantastic.

231
00:11:15,509 --> 00:11:18,889
So, that's what happened
with <i>Hi, Mom!</i>

232
00:11:18,971 --> 00:11:21,181
which is basically a son
of <i>Greetings.</i>

233
00:11:21,265 --> 00:11:23,265
<i>♪ You're walking down the street ♪</i>

234
00:11:23,350 --> 00:11:25,600
<i>♪ And everyone you meet ♪</i>

235
00:11:25,686 --> 00:11:28,646
<i>♪ Is gonna step to the side... ♪</i>

236
00:11:28,731 --> 00:11:30,571
[De Palma] The whole idea
of <i>Be Black Baby</i>

237
00:11:30,691 --> 00:11:32,691
came as an environmental
theater piece.

238
00:11:32,777 --> 00:11:36,407
It was supposed to put you
through a race awakening...

239
00:11:36,489 --> 00:11:39,449
We want to take you through
the black experience.

240
00:11:39,533 --> 00:11:41,123
[De Palma]
...where you experience

241
00:11:41,202 --> 00:11:45,872
what black people experience
in America of the mid 60's.

242
00:11:45,956 --> 00:11:50,586
This is at the— the height of, you know,
Black Panthers,

243
00:11:50,711 --> 00:11:54,631
and, you know,
"burn, white guy, burn."

244
00:11:54,715 --> 00:11:56,835
These guys came up—
They were so scary,

245
00:11:56,926 --> 00:11:59,296
and they were so like,
"You motherfucker,

246
00:11:59,386 --> 00:12:02,006
what do you know about
race relations?"

247
00:12:02,098 --> 00:12:03,888
And then you go,
"Holy smackerel."

248
00:12:03,974 --> 00:12:05,944
So, I didn't rehearse them
with the troupe.

249
00:12:06,018 --> 00:12:08,598
When we shot the sequence
in that freight elevator,

250
00:12:08,729 --> 00:12:11,819
the other actors
had never seen them before.

251
00:12:11,899 --> 00:12:13,609
When the thing opens,
and they see us go on

252
00:12:13,734 --> 00:12:16,324
and grab her throat and throw her down
and start to rape her,

253
00:12:16,403 --> 00:12:20,373
everybody's like, "Oh, my God.
This is, like, really happening."

254
00:12:20,449 --> 00:12:22,239
Turn that fucking camera off!
Turn it off!

255
00:12:22,326 --> 00:12:24,446
Get it down!

256
00:12:24,537 --> 00:12:26,537
Get that camera down!

257
00:12:26,622 --> 00:12:28,962
[woman, sobbing]
Oh, please, stop.

258
00:12:29,041 --> 00:12:30,351
- [man] Shut the fuck up.
- [screams]

259
00:12:30,376 --> 00:12:32,036
My hair!

260
00:12:34,922 --> 00:12:37,842
[De Palma] I was in the back
of the elevator with Chuck, my producer,

261
00:12:37,925 --> 00:12:40,045
and I looked over to him,
he was like, terrified.

262
00:12:40,136 --> 00:12:41,756
And I had this big smile
on my face.

263
00:12:41,846 --> 00:12:43,756
So, I said,
"This is really working."

264
00:12:43,848 --> 00:12:45,558
[laughing]

265
00:12:45,641 --> 00:12:48,521
I'm going to tell all my friends
they've got to come.

266
00:12:48,602 --> 00:12:50,692
They really got to come.

267
00:12:50,771 --> 00:12:53,111
Except they should have
called it—

268
00:12:53,190 --> 00:12:55,190
- It was really something.
- "Humiliate The Honky"

269
00:12:55,276 --> 00:12:57,736
or "Hump The Honky."
But it was great theater.

270
00:12:57,820 --> 00:13:00,700
So, when I went to Hollywood,
at Warner Brothers,

271
00:13:00,781 --> 00:13:04,411
Marty was out there editing
<i>The Medicine Ball Caravan,</i>

272
00:13:04,493 --> 00:13:06,913
which was Woodstock
on wheels basically.

273
00:13:06,996 --> 00:13:09,036
I sort of introduced him around.

274
00:13:09,123 --> 00:13:10,503
There was Marty and I,

275
00:13:10,583 --> 00:13:13,133
then there was George
and Francis, and Steven.

276
00:13:13,210 --> 00:13:16,760
The thing about Steven, I think he was
the first person I ever saw

277
00:13:16,839 --> 00:13:18,299
that had a phone in his car.

278
00:13:18,382 --> 00:13:20,242
[Steven] I'm trying to call
Brian De Palma, New York City.

279
00:13:20,259 --> 00:13:24,049
Hello, Brian, this is Nancy
and Amy and Steve.

280
00:13:24,138 --> 00:13:25,598
- Hi, Brian.
- Hi, Brian.

281
00:13:25,681 --> 00:13:27,771
Happy Thanksgiving.

282
00:13:27,850 --> 00:13:29,640
It's 1976, Brian.

283
00:13:29,727 --> 00:13:33,307
We're photographing this
on 8mm sound film.

284
00:13:33,397 --> 00:13:34,787
And we want to say
happy Thanksgiving.

285
00:13:34,815 --> 00:13:36,135
Sorry you're not home
to enjoy it.

286
00:13:36,192 --> 00:13:38,402
[De Palma] Steven and I
were so close back then.

287
00:13:38,485 --> 00:13:41,775
This is the whole
Warner Brothers youth group.

288
00:13:41,864 --> 00:13:44,454
Schrader was out there.
Schrader was a critic.

289
00:13:44,533 --> 00:13:46,953
He brought me the script
of <i>Taxi Driver.</i>

290
00:13:47,036 --> 00:13:50,116
I didn't think it was commercial,
but it was extraordinary.

291
00:13:50,206 --> 00:13:52,576
And I thought it was more
to Marty's taste.

292
00:13:52,666 --> 00:13:54,126
That was basically our group.

293
00:13:54,210 --> 00:13:56,920
And we were all
very supportive of each other,

294
00:13:57,004 --> 00:13:59,474
and passing these scripts
back and forth

295
00:13:59,548 --> 00:14:01,338
and looking
at each other's movies.

296
00:14:01,425 --> 00:14:05,345
And what we did in our generation
will never be duplicated.

297
00:14:05,429 --> 00:14:08,769
We were able to get
into the studio system

298
00:14:08,849 --> 00:14:14,309
and use all that stuff in order to make
some pretty incredible movies

299
00:14:14,396 --> 00:14:16,896
before the businessmen
took over again.

300
00:14:17,900 --> 00:14:19,690
But I was making
my Hollywood movie now

301
00:14:19,777 --> 00:14:22,397
so I thought, "Well, wow,
I'm in the big time."

302
00:14:22,488 --> 00:14:24,068
It's this is sort of whimsical thing

303
00:14:24,156 --> 00:14:26,906
where a guy drops out of a corporation

304
00:14:26,992 --> 00:14:29,502
and he decides he's going
to change his life

305
00:14:29,578 --> 00:14:32,038
and become
a tap dancing magician.

306
00:14:32,122 --> 00:14:35,292
Tommy Smothers had just been
fired from his show

307
00:14:35,376 --> 00:14:38,956
because he did all these sort of anti-war
things and all this political humor.

308
00:14:39,046 --> 00:14:41,336
Our government is asking us
as citizens, good citizens

309
00:14:41,423 --> 00:14:46,183
to refrain from traveling
to foreign lands.

310
00:14:46,262 --> 00:14:49,182
Okay, all you guys in Vietnam,
come on home.

311
00:14:49,265 --> 00:14:52,765
This is this big kind of
anti-Establishment movie.

312
00:14:52,893 --> 00:14:56,113
So, I wanted to use Orson Welles
as the tap dancing magician instructor.

313
00:14:56,188 --> 00:14:58,938
I found that Orson Welles
was not learning his lines.

314
00:14:59,024 --> 00:15:00,654
We had cue cards
all over the place.

315
00:15:00,734 --> 00:15:02,704
And I'd never seen
this before.

316
00:15:02,778 --> 00:15:06,778
You just looked at him, you say,
"This isn't right. This is sloppy."

317
00:15:06,907 --> 00:15:10,237
I kept on shooting
until he knew the lines.

318
00:15:10,327 --> 00:15:14,667
To work that hard
would be unfair to your rabbit.

319
00:15:14,748 --> 00:15:17,208
Here's Brian De Palma dealing
with Orson Welles, you know,

320
00:15:17,293 --> 00:15:20,343
I'm in my 20's and I'm going,
"Holy mackerel.

321
00:15:20,421 --> 00:15:22,841
I'm telling Orson Welles
he's got to do this thing again."

322
00:15:22,923 --> 00:15:25,013
It's like, "Whoa!"

323
00:15:25,092 --> 00:15:27,552
You know, when I was working
in somebody else's material,

324
00:15:27,636 --> 00:15:28,926
I would try to direct it.

325
00:15:29,013 --> 00:15:33,563
I would try to find ways to make it work
within the way it was written.

326
00:15:33,642 --> 00:15:38,692
So, I didn't try to change it into
whatever my style was at the time.

327
00:15:38,772 --> 00:15:42,362
I basically tried to interpret
the material as best I could.

328
00:15:42,443 --> 00:15:45,533
And Smothers got disenchanted
with it very quickly.

329
00:15:45,612 --> 00:15:48,452
Wound up disliking me,
disliking the material,

330
00:15:48,532 --> 00:15:51,242
disliking the establishment
he was working for.

331
00:15:51,327 --> 00:15:53,787
Literally, one time he just left.

332
00:15:53,871 --> 00:15:56,251
Nobody could find him
for four or five days.

333
00:15:56,332 --> 00:15:59,042
We finished the movie
and it didn't work.

334
00:15:59,126 --> 00:16:01,876
And I had written a whole bunch of stuff
to make it work,

335
00:16:01,962 --> 00:16:05,132
but I said, "Hey, it's either
my way or the highway,"

336
00:16:05,215 --> 00:16:07,505
and I got on the highway
the next day.

337
00:16:07,593 --> 00:16:10,183
I was devastated.
I was finished.

338
00:16:10,262 --> 00:16:13,352
I mean, in my career I've had
these devastating things happen

339
00:16:13,432 --> 00:16:16,812
where you basically have to start
from scratch, and I was finished.

340
00:16:16,894 --> 00:16:19,904
So, I went back to New York
and we started making <i>Sisters.</i>

341
00:16:19,980 --> 00:16:21,980
<i>[screaming]</i>

342
00:16:23,442 --> 00:16:27,282
<i>Sisters,</i> I got the idea
from a picture in <i>Life Magazine.</i>

343
00:16:27,363 --> 00:16:31,703
They had these Russian Siamese
twin sisters called Masha and Dasha

344
00:16:31,784 --> 00:16:33,744
as they're sitting together
on a couch.

345
00:16:33,827 --> 00:16:35,867
One looking kind of gay
and happy,

346
00:16:35,996 --> 00:16:38,036
and the other one sort of
slumped over to the side,

347
00:16:38,123 --> 00:16:40,293
looking completely psychopathic.

348
00:16:40,376 --> 00:16:45,086
And the caption was, "Although
they're physiologically perfectly normal

349
00:16:45,172 --> 00:16:47,172
as they develop into adolescence,

350
00:16:47,257 --> 00:16:49,887
they're developing
certain mental problems."

351
00:16:50,010 --> 00:16:53,680
[narrator] Conjoined twins
called Siamese

352
00:16:53,764 --> 00:16:55,724
challenge life
with their first breath.

353
00:16:55,808 --> 00:16:57,238
[De Palma] There was nothing
easy about it.

354
00:16:57,267 --> 00:17:00,397
When we started with $150,000,
we were non-union.

355
00:17:00,479 --> 00:17:01,899
We were shooting
in Staten Island.

356
00:17:02,022 --> 00:17:03,482
We were on such tight budgets.

357
00:17:03,565 --> 00:17:05,035
I mean, you know,
it had to be all figured out.

358
00:17:05,067 --> 00:17:07,947
I'd rehearsed the stuff
with the girls.

359
00:17:08,028 --> 00:17:09,908
I mean, you know,
all the actors I knew.

360
00:17:10,030 --> 00:17:12,620
Charlie Durning,
I'd him put in <i>Hi, Mom!</i>

361
00:17:12,699 --> 00:17:13,949
It was his first movie.

362
00:17:14,034 --> 00:17:16,874
Finley, I'd worked
with many movies before.

363
00:17:16,954 --> 00:17:18,504
Jennifer Salt,
Margot Kidder.

364
00:17:18,580 --> 00:17:22,330
Who I was working with
essentially my repertory company.

365
00:17:22,418 --> 00:17:24,798
- You're the lady of the house?
- Yes, I am.

366
00:17:24,878 --> 00:17:26,628
- You live here alone?
- Yes.

367
00:17:26,713 --> 00:17:28,173
Have any company
this morning?

368
00:17:28,257 --> 00:17:29,797
- Oh, no.
- Well, a split screen

369
00:17:29,883 --> 00:17:34,973
I got from <i>Dionysus In '69,</i>
where I shot the narrative of a play

370
00:17:35,055 --> 00:17:38,885
and Bob Fury shot
the audience's involvement

371
00:17:38,976 --> 00:17:40,846
with the players and the play.

372
00:17:40,936 --> 00:17:42,226
And I got this idea,

373
00:17:42,312 --> 00:17:44,482
"Well, we'll show them
simultaneously."

374
00:17:44,565 --> 00:17:46,065
The thing about movies is

375
00:17:46,150 --> 00:17:49,320
that you're telling the audience
what to look at.

376
00:17:49,403 --> 00:17:51,953
When you— you know, cut to something,
you're saying, "Ooh!

377
00:17:52,072 --> 00:17:55,702
There's something important
going on here. Look at that."

378
00:17:55,784 --> 00:17:59,334
The thing about split screen
is the audience has a chance

379
00:17:59,413 --> 00:18:02,463
to sort of put two images
together simultaneously

380
00:18:02,541 --> 00:18:04,331
and something happens
in their head.

381
00:18:04,418 --> 00:18:08,708
You're giving them
a juxtaposition as opposed to this.

382
00:18:08,797 --> 00:18:13,587
Split screen is a technique
that can take you out of the experience.

383
00:18:13,677 --> 00:18:16,597
The idea is where
it is appropriate.

384
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:18,720
In <i>Sisters,</i> of course,
it worked quite well.

385
00:18:18,807 --> 00:18:20,347
Can I get the blood
cleaned up

386
00:18:20,434 --> 00:18:22,854
before this— Jennifer
comes around with the police?

387
00:18:22,936 --> 00:18:24,186
Makes perfect sense to me.

388
00:18:24,271 --> 00:18:28,361
May be completely alien
to some other viewer,

389
00:18:28,442 --> 00:18:30,402
but you take something like
<i>Barry Lyndon.</i>

390
00:18:30,486 --> 00:18:33,276
I could see these
huge, slow zoom shots,

391
00:18:33,363 --> 00:18:36,123
and when I first saw the movie,
I disliked it intensely.

392
00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:39,290
After having seen it a couple
of more times, I can see that Kubrick—

393
00:18:39,369 --> 00:18:43,789
he's getting you into the time sense
of the period you're in.

394
00:18:43,874 --> 00:18:47,214
In order to get people
to understand this century,

395
00:18:47,294 --> 00:18:49,424
you have to <i>slow time.</i>

396
00:18:49,505 --> 00:18:51,255
To him, I'm sure
it makes perfect sense.

397
00:18:51,340 --> 00:18:53,180
To a guy that just
walked off the street,

398
00:18:53,258 --> 00:18:55,548
you say, "Oh, wait a minute.

399
00:18:55,636 --> 00:18:58,136
This is not like movies.
What is this?"

400
00:18:58,222 --> 00:19:02,022
And that's very much— some
of these techniques that I developed

401
00:19:02,142 --> 00:19:06,062
came from what looked like
perfectly logical way

402
00:19:06,146 --> 00:19:09,476
to portray what I was seeing
and feeling.

403
00:19:09,566 --> 00:19:11,566
♪♪

404
00:19:13,028 --> 00:19:16,108
When we were doing <i>Sisters,</i>
my editor, Paul Hirsch,

405
00:19:16,198 --> 00:19:20,158
laid a lot of Benny's stuff
from <i>Psycho</i> in a temp track.

406
00:19:20,244 --> 00:19:22,454
As we were looking at it,
it worked so well.

407
00:19:22,538 --> 00:19:25,078
We sort of looked at each other
and we said,

408
00:19:25,165 --> 00:19:27,375
"Where's
Bernard Herrmann now?"

409
00:19:27,459 --> 00:19:31,709
So, we brought him to New York
to look at the film.

410
00:19:31,797 --> 00:19:35,927
When he arrived, you know,
Benny's, you know, with his cane,

411
00:19:36,009 --> 00:19:40,309
and he's hunched over, and he's been
on a plane, and he's very grouchy.

412
00:19:40,389 --> 00:19:43,349
And he comes off the elevator
in Movielab and I, you know, said,

413
00:19:43,433 --> 00:19:45,983
"- Hello, Mr. Herrmann, it's an honor.
- Where's the movie?"

414
00:19:46,061 --> 00:19:47,941
Okay, so,
we go and we sit him down.

415
00:19:48,021 --> 00:19:51,481
Of course I had all this Bernard Herrmann
music on the temp track.

416
00:19:51,567 --> 00:19:54,487
So, of course,
as soon as he hears— [laughs]

417
00:19:54,570 --> 00:20:00,870
I forget what it was,
I think it was either <i>Vertigo</i> or <i>Psycho.</i>

418
00:20:00,951 --> 00:20:03,451
When he starts to hear the music,
he starts shrieking.

419
00:20:03,537 --> 00:20:06,287
He said,
"Stop the projector!

420
00:20:06,373 --> 00:20:10,593
Stop it, stop it!
I can't hear that!"

421
00:20:10,669 --> 00:20:13,799
And I said, "Oh, my God,"
so we stopped the projector.

422
00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:17,590
He says, "I can't look at your movie
and listen to that!"

423
00:20:17,676 --> 00:20:20,216
[laughing]

424
00:20:20,304 --> 00:20:24,274
So, we frantically pulled
all the temp track off

425
00:20:24,349 --> 00:20:27,019
and then played the movie
silent for him.

426
00:20:27,102 --> 00:20:31,522
So, we didn't have any score
on the movie for him to listen to.

427
00:20:31,607 --> 00:20:33,857
But he— he was scary.

428
00:20:33,942 --> 00:20:36,782
You don't sit there, you know,
going through note by note

429
00:20:36,862 --> 00:20:38,242
with the composer,
with Benny.

430
00:20:38,322 --> 00:20:40,912
He just—
He sees the movie

431
00:20:40,991 --> 00:20:42,661
and goes home
and writes the score.

432
00:20:42,868 --> 00:20:44,748
♪♪

433
00:20:50,667 --> 00:20:54,667
Consequently, having been involved
with so many movies that were not a hit,

434
00:20:54,755 --> 00:20:57,005
I was trying to make
a successful movie.

435
00:20:57,090 --> 00:20:59,260
Fortunately, it was successful

436
00:20:59,343 --> 00:21:02,513
and I was able to sell it
to American International.

437
00:21:02,596 --> 00:21:09,016
<i>♪ We'll remember you forever, Eddie ♪</i>

438
00:21:09,102 --> 00:21:12,272
<i>♪ Through the sacrifice you made ♪</i>

439
00:21:12,356 --> 00:21:15,856
<i>♪ We can't believe the price you paid ♪</i>

440
00:21:15,942 --> 00:21:18,282
<i>♪ For love ♪</i>

441
00:21:18,362 --> 00:21:20,092
[De Palma] This is before
<i>The Rocky Horror Show,</i>

442
00:21:20,113 --> 00:21:21,913
about a year before
<i>The Rocky Horror Show.</i>

443
00:21:21,990 --> 00:21:23,330
Again, I just got this idea.

444
00:21:23,408 --> 00:21:25,908
I mean, just hanging around
and watching, you know,

445
00:21:25,994 --> 00:21:28,254
the whole
kind of music business.

446
00:21:28,330 --> 00:21:30,250
You know,
I was living in L.A.

447
00:21:30,332 --> 00:21:32,462
We were going
to the rock clubs

448
00:21:32,542 --> 00:21:34,502
where personalities
are so colorful.

449
00:21:34,586 --> 00:21:38,126
The idea came from Muzak
in an elevator,

450
00:21:38,215 --> 00:21:41,255
when I heard a Beatles song
in Muzak in the elevator.

451
00:21:41,343 --> 00:21:45,763
And I said, "You can take
something extremely original

452
00:21:45,847 --> 00:21:49,137
and turn it into syrup
and it's completely commercial."

453
00:21:49,226 --> 00:21:50,806
And the whole idea of Swan

454
00:21:50,894 --> 00:21:54,614
sort of taking the Phantom's
very original music

455
00:21:54,690 --> 00:21:57,820
and then, you know,
first you hear it as 50's rock and roll,

456
00:21:57,901 --> 00:22:01,241
then it's Beach Boys,
then it's horror rock.

457
00:22:01,321 --> 00:22:03,011
I mean, it just it doesn't
make any difference.

458
00:22:03,031 --> 00:22:06,621
You just— And you hear the same song
basically in three different forms.

459
00:22:06,702 --> 00:22:09,332
Mr. Paul Williams.

460
00:22:09,413 --> 00:22:12,623
[applause]

461
00:22:12,708 --> 00:22:14,958
[De Palma] I don't know
how we came upon Paul,

462
00:22:15,043 --> 00:22:17,093
but the idea of him playing Swan—

463
00:22:17,170 --> 00:22:19,300
because he's such an interesting
looking character,

464
00:22:19,381 --> 00:22:22,841
and he was able to write
all these parodies of all these forms.

465
00:22:22,926 --> 00:22:25,216
<i>- ♪ ...I hear a voice ♪
- ♪ I hear a voice ♪</i>

466
00:22:25,345 --> 00:22:26,805
<i>♪ I hear a voice ♪</i>

467
00:22:26,888 --> 00:22:30,598
<i>♪ Is it only in my mind ♪</i>

468
00:22:30,684 --> 00:22:31,944
[Swan]
No, no.

469
00:22:32,018 --> 00:22:34,768
<i>♪ Or is it someone calling me ♪</i>

470
00:22:34,855 --> 00:22:38,605
<i>♪ Someone I failed and left behind ♪</i>

471
00:22:38,692 --> 00:22:40,742
[Swan]
Wrong. Wrong again.

472
00:22:40,819 --> 00:22:45,819
<i>♪ To work it out I let them in ♪</i>

473
00:22:45,907 --> 00:22:51,537
<i>♪ All the good guys and the bad guys
that I've been ♪</i>

474
00:22:51,621 --> 00:22:53,331
[Swan]
Pretty, but no.

475
00:22:53,415 --> 00:22:57,875
<i>♪ All the devils that disturbed me ♪</i>

476
00:22:57,961 --> 00:22:59,801
<i>♪ And the angels ♪</i>

477
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:05,340
<i>♪ That defeated them somehow ♪</i>

478
00:23:05,427 --> 00:23:06,677
No.

479
00:23:07,679 --> 00:23:14,639
<i>♪ Come together in me now ♪</i>

480
00:23:14,728 --> 00:23:17,728
[De Palma] I always had the idea
of Finley playing the Phantom.

481
00:23:17,814 --> 00:23:19,734
Try it again.

482
00:23:19,816 --> 00:23:21,856
[electronic voice]
<i>Phoenix.</i>

483
00:23:21,943 --> 00:23:25,283
And he plays that kind of character
in <i>Woton's Wake</i> basically.

484
00:23:25,405 --> 00:23:26,775
And then I had
to find Phoenix,

485
00:23:26,865 --> 00:23:29,615
which, she turned out to be
a Sarah Lawrence student.

486
00:23:29,701 --> 00:23:31,501
And that's where
Jessica came from.

487
00:23:31,578 --> 00:23:34,248
The terrible thing about <i>Phantom</i> was,
when we finished it,

488
00:23:34,331 --> 00:23:36,791
we made it for about $1.2 million
or something,

489
00:23:36,875 --> 00:23:41,415
and Fox offered us $2 million to buy it
and I was like, "Holy mackerel."

490
00:23:41,505 --> 00:23:45,375
Unfortunately, we had not taken out
E&O insurance.

491
00:23:45,467 --> 00:23:48,007
So, we were hit with like,
four lawsuits immediately.

492
00:23:48,094 --> 00:23:51,144
Universal said we were infringing
on their <i>Phantom of the Opera.</i>

493
00:23:51,223 --> 00:23:53,643
I had a company
called Swan Song Records

494
00:23:53,725 --> 00:23:56,135
that was a name
of a real record company.

495
00:23:56,228 --> 00:23:58,058
Our picture
was called <i>Phantom.</i>

496
00:23:58,146 --> 00:24:00,766
We had to change that because
of the <i>Phantom</i> comic strip.

497
00:24:00,857 --> 00:24:02,317
It was very successful
in L.A.

498
00:24:02,442 --> 00:24:04,902
It was very successful
in Canada.

499
00:24:04,986 --> 00:24:08,816
In France, it played
for like, ten years.

500
00:24:08,907 --> 00:24:11,277
But, like, New York, it just died.

501
00:24:11,368 --> 00:24:14,788
I mean, I remember going to the theater
and, like, there was nobody there.

502
00:24:14,871 --> 00:24:18,251
Finley and I just outside
the theater,

503
00:24:18,333 --> 00:24:20,423
looking for a line
that didn't exist.

504
00:24:20,502 --> 00:24:22,502
♪♪

505
00:24:27,592 --> 00:24:31,602
The whole coming about
of <i>Obsession</i> happened

506
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,390
when Marty was working,
I think, on <i>Mean Streets,</i>

507
00:24:34,474 --> 00:24:36,694
and I was helping edit
one of the scenes,

508
00:24:36,768 --> 00:24:38,848
the scene where Bobby
comes into the bar

509
00:24:38,937 --> 00:24:41,147
and then he and Harvey talk
in the back room.

510
00:24:41,231 --> 00:24:43,331
- How much you got?
- Charlie, I'm going to pay him next week.

511
00:24:43,358 --> 00:24:44,648
I'm going to pay ya!

512
00:24:44,734 --> 00:24:47,094
Where ya going, you don't do nothing.
How much you got there?

513
00:24:47,112 --> 00:24:49,702
[De Palma] Schrader came over
and began to play cards

514
00:24:49,781 --> 00:24:51,491
or Schrader lost
a whole bunch of money.

515
00:24:51,575 --> 00:24:53,255
And I said, "Come on,
I'll take you out to dinner."

516
00:24:53,285 --> 00:24:56,035
And that's when we got the idea
to do <i>Obsession,</i>

517
00:24:56,121 --> 00:24:57,461
because we'd both seen <i>Vertigo.</i>

518
00:24:57,539 --> 00:25:00,539
They'd recently shown it
at the L.A. County Museum.

519
00:25:00,625 --> 00:25:04,455
The first time it had been shown
in 20 years or something.

520
00:25:04,546 --> 00:25:06,126
I went home
and wrote up the story

521
00:25:06,214 --> 00:25:09,184
and then Schrader took it on
and did the script.

522
00:25:09,259 --> 00:25:10,889
The original script
of <i>Obsession,</i>

523
00:25:10,969 --> 00:25:13,259
which is called <i>Déjà Vu,</i>
was in three acts.

524
00:25:13,346 --> 00:25:15,056
And there's a whole act
in the future.

525
00:25:15,140 --> 00:25:16,930
So, I got rid of the third act,

526
00:25:17,017 --> 00:25:19,517
which Schrader always
was very unhappy with me.

527
00:25:19,603 --> 00:25:22,523
Well, the tough one was getting an actor
that could get it financed.

528
00:25:22,606 --> 00:25:23,976
And we were trying to get

529
00:25:24,065 --> 00:25:26,685
a kind of Hitchcockian
leading man in this.

530
00:25:26,776 --> 00:25:29,276
And finally, we managed to get
Cliff Robertson,

531
00:25:29,362 --> 00:25:31,952
which was not
my first choice,

532
00:25:32,032 --> 00:25:35,292
but that's, like, the best guy
we could get for the movie.

533
00:25:35,368 --> 00:25:37,948
And I think the weakness
of the movie is Cliff,

534
00:25:38,038 --> 00:25:40,618
and what— the greatness
of the movie is Genevieve.

535
00:25:40,707 --> 00:25:42,247
I mean,
she carries the movie.

536
00:25:42,334 --> 00:25:44,634
Cliff was very difficult to work with,

537
00:25:44,711 --> 00:25:48,801
and he did things
that I'd never thought were possible.

538
00:25:48,882 --> 00:25:51,182
He could see that Genevieve
was taking the movie over.

539
00:25:51,259 --> 00:25:53,929
I mean, we got to a part where
they could hardly work together

540
00:25:54,012 --> 00:25:56,432
because he was affecting
her performance.

541
00:25:56,556 --> 00:25:59,476
Not only not feeding
her lines well.

542
00:25:59,559 --> 00:26:03,399
"I love you, I feel very strongly
about this. You mean more"—

543
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:07,440
I mean, literally, you know,
not giving her anything to work off of.

544
00:26:07,567 --> 00:26:10,197
He would just start doing this.

545
00:26:13,823 --> 00:26:16,203
So, her eyeline
would be like over here.

546
00:26:16,284 --> 00:26:17,744
Well, Vilmos lost his temper.

547
00:26:17,827 --> 00:26:20,387
Because, you know, Cliff always used
this kind of brown, you know,

548
00:26:20,413 --> 00:26:23,423
he looked like— Well, this is a guy
that's supposed to be haunted

549
00:26:23,500 --> 00:26:26,420
by the unfortunate death
of his wife.

550
00:26:26,503 --> 00:26:28,003
He's supposed to be pale.

551
00:26:28,088 --> 00:26:30,668
He's got this brown stuff
on his face.

552
00:26:30,757 --> 00:26:32,877
And I remembered
Vilmos grabbing him once

553
00:26:32,968 --> 00:26:36,258
and literally backing him up
into the mahogany wall,

554
00:26:36,346 --> 00:26:39,676
and saying, "You are the same color
as this wall.

555
00:26:39,766 --> 00:26:41,686
How can I light you?"

556
00:26:41,768 --> 00:26:43,018
[laughing]

557
00:26:45,438 --> 00:26:49,478
That took me many hours
to paper that over.

558
00:26:49,609 --> 00:26:51,859
You about ready to go back
to old U.S. of A., Court?

559
00:26:51,945 --> 00:26:54,695
[De Palma]
What is the technique that will work

560
00:26:54,781 --> 00:26:59,161
for this particular theatrical event
happening in front of you?

561
00:26:59,244 --> 00:27:02,584
<i>Dionysus</i> gave me the whole
split screen idea,

562
00:27:02,664 --> 00:27:07,094
and then I went on with the split diopter
idea from those split screens.

563
00:27:07,168 --> 00:27:08,458
I mean, I edited <i>Dionysus,</i>

564
00:27:08,545 --> 00:27:12,045
so I was constantly putting
two images against each other,

565
00:27:12,132 --> 00:27:14,402
and I thought, "Well, how can I do this
in a regular movie?"

566
00:27:14,426 --> 00:27:16,966
You're putting something
very big in the foreground

567
00:27:17,053 --> 00:27:21,433
juxtaposing it against some other piece
of information in the background.

568
00:27:21,516 --> 00:27:23,846
I used it in <i>Carrie,</i> too,
in the classroom,

569
00:27:23,935 --> 00:27:26,095
when Billy is reading his poem

570
00:27:26,187 --> 00:27:28,567
and you see Carrie
at the back of the class.

571
00:27:28,648 --> 00:27:32,028
Then the diopter sort of cutting
on Billy's hair.

572
00:27:32,110 --> 00:27:34,110
♪♪

573
00:27:35,447 --> 00:27:37,987
I have long silent sequences
that need to be scored,

574
00:27:38,074 --> 00:27:40,834
so I need
big orchestral scores.

575
00:27:40,910 --> 00:27:43,040
Fortunately, because Benny
was such a genius,

576
00:27:43,121 --> 00:27:46,581
9/10ths of it was there and there was
very little you had to change.

577
00:27:46,666 --> 00:27:48,666
♪♪

578
00:27:53,715 --> 00:27:57,675
This was the same year that Benny
was working on <i>Taxi Driver</i> with Marty.

579
00:27:57,761 --> 00:28:01,391
He conducted the score,
went back to his hotel, and died.

580
00:28:04,059 --> 00:28:06,689
I was there.

581
00:28:06,770 --> 00:28:09,770
It was, like, almost Christmas Eve.

582
00:28:11,983 --> 00:28:13,073
Benny was my first—

583
00:28:13,151 --> 00:28:14,821
One of the greatest composers
I've heard.

584
00:28:14,903 --> 00:28:16,613
So, I started at a high point.

585
00:28:16,696 --> 00:28:20,736
Now I had to find somebody
to pick up the slack basically.

586
00:28:20,825 --> 00:28:22,535
And I was fortunate enough
to find Pino

587
00:28:22,619 --> 00:28:24,749
because I liked his score
to <i>Don't Look Now.</i>

588
00:28:30,502 --> 00:28:33,382
When I discovered him,
he lived in Venice.

589
00:28:33,463 --> 00:28:36,553
And brought him in, and the first score
he did for me was <i>Carrie.</i>

590
00:28:38,218 --> 00:28:41,508
And then we did eight more films
after that.

591
00:28:41,596 --> 00:28:43,596
<i>Carrie</i> and <i>Obsession</i> the same year.

592
00:28:43,723 --> 00:28:45,143
'76 was a very big year.

593
00:28:45,225 --> 00:28:47,265
Apart from <i>Get to Know Your Rabbit,</i>

594
00:28:47,352 --> 00:28:51,152
the first ten features I made
were independently financed.

595
00:28:51,231 --> 00:28:52,771
I had the Orson Welles problems.

596
00:28:52,857 --> 00:28:54,727
I had big ideas.

597
00:28:54,818 --> 00:28:57,068
And I needed a lot
of that stuff.

598
00:28:57,153 --> 00:29:01,783
So, I had to get back
into the system.

599
00:29:01,866 --> 00:29:04,076
And I only managed
to do it again with <i>Carrie.</i>

600
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:10,250
<i>Carrie</i> came to me in a steam room
over on 12th Street,

601
00:29:10,333 --> 00:29:12,883
where a writer friend of mine

602
00:29:12,961 --> 00:29:15,921
suggested this book
by Stephen King called <i>Carrie.</i>

603
00:29:16,005 --> 00:29:17,915
I discovered it
was at United Artists.

604
00:29:18,007 --> 00:29:20,297
Mike Medavoy
was head of the studio.

605
00:29:20,385 --> 00:29:24,385
He knew who I was and liked my movies
and that's how I got the job.

606
00:29:24,472 --> 00:29:27,732
Larry Cohen had written the script.
It was in pretty good shape.

607
00:29:27,809 --> 00:29:29,449
But I got rid of the brackets
immediately.

608
00:29:29,519 --> 00:29:32,769
You know, it's all told,
Sue Snell was being interrogated.

609
00:29:32,856 --> 00:29:35,276
And it's all done in flashbacks
about what happened.

610
00:29:35,358 --> 00:29:37,418
We kept on coming in
with a budget of a $1.8 million,

611
00:29:37,443 --> 00:29:39,743
and they said,
"We're not making it at $1.8 million.

612
00:29:39,821 --> 00:29:42,451
It's got to be $1.6 million."

613
00:29:42,532 --> 00:29:45,872
And I said— You know, just like
my <i>Get to Know Your Rabbit</i> experience—

614
00:29:45,952 --> 00:29:51,212
I said, "Guys, that's what it costs.
It's $1.8 million."

615
00:29:51,291 --> 00:29:53,001
And they said fine.

616
00:29:53,084 --> 00:29:56,714
And then they started moving
the furniture out of my office.

617
00:29:56,796 --> 00:30:00,046
The movie
had been cancelled.

618
00:30:00,133 --> 00:30:02,843
So, I went home that weekend
and thought about it.

619
00:30:02,927 --> 00:30:04,927
And I somehow came back
and said,

620
00:30:05,013 --> 00:30:06,373
"You know, I've been thinking about it.

621
00:30:06,389 --> 00:30:09,179
If we moved this
and changed this around,

622
00:30:09,267 --> 00:30:12,057
maybe we can do it
for $1.6 million."

623
00:30:12,145 --> 00:30:16,855
And they said,
"Great. It's a go."

624
00:30:16,941 --> 00:30:19,651
And of course
it cost $1.8 million.

625
00:30:19,736 --> 00:30:23,236
George and I were casting <i>Star Wars</i>
and <i>Carrie</i> at the same time.

626
00:30:23,323 --> 00:30:25,743
George was doing like,
a huge cattle call,

627
00:30:25,825 --> 00:30:29,155
because he was looking
at every young actor in Hollywood.

628
00:30:29,245 --> 00:30:31,655
And I said, "George,
let's do this together.

629
00:30:31,748 --> 00:30:34,208
We're looking at the same types
of actors."

630
00:30:34,292 --> 00:30:36,792
I think Amy got pretty close
to playing Princess Leia.

631
00:30:36,878 --> 00:30:39,378
All the data banks in R2
are still secure.

632
00:30:39,464 --> 00:30:42,224
And that's where these
two casts came from.

633
00:30:42,300 --> 00:30:44,970
I'd seen a young actress
that was in some movie

634
00:30:45,053 --> 00:30:48,143
about a teenager that gets pregnant
and has an abortion.

635
00:30:48,223 --> 00:30:50,893
And I was sure she was, like,
perfect for Carrie.

636
00:30:50,975 --> 00:30:53,645
And I had— And I worked
with her very hard.

637
00:30:53,728 --> 00:30:55,828
You know, because we had to shoot
all these screen tests.

638
00:30:55,855 --> 00:30:58,265
Sissy came to me and asked
if she could try out

639
00:30:58,358 --> 00:31:02,108
because I knew Sissy from <i>Phantom</i>
because she was Jack Fisk's girlfriend,

640
00:31:02,195 --> 00:31:04,605
and, you know,
was painting sets.

641
00:31:04,697 --> 00:31:07,907
But then she got a commercial that same
weekend we were shooting these tests

642
00:31:07,992 --> 00:31:09,952
and said, "Should I go do
the commercial

643
00:31:10,036 --> 00:31:12,036
or stay here and try out?"

644
00:31:12,121 --> 00:31:17,421
And I said "Sissy, I'm really leaning
towards this other girl, but..."

645
00:31:17,502 --> 00:31:20,132
And the studio didn't even want me
to try out Sissy.

646
00:31:20,213 --> 00:31:23,013
They just thought she was just
physically wrong.

647
00:31:23,091 --> 00:31:26,091
And I— And Sissy said, "No,
I'll do the tryout."

648
00:31:26,177 --> 00:31:29,007
And of course, when she did the test
she made everybody look silly.

649
00:31:29,097 --> 00:31:31,097
♪♪

650
00:31:33,559 --> 00:31:37,059
I don't know where I got the idea
for the slow motion in the shower.

651
00:31:37,146 --> 00:31:38,606
Big problem
with all the nudity

652
00:31:38,690 --> 00:31:40,980
because the girls
are all very self-conscious.

653
00:31:41,067 --> 00:31:43,857
But the fact that we shot
like two days before

654
00:31:43,945 --> 00:31:47,775
with Sissy completely naked
doing all the close-ups,

655
00:31:47,907 --> 00:31:49,907
you know, with the blood
that comes down,

656
00:31:49,993 --> 00:31:52,083
so they figured,
"Hey, if Sissy can do it...

657
00:31:53,329 --> 00:31:54,579
we'll do it."

658
00:31:54,664 --> 00:31:57,084
- [all clamoring]
- Help.

659
00:31:57,166 --> 00:31:59,126
[De Palma] You know,
I get a lot of criticisms

660
00:31:59,210 --> 00:32:01,090
because of these
kind of juxtapositions,

661
00:32:01,170 --> 00:32:03,260
but to me
they seem perfectly logical.

662
00:32:03,339 --> 00:32:05,799
I mean, she has her period.
She's hysterical.

663
00:32:05,925 --> 00:32:08,505
She goes for help and the girls
basically, you know,

664
00:32:08,594 --> 00:32:10,514
beat her down
in the corner of the shower.

665
00:32:10,596 --> 00:32:13,766
[clamoring continues]

666
00:32:16,102 --> 00:32:18,022
[De Palma]
A very difficult scene to do.

667
00:32:22,984 --> 00:32:24,304
That's what Hitchcock
always said.

668
00:32:24,319 --> 00:32:27,319
I mean, it's always the run-up
to what happens that's interesting.

669
00:32:27,405 --> 00:32:31,615
And you obviously see in my movies,
the run-up goes on forever.

670
00:32:31,701 --> 00:32:33,241
[all chattering]

671
00:32:33,328 --> 00:32:34,948
[girl]
Yes, they did.

672
00:32:35,038 --> 00:32:37,578
[girl #2]
Yeah, that's fantastic.

673
00:32:40,293 --> 00:32:42,933
[De Palma] You know, many times
I'd be doing very complicated shots

674
00:32:42,962 --> 00:32:45,382
and nobody would understand
what I was doing.

675
00:32:45,465 --> 00:32:47,005
You know,
that figure eight shot

676
00:32:47,091 --> 00:32:49,181
where, you know, you go
with the ballots,

677
00:32:49,260 --> 00:32:50,850
brings you all the way up
to the side.

678
00:32:50,970 --> 00:32:52,560
You go over the top
of the blood

679
00:32:52,638 --> 00:32:55,598
then zoom back to Sissy
and she gets up.

680
00:32:55,683 --> 00:32:57,483
[announcer]
I give you Tommy Ross

681
00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:59,560
- and Carrie White!
- [all cheering]

682
00:33:01,689 --> 00:33:05,189
[De Palma]
That shot took a day to shoot.

683
00:33:05,276 --> 00:33:07,066
Literally, the head
of the studio came down

684
00:33:07,153 --> 00:33:08,863
and asked what the hell
I was doing.

685
00:33:08,988 --> 00:33:12,988
And it's like, "You want
to shoot this? Be my guest."

686
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:22,170
I did grow up in an operating room.
I saw a lot of blood.

687
00:33:22,251 --> 00:33:24,421
My father was
an orthopedic surgeon.

688
00:33:24,504 --> 00:33:27,384
And I used to go to the hospital
and watch him operate.

689
00:33:27,465 --> 00:33:31,175
You can't imagine how much blood
is flying around in an operating room.

690
00:33:31,260 --> 00:33:34,850
With the sawing
and the wrestling

691
00:33:34,931 --> 00:33:36,891
and it's not
like eye surgery,

692
00:33:37,016 --> 00:33:38,636
it's really physical.

693
00:33:38,726 --> 00:33:43,356
You know, our movie blood was all
some kind of corn syrup and dye,

694
00:33:43,439 --> 00:33:45,269
this theatrically red.

695
00:33:45,358 --> 00:33:48,608
It isn't like what real blood is,
which is brownish,

696
00:33:48,694 --> 00:33:52,164
and, when it dries,
it's almost completely brown.

697
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,240
[cacophony of voices]

698
00:34:13,636 --> 00:34:16,346
When Carrie starts to knock
everybody off,

699
00:34:16,431 --> 00:34:18,351
I shot the whole thing
in split screen.

700
00:34:18,433 --> 00:34:22,853
But what I discovered was, split screen—
it is not good for action.

701
00:34:22,937 --> 00:34:27,107
So, Paul Hirsch and I pulled out
a lot of the split screen.

702
00:34:27,191 --> 00:34:28,731
You see it occasionally.

703
00:34:28,818 --> 00:34:31,238
But it's not good for,
you know,

704
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:33,490
action, reaction,
action, reaction.

705
00:34:33,573 --> 00:34:37,743
It's too much of an intellectual form,
basically.

706
00:34:37,827 --> 00:34:39,117
Endings are extremely important

707
00:34:39,203 --> 00:34:40,833
and that was one
of the great endings.

708
00:34:40,913 --> 00:34:44,003
In the wide shot, where you see
the traffic in the street

709
00:34:44,083 --> 00:34:47,503
and she walks down the side
and then goes into the graveyard—

710
00:34:47,587 --> 00:34:49,337
that we shot backwards.

711
00:34:49,422 --> 00:34:51,632
I wanted it
to look strangely odd.

712
00:34:51,716 --> 00:34:54,966
There was something strange about it,
but you're not exactly sure what.

713
00:34:55,094 --> 00:34:57,894
There was a similar sequence
in <i>Deliverance,</i>

714
00:34:57,972 --> 00:35:00,062
when Jon Voight dreams
about the bodies

715
00:35:00,141 --> 00:35:02,851
coming up from the lake
where he's buried them.

716
00:35:02,935 --> 00:35:06,305
I remember that was quite a—
quite a shocking moment.

717
00:35:08,107 --> 00:35:12,737
But that's the only thing, I think, that
could possibly have gotten me thinking

718
00:35:12,820 --> 00:35:16,120
about the hand out of the grave.

719
00:35:25,833 --> 00:35:27,133
[screams]

720
00:35:32,048 --> 00:35:36,008
The executives at United Artists
were very classy.

721
00:35:42,016 --> 00:35:43,676
They had <i>Rocky</i> that year.

722
00:35:43,768 --> 00:35:46,848
And <i>Carrie</i> was like...

723
00:35:46,938 --> 00:35:49,018
was like an AIP picture to them.

724
00:35:49,148 --> 00:35:50,358
It was like,

725
00:35:50,441 --> 00:35:52,281
"Well, it's— You know,

726
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,070
we'll distribute it, but let's not talk
about it too much."

727
00:35:55,154 --> 00:35:56,164
[announcer]
<i>Carrie...</i>

728
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,319
[screaming]

729
00:35:58,407 --> 00:35:59,947
<i>A new film
by Brian De Palma.</i>

730
00:36:00,034 --> 00:36:02,794
[De Palma] So, they put it a lot
in a bunch of theaters on Halloween,

731
00:36:02,870 --> 00:36:04,960
expecting it to play
for a week or so whatever.

732
00:36:05,039 --> 00:36:06,919
And then it made
a tremendous amount of money

733
00:36:06,999 --> 00:36:08,439
and they started to take it
more seriously.

734
00:36:08,459 --> 00:36:12,089
But I was always fighting for, you know,
money for the campaign.

735
00:36:12,171 --> 00:36:14,051
And against all odds,

736
00:36:14,173 --> 00:36:16,803
Sissy and Piper were both
nominated for Oscars.

737
00:36:16,884 --> 00:36:20,054
What's great about <i>Carrie</i> is they made
so many versions of it now,

738
00:36:20,179 --> 00:36:23,889
and they've made so many mistakes
that it's wonderful to see what happens

739
00:36:23,975 --> 00:36:25,725
when somebody takes
a piece of material

740
00:36:25,810 --> 00:36:28,270
and makes all the mistakes
that you avoided.

741
00:36:29,272 --> 00:36:31,652
♪ Carrie ♪

742
00:36:31,732 --> 00:36:36,902
♪ Why do they always
treat me so bad? ♪

743
00:36:36,988 --> 00:36:39,488
There's a three-hour
television version of <i>Carrie,</i>

744
00:36:39,573 --> 00:36:41,123
<i>which is exactly like the book.</i>

745
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,410
Instead of crucifying
Mrs. White,

746
00:36:44,495 --> 00:36:46,615
they give her
a heart attack.

747
00:36:46,706 --> 00:36:48,536
And I remembered
in a script meeting saying,

748
00:36:48,624 --> 00:36:50,004
"This is what happened?

749
00:36:50,084 --> 00:36:52,554
She clutches her heart
and falls down?

750
00:36:52,628 --> 00:36:53,918
That's dramatic!"

751
00:36:54,005 --> 00:36:56,005
[laughing]

752
00:36:57,216 --> 00:36:59,546
That's where I came up
with the flying utensils.

753
00:37:00,845 --> 00:37:03,305
[screaming with each stab]

754
00:37:14,775 --> 00:37:17,695
Well, then I got offered
another studio picture.

755
00:37:17,778 --> 00:37:20,108
Or a couple—
Just different studios,

756
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:22,409
and the best one I could get
was <i>The Fury.</i>

757
00:37:22,491 --> 00:37:24,241
Which suddenly had
a huge budget,

758
00:37:24,327 --> 00:37:27,617
which was like, $5 million
or something, unheard of,

759
00:37:27,705 --> 00:37:29,745
and we suddenly had
all these movie stars,

760
00:37:29,832 --> 00:37:31,922
you know, Cassavetes
and Kirk Douglas,

761
00:37:32,001 --> 00:37:35,551
and I said, "Wow, let's do this.
I've never done this before."

762
00:37:35,629 --> 00:37:38,049
Plus, we had a whole bunch
of charming girls in this.

763
00:37:38,132 --> 00:37:40,722
And even though
it's kind of not the movie

764
00:37:40,801 --> 00:37:43,551
you would have top
on your list to make...

765
00:37:45,181 --> 00:37:47,601
there were a lot of things in it
I really liked.

766
00:37:47,683 --> 00:37:50,313
I liked the scene
where Amy's on the steps

767
00:37:50,394 --> 00:37:53,234
and she touches the scar
in Charlie Durning's hand

768
00:37:53,314 --> 00:37:56,984
and then remembers Robin
being chased up there

769
00:37:57,068 --> 00:37:59,698
and going out the window.

770
00:37:59,779 --> 00:38:02,029
And I loved
the Johnny Williams score.

771
00:38:02,114 --> 00:38:04,164
I thought Johnny did
a great job with the score.

772
00:38:04,283 --> 00:38:06,493
That's one
of my favorite scores, that score.

773
00:38:08,204 --> 00:38:09,914
I had to do a car chase
in <i>The Fury.</i>

774
00:38:09,997 --> 00:38:12,037
I don't like car chases.

775
00:38:12,124 --> 00:38:14,094
I find them
a very boring thing.

776
00:38:14,168 --> 00:38:15,708
I'm not a car person.

777
00:38:15,795 --> 00:38:19,255
I don't get excited taking shots
of wheels turning,

778
00:38:19,340 --> 00:38:21,510
point of views
out of windshields

779
00:38:21,592 --> 00:38:25,642
or cars banging into—
It just doesn't do anything for me.

780
00:38:25,721 --> 00:38:28,601
You know, you're forced because
of the script to do certain things.

781
00:38:28,682 --> 00:38:30,292
You have to figure out,
how am I going to do this?

782
00:38:30,309 --> 00:38:31,769
And how
can I make it interesting?

783
00:38:31,852 --> 00:38:34,652
And after <i>The French Connection,</i>
there are no car chases.

784
00:38:34,730 --> 00:38:37,230
It's just ridiculous to even
think about doing a car chase.

785
00:38:37,316 --> 00:38:40,486
It's the best idea in the world.
Subway, car underneath.

786
00:38:40,569 --> 00:38:43,109
I mean, you know, there's not
a better idea than that.

787
00:38:43,197 --> 00:38:44,947
But I like—
I like Cassavetes

788
00:38:45,032 --> 00:38:47,332
and it was interesting
working with him.

789
00:38:47,410 --> 00:38:49,790
He hated a lot
of what he had to do.

790
00:38:49,870 --> 00:38:53,210
The only time that John
really sort of went ballistic

791
00:38:53,332 --> 00:38:55,842
was when we had to do
a body cast of him

792
00:38:55,918 --> 00:39:00,258
and stick him in all this gook
for the blowing up of himself.

793
00:39:00,339 --> 00:39:03,179
He hated that.
Drove him crazy.

794
00:39:03,259 --> 00:39:06,009
You know, it's on the page
and you gotta figure out how to do it.

795
00:39:06,095 --> 00:39:07,965
But it doesn't come from you,
essentially.

796
00:39:08,055 --> 00:39:11,015
You're basically directing
somebody else's ideas

797
00:39:11,100 --> 00:39:13,520
and you're trying to do
the best that you can.

798
00:39:13,602 --> 00:39:17,572
But it's not one of my favorite films
by a long shot.

799
00:39:17,648 --> 00:39:21,278
I'm Dennis Bird.
And this is my life.

800
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:25,740
[De Palma] I had this idea
that the way to teach film

801
00:39:25,823 --> 00:39:28,533
would be to actually make
a low-budget feature.

802
00:39:28,617 --> 00:39:33,287
I decided to try this idea out
at Sarah Lawrence

803
00:39:33,372 --> 00:39:36,172
and see if I could just teach a class

804
00:39:36,250 --> 00:39:38,880
which consisted
of what you have to do

805
00:39:38,961 --> 00:39:41,881
in order to create
a motion picture feature.

806
00:39:41,964 --> 00:39:43,264
What's the point
of film school

807
00:39:43,382 --> 00:39:45,152
if you don't know how to make
a low-budget movie?

808
00:39:45,176 --> 00:39:47,566
Because that's what you're going to be
faced with eventually.

809
00:39:47,595 --> 00:39:50,715
I had this idea
based on stories about my family,

810
00:39:50,806 --> 00:39:54,136
and with the class
we developed the script.

811
00:39:54,226 --> 00:39:55,846
- Oh, hi, Dad.
- Hi.

812
00:39:55,936 --> 00:39:57,246
I thought it was just going to be,

813
00:39:57,271 --> 00:39:59,581
"Oh, we'll go to Sarah Lawrence
and we'll teach this, and—"

814
00:39:59,607 --> 00:40:01,187
Well, it was like
making a movie.

815
00:40:01,275 --> 00:40:05,025
I mean, it was just as exhausting
as when you make a movie.

816
00:40:05,112 --> 00:40:07,952
Hey! You're zonked out
in your own rushes.

817
00:40:08,032 --> 00:40:09,452
You realize
how dangerous that is?

818
00:40:09,533 --> 00:40:10,843
[De Palma]
We had to raise the money.

819
00:40:10,868 --> 00:40:12,118
And of course, as you know,

820
00:40:12,203 --> 00:40:14,183
when you're raising money
for independent features,

821
00:40:14,205 --> 00:40:17,165
you know, the tax shelter dentist
fell out at the ninth hour.

822
00:40:17,249 --> 00:40:19,379
And I called up Steven
and George and I said,

823
00:40:19,460 --> 00:40:21,590
"You guys are going to contribute
some money to this,

824
00:40:21,670 --> 00:40:25,590
because... the dentist
just fell out."

825
00:40:25,674 --> 00:40:28,144
I had a couple of people
offering to buy it.

826
00:40:28,219 --> 00:40:29,969
It only cost $300,000.

827
00:40:30,054 --> 00:40:31,874
I was trying to make a deal
with United Artists,

828
00:40:31,889 --> 00:40:36,479
but this was the great year of Cimino's
catastrophe over there.

829
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:40,110
We finally made a deal with them
and they opened it up on 57th Street.

830
00:40:40,189 --> 00:40:42,859
It got some good reviews
and played for about two weeks.

831
00:40:42,942 --> 00:40:45,362
I bought
<i>The New York Times</i> ad.

832
00:40:45,444 --> 00:40:47,244
What's disappointing about
teaching film

833
00:40:47,321 --> 00:40:49,871
is that, you know, 99% of them
are going nowhere.

834
00:40:49,949 --> 00:40:52,329
Anybody that has a career,
it's a— It's a miracle.

835
00:40:53,452 --> 00:40:55,872
<i>Dressed to Kill</i> was a very hot script.

836
00:40:55,955 --> 00:40:59,955
And I sold the script for a million
dollars, which is like, "Holy mackerel."

837
00:41:00,042 --> 00:41:01,462
It all went
extremely well.

838
00:41:01,544 --> 00:41:03,594
The picture, you know,
previewed well.

839
00:41:03,671 --> 00:41:05,921
It's one of those pictures
where everything worked.

840
00:41:06,006 --> 00:41:08,676
You know, and sometimes I have
these ideas in my head

841
00:41:08,759 --> 00:41:12,559
and until they gel into a whole movie,
they sort of circle around.

842
00:41:12,638 --> 00:41:16,018
I'd written a script
based on the book <i>Cruising,</i>

843
00:41:16,100 --> 00:41:18,140
which ultimately
Billy Friedkin made.

844
00:41:18,227 --> 00:41:20,227
And then, you know,
from my days at Columbia,

845
00:41:20,312 --> 00:41:23,362
where my roommate and I used to go
to the Museum of Modern Art

846
00:41:23,482 --> 00:41:25,652
and look at the pictures
and the pretty girls,

847
00:41:25,734 --> 00:41:30,324
I got this idea of this pick-up
at the Museum of Modern Art.

848
00:41:30,406 --> 00:41:33,156
And you know, this dissatisfied,
you know, housewife

849
00:41:33,242 --> 00:41:35,742
and she's cruising along
and she gets picked up.

850
00:41:35,828 --> 00:41:37,908
And I think it came together
when I finally got

851
00:41:37,997 --> 00:41:40,167
the whole transsexual section of it.

852
00:41:40,249 --> 00:41:43,129
The idea of, "I'm a woman living
in a man's body."

853
00:41:43,210 --> 00:41:44,770
[man] <i>There's a lot
of macho things there.</i>

854
00:41:44,795 --> 00:41:47,625
<i>This is very common
among transsexuals. You find, um—</i>

855
00:41:47,715 --> 00:41:50,835
[De Palma] You know, it was sort
of perfect, kind of <i>Sisters,</i>

856
00:41:50,926 --> 00:41:53,046
the good half,
the bad half.

857
00:41:53,137 --> 00:41:55,307
The fact when
he gets aroused, you know,

858
00:41:55,389 --> 00:41:58,519
that means his penis is growing
and he can't be a woman.

859
00:41:58,601 --> 00:42:00,891
Do you find me attractive?

860
00:42:00,978 --> 00:42:02,898
Of course.

861
00:42:02,980 --> 00:42:04,230
Would you want
to sleep with me?

862
00:42:04,315 --> 00:42:05,765
[De Palma]
And he's got to stop

863
00:42:05,858 --> 00:42:08,318
whatever is making,
you know, him get aroused

864
00:42:08,402 --> 00:42:11,362
and of course, leads to him
murdering Angie.

865
00:42:13,616 --> 00:42:14,736
[gasps]

866
00:42:14,825 --> 00:42:16,695
[screaming]

867
00:42:18,746 --> 00:42:20,906
There's a big controversy over
<i>Dressed to Kill</i>

868
00:42:20,998 --> 00:42:23,498
because of my fight
with the ratings board.

869
00:42:23,584 --> 00:42:25,544
And that got into the press,

870
00:42:25,628 --> 00:42:28,798
and I got a lot of angry protests

871
00:42:28,881 --> 00:42:32,051
because of the violence
against women.

872
00:42:32,134 --> 00:42:34,894
No...
[screaming]

873
00:42:34,970 --> 00:42:37,180
You know, again it's structured
with, you know, <i>Psycho,</i>

874
00:42:37,264 --> 00:42:41,894
bumping off the lead character
in the first 20, 30 minutes of the movie.

875
00:42:41,977 --> 00:42:43,477
In the elevator scene,

876
00:42:43,562 --> 00:42:46,772
it's Michael's double
that is slashing Angie.

877
00:42:46,857 --> 00:42:48,727
I just knew
you wouldn't recognize him

878
00:42:48,817 --> 00:42:51,447
with the dark glasses
and the wig and everything,

879
00:42:51,570 --> 00:42:54,370
and I wasn't going to show
that much of him.

880
00:42:54,448 --> 00:42:56,988
And I said, "You know,
why get Michael in this outfit

881
00:42:57,076 --> 00:42:58,426
if you're not really
going to see him?"

882
00:42:58,452 --> 00:43:01,792
The whole Keith Gordon character
came from, you know,

883
00:43:01,872 --> 00:43:04,832
me and my science fair projects,

884
00:43:04,917 --> 00:43:06,457
and following
people around.

885
00:43:06,585 --> 00:43:08,795
I used to follow
my father around

886
00:43:08,879 --> 00:43:10,509
when he was cheating
on my mother.

887
00:43:10,589 --> 00:43:12,089
I took photographs of him.

888
00:43:12,174 --> 00:43:15,264
You know, I could see a woman going in
and out and stuff like that.

889
00:43:15,344 --> 00:43:16,704
It was all taking place
at his office,

890
00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:18,320
which was down the street
from our house.

891
00:43:18,347 --> 00:43:23,687
And I'd broken into the office by ramming
my fist through the glass door.

892
00:43:23,769 --> 00:43:25,649
And I was carry—
I had a knife with me,

893
00:43:25,729 --> 00:43:27,649
and I threatened him,
and I said, "Where is she?"

894
00:43:27,690 --> 00:43:29,270
And I had to search
through the office

895
00:43:29,358 --> 00:43:33,528
and I finally found her
in a closet on the third floor.

896
00:43:33,612 --> 00:43:37,282
Well, he was a little bit surprised,
to say the least.

897
00:43:37,366 --> 00:43:38,986
I mean, you know,
that is me.

898
00:43:39,076 --> 00:43:41,246
I was following around
my father for my mother.

899
00:43:41,328 --> 00:43:45,328
He's following around the murderer
because his mother got bumped off.

900
00:43:45,416 --> 00:43:46,666
Yeah!

901
00:43:46,750 --> 00:43:47,750
[subway rails clacking]

902
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:58,389
[brakes screeching]

903
00:44:00,347 --> 00:44:02,137
The waiting
is very important.

904
00:44:02,224 --> 00:44:04,854
You know, so you could
ground yourself.

905
00:44:04,935 --> 00:44:08,475
So the audience gets very accustomed
to where everything is.

906
00:44:14,319 --> 00:44:16,489
Well, I got the whole
psychiatrist idea

907
00:44:16,572 --> 00:44:18,702
because that was based on
the psychiatrist I had

908
00:44:18,782 --> 00:44:20,912
when I was first going out
with Nancy.

909
00:44:20,993 --> 00:44:24,463
I met Nancy on <i>Carrie</i>
and we started to go out together

910
00:44:24,538 --> 00:44:26,538
while I was working
on <i>The Fury,</i> I think.

911
00:44:26,665 --> 00:44:28,575
I thought she was very good
in <i>Carrie</i>

912
00:44:28,667 --> 00:44:31,337
and then I wrote the part
for her in <i>Dressed to Kill.</i>

913
00:44:31,420 --> 00:44:33,010
The story was getting
to the point

914
00:44:33,088 --> 00:44:36,218
where I thought I made
enough movies with my wife

915
00:44:36,300 --> 00:44:40,050
and what was becoming
kind of a strain in our relationship.

916
00:44:40,137 --> 00:44:42,427
But John loved working
with her so much

917
00:44:42,514 --> 00:44:45,314
that when we did <i>Blow Out,</i>
it was like, "Let's do it with Nancy."

918
00:44:45,392 --> 00:44:47,022
♪♪

919
00:44:48,020 --> 00:44:49,650
The first idea for <i>Blow Out,</i>

920
00:44:49,730 --> 00:44:51,320
<i>it was a very low-budget movie.</i>

921
00:44:51,398 --> 00:44:54,688
And suddenly, John wanted to do it,
then the whole movie changed.

922
00:44:54,777 --> 00:44:57,607
It went from like,
a $5 or $6 million movie

923
00:44:57,696 --> 00:44:59,526
to close to a $20 million movie.

924
00:44:59,615 --> 00:45:01,615
♪♪

925
00:45:05,996 --> 00:45:07,916
Well, the Steadicam
was Vilmos's idea.

926
00:45:07,998 --> 00:45:10,078
I mean, Vilmos knew
about this new camera

927
00:45:10,167 --> 00:45:11,917
and he said,
"Why don't we try it out?"

928
00:45:12,002 --> 00:45:14,132
I mean, we used
to handhold those shots,

929
00:45:14,213 --> 00:45:16,673
but I never liked that
kind of shaky camera stuff.

930
00:45:16,757 --> 00:45:18,507
Once the Steadicam came in,

931
00:45:18,592 --> 00:45:21,392
you could work out
these long kind of shots,

932
00:45:21,470 --> 00:45:24,260
where you would take your characters
through environments

933
00:45:24,348 --> 00:45:27,178
and have things
interacting with them.

934
00:45:27,267 --> 00:45:31,227
As I was mixing <i>Dressed to Kill,</i>

935
00:45:31,313 --> 00:45:33,863
the sound guy had to go out
and get different—

936
00:45:33,941 --> 00:45:35,401
I kept on saying to him,

937
00:45:35,484 --> 00:45:38,074
"I'm tired of that sound
of wind in the trees.

938
00:45:38,153 --> 00:45:40,243
Could you please
get me something better?"

939
00:45:40,322 --> 00:45:42,992
And then, he would go out
in his backyard

940
00:45:43,075 --> 00:45:45,155
and record new stuff for me.

941
00:45:45,244 --> 00:45:48,414
So, that concept of him
recording sounds

942
00:45:48,497 --> 00:45:52,077
and then the idea
that the sound he records

943
00:45:52,167 --> 00:45:55,627
is the key to the murder,
the assassination of the candidate.

944
00:45:55,754 --> 00:45:59,134
And it has, of course, it has
that little Chappaquiddick in it.

945
00:45:59,216 --> 00:46:01,256
Was the governor driving the car?
Was he in control?

946
00:46:01,301 --> 00:46:03,181
Control?
It went into the drink, didn't it?

947
00:46:03,262 --> 00:46:04,972
- He wasn't in no control.
- Was he alone?

948
00:46:05,055 --> 00:46:07,305
- Was he alone in the car?
- Well, I didn't see anybody.

949
00:46:07,391 --> 00:46:09,601
[De Palma]
A little of <i>Blow Up.</i>

950
00:46:22,447 --> 00:46:26,197
Putting the pictures together
that you saw from the Zapruder film,

951
00:46:26,285 --> 00:46:30,575
syncing it with the sound
is what we do in the editing room.

952
00:46:30,664 --> 00:46:33,714
Having synced up
so many movies myself,

953
00:46:33,792 --> 00:46:35,542
all that stuff
sort of came together

954
00:46:35,627 --> 00:46:40,167
and the whole idea of using the techniques
of making the film in making the film.

955
00:46:40,257 --> 00:46:42,467
[different sounds mixing]

956
00:46:50,183 --> 00:46:51,443
[bad scream]

957
00:46:51,518 --> 00:46:52,768
Kill it.

958
00:46:52,853 --> 00:46:54,523
I was a big assassination buff

959
00:46:54,605 --> 00:46:56,815
and I read all the books
about the assassination.

960
00:46:56,898 --> 00:46:58,838
What's interesting about
the Kennedy assassination

961
00:46:58,859 --> 00:47:01,819
is it's the most intense
investigation ever done.

962
00:47:01,903 --> 00:47:06,283
No murder was ever investigated like this
in the history of crime.

963
00:47:06,366 --> 00:47:09,826
But <i>Blow Out</i> gets down
to somebody trying to find out

964
00:47:09,911 --> 00:47:13,041
what actually happened,
and my conclusion was

965
00:47:13,123 --> 00:47:15,583
even if they could figure out
who was on the grassy knoll,

966
00:47:15,667 --> 00:47:16,997
no would care anymore.

967
00:47:20,213 --> 00:47:24,343
The thing about the 360 shot
was I wanted to create

968
00:47:24,426 --> 00:47:27,426
the sense
of a reel of tape turning,

969
00:47:27,512 --> 00:47:31,222
so I made the camera turn
as of all the reels of tape turning.

970
00:47:31,308 --> 00:47:34,518
And every time we made
a revolution around the room,

971
00:47:34,603 --> 00:47:37,153
more stuff was erased.

972
00:47:37,230 --> 00:47:39,940
Vilmos and I were peering
over the set.

973
00:47:40,025 --> 00:47:42,935
The camera operator
was running around

974
00:47:43,028 --> 00:47:47,318
panning the camera
360 degrees.

975
00:47:47,407 --> 00:47:51,867
Nobody saw the movie
until it was finished,

976
00:47:51,953 --> 00:47:54,213
because I had a lot of power
off of <i>Dressed to Kill.</i>

977
00:47:54,289 --> 00:47:58,339
When they saw that ending,
oh, it died.

978
00:47:58,418 --> 00:48:01,298
I'll never forget when we showed it
to the executives,

979
00:48:01,380 --> 00:48:03,170
they just were like, appalled.

980
00:48:03,256 --> 00:48:04,876
You know,
many of my movies

981
00:48:04,966 --> 00:48:07,676
which were considered
great disasters at the time.

982
00:48:07,761 --> 00:48:10,261
You know, there was
no bigger disaster than <i>Blow Out.</i>

983
00:48:10,347 --> 00:48:12,807
It's always surprising.
You always think they're gonna come—

984
00:48:12,891 --> 00:48:15,231
come out and see your movies,

985
00:48:15,310 --> 00:48:18,610
even as odd as they ultimately
wind up being.

986
00:48:18,689 --> 00:48:22,859
When you take in a—
a very moving, emotional experience,

987
00:48:22,943 --> 00:48:27,453
like the death of a girl
he put into jeopardy,

988
00:48:27,531 --> 00:48:31,411
and you use her cry in a, you know,
tawdry horror picture—

989
00:48:31,493 --> 00:48:33,793
I guess I got the idea of that,

990
00:48:33,912 --> 00:48:36,672
you know, when you cut soundtracks and
you're doing footsteps,

991
00:48:36,748 --> 00:48:41,288
you put all the fill in between
each of the magnetic tracks.

992
00:48:41,378 --> 00:48:45,298
Well, when I picked up the fill once
and it was like <i>Lawrence of Arabia.</i>

993
00:48:45,382 --> 00:48:50,302
And I said, "My God,
<i>Lawrence of Arabia</i> is being used as fill."

994
00:48:50,387 --> 00:48:51,677
[woman]
Oh, jerk.

995
00:48:51,763 --> 00:48:55,483
[scream]

996
00:48:55,559 --> 00:48:57,889
Now, that's a scream!
How was the level?

997
00:48:57,978 --> 00:48:59,978
[De Palma] But all that suffering

998
00:49:00,063 --> 00:49:05,153
is just reduced to a scream
that's put on a soundtrack.

999
00:49:05,235 --> 00:49:06,775
That's wonderful.

1000
00:49:06,862 --> 00:49:08,622
[De Palma] That moves me
every time I see it,

1001
00:49:08,655 --> 00:49:10,905
the way John plays the scene.

1002
00:49:10,991 --> 00:49:14,121
"It's a good scream.
It's a good scream."

1003
00:49:14,202 --> 00:49:15,452
It's a good scream.

1004
00:49:16,455 --> 00:49:17,535
It's a good scream.

1005
00:49:18,540 --> 00:49:22,000
It's a good scream.
It's a good scream.

1006
00:49:24,045 --> 00:49:25,875
[woman screams]

1007
00:49:25,964 --> 00:49:27,974
♪♪

1008
00:49:36,516 --> 00:49:38,436
Say hello
to my little friend!

1009
00:49:40,145 --> 00:49:42,305
[De Palma] Most of my movies
are about megalomania

1010
00:49:42,397 --> 00:49:44,727
and guys that live in insulated universes

1011
00:49:44,816 --> 00:49:48,196
and the crazy things that happen
within those insulated universes,

1012
00:49:48,278 --> 00:49:50,988
which is something that continues
to fascinate me.

1013
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:55,200
Marty Bregman came to me

1014
00:49:55,285 --> 00:49:58,995
because Al wanted to do
a version of <i>Scarface.</i>

1015
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:03,290
And the original idea for <i>Scarface</i>
was to do Al Capone, Chicago.

1016
00:50:03,376 --> 00:50:04,956
Marty told me that he and Al

1017
00:50:05,045 --> 00:50:07,915
wanted to develop a script
with David Rabe,

1018
00:50:08,006 --> 00:50:09,876
and I had recently worked
with David Rabe

1019
00:50:10,008 --> 00:50:12,138
developing a script,
<i>Prince of the City,</i>

1020
00:50:12,219 --> 00:50:16,389
on a corrupt narcotics cop,
that I ultimately didn't get to make.

1021
00:50:16,473 --> 00:50:18,813
But we had spent a year
working on the script,

1022
00:50:18,892 --> 00:50:22,852
so I was very familiar with working
with David and his process.

1023
00:50:22,938 --> 00:50:26,978
David, when we started to do the script,
said, "I will do the script

1024
00:50:27,067 --> 00:50:31,357
but I don't want to have to work
with Bregman and Al.

1025
00:50:31,446 --> 00:50:34,156
We'll do it together,
like we did <i>Prince of the City."</i>

1026
00:50:34,241 --> 00:50:37,621
And then Al came to meet with me
to see how things were going,

1027
00:50:37,702 --> 00:50:39,372
and I explained to him
how it was going

1028
00:50:39,454 --> 00:50:41,544
and I got a call from Bregman
later that night

1029
00:50:41,623 --> 00:50:43,333
saying Al's all upset
about the script.

1030
00:50:43,416 --> 00:50:45,376
He wants to have a meeting
with David tomorrow.

1031
00:50:45,460 --> 00:50:49,760
I told Marty Bregman David will quit
if I ask him to come to a meeting.

1032
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:51,570
I couldn't convince him
that David would quit,

1033
00:50:51,591 --> 00:50:53,431
so I called David up and I said,

1034
00:50:53,510 --> 00:50:55,310
"They want to meet tomorrow
about the script,"

1035
00:50:55,387 --> 00:50:56,637
and David says, "I quit."

1036
00:50:56,721 --> 00:51:00,891
You know, I came up with an era
that you went down with the writer.

1037
00:51:00,976 --> 00:51:03,976
If the writer got fired,
you walked.

1038
00:51:04,062 --> 00:51:06,692
You didn't say, "Well, let's get
three or four more writers

1039
00:51:06,773 --> 00:51:08,863
that you happen to like."

1040
00:51:08,942 --> 00:51:11,152
So, I called up Bregman
the next day,

1041
00:51:11,236 --> 00:51:13,356
and said, "I'm sorry,

1042
00:51:13,446 --> 00:51:15,166
this doesn't look like
it's going to work out.

1043
00:51:15,198 --> 00:51:16,448
I can't do the movie."

1044
00:51:16,533 --> 00:51:18,703
And then they hired Sidney
and Oliver

1045
00:51:18,785 --> 00:51:21,575
and Sidney and Oliver came up
with the whole, you know,

1046
00:51:21,663 --> 00:51:24,623
Cuban Scarface
set in South Florida.

1047
00:51:24,708 --> 00:51:26,878
Well, the terrible irony
of that is,

1048
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:29,710
that I developed the script
of <i>Prince of the City,</i>

1049
00:51:29,796 --> 00:51:31,416
which I thought
was a great script.

1050
00:51:31,506 --> 00:51:33,926
I spent a year and a half
with Bob Lucy,

1051
00:51:34,009 --> 00:51:36,299
the cop that it's all based on.

1052
00:51:36,386 --> 00:51:39,136
And when Matt
got interested in it,

1053
00:51:39,222 --> 00:51:42,682
and through another writer,
wanted to do the project

1054
00:51:42,767 --> 00:51:44,767
and the United Artists people
fired us.

1055
00:51:44,853 --> 00:51:46,963
The next thing I knew,
Sidney and Matt was making the movie

1056
00:51:46,980 --> 00:51:48,230
with somebody else.

1057
00:51:48,315 --> 00:51:52,185
So, I feel Sidney had basically,
you know, stolen this movie from me.

1058
00:51:52,277 --> 00:51:53,737
And the irony, of course,

1059
00:51:53,820 --> 00:51:57,660
is a year later they offer me the movie
that Sidney had developed.

1060
00:51:57,741 --> 00:52:01,541
Well, first we started in Florida
and got run out by the Cubans.

1061
00:52:01,620 --> 00:52:03,200
They just ran us
out of town.

1062
00:52:03,288 --> 00:52:05,748
They didn't like the—
What the script was about.

1063
00:52:05,832 --> 00:52:08,922
They thought we were making
all Cubans gangsters.

1064
00:52:09,002 --> 00:52:12,512
I was there for months,
you know, scouting things and—

1065
00:52:12,589 --> 00:52:16,429
and then we ultimately had to pull
the whole picture back to California.

1066
00:52:16,509 --> 00:52:19,889
And I said, "I wanted to have
this very acrylic, tropical look."

1067
00:52:19,971 --> 00:52:22,561
I don't want
these <i>Godfather</i> gangsters,

1068
00:52:22,641 --> 00:52:24,851
where everybody's, you know,
with dark rooms

1069
00:52:24,935 --> 00:52:26,385
and you can hardly
see anything.

1070
00:52:26,478 --> 00:52:28,608
This should be bright.
This is Miami.

1071
00:52:28,688 --> 00:52:30,938
And white suits, pastels."

1072
00:52:31,024 --> 00:52:33,864
So, I had a very strong idea
of what it should look like.

1073
00:52:33,944 --> 00:52:35,074
[indistinct screaming]

1074
00:52:35,153 --> 00:52:37,533
Well, what happened when
we were doing this shoot-out,

1075
00:52:37,614 --> 00:52:40,244
Al grabbed his gun
and grabbed it by the barrel,

1076
00:52:40,325 --> 00:52:44,785
which was red hot,
and seared his hand.

1077
00:52:44,871 --> 00:52:46,151
And he had to go to the hospital

1078
00:52:46,206 --> 00:52:50,086
and we couldn't shoot with him
for two weeks, so it—

1079
00:52:50,168 --> 00:52:53,918
So basically, I had two weeks
to shoot everything but Al.

1080
00:52:54,005 --> 00:52:57,715
So, needless to say,
I shot every conceivable way

1081
00:52:57,801 --> 00:52:59,301
somebody could shoot
at somebody else

1082
00:52:59,386 --> 00:53:02,426
while I was waiting
for my star to return.

1083
00:53:04,724 --> 00:53:07,064
Steven wandered over.
We did a few shots.

1084
00:53:07,185 --> 00:53:09,905
"What do you think about this, Steve?
Should we put another camera up here?"

1085
00:53:09,938 --> 00:53:12,228
"Why not?"
[laughing]

1086
00:53:12,315 --> 00:53:14,355
I mean,
everybody was shooting.

1087
00:53:14,442 --> 00:53:16,572
People shooting at people.

1088
00:53:18,446 --> 00:53:21,066
I'm working
as an interpretive director.

1089
00:53:21,199 --> 00:53:23,199
Oliver had directed one movie,

1090
00:53:23,284 --> 00:53:27,584
and he felt that I wasn't doing the movie
the way he wanted to do it.

1091
00:53:27,664 --> 00:53:31,254
And I ultimately had to have him
taken off the set,

1092
00:53:31,334 --> 00:53:33,294
because he was talking
to the actors.

1093
00:53:33,378 --> 00:53:34,498
You can't have an actor

1094
00:53:34,587 --> 00:53:37,297
getting two different points of view
from two different people.

1095
00:53:37,382 --> 00:53:39,682
It just confuses them.
They need a single voice.

1096
00:53:39,759 --> 00:53:41,969
Script's all based
on real material.

1097
00:53:42,053 --> 00:53:44,513
You know, Oliver almost
got killed researching.

1098
00:53:44,597 --> 00:53:46,347
They thought
he was some kind of narc.

1099
00:53:46,433 --> 00:53:48,983
You know, he went into
really dangerous territory.

1100
00:53:49,060 --> 00:53:51,400
And I wanted that
reflected in the movie.

1101
00:53:51,479 --> 00:53:55,359
I mean, this was a dangerous level
of mob violence

1102
00:53:55,442 --> 00:53:57,992
that they had never seen before.

1103
00:53:58,069 --> 00:54:01,819
I had been battling with the ratings board
since <i>Greetings.</i>

1104
00:54:01,906 --> 00:54:05,826
And it came to a conclusion
over <i>Scarface.</i>

1105
00:54:05,910 --> 00:54:09,830
I submitted it three times
and it kept on getting X's

1106
00:54:09,914 --> 00:54:13,134
and then I said, "Absolutely,
I'm not changing it anymore."

1107
00:54:13,251 --> 00:54:14,881
And everybody
was very unhappy with me.

1108
00:54:14,961 --> 00:54:17,261
And what I did
that really drove them all crazy,

1109
00:54:17,338 --> 00:54:20,468
which is always the big controversy
on <i>Scarface,</i>

1110
00:54:20,550 --> 00:54:23,680
is that I put everything
back in.

1111
00:54:23,762 --> 00:54:27,852
Because I said if I'm going
to get an X on version three,

1112
00:54:27,932 --> 00:54:30,982
I'm going with the original version.
It's all X to me.

1113
00:54:31,061 --> 00:54:35,071
I never showed the chainsaw
cutting into the flesh.

1114
00:54:35,148 --> 00:54:36,398
We had it there to do,

1115
00:54:36,483 --> 00:54:39,283
but it was always—
as soon as the chainsaw goes down,

1116
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:40,780
it pans away from it.

1117
00:54:40,862 --> 00:54:43,912
The audience half loved it
and half hated it.

1118
00:54:43,990 --> 00:54:45,700
Very controversial.

1119
00:54:45,784 --> 00:54:48,334
Now the leg, uh?

1120
00:54:48,411 --> 00:54:51,541
And everybody thought
<i>Scarface</i> was about Hollywood.

1121
00:54:51,623 --> 00:54:54,923
And they just really
disliked it.

1122
00:54:55,001 --> 00:54:59,761
It did— It did good.
It didn't do great.

1123
00:54:59,839 --> 00:55:01,799
But, you know,
it wasn't like a breakaway hit,

1124
00:55:01,883 --> 00:55:05,143
but it, you know, it was—
it was commercially successful.

1125
00:55:05,470 --> 00:55:07,220
♪♪

1126
00:55:10,100 --> 00:55:11,730
A decade or so later,

1127
00:55:11,810 --> 00:55:14,480
it found its audience
with the hip-hop generation.

1128
00:55:14,562 --> 00:55:18,402
Well, since I'm not a big fan of hip-hop,
I knew nothing about it

1129
00:55:18,483 --> 00:55:20,493
until people
basically told me about it.

1130
00:55:20,568 --> 00:55:24,818
Universal came to me
and asked if I would approve

1131
00:55:24,906 --> 00:55:28,786
a hip-hop soundtrack to <i>Scarface,</i>
and I said absolutely not.

1132
00:55:28,868 --> 00:55:31,788
[Nas's "The World Is Yours"
playing]

1133
00:55:37,335 --> 00:55:40,205
It's something that gets
into the music culture,

1134
00:55:40,338 --> 00:55:43,718
the hip-hop culture and then
into the game culture.

1135
00:55:47,679 --> 00:55:51,179
Now, somehow, I'm a hot director.
I don't know why.

1136
00:55:51,266 --> 00:55:52,846
It didn't really make
that much money,

1137
00:55:52,934 --> 00:55:56,154
but I developed this script
called <i>Act of Vengeance,</i>

1138
00:55:56,229 --> 00:55:58,309
which Paramount
seemed very excited by.

1139
00:55:58,398 --> 00:56:00,978
And I think, "Wow! They're going
to actually make this movie."

1140
00:56:01,067 --> 00:56:05,487
And Don Simpson
calls me up the next day, and says,

1141
00:56:05,572 --> 00:56:07,202
"I got one word for you."

1142
00:56:07,282 --> 00:56:09,492
And I said, "What?"

1143
00:56:09,576 --> 00:56:11,486
And he said, <i>"Flashdance."</i>

1144
00:56:11,578 --> 00:56:13,538
So, I said,
"What about <i>Flashdance?"</i>

1145
00:56:13,621 --> 00:56:15,711
And then he said, "We want you
to do <i>Flashdance."</i>

1146
00:56:15,790 --> 00:56:17,420
I said, "What about
<i>Act of Vengeance?"</i>

1147
00:56:17,500 --> 00:56:19,670
He said, "No, no,
we're not really—"

1148
00:56:19,752 --> 00:56:22,012
I was so irritated at them

1149
00:56:22,088 --> 00:56:26,888
that I made them pay me a lot of money
to do <i>Flashdance.</i>

1150
00:56:26,968 --> 00:56:29,758
I wanted to really run up a big deal
and then I walked away from it.

1151
00:56:29,846 --> 00:56:31,846
♪♪

1152
00:56:34,225 --> 00:56:36,055
I had this <i>Body Double</i> idea,

1153
00:56:36,144 --> 00:56:38,194
so I made a deal with Columbia.

1154
00:56:38,271 --> 00:56:40,111
I had an office.
I had a parking space.

1155
00:56:40,190 --> 00:56:43,230
You know, my marriage broke up,
so I was living out in California.

1156
00:56:43,318 --> 00:56:46,528
So, this sounded like
this would be fun to do.

1157
00:56:46,613 --> 00:56:48,873
First I get this
whole kind of, you know,

1158
00:56:48,948 --> 00:56:52,078
elaborate visual
and story construction.

1159
00:56:53,578 --> 00:56:56,078
A bit of <i>Dressed to Kill.</i>

1160
00:56:56,164 --> 00:56:58,674
A little bit
of <i>Rear Window.</i>

1161
00:56:58,750 --> 00:57:00,460
A bit of <i>Vertigo.</i>

1162
00:57:00,543 --> 00:57:03,213
The story tells
about playing sardines

1163
00:57:03,296 --> 00:57:06,796
and being behind the icebox.

1164
00:57:06,883 --> 00:57:08,323
You know, a lot of the stuff
in the movie

1165
00:57:08,343 --> 00:57:10,353
comes from obviously
stuff I've lived.

1166
00:57:10,428 --> 00:57:12,808
I mean, I played sardines
with my brothers

1167
00:57:12,889 --> 00:57:14,769
and I did get caught
behind an icebox.

1168
00:57:14,849 --> 00:57:16,809
I was in acting classes,

1169
00:57:16,893 --> 00:57:19,903
where you would see people
break down on stage

1170
00:57:19,979 --> 00:57:23,899
as the acting teacher
tried to unlock their emotions.

1171
00:57:23,983 --> 00:57:25,863
The way you people
make movies,

1172
00:57:25,944 --> 00:57:29,074
which you start with character
and build outward—

1173
00:57:29,155 --> 00:57:31,525
I start with construction
and then fill it in.

1174
00:57:31,616 --> 00:57:34,946
I'm driven
by unrealistic ideas.

1175
00:57:35,036 --> 00:57:37,326
You have to get the actors
to ground it

1176
00:57:37,455 --> 00:57:39,495
and try to make it seem real,

1177
00:57:39,582 --> 00:57:42,502
so you got to get the audience
grounded with the actor.

1178
00:57:42,585 --> 00:57:44,995
Then the whole
Holly Body character—

1179
00:57:45,088 --> 00:57:48,338
I wanted to use somebody
that would be used to doing nudity.

1180
00:57:48,466 --> 00:57:51,006
So, I thought, "Well why not
get a porn star?"

1181
00:57:51,094 --> 00:57:55,644
I'd become very close
to Annette Haven,

1182
00:57:55,723 --> 00:57:57,233
who was
a fascinating character

1183
00:57:57,308 --> 00:58:00,518
because she was
an adult actress, entertainer.

1184
00:58:00,603 --> 00:58:03,903
I basically created the whole character
based around Annette.

1185
00:58:03,982 --> 00:58:06,782
She'd never, of course, auditioned
for a movie in her life.

1186
00:58:06,859 --> 00:58:08,109
It was all news to her.

1187
00:58:08,194 --> 00:58:10,534
It was a big scandal
when I wanted to test Annette,

1188
00:58:10,613 --> 00:58:12,073
because Annette was a porn star

1189
00:58:12,156 --> 00:58:13,486
and the head of the studio heard

1190
00:58:13,574 --> 00:58:17,254
I was testing a porn star
down on stage 7.

1191
00:58:17,328 --> 00:58:18,578
[laughing]

1192
00:58:18,663 --> 00:58:22,633
Then they said to me,
"You can't do that."

1193
00:58:22,709 --> 00:58:25,549
This is when Columbia was owned
by the Coca-Cola Company.

1194
00:58:25,628 --> 00:58:28,718
And I said,
"Sorry, I'm doing it."

1195
00:58:28,798 --> 00:58:30,428
And I did.
I tested her and Melanie.

1196
00:58:30,508 --> 00:58:33,588
I couldn't get anybody else
to do the part basically.

1197
00:58:33,678 --> 00:58:35,178
There was so much nudity.

1198
00:58:35,263 --> 00:58:37,373
The big thing that came out
of <i>Body Double</i> was Melanie.

1199
00:58:37,390 --> 00:58:38,810
That's what
everybody wrote about.

1200
00:58:38,891 --> 00:58:41,561
And I had all this material
from Annette.

1201
00:58:41,644 --> 00:58:44,114
All those stories
all came from Annette.

1202
00:58:44,188 --> 00:58:45,898
I do not do animal acts.

1203
00:58:45,982 --> 00:58:49,902
I do not do S&M or any variations
of that particular bent,

1204
00:58:49,986 --> 00:58:51,736
no water sports either.

1205
00:58:51,821 --> 00:58:53,411
I will not shave my pussy,

1206
00:58:53,531 --> 00:58:56,831
no fist-fucking and absolutely
no coming in my face.

1207
00:58:56,909 --> 00:58:59,079
And thus,
she studied Annette.

1208
00:58:59,162 --> 00:59:01,462
We had Annette come down
and she was on the set.

1209
00:59:01,539 --> 00:59:03,879
She was the bright spot
in the movie

1210
00:59:03,958 --> 00:59:05,878
that everybody sort of felt
very happy about.

1211
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:09,090
After beating me down,
all they could talk about was Melanie.

1212
00:59:10,089 --> 00:59:13,219
You got to get the witness to watch
what you want them to see.

1213
00:59:13,301 --> 00:59:16,431
Best way to do that
is have a woman undressing.

1214
00:59:16,554 --> 00:59:18,894
And once you've got that person
watching there,

1215
00:59:18,973 --> 00:59:20,733
then you can stage the murder

1216
00:59:20,808 --> 00:59:24,148
to make him the witness
to what you want them to see.

1217
00:59:24,228 --> 00:59:26,018
I wanted to do
a really long walk,

1218
00:59:26,105 --> 00:59:28,605
a long following sequence,

1219
00:59:28,691 --> 00:59:33,911
like, sort of an extension
of the museum walk in <i>Dressed to Kill.</i>

1220
00:59:33,988 --> 00:59:37,488
I mean, I think <i>Body Double</i> has,
like, the longest walk in cinema.

1221
00:59:37,575 --> 00:59:40,075
♪♪

1222
00:59:40,161 --> 00:59:42,581
I love
photographing women.

1223
00:59:42,663 --> 00:59:45,463
I'm fascinated
by the way they move.

1224
00:59:45,583 --> 00:59:47,343
I love to follow them.

1225
00:59:47,418 --> 00:59:53,048
I love to make the audience
get involved in their dilemmas.

1226
00:59:53,132 --> 00:59:56,302
This was the era you put
a pop song in and made a video

1227
00:59:56,386 --> 00:59:58,926
that would promote the movie.

1228
00:59:59,013 --> 01:00:02,813
So, then I thought, "Well,
I'll just put the video into the movie."

1229
01:00:02,892 --> 01:00:05,352
[Frankie Goes To Hollywood's
"Relax" playing]

1230
01:00:18,616 --> 01:00:21,036
You got to understand that
I was producing the picture.

1231
01:00:21,119 --> 01:00:22,999
It was, you know,
like I could do anything.

1232
01:00:23,079 --> 01:00:24,329
They gave me like a—

1233
01:00:24,414 --> 01:00:27,464
I had like a carte blanche
to make this movie.

1234
01:00:27,542 --> 01:00:29,752
And it was all great,
of course, until they saw it.

1235
01:00:29,836 --> 01:00:31,836
[laughing]

1236
01:00:34,215 --> 01:00:37,175
I will never forget the press screening
for <i>Body Double.</i>

1237
01:00:37,260 --> 01:00:41,260
The head of the public relations
calls me up and says,

1238
01:00:41,347 --> 01:00:43,097
"They are going to kill you
tomorrow."

1239
01:00:43,182 --> 01:00:44,182
[operator]
<i>Hello?</i>

1240
01:00:49,272 --> 01:00:51,552
<i>- I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Please—</i>
- [woman coughing]

1241
01:00:54,527 --> 01:00:58,067
<i>Could you please tell me
the nature of your emergency?</i>

1242
01:00:58,156 --> 01:01:00,656
<i>- I'm sorry, I can't hear you.</i>
- [trigger clicks]

1243
01:01:01,659 --> 01:01:03,079
[De Palma]
My graphic sensibilities

1244
01:01:03,161 --> 01:01:05,961
had angered women's groups
in the past.

1245
01:01:06,038 --> 01:01:08,368
You know, and here
I drilled a woman with a—

1246
01:01:08,458 --> 01:01:11,708
[laughs]
a rather long drill.

1247
01:01:11,794 --> 01:01:14,964
"They are going to kill you tomorrow."
I'll never forget that phone call.

1248
01:01:15,047 --> 01:01:17,257
Why was the drill bit so big?

1249
01:01:17,341 --> 01:01:19,221
Well, it had to go
through the floor.

1250
01:01:19,302 --> 01:01:21,262
You know, we never see
the drill bit go into her.

1251
01:01:21,345 --> 01:01:22,635
It had to go through the floor

1252
01:01:22,722 --> 01:01:24,322
so he could see it
while he was, you know—

1253
01:01:24,348 --> 01:01:26,308
It made perfect sense to me,

1254
01:01:26,392 --> 01:01:29,602
but, you know, when you do
some of these things, you know,

1255
01:01:29,687 --> 01:01:31,437
they make perfect,
logical sense to you

1256
01:01:31,522 --> 01:01:33,322
and then you put them
in front of an audience,

1257
01:01:33,357 --> 01:01:37,067
they go, "Holy cow.
That's just too much."

1258
01:01:37,153 --> 01:01:38,953
Well, it didn't occur to me
to be too much.

1259
01:01:39,030 --> 01:01:40,280
I thought it was perfect.

1260
01:01:40,364 --> 01:01:42,074
You've always got to realize

1261
01:01:42,158 --> 01:01:46,408
you're being criticized against
the fashion of the day.

1262
01:01:46,496 --> 01:01:50,826
And when— and when the fashion changes,
everybody forgets about that.

1263
01:01:50,917 --> 01:01:55,047
As I told you before, I don't know
how many people come to me—

1264
01:01:55,129 --> 01:01:57,629
up to me and talk about
<i>Body Double,</i> you know?

1265
01:01:57,715 --> 01:02:01,045
And all the stuff that people were yelling
about when it came out

1266
01:02:01,135 --> 01:02:02,545
is like completely forgotten.

1267
01:02:02,637 --> 01:02:06,557
Let's try to make one thing clear
in director's careers:

1268
01:02:06,641 --> 01:02:09,271
we don't plan them out.

1269
01:02:09,352 --> 01:02:12,062
We happen to be working
on one thing,

1270
01:02:12,146 --> 01:02:15,726
and then another thing happens,
and then another thing's delayed.

1271
01:02:15,816 --> 01:02:18,316
And we do the thing
that we can do at the time.

1272
01:02:18,528 --> 01:02:20,738
[Bruce Springsteen's
"Dancing in the Dark" playing]

1273
01:02:26,410 --> 01:02:27,950
I knew Jon Landau.

1274
01:02:28,037 --> 01:02:29,657
He was managing
Bruce Springsteen.

1275
01:02:29,747 --> 01:02:32,037
So, Jon came to me
and he said,

1276
01:02:32,124 --> 01:02:34,174
"Can you think of something to do?"

1277
01:02:35,586 --> 01:02:36,836
And then I got this idea

1278
01:02:36,921 --> 01:02:39,341
of pulling this girl out of the audience
to dance with him.

1279
01:02:39,423 --> 01:02:41,683
That's where Courteney Cox
came from.

1280
01:02:41,759 --> 01:02:43,969
After the disaster
of <i>Body Double,</i>

1281
01:02:44,053 --> 01:02:46,473
you start thinking about
what you're doing,

1282
01:02:46,556 --> 01:02:49,636
and why are you getting
these kind of reactions.

1283
01:02:49,767 --> 01:02:53,687
So, it was like, "I got to do something
completely different."

1284
01:02:53,771 --> 01:02:55,771
♪♪

1285
01:02:58,067 --> 01:03:00,697
I hadn't done a comedy
in a long time.

1286
01:03:00,778 --> 01:03:04,238
And I really liked Danny DeVito.
He was attached to the movie.

1287
01:03:04,323 --> 01:03:05,993
It's very difficult
to make a movie

1288
01:03:06,075 --> 01:03:09,445
where the studio administration
did not sponsor it initially.

1289
01:03:09,537 --> 01:03:12,247
We got through it.
They didn't want to release it.

1290
01:03:12,331 --> 01:03:14,751
They didn't like the previews.

1291
01:03:14,834 --> 01:03:16,714
It was just a struggle
all the way through.

1292
01:03:16,794 --> 01:03:19,304
I liked it, it was a lot of fun.
It was a cute little comedy.

1293
01:03:19,380 --> 01:03:22,800
It got some very good reviews,
so a lot of people really liked it.

1294
01:03:22,883 --> 01:03:24,263
No, no, my friend.

1295
01:03:24,343 --> 01:03:26,473
[both]
Thank <i>you</i>, Mr. Acavano.

1296
01:03:26,554 --> 01:03:28,814
[De Palma] In the 80's,
I was working all the time.

1297
01:03:28,889 --> 01:03:30,469
You know,
I was writing scripts.

1298
01:03:30,558 --> 01:03:32,938
I was selling things.

1299
01:03:33,019 --> 01:03:35,689
Some would get made.
Some wouldn't.

1300
01:03:35,813 --> 01:03:39,233
Then I got involved with developing
<i>Fatal Attraction.</i>

1301
01:03:39,317 --> 01:03:41,857
I was not sold on the way
the script was going

1302
01:03:41,944 --> 01:03:43,494
and I said, "I'm out."

1303
01:03:43,571 --> 01:03:46,991
Fortunately,
about 24 hours later,

1304
01:03:47,074 --> 01:03:49,084
somebody over at Paramount

1305
01:03:49,160 --> 01:03:51,290
suggested me to do
<i>The Untouchables.</i>

1306
01:03:53,956 --> 01:03:55,786
Art developed the script
before I arrived

1307
01:03:55,875 --> 01:03:59,205
and the three of us
worked on the script after that.

1308
01:03:59,295 --> 01:04:01,875
Well, first we had to find
Elliott Ness.

1309
01:04:01,964 --> 01:04:03,474
And I wanted to use Don Johnson,

1310
01:04:03,549 --> 01:04:05,259
because I knew Don

1311
01:04:05,343 --> 01:04:07,683
and he was very big in <i>Miami Vice now.</i>

1312
01:04:07,762 --> 01:04:10,312
And Art felt very strongly
about Kevin.

1313
01:04:10,389 --> 01:04:13,479
And then I called Spielberg,

1314
01:04:13,559 --> 01:04:16,399
I called Larry Kasdan,
who had all worked with Kevin before,

1315
01:04:16,479 --> 01:04:19,569
to reassure me about— this guy's
going to carry the whole movie.

1316
01:04:19,649 --> 01:04:24,109
So they said, "Yes, this guy's
going to be something. Feel confident."

1317
01:04:24,195 --> 01:04:27,485
Then we had Bob Hoskins
playing Al Capone.

1318
01:04:27,573 --> 01:04:28,913
And then we got Sean in,

1319
01:04:28,991 --> 01:04:30,831
because Sean
is always looking for things

1320
01:04:30,910 --> 01:04:33,830
to get him out
of his James Bond character.

1321
01:04:33,913 --> 01:04:37,123
And I saw Andy Garcia
in <i>8 Million Ways to Die.</i>

1322
01:04:37,208 --> 01:04:38,578
♪♪

1323
01:04:38,668 --> 01:04:42,378
And I was down in Chicago,
you know, with my boards,

1324
01:04:42,463 --> 01:04:45,053
and figuring out how we're going
to shoot all this stuff.

1325
01:04:45,132 --> 01:04:48,302
Meanwhile, I'm thinking
we've got this movie,

1326
01:04:48,386 --> 01:04:52,306
except we—
it's— to me, it's like a—

1327
01:04:52,390 --> 01:04:55,730
some kind of sophisticated
English playhouse theater.

1328
01:04:55,810 --> 01:04:58,810
We need an American
gangster actor.

1329
01:05:00,940 --> 01:05:03,230
What draws my admiration?

1330
01:05:03,317 --> 01:05:04,937
What is that
which gives me joy?

1331
01:05:05,027 --> 01:05:07,907
[all clamoring]

1332
01:05:11,158 --> 01:05:12,828
- Baseball.
- [laughing]

1333
01:05:14,704 --> 01:05:16,994
[De Palma] Bobby takes a long time
to decide to do things.

1334
01:05:17,039 --> 01:05:19,229
You go out to dinner with him,
you talk about the script.

1335
01:05:19,250 --> 01:05:22,130
And it took many,
many weeks until he finally said,

1336
01:05:22,211 --> 01:05:24,511
"Yeah, I think that I can make
this work."

1337
01:05:24,588 --> 01:05:26,918
Except the last thing
Bobby said to me was,

1338
01:05:27,007 --> 01:05:28,507
"It's going
to be expensive."

1339
01:05:28,592 --> 01:05:31,012
And it was
extremely expensive.

1340
01:05:31,095 --> 01:05:33,305
Well, it's a little different
with the movie stars

1341
01:05:33,389 --> 01:05:34,849
that you've kind of discovered.

1342
01:05:34,932 --> 01:05:38,982
The thing about Bobby is that I've known
him, like, what? Since the mid-60's.

1343
01:05:39,061 --> 01:05:43,191
On <i>The Untouchables,</i>
Bobby was not learning his lines.

1344
01:05:43,274 --> 01:05:46,614
And I just went with him to—
when he was putting his make-up on,

1345
01:05:46,694 --> 01:05:51,284
and I'd rehearse these lines over and over
again with him until he knew them.

1346
01:05:51,657 --> 01:05:54,157
Plus he had to put on some weight
to play Al Capone

1347
01:05:54,243 --> 01:05:56,623
and he had his hair
shaved back.

1348
01:05:56,704 --> 01:05:59,504
He wore the kind of silk underwear
that Al Capone wore.

1349
01:05:59,582 --> 01:06:01,502
You never saw it,
but he had it on.

1350
01:06:11,427 --> 01:06:14,847
1634 Racine.

1351
01:06:14,972 --> 01:06:17,852
You know, I used to have a friend
who lived there.

1352
01:06:17,975 --> 01:06:20,555
[De Palma] What's good about a sequence
for a composer

1353
01:06:20,644 --> 01:06:25,114
is that you give him this thing
that builds up cinematically

1354
01:06:25,191 --> 01:06:29,861
that works very well with something
emotional in the music.

1355
01:06:29,987 --> 01:06:34,987
You give him the time and the space
to develop that thing in the music

1356
01:06:35,075 --> 01:06:36,865
that really connects
with the audience.

1357
01:06:36,994 --> 01:06:37,994
No!

1358
01:06:38,037 --> 01:06:39,507
[De Palma] Morricone is like one
of those composers

1359
01:06:39,538 --> 01:06:42,118
that's impossible to get
and I was very lucky to get him.

1360
01:06:42,208 --> 01:06:44,208
♪♪

1361
01:06:47,254 --> 01:06:48,674
[grunts]

1362
01:06:50,674 --> 01:06:51,934
[De Palma]
He looks at the movie

1363
01:06:52,009 --> 01:06:55,679
and then we went back to a studio
and he just played four themes.

1364
01:06:55,763 --> 01:06:58,853
Four of which were, like,
right on the nose.

1365
01:06:58,933 --> 01:07:01,523
And then, I told you,
the fifth one—

1366
01:07:01,602 --> 01:07:04,062
He sent me about six, seven,
eight or nine versions

1367
01:07:04,146 --> 01:07:05,396
before I said, "Ah, that's it."

1368
01:07:05,481 --> 01:07:08,111
I think it was
the "duddle-lun-dun-dun" thing.

1369
01:07:08,192 --> 01:07:10,192
♪♪

1370
01:07:15,616 --> 01:07:19,496
Normally, when I set up those sequences,
and with the music and everything,

1371
01:07:19,578 --> 01:07:23,078
they're very emotional
and they do work.

1372
01:07:27,127 --> 01:07:29,167
The Odessa Steps sequence
was done—

1373
01:07:29,255 --> 01:07:32,465
was because Mamet refused
to write anything more

1374
01:07:32,550 --> 01:07:34,840
after we couldn't afford
the train chase.

1375
01:07:34,927 --> 01:07:37,597
I said to Eric,
my location manager,

1376
01:07:37,680 --> 01:07:39,060
"Find me a staircase."

1377
01:07:39,139 --> 01:07:40,929
I had <i>Battleship Potemkin</i> in mind,

1378
01:07:41,058 --> 01:07:43,138
the whole idea
of a baby carriage

1379
01:07:43,227 --> 01:07:45,557
going down a staircase
in the midst of a shootout,

1380
01:07:45,646 --> 01:07:47,686
and I just made it up
as I went along.

1381
01:07:47,773 --> 01:07:49,783
♪♪

1382
01:07:51,902 --> 01:07:54,862
[mouths]
My baby!

1383
01:08:02,580 --> 01:08:05,290
[De Palma] The sequences
inspire the composer.

1384
01:08:05,374 --> 01:08:07,844
You want to pare back
the sound effects

1385
01:08:07,918 --> 01:08:11,708
and just use them to underline
certain things.

1386
01:08:11,797 --> 01:08:14,337
Because you've got
97 tracks now,

1387
01:08:14,425 --> 01:08:17,425
you put all this sort of stuff on,
it gets in the way of the music.

1388
01:08:17,511 --> 01:08:21,971
Very seldom the composers have the
chance to develop something musically

1389
01:08:22,099 --> 01:08:27,399
that's not constantly getting contradicted
by the dialogue and the effects.

1390
01:08:34,695 --> 01:08:38,735
I constantly have all these, you know,
techniques in my brain

1391
01:08:38,824 --> 01:08:40,414
and I'm trying to figure out,

1392
01:08:40,492 --> 01:08:45,462
"Well, can I use this here? Is this the
best way to use this?"

1393
01:08:45,539 --> 01:08:47,459
It's the old
horror techniques.

1394
01:08:47,541 --> 01:08:49,751
The point of view shot
following somebody around.

1395
01:08:49,835 --> 01:08:51,795
You know
how I feel about coverage.

1396
01:08:51,879 --> 01:08:55,129
"Oh, take a wide shot.
Guy walks up to house.

1397
01:08:55,215 --> 01:08:59,215
Guy goes through a window.
Guy hides behind victrola."

1398
01:08:59,303 --> 01:09:01,393
I mean, you're going,
"Boy, is that interesting!"

1399
01:09:01,472 --> 01:09:03,102
I'm always trying
to find a way

1400
01:09:03,182 --> 01:09:07,902
to visually
make the thing exciting.

1401
01:09:10,856 --> 01:09:13,646
[chuckles] Isn't that just
like a wop?

1402
01:09:15,694 --> 01:09:17,574
Brings a knife
to a gunfight.

1403
01:09:22,242 --> 01:09:24,412
Get out of here,
you dago bastard!

1404
01:09:26,288 --> 01:09:27,868
Go on, get your ass
out of here!

1405
01:09:34,546 --> 01:09:35,546
[groaning]

1406
01:09:39,468 --> 01:09:41,398
[De Palma] Well, when I put
all those hits on Sean,

1407
01:09:41,428 --> 01:09:43,678
he was so mad at me.

1408
01:09:43,764 --> 01:09:45,644
He'd never had hits
put on him before.

1409
01:09:45,724 --> 01:09:48,564
I said, "You're James Bond
and you've never been shot?"

1410
01:09:48,644 --> 01:09:51,654
"No." And he'd gotten
some dust in his eye.

1411
01:09:51,730 --> 01:09:53,370
They took him to the hospital
immediately,

1412
01:09:53,440 --> 01:09:58,280
and I had to beg him to come back
and do a second take.

1413
01:09:58,362 --> 01:09:59,612
He hated it.

1414
01:10:00,072 --> 01:10:04,412
We were very concerned because
we had some bad numbers about interest

1415
01:10:04,493 --> 01:10:06,043
and who was going
to show up.

1416
01:10:06,120 --> 01:10:09,080
And our big competition
was that movie

1417
01:10:09,206 --> 01:10:12,786
where John Lithgow lives with
some kind of monster in the house.

1418
01:10:12,876 --> 01:10:14,706
Everybody thought
<i>Harry and the Hendersons</i>

1419
01:10:14,795 --> 01:10:16,085
<i>was going to be huge.</i>

1420
01:10:16,213 --> 01:10:18,883
And we kind of blew everybody away
the first weekend.

1421
01:10:18,966 --> 01:10:22,386
You know, <i>The Untouchables</i> was
another one of those magical movies.

1422
01:10:23,387 --> 01:10:26,057
And very few happen
in your career.

1423
01:10:27,474 --> 01:10:30,314
Then I get them to make a movie
that nobody wanted to make.

1424
01:10:30,394 --> 01:10:34,154
This is the one, sarge.
She's the pretty one.

1425
01:10:34,231 --> 01:10:35,691
Take the pretty one.

1426
01:10:35,774 --> 01:10:37,694
[De Palma] I always felt
that <i>Casualties of War</i>

1427
01:10:37,776 --> 01:10:40,566
was the best story
about the Vietnam War.

1428
01:10:40,654 --> 01:10:42,614
It was a great piece
of journalism.

1429
01:10:42,698 --> 01:10:45,488
It had a really dramatic arc to it.

1430
01:10:45,576 --> 01:10:48,576
It felt very much the way I feel

1431
01:10:48,662 --> 01:10:52,462
about these type of wars that we get into
and nobody knows why.

1432
01:10:52,541 --> 01:10:54,461
To me, it's a metaphor
for what we're doing.

1433
01:10:54,543 --> 01:10:56,343
We are raping
these countries.

1434
01:10:56,420 --> 01:10:57,670
This is a weapon.

1435
01:10:57,755 --> 01:11:00,125
[breathing heavily]

1436
01:11:02,718 --> 01:11:03,968
This is a gun.

1437
01:11:04,053 --> 01:11:06,723
And then you have a—
you know, a real incident

1438
01:11:06,805 --> 01:11:10,175
in which an innocent
is raped and killed.

1439
01:11:10,267 --> 01:11:13,227
This is what we're doing,
and we don't ever want to admit it.

1440
01:11:13,312 --> 01:11:15,152
Nobody ever
talks about it anymore.

1441
01:11:15,272 --> 01:11:17,482
We don't understand
these people.

1442
01:11:17,566 --> 01:11:19,606
We don't understand
their culture.

1443
01:11:19,693 --> 01:11:24,283
We're being fed a lot of mumbo jumbo
of the reasons that's important

1444
01:11:24,364 --> 01:11:27,534
for our country's
self-interest to be there

1445
01:11:27,618 --> 01:11:31,208
that makes absolutely no sense
whatsoever.

1446
01:11:31,288 --> 01:11:33,248
And no wonder these people,

1447
01:11:33,332 --> 01:11:38,502
these soldiers trying to do
the right thing, go crazy.

1448
01:11:38,587 --> 01:11:41,627
People had been trying to make
<i>Casualties of War</i>

1449
01:11:41,715 --> 01:11:43,375
since the early 70's.

1450
01:11:43,467 --> 01:11:45,507
It's one of these properties
that was bought,

1451
01:11:45,594 --> 01:11:48,064
developed, sat on a shelf,

1452
01:11:48,138 --> 01:11:50,098
bought, developed,
sat on a shelf.

1453
01:11:50,182 --> 01:11:52,772
Fortunately, Dawn had left Paramount

1454
01:11:52,851 --> 01:11:54,391
and became
head of Columbia,

1455
01:11:54,478 --> 01:11:58,978
and she was looking for a project
with a lot of big names.

1456
01:11:59,066 --> 01:12:01,736
And Dawn used to run
Michael J. Fox's company,

1457
01:12:01,819 --> 01:12:04,399
and she got Michael interested
in playing Eriksson,

1458
01:12:04,488 --> 01:12:06,508
which is the only way the movie
would have ever gotten made.

1459
01:12:06,532 --> 01:12:09,832
See, these people here,
they confuse themselves.

1460
01:12:09,910 --> 01:12:11,220
Are they Cong, are they not Cong?

1461
01:12:11,245 --> 01:12:15,325
Sean came up with this
very kind of macho Brooklyn guy

1462
01:12:15,415 --> 01:12:17,165
and was literally the sarge.

1463
01:12:17,251 --> 01:12:21,091
I mean, he treated the other actors
like they were in his squad.

1464
01:12:21,171 --> 01:12:22,421
He never talked to Michael.

1465
01:12:22,506 --> 01:12:25,066
His attitude about him was like
how he felt about him in the movie.

1466
01:12:25,092 --> 01:12:26,652
Eriksson here
don't wanna ball the dink.

1467
01:12:26,718 --> 01:12:28,008
- How come?
- I don't know.

1468
01:12:28,095 --> 01:12:29,885
- He's a chickenshit.
- Is that it?

1469
01:12:29,972 --> 01:12:31,432
Is that your problem,
Eriksson?

1470
01:12:31,515 --> 01:12:33,675
[De Palma] Michael's
a very amiable guy,

1471
01:12:33,767 --> 01:12:35,977
and he felt very much
like an outsider,

1472
01:12:36,061 --> 01:12:38,311
you know, because of Sean
and his guys.

1473
01:12:38,397 --> 01:12:39,897
But it worked very well
for the movie.

1474
01:12:39,982 --> 01:12:41,982
♪♪

1475
01:12:43,277 --> 01:12:47,357
There was a moment in the movie
where Michael hits Clark with a shovel.

1476
01:12:47,447 --> 01:12:49,577
And Sean's kind of taunting him,
you know,

1477
01:12:49,658 --> 01:12:51,948
with that wise-ass look he's got.

1478
01:12:52,035 --> 01:12:53,365
And we did
a couple of takes.

1479
01:12:53,453 --> 01:12:57,373
And then Sean walked up to Michael J.
and knocked him to the ground.

1480
01:12:57,457 --> 01:13:00,587
Just knocked him down.

1481
01:13:00,669 --> 01:13:03,169
And I thought Michael
was going to kill him.

1482
01:13:03,255 --> 01:13:04,505
And then we shot the scene.

1483
01:13:07,509 --> 01:13:09,299
It did bring something out in Michael

1484
01:13:09,386 --> 01:13:12,886
that— that he was having
some difficulty getting to.

1485
01:13:12,973 --> 01:13:14,223
I mean, he had all that anger,

1486
01:13:14,308 --> 01:13:17,558
and then just Sean just pushed it
right over the top.

1487
01:13:17,644 --> 01:13:19,734
And then, when he whispers to him
when he leaves,

1488
01:13:19,813 --> 01:13:21,363
you know, about payback,

1489
01:13:21,440 --> 01:13:24,110
I think he whispered once
to him, "Television actor."

1490
01:13:24,193 --> 01:13:26,203
[laughs]

1491
01:13:29,907 --> 01:13:32,277
Good old Sean.
Very exciting to work with.

1492
01:13:32,409 --> 01:13:35,659
It— it was a very difficult movie
to make

1493
01:13:35,746 --> 01:13:37,406
with the weather and the heat,

1494
01:13:37,497 --> 01:13:41,417
and to understand Vietnam,
you've got to understand the terrain.

1495
01:13:41,501 --> 01:13:42,881
You got to understand the heat.

1496
01:13:42,961 --> 01:13:44,631
Once you get the heat,

1497
01:13:44,713 --> 01:13:47,473
you can't imagine how that affects
the way you think.

1498
01:13:47,549 --> 01:13:50,759
Then Thailand, I built
the whole jungle set

1499
01:13:50,844 --> 01:13:54,854
because, the jungle, you walk three paces
and you could be anywhere.

1500
01:13:54,932 --> 01:13:57,022
There's no orientation
in the jungle.

1501
01:13:57,100 --> 01:13:58,890
So, I said,
"Let's build a jungle set

1502
01:13:58,977 --> 01:14:01,227
and just basically move
the trees around."

1503
01:14:01,313 --> 01:14:03,483
And Dawn actually traveled
all the way there.

1504
01:14:03,565 --> 01:14:06,775
I think she lasted about five hours
and got in a plane and went home.

1505
01:14:06,860 --> 01:14:08,860
It was awful.

1506
01:14:09,863 --> 01:14:12,413
[screams]

1507
01:14:12,491 --> 01:14:14,031
[De Palma]
I wanted to have that sense

1508
01:14:14,117 --> 01:14:17,247
that if you thought things
were bad above ground,

1509
01:14:17,329 --> 01:14:20,369
you should see what was going on
below ground.

1510
01:14:20,457 --> 01:14:23,707
And the only way to do that
is to crane directly down

1511
01:14:23,794 --> 01:14:26,424
and show a cutaway of the tunnel

1512
01:14:26,505 --> 01:14:30,255
and the threat moving through it,
like an ant colony.

1513
01:14:32,260 --> 01:14:34,720
Well, Columbia made me
preview the movie,

1514
01:14:34,805 --> 01:14:37,465
but the previews
don't really help much at all.

1515
01:14:37,557 --> 01:14:39,307
You get all this pressure
to do things,

1516
01:14:39,393 --> 01:14:41,483
and, in retrospect,
you regret it terribly.

1517
01:14:41,561 --> 01:14:43,191
At the end of <i>Casualties of War</i>

1518
01:14:43,271 --> 01:14:45,401
I took out a couple
of the interrogation scenes,

1519
01:14:45,482 --> 01:14:47,152
especially the one
where they—

1520
01:14:47,234 --> 01:14:50,534
They ripped Michael apart
on the stand by the defense attorney.

1521
01:14:50,612 --> 01:14:51,922
Isn't it true that what you went out to do

1522
01:14:51,947 --> 01:14:54,717
is to figure out how to use this incident
to get the hell out of the infantry?

1523
01:14:54,741 --> 01:14:56,121
- [man] Objection.
- Can you find—

1524
01:14:56,201 --> 01:14:57,491
And I took that thing out.

1525
01:14:57,577 --> 01:14:59,907
I ultimately put it back
in the revised version.

1526
01:14:59,997 --> 01:15:04,537
Because if you put anything that makes
the audience react too strongly,

1527
01:15:04,626 --> 01:15:05,916
they want you to take it out.

1528
01:15:06,003 --> 01:15:08,173
My movies tend
to upset people a lot,

1529
01:15:08,255 --> 01:15:11,755
so you can imagine the things
they're trying to take out of my movies.

1530
01:15:11,842 --> 01:15:13,512
And I have to fight them
tooth and nail.

1531
01:15:14,761 --> 01:15:18,771
A preview for this kind of movie
really doesn't tell you anything.

1532
01:15:18,849 --> 01:15:23,189
I mean, the material is <i>so emotional</i>
and <i>so depressing.</i>

1533
01:15:23,270 --> 01:15:24,860
What's a preview
going to tell you?

1534
01:15:24,938 --> 01:15:27,398
I don't want to see the movie?
It disturbed me too much.

1535
01:15:27,524 --> 01:15:29,364
I don't know what
to tell my friends?

1536
01:15:29,443 --> 01:15:31,193
I find it hard
to look at it myself

1537
01:15:31,278 --> 01:15:34,988
when you deal with material
that's very heartbreaking

1538
01:15:35,073 --> 01:15:38,333
and you got to go to a mix and look
at that stuff over and over again.

1539
01:15:38,410 --> 01:15:39,950
It's like <i>The Best Years of Our Lives</i>

1540
01:15:40,037 --> 01:15:41,537
was on television the other day.

1541
01:15:41,621 --> 01:15:43,381
There's an hour
of those poor guys, you know,

1542
01:15:43,457 --> 01:15:45,377
just trying to adjust
to where they are.

1543
01:15:45,459 --> 01:15:47,589
I mean, how do you look
at that movie?

1544
01:15:47,669 --> 01:15:49,379
It's so upsetting.
Imagine making it.

1545
01:15:49,463 --> 01:15:52,263
That's the feelings I have
on <i>Casualties of War.</i>

1546
01:15:52,340 --> 01:15:54,430
Pauline wrote
a great review.

1547
01:15:54,551 --> 01:15:58,011
But it didn't do well and there were a lot
of mixed reviews, you know.

1548
01:15:58,096 --> 01:15:59,506
Nobody went to see it.

1549
01:15:59,598 --> 01:16:04,938
It was a terrible disappointment after
all that work, and it was a lot of work.

1550
01:16:07,105 --> 01:16:08,615
- [reporter 1] There he is.
- [reporter 2] There he is.

1551
01:16:08,648 --> 01:16:11,398
- [female reporter] Let's go!
- [all clamoring]

1552
01:16:11,485 --> 01:16:13,735
[De Palma] People never thought
I understood the book.

1553
01:16:13,820 --> 01:16:15,450
I understood the book perfectly.

1554
01:16:15,572 --> 01:16:18,622
Warners came to me
with <i>Bonfire of the Vanities.</i>

1555
01:16:18,700 --> 01:16:20,660
And it was a chance
to go back to New York,

1556
01:16:20,744 --> 01:16:22,334
make a big studio picture
and, you know,

1557
01:16:22,412 --> 01:16:25,122
you go to work sometimes
just so you don't have to think.

1558
01:16:25,207 --> 01:16:27,577
You see, my problem with
<i>Bonfire of the Vanities</i> is,

1559
01:16:27,667 --> 01:16:30,747
it should have been like
<i>The Magnificent Ambersons.</i>

1560
01:16:30,837 --> 01:16:33,587
You know, Sherman McCoy
is basically an asshole

1561
01:16:33,673 --> 01:16:36,643
much like the lead character
in <i>Ambersons,</i>

1562
01:16:36,718 --> 01:16:40,428
who destroys everything
because of his arrogance.

1563
01:16:40,514 --> 01:16:42,644
And that's the way the movie
should've been.

1564
01:16:42,724 --> 01:16:44,484
But then we wound up
with Tom Hanks,

1565
01:16:44,601 --> 01:16:47,441
and so I think, "I'll take a gamble,
try to make him nicer."

1566
01:16:47,521 --> 01:16:48,581
Just don't want to do anything stupid.

1567
01:16:48,605 --> 01:16:51,435
If we keep our heads,
we'll be perfectly fine.

1568
01:16:51,525 --> 01:16:53,035
[Maria Ruskin]
Oh, Jesus Christ, Sherman!

1569
01:16:53,068 --> 01:16:54,778
We're in the middle
of a goddamn war zone

1570
01:16:54,861 --> 01:16:56,951
and you're worried about
doing the right thing?

1571
01:16:57,030 --> 01:16:59,370
[De Palma] I had all these
sort of thoughts in my mind.

1572
01:16:59,449 --> 01:17:01,619
This is a very big,
expensive movie.

1573
01:17:01,701 --> 01:17:04,411
I knew what could go wrong with it.

1574
01:17:04,496 --> 01:17:06,916
It could go the way
of the Welles picture

1575
01:17:06,998 --> 01:17:09,788
and it could also go the way
of <i>Sweet Smell of Success,</i>

1576
01:17:09,876 --> 01:17:11,956
the greatest picture
Mackendrick ever made

1577
01:17:12,045 --> 01:17:13,765
and it basically put him out
of the business.

1578
01:17:13,797 --> 01:17:16,397
- You want some cheap, gruesome gags?
- You print them, don't you?

1579
01:17:16,466 --> 01:17:19,756
<i>Bonfire</i> should have been
that tough, that cynical.

1580
01:17:19,845 --> 01:17:23,005
But I said, "If I make that picture,
it's going to be a career ender."

1581
01:17:23,098 --> 01:17:26,768
Like Welles,
like Mackendrick,

1582
01:17:26,852 --> 01:17:28,902
I'm going to be
like, unemployable.

1583
01:17:28,979 --> 01:17:31,269
And the irony is,
it still bombed.

1584
01:17:31,356 --> 01:17:33,146
It should have been tougher, harder.

1585
01:17:33,233 --> 01:17:35,743
Everybody that read the book
hated the movie.

1586
01:17:35,819 --> 01:17:38,279
The problem of working
in the Hollywood system

1587
01:17:38,363 --> 01:17:40,033
is the people are paid
a lot of money

1588
01:17:40,115 --> 01:17:42,115
to get you to do
what they want you to do.

1589
01:17:42,200 --> 01:17:43,830
That's why
they have those jobs.

1590
01:17:43,910 --> 01:17:45,620
And you can lose your way

1591
01:17:45,704 --> 01:17:48,174
and go along
with their concepts.

1592
01:17:48,248 --> 01:17:53,498
I mean, I'd never seen stacks
of notes from the studio.

1593
01:17:53,587 --> 01:17:56,717
That was like you know,
"Wow."

1594
01:17:56,798 --> 01:18:01,008
I made a lot of compromises
and it was disaster.

1595
01:18:01,094 --> 01:18:05,274
And Julie Salamon wrote
every move in it.

1596
01:18:05,348 --> 01:18:08,978
I feel the movie, by itself,
stands up perfectly fine.

1597
01:18:09,060 --> 01:18:11,270
Nothing wrong with the movie,
just don't read the book.

1598
01:18:11,354 --> 01:18:16,324
I was leveled by the response
to <i>Bonfire of the Vanities.</i>

1599
01:18:16,401 --> 01:18:19,611
Catastrophe.
Time to leave town.

1600
01:18:19,821 --> 01:18:21,991
So, I got married.

1601
01:18:22,073 --> 01:18:23,413
I had a child.

1602
01:18:23,491 --> 01:18:25,581
And I went back to a genre

1603
01:18:25,702 --> 01:18:29,042
that I had developed
in the 70's.

1604
01:18:29,122 --> 01:18:30,832
♪♪

1605
01:18:31,833 --> 01:18:33,083
I'm sorry.

1606
01:18:34,502 --> 01:18:36,172
I'm sorry.

1607
01:18:39,424 --> 01:18:42,144
My wife made a deal at Universal

1608
01:18:42,219 --> 01:18:45,429
for us to make
a movie together.

1609
01:18:45,513 --> 01:18:47,353
I had two ideas basically.

1610
01:18:47,432 --> 01:18:50,772
One was a multiple personality
character.

1611
01:18:50,852 --> 01:18:52,442
And many years before,

1612
01:18:52,520 --> 01:18:55,770
I was having a relationship
with a woman that was married.

1613
01:18:55,857 --> 01:18:59,147
And she used to come by
after work

1614
01:18:59,236 --> 01:19:01,446
and, you know,
we would make love

1615
01:19:01,529 --> 01:19:03,289
and because she was tired,
she'd fall asleep.

1616
01:19:03,323 --> 01:19:05,283
And I remember
watching her sleeping, thinking,

1617
01:19:05,367 --> 01:19:08,577
"What would happen if I just let her
sleep all night?

1618
01:19:08,662 --> 01:19:11,122
How would you explain that
to your husband?"

1619
01:19:11,206 --> 01:19:13,456
Oh, my God.

1620
01:19:13,541 --> 01:19:17,211
But the problem was that
the Lolita Davidovich story,

1621
01:19:17,295 --> 01:19:20,255
which should have been
the first story in <i>Raising Cain,</i>

1622
01:19:20,340 --> 01:19:22,130
not the John Lithgow story

1623
01:19:22,217 --> 01:19:26,177
with the kidnapping children
and the multiple personalities.

1624
01:19:26,263 --> 01:19:28,183
That's what's supposed
to emerge later.

1625
01:19:28,265 --> 01:19:31,765
It should have started with her
going to the shop to buy the clocks.

1626
01:19:31,851 --> 01:19:33,601
She meets Steven Bauer.

1627
01:19:33,687 --> 01:19:36,017
But when I was putting
the movie together,

1628
01:19:36,106 --> 01:19:39,316
the John Lithgow stuff
was so strong, and the sort of—

1629
01:19:39,401 --> 01:19:41,781
I guess you'd say
soap opera love story

1630
01:19:41,861 --> 01:19:44,201
was not
the strongest element.

1631
01:19:44,281 --> 01:19:48,621
I had to pull the whole John Lithgow stuff
forward into the movie.

1632
01:19:48,702 --> 01:19:53,212
And that's why it has
a particular oddness to it.

1633
01:19:53,290 --> 01:19:55,920
Because it's not put together
the way it was conceived.

1634
01:19:56,001 --> 01:19:59,001
I don't know why I always cast
John Lithgow as villains.

1635
01:19:59,087 --> 01:20:03,427
It's like, why did Billy Wilder
always cast Fred MacMurray as a villain

1636
01:20:03,508 --> 01:20:06,678
when everybody else wanted him
as the professor in <i>Flubber?</i>

1637
01:20:06,803 --> 01:20:08,933
And it was all shot
in our backyard.

1638
01:20:09,014 --> 01:20:13,184
I mean, all the locations are
around the corner from where we lived.

1639
01:20:13,268 --> 01:20:15,268
Gale and I got houses
up there.

1640
01:20:15,353 --> 01:20:17,023
Lolita was born,
my daughter,

1641
01:20:17,105 --> 01:20:20,395
and we were literally walking
outside the house and shooting.

1642
01:20:20,483 --> 01:20:23,153
It was one of my most
financially successful movies,

1643
01:20:23,236 --> 01:20:26,776
because I had, like, 10%
of the gross from the first dollar.

1644
01:20:26,865 --> 01:20:30,195
It's interesting to look at the movie now
because it's like a family album.

1645
01:20:30,285 --> 01:20:32,115
Where's Daddy?

1646
01:20:32,203 --> 01:20:34,913
Daddy's not here, sweetie.
He's gone away.

1647
01:20:34,998 --> 01:20:38,458
- Daddy's here.
- No, he's not.

1648
01:20:38,543 --> 01:20:40,503
Come on, honey,
we've got to get back.

1649
01:20:40,587 --> 01:20:42,207
Come to Mommy.

1650
01:20:42,297 --> 01:20:44,297
♪♪

1651
01:20:50,013 --> 01:20:52,683
Gale and I fell together
at a certain time in our lives

1652
01:20:52,766 --> 01:20:57,226
and then basically went back to the lives
that we hadn't finished.

1653
01:20:57,312 --> 01:21:03,442
And we had this remarkable daughter
in the process, so...

1654
01:21:05,362 --> 01:21:08,322
it worked out rather well,
as strange as it may seem.

1655
01:21:08,406 --> 01:21:09,866
♪♪

1656
01:21:09,949 --> 01:21:12,659
That's when I got
the <i>Carlito's Way</i> script.

1657
01:21:15,038 --> 01:21:18,118
And I thought,
"Oh, boy, here we go.

1658
01:21:18,208 --> 01:21:22,498
Al Pacino,
Spanish speaking gangsters."

1659
01:21:22,587 --> 01:21:25,377
But the script was so good
when I finally read it,

1660
01:21:25,465 --> 01:21:28,175
I said, "I know how to make this
into a great movie."

1661
01:21:28,259 --> 01:21:30,009
[indistinct chattering]

1662
01:21:30,095 --> 01:21:33,595
Dick Sylbert is one of the great
production designers,

1663
01:21:33,681 --> 01:21:35,891
a magical guy
to work with.

1664
01:21:35,975 --> 01:21:37,935
The idea of the club
being like a boat

1665
01:21:38,019 --> 01:21:41,559
came from the first
exterior location we found,

1666
01:21:41,648 --> 01:21:45,738
which was a nightclub that was
in the shape of a boat.

1667
01:21:45,819 --> 01:21:48,949
So then Dick designed the interior
to go with that exterior.

1668
01:21:49,030 --> 01:21:51,950
And of course what happened was
that we lost the location.

1669
01:21:52,033 --> 01:21:54,583
So, we didn't have
that boat-like exterior,

1670
01:21:54,661 --> 01:21:58,501
but then it became an image
for Carlito going to the Caribbean.

1671
01:21:58,581 --> 01:22:01,631
Sean, he did that hair thing,
just surprised us all.

1672
01:22:01,709 --> 01:22:05,669
I had no idea he was going to come back
with the frizzed, shaved back head.

1673
01:22:05,755 --> 01:22:10,135
Look at you, huh?
Really made something of your life.

1674
01:22:10,218 --> 01:22:13,008
You know, I don't know if you've had
this experience with actors,

1675
01:22:13,096 --> 01:22:15,266
but there's one scene
they fixate on,

1676
01:22:15,348 --> 01:22:17,728
and that was the hospital scene
in <i>Carlito's Way.</i>

1677
01:22:17,809 --> 01:22:21,399
We were rewriting that scene
to the day we shot it,

1678
01:22:21,479 --> 01:22:23,569
and they were still unhappy with it.

1679
01:22:23,648 --> 01:22:28,028
Relax, Dave.
It's your pal.

1680
01:22:28,111 --> 01:22:29,991
[De Palma] We've got to get
all the mechanics

1681
01:22:30,071 --> 01:22:31,701
of this movie-making
out of the way

1682
01:22:31,781 --> 01:22:33,411
so the actors can act.

1683
01:22:33,491 --> 01:22:36,241
If I see something
that's distracting somebody

1684
01:22:36,327 --> 01:22:39,327
or making them lose
their concentration,

1685
01:22:39,414 --> 01:22:41,584
you got to get to it
and get it out of their way.

1686
01:22:41,666 --> 01:22:44,036
Being a director
is being a watcher,

1687
01:22:44,127 --> 01:22:47,877
in the sense that you have
a lot of egos in the room

1688
01:22:47,964 --> 01:22:51,344
and you have to sort of watch
how they interact with each other.

1689
01:22:51,426 --> 01:22:54,046
Because when you're on a set,
you're basically concentrating

1690
01:22:54,137 --> 01:22:57,597
on what's happening at the moment
and you've got to look at everything.

1691
01:22:57,682 --> 01:23:00,142
You don't have time, you know,
say, "How's the coffee?"

1692
01:23:00,226 --> 01:23:03,306
Or "Did you have
a nice night last night?"

1693
01:23:03,396 --> 01:23:06,316
Your job as a director
is to get the movie made.

1694
01:23:06,399 --> 01:23:08,739
You know, if somebody loses
their temper

1695
01:23:08,818 --> 01:23:12,108
or you lose your temper,
everything stops.

1696
01:23:12,197 --> 01:23:14,197
♪♪

1697
01:23:23,625 --> 01:23:25,125
You know,
that chase we shot

1698
01:23:25,210 --> 01:23:27,960
like, in the depths
of the summer

1699
01:23:28,046 --> 01:23:32,256
and I was trying to get
this shot from train to train.

1700
01:23:32,342 --> 01:23:35,472
And of course, Al's wearing this
very heavy leather jacket.

1701
01:23:35,553 --> 01:23:36,803
Now, it's, you know,

1702
01:23:36,888 --> 01:23:41,768
110 degrees in the subway
in the middle of the summer,

1703
01:23:41,851 --> 01:23:43,771
and I'm in one train,
you know,

1704
01:23:43,853 --> 01:23:46,863
trying to get a shot of him
racing through the other train

1705
01:23:46,940 --> 01:23:48,400
being followed
by these guys

1706
01:23:48,483 --> 01:23:50,163
and, of course,
you're going train to train

1707
01:23:50,235 --> 01:23:52,235
and then you've got
all the posts.

1708
01:23:52,320 --> 01:23:55,570
And do you— Is your train
going fast enough

1709
01:23:55,657 --> 01:23:59,537
to just hold him in the shot
or does it get like this?

1710
01:23:59,619 --> 01:24:02,909
So, we literally tried to get
this shot all night.

1711
01:24:03,039 --> 01:24:05,499
And Al is running up and down
this train.

1712
01:24:05,583 --> 01:24:08,423
And finally, it was about,
I don't know, 4:00 in the morning,

1713
01:24:08,503 --> 01:24:13,303
and suddenly the train that Al's in
suddenly keeps going.

1714
01:24:13,383 --> 01:24:16,643
Just disappears.
[laughing]

1715
01:24:16,719 --> 01:24:20,719
And I said to my AD, Chris,
I said, "What happened?"

1716
01:24:20,807 --> 01:24:24,387
And he said,
"Al took the train home."

1717
01:24:24,477 --> 01:24:26,477
[laughing]

1718
01:24:27,522 --> 01:24:31,322
"And he thinks you're crazy.
He doesn't know what you're doing."

1719
01:24:31,401 --> 01:24:36,071
So, I had to get in my train
and go back to where Al's train was.

1720
01:24:36,155 --> 01:24:40,075
And I went up to Al's trailer
and he's like, red,

1721
01:24:40,159 --> 01:24:43,199
because he's been sweating with his coat,
you know, for hours.

1722
01:24:43,288 --> 01:24:45,958
And he says,
"What are you doing?"

1723
01:24:46,082 --> 01:24:48,082
♪♪

1724
01:24:51,713 --> 01:24:54,303
You have to deal
with what happens on the day,

1725
01:24:54,382 --> 01:24:56,842
and, of course, adjust your vision

1726
01:24:56,926 --> 01:25:00,756
and come up with something that works
and maybe something that's better.

1727
01:25:00,847 --> 01:25:05,977
I had elaborate storyboards
of this whole shoot-out on the escalators

1728
01:25:06,102 --> 01:25:08,662
that were in the World Trade Center
that went down to the subway.

1729
01:25:08,730 --> 01:25:12,730
I'd spent weeks
and weeks photographing.

1730
01:25:12,817 --> 01:25:15,607
And I had
an architectural program

1731
01:25:15,695 --> 01:25:18,065
and I built everybody
in all the positions.

1732
01:25:18,156 --> 01:25:21,366
And then about a couple of days
before we were supposed to shoot it,

1733
01:25:21,451 --> 01:25:24,201
they blew it up.
The first terrorist attack.

1734
01:25:24,287 --> 01:25:26,267
So then, everybody said,
"What are we going to do?"

1735
01:25:26,289 --> 01:25:29,579
And I said, "Suppose he goes
to Grand Central Station

1736
01:25:29,667 --> 01:25:31,787
and gets on a train
to go to Florida.

1737
01:25:31,878 --> 01:25:34,338
So, we'll do it
in Grand Central Station."

1738
01:25:34,422 --> 01:25:38,382
And then I worked out that incredibly
complicated Steadicam shot with Al.

1739
01:25:38,468 --> 01:25:40,468
♪♪

1740
01:25:52,065 --> 01:25:53,565
[man]
Hey, Vinnie.

1741
01:25:53,650 --> 01:25:55,400
Vinnie, wait up.

1742
01:26:01,407 --> 01:26:03,657
[De Palma] The thing you learn
about the long take is

1743
01:26:03,743 --> 01:26:09,873
that you can document the emotion
happening on the screen in real time.

1744
01:26:09,957 --> 01:26:11,827
And once you start cutting
things up,

1745
01:26:11,918 --> 01:26:15,248
you lose the emotional rhythm
of things.

1746
01:26:15,338 --> 01:26:17,968
[thug] He ain't up here,
let's go down. Come on.

1747
01:26:18,049 --> 01:26:21,069
[De Palma] The whole way the movie is
set up with the death being a flashback

1748
01:26:21,094 --> 01:26:22,354
was an idea, you know,

1749
01:26:22,428 --> 01:26:26,098
from the 27,000 <i>noir</i> pictures
I'd ever seen.

1750
01:26:26,182 --> 01:26:28,522
That extremely tricky
opening shot

1751
01:26:28,601 --> 01:26:31,941
which we had to, you know,
design a piece of equipment to do.

1752
01:26:32,021 --> 01:26:34,361
You would wind up going
the wrong direction once,

1753
01:26:34,440 --> 01:26:37,320
so it's not how
you usually operate things.

1754
01:26:37,402 --> 01:26:40,532
We had to do this many times
to get it right.

1755
01:26:40,613 --> 01:26:43,833
I wanted to get back
to the same scene

1756
01:26:43,908 --> 01:26:46,118
with the audience
not realizing it.

1757
01:26:46,202 --> 01:26:47,682
I wanted to, you know,
do a whole thing

1758
01:26:47,704 --> 01:26:49,664
where it comes all the way back
to the beginning,

1759
01:26:49,747 --> 01:26:52,877
but you don't realize you're in that scene
until you're, like, halfway into it,

1760
01:26:52,959 --> 01:26:54,729
and you go, "Oh my God,
I've been here before."

1761
01:26:54,752 --> 01:26:56,752
♪♪

1762
01:27:05,596 --> 01:27:07,846
Again, it was getting
kind of mixed reviews,

1763
01:27:07,932 --> 01:27:11,102
you know,
"tired genre gangsters."

1764
01:27:11,227 --> 01:27:13,227
You know, and I was
kind of very disappointed,

1765
01:27:13,312 --> 01:27:16,192
because I remember
when I went to Berlin

1766
01:27:16,274 --> 01:27:19,114
and I was watching it in Berlin
after it opened

1767
01:27:19,235 --> 01:27:21,105
and did okay
in the United States,

1768
01:27:21,237 --> 01:27:23,567
I remember watching in Berlin,
and said, "I can't make—

1769
01:27:23,656 --> 01:27:25,656
I can't make a better picture
than this."

1770
01:27:25,742 --> 01:27:27,742
♪♪

1771
01:27:34,751 --> 01:27:38,591
[<i>Mission Impossible</i> theme plays]

1772
01:27:38,671 --> 01:27:40,011
Again, it's a matter of being

1773
01:27:40,089 --> 01:27:41,759
in the right place at the right time.

1774
01:27:41,841 --> 01:27:43,761
Mike Ovitz called me up and said,

1775
01:27:43,843 --> 01:27:46,853
"You interested in doing <i>Mission:
Impossible</i> with Tom Cruise?"

1776
01:27:46,929 --> 01:27:50,389
I said, "Are you kidding?
Of course!"

1777
01:27:50,475 --> 01:27:53,845
Because I was— I was determined
to make a huge hit.

1778
01:27:53,936 --> 01:27:55,476
I said, "With Tom Cruise?

1779
01:27:55,563 --> 01:27:57,273
<i>Mission: Impossible?</i>
I'm ready."

1780
01:27:57,356 --> 01:28:01,606
So, this was a situation
where whatever Tom wanted to do,

1781
01:28:01,694 --> 01:28:04,034
they would make.
They didn't care.

1782
01:28:04,113 --> 01:28:06,743
They just want to make Tom Cruise
in <i>Mission: Impossible.</i>

1783
01:28:06,824 --> 01:28:09,954
Tom, on the other hand, of course,
his first picture he's producing,

1784
01:28:10,036 --> 01:28:11,616
wanted it to be exactly right.

1785
01:28:11,704 --> 01:28:13,584
So, I got a hold of David Koepp,

1786
01:28:13,664 --> 01:28:16,004
who wrote <i>Carlito's Way,</i>
to do the script.

1787
01:28:16,083 --> 01:28:18,593
When we got through
the David Koepp script

1788
01:28:18,669 --> 01:28:21,209
and they liked the script,
Tom, of course, had—

1789
01:28:21,297 --> 01:28:23,877
he had things, character things
that were bothering him,

1790
01:28:23,966 --> 01:28:25,796
he wasn't happy with.

1791
01:28:25,885 --> 01:28:28,345
I said, "Tom, you've got to walk
into Shari's office with me

1792
01:28:28,429 --> 01:28:31,269
and say you want to make this movie
or we're going nowhere."

1793
01:28:31,349 --> 01:28:35,899
And I finally got him
to say yes, he'd make—

1794
01:28:35,978 --> 01:28:37,558
he would make this script.

1795
01:28:37,647 --> 01:28:41,857
The next phone call I got the next morning
was a call from Paula,

1796
01:28:41,943 --> 01:28:44,453
and she said, "The good news
is we're go picture.

1797
01:28:44,529 --> 01:28:47,069
The bad news is
we're firing David Koepp

1798
01:28:47,156 --> 01:28:49,526
and we're bringing on
Robert Towne.

1799
01:28:49,617 --> 01:28:52,577
Tom felt that Towne could bring
some character things to it.

1800
01:28:52,662 --> 01:28:57,502
Well, how do you convey this
to your... pal?

1801
01:28:59,252 --> 01:29:03,262
"Dave, the good news is
we're making the picture.

1802
01:29:03,339 --> 01:29:05,469
The bad news is
you're fired."

1803
01:29:05,550 --> 01:29:06,800
[laughs]

1804
01:29:06,884 --> 01:29:10,104
So, we're getting to make the movie,
but I'm keeping in touch with Dave.

1805
01:29:10,179 --> 01:29:12,059
I'm telling him everything
that's going on.

1806
01:29:12,139 --> 01:29:14,389
I'm not happy with what
Bob Towne is doing.

1807
01:29:14,475 --> 01:29:17,895
Towne's attitude basically was
to rewrite the whole script,

1808
01:29:17,979 --> 01:29:19,559
which was wrong.

1809
01:29:19,647 --> 01:29:21,857
And I'm getting to a point
where we're building sets

1810
01:29:21,941 --> 01:29:23,991
and we don't know if these are
in the movie or not.

1811
01:29:24,068 --> 01:29:27,738
What happened ultimately was that
I had made it quite evident to them

1812
01:29:27,822 --> 01:29:30,872
that we could not go
with this Towne script.

1813
01:29:30,950 --> 01:29:33,330
Dave had to come back
and rewrite the script.

1814
01:29:33,411 --> 01:29:36,161
I literally had one screenwriter
in one hotel

1815
01:29:36,247 --> 01:29:40,127
and another screenwriter
in another hotel writing simultaneously.

1816
01:29:40,209 --> 01:29:44,259
Never in my history of making movies
has this ever happened to me.

1817
01:29:44,380 --> 01:29:47,220
<i>Mission: Impossible</i> was originally set
in the United States and I said,

1818
01:29:47,300 --> 01:29:50,640
"Tom, this is
<i>Mission: Impossible</i>!

1819
01:29:50,720 --> 01:29:52,220
We can go all over the world!

1820
01:29:52,305 --> 01:29:54,985
You know, there are these big,
huge movie stars in all these countries

1821
01:29:55,016 --> 01:29:56,266
who are dying to be in this."

1822
01:29:56,392 --> 01:29:58,852
Because Tom wanted to star
in <i>Mission: Impossible</i>

1823
01:29:58,936 --> 01:30:00,476
and because <i>Mission: Impossible</i>

1824
01:30:00,563 --> 01:30:03,573
is basically about a team of specialists,

1825
01:30:03,649 --> 01:30:06,029
now, we've got to turn this
into a Tom Cruise movie.

1826
01:30:06,110 --> 01:30:09,320
So I said, "Well, the first thing we have
to do is kill off the whole team."

1827
01:30:15,119 --> 01:30:18,459
I saw Tom Cruise
in three incredible set pieces.

1828
01:30:18,539 --> 01:30:20,959
Most spy thrillers
are crime thrillers,

1829
01:30:21,042 --> 01:30:23,752
where you have a lot
of interesting character scenes

1830
01:30:23,836 --> 01:30:26,876
where you're kind of
unwrapping the onion.

1831
01:30:26,964 --> 01:30:29,094
Wrapping, another wrapping,
oh, and you find out,

1832
01:30:29,175 --> 01:30:30,485
then you go over there
and you find som—

1833
01:30:30,509 --> 01:30:31,759
Oh, but he really was—

1834
01:30:31,844 --> 01:30:33,474
You know,
all this sort of stuff.

1835
01:30:33,554 --> 01:30:34,814
But that isn't essentially

1836
01:30:34,889 --> 01:30:40,309
something you can put
into a great visual set piece.

1837
01:30:40,436 --> 01:30:41,806
I mean, the whole idea of McGuffin

1838
01:30:41,896 --> 01:30:44,286
just doesn't make any difference
what they're chasing after...

1839
01:30:44,315 --> 01:30:47,735
[man] <i>He has stolen one half
of a CIA NOC list,</i>

1840
01:30:47,818 --> 01:30:50,858
<i>record of all our deep cover agents
working in Eastern—</i>

1841
01:30:50,947 --> 01:30:53,277
Our little treasure here
has a belly full of microfilm.

1842
01:30:53,366 --> 01:30:55,086
[De Palma]
...before we can get them moving.

1843
01:30:55,117 --> 01:30:56,447
Oh, Mount Rushmore!

1844
01:30:56,535 --> 01:30:58,135
What a great place
to have a chase scene!

1845
01:30:58,204 --> 01:31:00,124
How do I get them
to Mount Rushmore?

1846
01:31:00,206 --> 01:31:02,076
You get a really strong
visual idea.

1847
01:31:02,166 --> 01:31:03,626
And then get the writer to come in

1848
01:31:03,709 --> 01:31:06,169
or yourself to figure it out
to fill in the character

1849
01:31:06,253 --> 01:31:08,383
that will get you
to Mount Rushmore.

1850
01:31:08,464 --> 01:31:13,304
And I came up with the idea of going
into the CIA and the silent sequence...

1851
01:31:18,849 --> 01:31:21,139
...getting the NOC list
out of the computer...

1852
01:31:24,188 --> 01:31:27,188
...catching the sweat,
all that stuff.

1853
01:31:27,274 --> 01:31:28,944
[grunting]

1854
01:31:38,077 --> 01:31:41,077
I had worked out this very elaborate
end sequence

1855
01:31:41,163 --> 01:31:44,833
with this helicopter chasing
the train into the tunnel.

1856
01:31:44,917 --> 01:31:47,797
And Towne had thought
that it should be resolved

1857
01:31:47,878 --> 01:31:54,008
with this pulling masks off
in the boxcar room.

1858
01:31:54,093 --> 01:31:57,013
And we were getting
into a big—

1859
01:31:57,096 --> 01:31:59,636
how should I say?
Conflict over it.

1860
01:31:59,724 --> 01:32:01,814
I said, "You can't end
<i>Mission: Impossible</i>

1861
01:32:01,892 --> 01:32:05,402
with people pulling masks off
in a boxcar!"

1862
01:32:05,521 --> 01:32:07,771
And then, I think Towne said,
you know, like,

1863
01:32:07,857 --> 01:32:11,067
"What are we going to have, helicopters
flying into tunnels or something?"

1864
01:32:11,152 --> 01:32:14,362
I mean, brushing off
all these pyrotechnics

1865
01:32:14,447 --> 01:32:18,277
as some kind of cheap
action sequence

1866
01:32:18,367 --> 01:32:22,117
that had no emotional
or character thrust to it.

1867
01:32:22,204 --> 01:32:25,964
So, we were basically
sort of arguing in front of Tom,

1868
01:32:26,041 --> 01:32:28,501
and I finally said,
"Okay, guys.

1869
01:32:28,586 --> 01:32:31,006
Boxcars, I love them.

1870
01:32:31,088 --> 01:32:33,798
Masks pulling off,
let's do it.

1871
01:32:33,883 --> 01:32:39,723
I'll throw out— I won't have to shoot all
this helicopter and tunnels and trains.

1872
01:32:39,805 --> 01:32:43,225
We'll just have this wonderful
three-character scene in the boxcar.

1873
01:32:43,309 --> 01:32:45,729
It'll be fantastic."
And I sort of left.

1874
01:32:45,811 --> 01:32:49,271
And Tom basically decided

1875
01:32:49,356 --> 01:32:53,436
that he thought that maybe
the action end of the movie

1876
01:32:53,569 --> 01:32:55,449
would be better
than the boxcars.

1877
01:32:55,571 --> 01:32:58,871
So, we had an abbreviated scene
in the boxcar.

1878
01:32:58,949 --> 01:33:02,699
And then we got on top of the train
and did the end sequence.

1879
01:33:02,787 --> 01:33:04,207
We built three cars,

1880
01:33:04,288 --> 01:33:06,748
and it's all green screen
and, you know,

1881
01:33:06,832 --> 01:33:08,962
all the ILM guys were there,

1882
01:33:09,043 --> 01:33:11,383
you know, putting marks
all over everything.

1883
01:33:11,462 --> 01:33:13,902
Very easy to make because I have
all this technical background.

1884
01:33:13,923 --> 01:33:15,933
♪♪

1885
01:33:22,431 --> 01:33:25,351
Here's— Here's a very bad thing
that's going on now

1886
01:33:25,434 --> 01:33:28,984
in relation to sort of
the action sequences,

1887
01:33:29,063 --> 01:33:33,233
and this is why they're so boring
in so many of these big movies,

1888
01:33:33,317 --> 01:33:36,147
is that they're previsualized.

1889
01:33:36,237 --> 01:33:40,907
Otherwise, well, we have the chase,
the car, and the dinosaur jumps over.

1890
01:33:40,991 --> 01:33:45,251
And they throw it over to the—
you know, ILM, whoever does it.

1891
01:33:45,329 --> 01:33:48,919
And the guys
previsualize it for you,

1892
01:33:48,999 --> 01:33:51,249
because the shots
are so expensive.

1893
01:33:51,335 --> 01:33:54,915
And they've got it all on their computers,
so what are you going to get?

1894
01:33:57,842 --> 01:34:00,722
Many visual clichés.

1895
01:34:00,803 --> 01:34:04,723
Something blowing up
and it coming right by the camera.

1896
01:34:04,807 --> 01:34:07,557
All these little things
they have in their computers.

1897
01:34:07,643 --> 01:34:09,653
Mission: Impossible's
<i>like</i> The Untouchables.

1898
01:34:09,728 --> 01:34:11,478
I mean, it was like—
It worked.

1899
01:34:11,564 --> 01:34:13,774
<i>Dressed to Kill,</i> it worked.
Everything worked.

1900
01:34:13,858 --> 01:34:15,528
Everybody was overjoyed with it.

1901
01:34:15,651 --> 01:34:17,701
They all knew
it was going to be a huge hit.

1902
01:34:17,778 --> 01:34:20,278
And they basically
left us alone.

1903
01:34:20,489 --> 01:34:22,489
I had the biggest hit
of my career

1904
01:34:22,575 --> 01:34:25,825
but unfortunately,
my marriage fell apart

1905
01:34:25,911 --> 01:34:28,961
and it was in the tabloids,
so I went into hiding.

1906
01:34:29,039 --> 01:34:31,709
And from there,
in New York,

1907
01:34:31,792 --> 01:34:34,422
I started to come up
with the idea

1908
01:34:34,503 --> 01:34:36,093
with David for <i>Snake Eyes.</i>

1909
01:34:36,171 --> 01:34:38,221
I always want to do something
in a casino.

1910
01:34:38,299 --> 01:34:41,549
It's a whole insular life
and it's a corrupt world.

1911
01:34:41,677 --> 01:34:43,677
See, when we have
these little visits,

1912
01:34:43,762 --> 01:34:46,682
- I allow you, I permit you...
- Ow!

1913
01:34:46,765 --> 01:34:49,095
...I give you the opportunity
to pay

1914
01:34:49,184 --> 01:34:51,444
for all the extra police work
that you create!

1915
01:34:51,520 --> 01:34:54,650
And doing this incredibly
complicated Steadicam shot,

1916
01:34:54,732 --> 01:34:57,232
where it goes on for,
I don't know, 16, 18 minutes,

1917
01:34:57,318 --> 01:35:00,108
you know, with all these cuts
buried and swish pans.

1918
01:35:00,195 --> 01:35:03,565
So, you get a sense
of the world that he is king of

1919
01:35:03,699 --> 01:35:07,449
before the secretary
is assassinated.

1920
01:35:07,536 --> 01:35:10,996
We got this kind of <i>Rashomon</i> idea
that I always wanted to do.

1921
01:35:11,081 --> 01:35:14,131
And we have to see it
from three different points of view,

1922
01:35:14,209 --> 01:35:16,959
which is always something
that fascinates one.

1923
01:35:17,046 --> 01:35:19,506
You know, again, this is a very
Hitchcockian thing.

1924
01:35:19,590 --> 01:35:22,970
I had this idea,
"Well, I'll just show the prize fight

1925
01:35:23,052 --> 01:35:25,802
from Nic Cage's point of view
but I'll never show the fight."

1926
01:35:25,888 --> 01:35:27,138
Everybody will hear it.

1927
01:35:27,222 --> 01:35:29,142
- [all cheering]
- [man] All right!

1928
01:35:29,224 --> 01:35:30,854
- Yeah!
- [announcer] Holy cow!

1929
01:35:30,935 --> 01:35:32,685
Everybody will be reacting to it.

1930
01:35:32,770 --> 01:35:35,520
[all chattering]

1931
01:35:36,649 --> 01:35:38,189
But nobody will see it.

1932
01:35:38,275 --> 01:35:40,395
Hello? What?

1933
01:35:40,486 --> 01:35:43,236
Who are you? Where?

1934
01:35:43,322 --> 01:35:44,872
My lucky number?

1935
01:35:44,949 --> 01:35:46,199
- [gunshot]
- [woman screams]

1936
01:35:46,283 --> 01:35:47,793
What?

1937
01:35:56,251 --> 01:35:58,251
You have to know
where everything is.

1938
01:35:58,337 --> 01:35:59,917
And, you know,
and when you—

1939
01:36:00,005 --> 01:36:02,375
So many times when,
you know, somebody fires

1940
01:36:02,466 --> 01:36:04,796
and somebody falls down,
I mean, you know,

1941
01:36:04,885 --> 01:36:06,755
it's like, "Where is everybody?

1942
01:36:06,845 --> 01:36:10,175
How close are they?
How close is the jeopardy?"

1943
01:36:10,265 --> 01:36:12,515
I'm scrupulous about that.

1944
01:36:12,601 --> 01:36:16,481
My concept, and the concept
that Dave and I had,

1945
01:36:16,563 --> 01:36:19,533
is that when you're dealing with
such corruption,

1946
01:36:19,608 --> 01:36:22,238
you need God to come down

1947
01:36:22,319 --> 01:36:24,659
and— and— and blow
it all away.

1948
01:36:24,780 --> 01:36:26,780
It's the only thing
that works.

1949
01:36:26,865 --> 01:36:29,365
That was the whole idea
of the wave.

1950
01:36:29,451 --> 01:36:31,291
Holy shit.

1951
01:36:36,792 --> 01:36:38,042
[screaming]

1952
01:36:40,045 --> 01:36:42,255
I'm sorry, baby. I tried.

1953
01:36:44,299 --> 01:36:46,589
- Look out!
- Jesus Chri—

1954
01:36:48,137 --> 01:36:49,387
Look out!

1955
01:36:53,183 --> 01:36:54,443
[screaming]

1956
01:37:07,823 --> 01:37:09,803
[De Palma] And, of course,
nobody thought it worked,

1957
01:37:09,825 --> 01:37:11,445
so we came up
with something else,

1958
01:37:11,535 --> 01:37:14,825
which I never particularly thought worked
as well as the original idea.

1959
01:37:20,711 --> 01:37:22,841
Endings are tough.
They're always tough.

1960
01:37:22,921 --> 01:37:26,761
In your career, if you can get two or
three great endings to your movies,

1961
01:37:26,842 --> 01:37:29,262
you're— it's a miracle.

1962
01:37:29,344 --> 01:37:30,934
It was basically
a disappointment.

1963
01:37:31,013 --> 01:37:33,223
It didn't get reviewed
particularly well.

1964
01:37:33,307 --> 01:37:35,807
<i>Snake Eyes</i>
wasn't that expensive.

1965
01:37:35,893 --> 01:37:40,403
I don't think it cost more than
$30 or $40 million or something.

1966
01:37:40,481 --> 01:37:43,151
<i>Mission to Mars</i> was very expensive.
It cost 100.

1967
01:37:43,484 --> 01:37:44,744
That's another situation

1968
01:37:44,860 --> 01:37:46,460
where they have a director
on <i>Mission to Mars</i>

1969
01:37:46,487 --> 01:37:49,777
and he came with a budget
of $115 million.

1970
01:37:49,865 --> 01:37:52,365
And they said, "No,
we can't make it at that."

1971
01:37:52,451 --> 01:37:55,791
So, I walked into that picture
where everybody was sort of hired.

1972
01:37:55,871 --> 01:37:57,831
Literally, there was
a whole staff there

1973
01:37:57,915 --> 01:38:01,875
and I started storyboarding
the big set pieces immediately.

1974
01:38:01,960 --> 01:38:03,380
But it was like, relentless,

1975
01:38:03,462 --> 01:38:07,052
I mean, because it was so many
of those really complicated shots

1976
01:38:07,132 --> 01:38:09,182
and I had to think up
all these sequences.

1977
01:38:09,259 --> 01:38:10,589
We basically ran out of money.

1978
01:38:10,677 --> 01:38:12,637
Those shots
are so expensive.

1979
01:38:12,721 --> 01:38:14,601
You do one of those shots
the first day

1980
01:38:14,681 --> 01:38:16,271
and you're seeing it
every week

1981
01:38:16,350 --> 01:38:19,440
as they add one
incremental thing to it.

1982
01:38:19,520 --> 01:38:21,940
And that goes on for a year,
basically.

1983
01:38:22,022 --> 01:38:24,782
I mean, I was always amazed that
people were able to do these things,

1984
01:38:24,900 --> 01:38:26,860
like Steven or Zemeckis.

1985
01:38:26,944 --> 01:38:30,704
I mean, holy mackerel,
endless repetition.

1986
01:38:30,781 --> 01:38:32,031
♪♪

1987
01:38:32,116 --> 01:38:33,486
But you have
to stay with it,

1988
01:38:33,575 --> 01:38:35,155
you know,
it's all this pressure.

1989
01:38:35,244 --> 01:38:37,794
Everybody's trying
to save themselves basically.

1990
01:38:37,913 --> 01:38:39,123
When it gets so big,

1991
01:38:39,206 --> 01:38:42,076
nobody wants to be the father
of this huge thing.

1992
01:38:42,167 --> 01:38:45,707
And if it doesn't work out,
you know, heads are going to roll.

1993
01:38:45,796 --> 01:38:48,586
Though I love some of the stuff
I did in it.

1994
01:38:48,674 --> 01:38:50,324
You know, it's like,
"What am I doing here?

1995
01:38:50,342 --> 01:38:54,142
I'm trying to beat a budget,
a schedule with sort of a—"

1996
01:38:54,221 --> 01:38:56,141
You know, I sort of got in way
over my head

1997
01:38:56,223 --> 01:39:01,483
because it was so much work
for such a long period of time.

1998
01:39:01,562 --> 01:39:05,232
And then you think,
"Am I really enjoying this?

1999
01:39:05,315 --> 01:39:07,935
You know, I just turned 60.

2000
01:39:09,528 --> 01:39:12,698
This— Is this— Is this what
I want to be doing?"

2001
01:39:12,781 --> 01:39:16,621
The Hollywood system we work in,
it does nothing but destroy you.

2002
01:39:16,702 --> 01:39:19,502
There's nothing good about it
in terms of creativity.

2003
01:39:19,580 --> 01:39:22,960
So, you're battling
a very difficult system,

2004
01:39:23,041 --> 01:39:27,631
and all the values
of that system are the opposite of—

2005
01:39:27,713 --> 01:39:30,973
to what goes into making original,
good movies.

2006
01:39:31,049 --> 01:39:32,629
When I finished that movie,

2007
01:39:32,718 --> 01:39:34,558
that's when I got on a plane
and went to Paris.

2008
01:39:34,636 --> 01:39:36,926
I said, "I don't want to make movies
like this anymore."

2009
01:39:37,014 --> 01:39:38,474
So, <i>Mission to Mars</i>

2010
01:39:38,557 --> 01:39:41,227
was the last movie
I made in the United States.

2011
01:39:41,310 --> 01:39:43,980
That's the upside of being a loner,
for the most part.

2012
01:39:44,062 --> 01:39:47,362
You can suddenly say,
"This isn't working."

2013
01:39:49,193 --> 01:39:50,743
Well,
I love to make movies

2014
01:39:50,819 --> 01:39:56,069
that are basically created
on pure cinematic ideas.

2015
01:39:56,158 --> 01:39:59,408
<i>Femme Fatale</i> is all about
visual construction in storytelling.

2016
01:39:59,494 --> 01:40:01,374
I'm a very polarizing figure

2017
01:40:01,455 --> 01:40:05,165
and the critics just thought
I was just hopeless and a hack.

2018
01:40:05,250 --> 01:40:06,750
And then
there are the critics

2019
01:40:06,835 --> 01:40:08,545
that sort of understood
what I was doing,

2020
01:40:08,629 --> 01:40:10,089
at least I felt they did.

2021
01:40:10,172 --> 01:40:14,012
It never sort of bothered me
when they didn't like the movies,

2022
01:40:14,092 --> 01:40:15,842
because they were, you know,

2023
01:40:15,928 --> 01:40:20,058
seemingly unkind to women
or too violent or—

2024
01:40:20,140 --> 01:40:21,900
I just felt, to me,
it was always seemed like

2025
01:40:21,934 --> 01:40:23,814
the right thing to do
for the material.

2026
01:40:23,894 --> 01:40:25,494
You know, the fact that Pauline liked me

2027
01:40:25,562 --> 01:40:28,192
made people argue
about me constantly.

2028
01:40:28,273 --> 01:40:30,283
♪♪

2029
01:40:38,867 --> 01:40:43,957
I have a kind of very complicated,
intricate way of looking at things.

2030
01:40:44,039 --> 01:40:48,539
I have to force myself to work
in very straight lines

2031
01:40:48,627 --> 01:40:52,547
because, believe me,
when it gets in my hands,

2032
01:40:52,631 --> 01:40:55,181
it's going to start
getting twisted

2033
01:40:55,259 --> 01:40:59,849
and seen through reflections
and refractions.

2034
01:41:01,473 --> 01:41:03,143
A lot of creating suspense

2035
01:41:03,225 --> 01:41:07,395
is creating distraction
from the impending tragedy.

2036
01:41:07,479 --> 01:41:08,789
You know,
it's like a magic trick.

2037
01:41:08,814 --> 01:41:10,154
You want them to look
at this hand

2038
01:41:10,232 --> 01:41:12,032
while the other hand
is doing something.

2039
01:41:12,109 --> 01:41:16,609
So, you have to create
a whole texture

2040
01:41:16,697 --> 01:41:20,197
that draws the audience's eye
away from the rabbit

2041
01:41:20,284 --> 01:41:22,084
that you're pulling out of a hat.

2042
01:41:22,160 --> 01:41:26,250
♪♪

2043
01:41:26,331 --> 01:41:29,381
[brakes screeching]

2044
01:41:33,255 --> 01:41:34,505
[groans]

2045
01:41:42,222 --> 01:41:43,972
<i>The Black Dahlia</i> was an example

2046
01:41:44,099 --> 01:41:46,519
of where,
unlike <i>Bonfire the Vanities,</i>

2047
01:41:46,601 --> 01:41:49,311
I said, "I'm just going to do
<i>The Black Dahlia</i>

2048
01:41:49,396 --> 01:41:51,266
the way
<i>The Black Dahlia</i> is

2049
01:41:51,356 --> 01:41:53,936
and like a lot of those
Dashiell Hammett mysteries

2050
01:41:54,026 --> 01:41:56,186
that nobody
can quite understand."

2051
01:41:56,278 --> 01:41:59,448
I said, "I guess that's part
of this genre."

2052
01:41:59,531 --> 01:42:00,871
[laughs]

2053
01:42:00,949 --> 01:42:03,579
I said, "I'm going to try to follow

2054
01:42:03,660 --> 01:42:06,250
the original novel
and all its complexities,"

2055
01:42:06,330 --> 01:42:09,000
and of course, everybody says
about <i>The Black Dahlia,</i>

2056
01:42:09,124 --> 01:42:10,424
they can't follow anything.

2057
01:42:11,626 --> 01:42:14,836
I started prepping it
in Los Angeles, where it takes place.

2058
01:42:14,921 --> 01:42:16,171
Then we went to Germany,

2059
01:42:16,256 --> 01:42:19,126
then we wound up going to Italy
and prepping it there.

2060
01:42:19,217 --> 01:42:20,927
And we wound up being
in Bulgaria,

2061
01:42:21,011 --> 01:42:25,101
where we finally got the final piece
of financing to get the movie made.

2062
01:42:25,182 --> 01:42:29,022
If I'm going to put somebody
in a dangerous situation,

2063
01:42:29,144 --> 01:42:32,614
I'd rather be following around
a girl than a guy.

2064
01:42:32,689 --> 01:42:34,359
It's part of the genre.

2065
01:42:34,441 --> 01:42:35,861
The woman
with the negligee

2066
01:42:35,942 --> 01:42:38,242
walking around the house
with a candelabra.

2067
01:42:38,320 --> 01:42:39,910
You see
in a lot of my movies.

2068
01:42:39,988 --> 01:42:42,908
You see the character's helplessness
to stop this—

2069
01:42:42,991 --> 01:42:45,161
this madness going on.

2070
01:42:45,243 --> 01:42:48,373
I lived in a family full of these
incredible egotists

2071
01:42:48,455 --> 01:42:49,995
who seemed to be
very insensitive

2072
01:42:50,082 --> 01:42:52,922
about the kind of damage
they were doing to each other

2073
01:42:53,001 --> 01:42:55,881
and my middle brother
is very sensitive.

2074
01:42:55,962 --> 01:42:59,672
I don't feel that he was powerful enough
to stand up to these forces.

2075
01:42:59,758 --> 01:43:02,718
I used to protect him
all the time.

2076
01:43:02,803 --> 01:43:05,563
He doesn't have the kind of combativeness
that I have.

2077
01:43:05,639 --> 01:43:08,059
So, it would be like this little kid
trying to say,

2078
01:43:08,183 --> 01:43:10,603
"Stop shouting,
it's not his fault."

2079
01:43:10,685 --> 01:43:12,245
And nobody would pay
any attention to me,

2080
01:43:12,270 --> 01:43:13,810
and I was
basically ineffective,

2081
01:43:13,897 --> 01:43:16,187
and I became very tough
because of that.

2082
01:43:16,274 --> 01:43:17,534
Slow down! Slow it down.

2083
01:43:17,609 --> 01:43:19,029
- [man] Hey. Hey, hey.
- Slow down!

2084
01:43:19,111 --> 01:43:20,631
[De Palma]
You know, the story of <i>Redacted</i>

2085
01:43:20,654 --> 01:43:22,374
is basically the story
of <i>Casualties of War,</i>

2086
01:43:22,406 --> 01:43:24,296
you know, these things
that sort make no sense to you,

2087
01:43:24,324 --> 01:43:28,164
like, "Why are we in Vietnam?"
or "Why are we in Iraq?"

2088
01:43:28,245 --> 01:43:30,995
And we're worried about Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction

2089
01:43:31,081 --> 01:43:35,171
after we have completely destroyed
their army in a prior war.

2090
01:43:35,252 --> 01:43:37,212
They have no air force.

2091
01:43:37,295 --> 01:43:39,835
We've been starving them
to death for a decade or so.

2092
01:43:39,923 --> 01:43:42,013
[speaking Arabic]

2093
01:43:42,092 --> 01:43:44,722
[De Palma] Well, Zahra played
the part of the girl

2094
01:43:44,803 --> 01:43:47,473
that gets raped
in <i>Redacted.</i>

2095
01:43:47,556 --> 01:43:50,306
And she was a refugee,
you know, living in Amman.

2096
01:43:50,392 --> 01:43:52,732
But I'm dealing with a culture
I don't understand,

2097
01:43:52,811 --> 01:43:56,151
so when we had her do
all this stuff, you know,

2098
01:43:56,231 --> 01:43:57,981
like the soldiers pretending
to rape her,

2099
01:43:58,066 --> 01:44:01,566
I mean, I don't know what kind of cultural
mores I'm crossing here,

2100
01:44:01,653 --> 01:44:03,913
but this—
Zahra was very understanding

2101
01:44:03,989 --> 01:44:06,909
and did the kind of things
that I asked her to do,

2102
01:44:06,992 --> 01:44:10,252
and I felt that she was really
going out on a limb here.

2103
01:44:10,328 --> 01:44:12,828
These are things that her family,
upon seeing the movie,

2104
01:44:12,914 --> 01:44:14,174
were horrified by.

2105
01:44:14,249 --> 01:44:20,339
I mean, she's kind of been
rejected by her whole culture.

2106
01:44:20,422 --> 01:44:24,182
But she's an actress
and she felt that this was right.

2107
01:44:24,259 --> 01:44:26,429
And I got her into it, basically,

2108
01:44:26,511 --> 01:44:28,051
because I'm the one
that directed her.

2109
01:44:28,138 --> 01:44:32,518
And then rather than leave her there
with a very uncertain future,

2110
01:44:32,601 --> 01:44:36,061
and because she's a talented girl
and a very wonderful girl,

2111
01:44:36,146 --> 01:44:38,566
I brought her over here
and put her in school

2112
01:44:38,648 --> 01:44:41,358
so that she can pursue her dream,
whatever it is.

2113
01:44:41,610 --> 01:44:43,450
♪♪

2114
01:44:44,529 --> 01:44:47,569
Well, I think I'm returning to the kind
of movies you guys are making.

2115
01:44:47,657 --> 01:44:48,987
You're adjusting to the system.

2116
01:44:49,075 --> 01:44:53,865
If you want to make personal movies,
with your own personal ideas,

2117
01:44:53,955 --> 01:44:56,745
you have to make them
at a budget.

2118
01:44:56,833 --> 01:44:58,503
You make
a certain kind of movie

2119
01:44:58,585 --> 01:45:01,085
because that's the way
you see things.

2120
01:45:01,171 --> 01:45:06,091
And these images keep reoccurring again
and again in your movies.

2121
01:45:06,176 --> 01:45:08,426
And that's what makes you
who you are.

2122
01:45:08,512 --> 01:45:10,512
♪♪

2123
01:45:14,601 --> 01:45:16,901
People talk about Hitchcock
all the time,

2124
01:45:16,978 --> 01:45:19,358
you know,
being so influential.

2125
01:45:19,439 --> 01:45:22,029
I've never found
too many people

2126
01:45:22,108 --> 01:45:24,988
that followed after the Hitchcock school
except for me.

2127
01:45:25,070 --> 01:45:26,400
Here's a guy that developed

2128
01:45:26,488 --> 01:45:29,318
those incredible visual
storytelling vocabulary,

2129
01:45:29,407 --> 01:45:31,277
and it's sort of going
to die with him.

2130
01:45:31,368 --> 01:45:33,998
And I was like,
the one practitioner

2131
01:45:34,079 --> 01:45:36,869
that took up the things
that he pioneered

2132
01:45:36,957 --> 01:45:40,747
and built them into different forms
in a style that I was evolving.

2133
01:45:40,835 --> 01:45:43,415
It's like a whole modern form
that he created.

2134
01:45:43,505 --> 01:45:45,215
Having studied
a lot of directors

2135
01:45:45,340 --> 01:45:49,590
and having lived now
to practically being 70,

2136
01:45:49,678 --> 01:45:52,218
you see that
your creative periods are in—

2137
01:45:52,347 --> 01:45:54,677
most directors' are in—
in their 30s,

2138
01:45:54,766 --> 01:45:57,186
their 40s,
and their 50s.

2139
01:45:57,269 --> 01:45:59,689
They, and obviously,
they can go on

2140
01:45:59,771 --> 01:46:03,021
and make another 20 movies
or 10 movies,

2141
01:46:03,108 --> 01:46:05,938
but you'll probably only be
talking about those movies

2142
01:46:06,027 --> 01:46:09,237
they made in their 30s,
their 40s, and their 50s.

2143
01:46:09,364 --> 01:46:12,454
You know, and I've always thought
Hitchcock was a great example,

2144
01:46:12,534 --> 01:46:16,714
because, you know,
after <i>Vertigo</i> and <i>Psycho,</i>

2145
01:46:16,788 --> 01:46:19,868
and you can talk about
<i>The Birds</i> all you want

2146
01:46:19,958 --> 01:46:21,838
and all the other movies
he made after that

2147
01:46:21,918 --> 01:46:25,838
and then of course, the critical
establishment finally caught up with him

2148
01:46:25,922 --> 01:46:29,512
and started to write about
what a genius he was.

2149
01:46:29,593 --> 01:46:31,433
Except those movies
aren't as good

2150
01:46:31,511 --> 01:46:35,931
as the ones he made
in his 30s, his 40s, and his 50s.

2151
01:46:36,016 --> 01:46:38,016
♪♪

2152
01:46:39,269 --> 01:46:43,269
You got to be a strong,
physical person to do it.

2153
01:46:43,398 --> 01:46:46,478
It physically wears you down.
There's no question about it.

2154
01:46:46,568 --> 01:46:48,568
I think William Wilder said,
you know,

2155
01:46:48,653 --> 01:46:50,953
"When you can't walk anymore,
you've got to stop."

2156
01:46:52,282 --> 01:46:53,662
The thing about making movies

2157
01:46:53,742 --> 01:46:56,492
is every mistake you made
is up there on the screen.

2158
01:46:56,578 --> 01:47:00,248
Everything you didn't solve,
every shortcut you made,

2159
01:47:00,332 --> 01:47:02,382
you will look at it
the rest of your life.

2160
01:47:02,459 --> 01:47:07,049
So, it's like a record
of the things

2161
01:47:07,130 --> 01:47:09,420
that you didn't finish, basically.

2162
01:47:11,760 --> 01:47:16,260
People in your life can be threatened
by your intense concentration,

2163
01:47:16,348 --> 01:47:19,388
your complete immersion
in what you're doing.

2164
01:47:19,476 --> 01:47:21,896
My true wife is my movie,
not you.

2165
01:47:21,978 --> 01:47:23,978
[music playing]

2166
01:48:21,746 --> 01:48:23,746
♪♪