Barry Sonnenfeld and Jerry Seinfeld in Conversation: Call Your Mother

good evening good evening everyone and welcome to the 92nd Street Y and Barry Sonnenfeld book event hi Jer hi bear and probably the most Jewish place outside of Barry Sanders medicine cabinet that you could be at night wait start again hi Jerry so yeah the reason I'm here is because Barry and I have known each other for we were just trying to work it out about 15 years let's say yeah let's we we really became friends in Colorado that's when I got a house near Barry's and we started hanging out together and actually now that you know who mentioned the comedian's of cars we kind of started to cook that idea up on one of our drives out well weirdly weirdly independently we came up with the same idea so Jerry and I would go driving in one of his cars and we went to Rico and we got out at this coffee place right and Jerry said I have an idea for a show and I said I know the idea and you said you can't know the idea I haven't told you and I said I know the idea and you said what's the idea and I said you do an interview show in a car will you drive long distances and interview someone because the great thing about driving long distances is it's totally banal so you start to say things like well I guess you want to know about that time I had sex with a moose or whatever because you're just so bored but it's also dynamic because each time you pass a weird truck with the dead elk you didn't have to get gas and then get back on and pass it again so I said that's your idea it's an interview show in the car now how many of you are aware of Barry Sonnenfeld because of his work in Esquire magazine as the gadget guy who would review see that I told you you should have stayed with that you know what I did it for ten years and I never got above a thousand I started a thousand a month I ended ten years later at a thousand a month and at some point jar there's just so many you know articles you can write comparing the Galaxy s8 to the iPhone six yes it gets boring but he's one of those people that you can hand him any device of any kind and he just quickly click and he can just figure out how to use it and what's bad and then what's bad about it and in two seconds well that was a job I really wanted was to be hired by let's say General Motors so and they could put me in a Chevy Tahoe and I could go move that button here having dialed for volume instead of a touchpad but they wouldn't do that and do you have issues with like the new iPhone even something like that which most people would say works pretty good but pretty good isn't good enough but is it is that how you would rate it pretty just pretty good I would say pretty good Wow alright he's tough no all right so we're here tonight to hype this book yeah let's we're not here for any other reason so let's start with why you even know this the first book you've ever written that's right but and is this the first kind of entertainment a prose if that's the right word that you've ever written I mean reviewing a Pentax I wouldn't call can I just say how embarrassing it is that you went Pentax what yeah it's really at least go but it's a great old name right is the old great old name yeah Monica I was gonna say Maya Secor but it anyway so let tell the audience why you did this and what is it first of all it looks like it's just basically the story of your life the fun parts right not the child molestation no not that no not when the porno goes horribly wrong not that II well that's fun when it's not your porno though of us your misfortune is our entertain that's true it's fun part 4 yeah yeah yeah well here's what happened Jerry you were very instrumental in me writing this book really Jerry Jerry and Jessica and his family would come out to Telluride every Christmas New Year's and we would we had a great screening room and you guys would come over and we would watch movies but he would also hear about the horrible experiences I was having directing men in black 3 mm-hmm Studios producers actors everything was just a nightmare and on Christmas day Jerry came over to my house called me and said can I talk to you yeah ok I'll never say that but go ahead who would call someone and say can I talk to you ok all right Gary said supposedly a friend of yours I believe Gary said can I come over even that I would never say but I don't want to ruin your story what here's what I would probably say what are you doing where I would say nothing I would say want to have a cigar 4 o'clock right you would say yes and then I would come over I was just trying to be brief okay what happened was Jerry called up and said what are you doing I said nothing he said you want to have a cigar for I said yes he came over at 4:00 and he said to me you know you would really love doing stand-up you're totally okay Jerry why don't you tell this story no no I just have to just make it sound a little more real you probably said something here is the truth because we talked about this today on the phone you he said do you think I could do stand-up no no no that came later in the convocation you know Barry how many people know Barry's many of very amusing appearances on the David Letterman Show and the 90 saw him there but that's bigger than the Esquire crowd so Jerry tell me all the reasons I should do stand-up in my version of the story okay you're in charge of your own success or failure no one's telling you what to do you get he went on and he was very persuasive but then I said aren't I too old to do stand-up and Jerry said you're way too old you won't make any money but you'd have a good time right but I so don't want that kind of pressure of people not liking me Jer right so instead the closest I could do was to write this book which is my version of writing stand-up plus the Esquire editor-in-chief David Granger left Esquire became a book agent and said to me do you have a book in you and I had previously written about my nine days shooting nine feature-length pornos and I had written a chapter just for fun I've never heard feature-length before and that's a very large penis it's a feature-length penis yeah as a descriptor so I wrote that chapter years earlier just for something to do cuz you weren't around and telluride and I was bored so I wrote that chapter right please don't tell us about it Oh leave me now you'll get to read about it it's truly horrific but in any case he said you have a book in you and I gave Granger that chapter and he said if you can write two more chapters we can sell this book Wow so I wrote barry sonnenfeld call your mother which is about what happened to me at 2:20 in the morning in 1970 at Madison Square Garden that's a great so you want to tell that story that's I love that story I'll tell it briefly okay but please interrupt if you have a better version I will I would really help me in fact why didn't you offer to edit the book I was a senior music and art high school it was the first peace concert Jimi Hendrix Peter Paul and Mary the cast of hair and I told my mother I'd be back home at 2:00 and a220 in the morning as Jimi Hendrix is warming up a second time because he was having his drug issues so he had left and come back as Jimi is about to hit his strings over the PA system Barry son and Feld call your mother [Laughter] and they're in in that story the history of Judaism in two minutes Jerry are your parents alive or dead let's get funny here my parents are no longer with us and you're sad about that I'm just checking no no I mean they had wonderful long nice healthy happy lives and I'm not a greedy person fine try not to be and I wouldn't I might live to be 99 what am i what are my parents got to do with anything well just that your parents kind of left you alone in the same way my parents didn't correct correct I always described my upbringing as benign neglect I really felt like my parents were just letting me live there till I grew up and which of course is something none of us are capable of in the current moment but it's a true blessing that you you are unbelievable yeah because I just naturally became very self-reliant and and self-sufficient that was not my parents right yeah as you can tell from yeah by the way you know that there were no cell phones or anything like that so it's not like she could have texted me I mean right by 97 and what happened after that even though yeah well so first of all by standing up I announced the 19,600 people very sudden felt right and now I'm weeping uncontrollably because I know my father has died cuz no no he hadn't died I died cuz how else does someone get someone hey Madison Square Garden it's not by saying my son said he'd be home at 2:00 and it's 220 so so I am now weeping and of course the blue seats who see that I've stood up start the garden chant of Barry which also doesn't help Jimi's performance and below cascades to the orange and the red seats now I'm weeping I put the dime in the phone I call watch worth eight six one six out and I say is dad dead and and my mother who's also weeping cause she knows I'm dead says sunny he's sound asleep I said well why did you call me she said well you said you'd be home at 2:00 it's funny I said but didn't they tell you the concert was still going on yes but they couldn't find you so that's the second book I chapter in the third chapter I wrote was called fear of flying about various you know I was in a plane crash in 1999 where the crew abandoned the plane after we crashed and I was left alone on the plane but earlier my first experiences flying down to Miami on Eastern Airlines remember wings of man were but they ran out of plane so we were on pan americano they had borrowed a Lisa plane from Mexico and my mother somehow convinced the pilots because she had angina that she was dying so they dropped masks on the plane so there's a hundred and five swinging yellow cops and by the way so they make an announcement but a it's by link will be its foot so no one knows what's going on and there were all these cups swinging and my mother is sucking oxygen and I'm sitting next to her so I boys had a fear of flying every time I get off in the airplane I view it as a failed suicide attempt and we sold the book and it will be out on Tuesday Wow well I think we're gonna move a lot of them you were talking backstage we were talking with my daughter who's here about she's 19 and you know thinking about so what he's supposed to do in life and you know is that that terrible torture of being a young person and you were saying you went to NYU and then you graduated and then went to film school still having absolutely no direction at all of what you wanted no interest in film no knowledge of what I wanted to do it's not funny it's kind of well in a way it's the way it should be I mean yes it's the way it should but you always knew you I mean when did you decide you wanted to be a stand-up comedian uh when I was at Queens College I was about 20 years old and I was I was going through the motions of college because my I wanted to be the first person in my family to graduate college I thought that would have been nice for my parents right even though I had no interest in anything out there and yeah so I knew that but they never even had a conversation with me about so what do you think you might want to write benign the nothing right nothing and then when I was leaving the house I'm sorry this is my no look about this I was leaving the house at like 1:00 a.m. to drive into the city we live down on Long Island I would leave the house of 1:00 a.m. because I wasn't gonna get on stage before 3:00 a.m. anyway right and I was doing that for months and before they even asked what are you doing that is extraordinary clubs in Manhattan I'm trying to be a comedian and my mother said well then you should probably get a place in the city and that's how I left home what was your major in college Oh what I had what was called Communication Arts and Sciences which was the film and television and all that stuff and we would that's nothing we were talking about backstage that you studied film and graduate school and that it's absolutely useless right to attempt to teach and I'm at the point I'm at a stage now or you know I've done these things and I feel like I've got a lot of so much I've learned so much over the years as you have and do you have so I have this urge now that I want to pass it along to young people that are interested in in my profession and I don't know if it's possible to do it do you think it's possible in your case maybe what what do you mean well you you know you're smart and entertaining and you're not a professor right so you probably can find a way into teaching that doesn't sound professorial or just bitter and angry right I don't I don't see being so you think the reason that these schools don't work is because the people teaching it are not in the business themselves and it really know how what to do well they were in the business all failed down right and became so like our homeroom teacher in traged school you know as the script supervisor on oh you know what's the thing with Brando I could have been a contender come on everyone on the waterfront is the script supervisor on underwater friend the cinematography teacher was a check guy who fled Czechoslovakia in 1960 and now is teaching Ian Maitland I should mention his name was an Australian who told us that the greatest movie ever made was the sound of music and we would just watch The Sound of Music over so that's not teaching you that much and the only way you learned at film school was by making movies and and that's when you realize oh that's why you need a wide shot or that's why you need an over-the-shoulder or that's why you need this so until you may movies it was a waste of time once you made your bad movies and at graduate film school they were all about being alone living in the East Village and losing your girlfriend right well though in my case I had no girlfriend so that part was fictional but the rest of it was you know being depressed but in your case I think you might be able to inspire them okay well anyway so I'm sure the audience is curious you've had really a fantastic continue to have yes amazing career you've done things you never dreamed you would do I would like to hear and I know they would like to hear really everybody wants to hear the origin story all these superhero movies the origin stories the only good story right right I'm spider-man gets bit by the spider that's what we just saw that over and over again it's all we want to say right so I don't want to hear about the porn now thank you don't but is that really the beginning of your career yes okay so tell us how you got that yeah skip over me that thing and then tell tell us how you it's truly horrific you'll and you'll understand why Jerry wants me to skip over it but here's what happened my father who you know we rarely had electricity we rarely had phone service we'd have to cross the street to avoid Lou the butcher he stole my silver dollar collection and use them as dollars to get our electricity back on each silver dollar was worth you know like 25 bucks but yeah but he always said to me figure out what you want to do in life that will make you happy and then you'll find a way to make money doing it mm-hmm they were not Jewish parents in that they didn't want me to be doctors or lawyers or accountants they really my mother wanted me an artist me to be an artist my dad said just find a way to be happy dad found a way to be happy but it didn't figure out a way to make money doing it and so after graduating film school I had discovered I was a good cameraman mm-hmm so I bought a you this is pre video there's no video cameras so I bought a used 16 millimeter CP 16 reflex you know the Mickey Mouse cameras that you would see like in Vietnam War newsreels because I felt if I owned a cameraman if I owned a camera I could call myself a cameraman without being a dilettante uh-huh and that's and the first job I got because I owned this camera was shooting these nine feature-length pornos and sixteen millimeters well wait a minute how I bought the camera with a with a confused Catholic guy who both was very Catholic but also had friends in the porn industry and he got us a job okay so we had this camera so that those nine days paid for 2/3 of the costs of buying the camera okay but I didn't learn anything doing that but then I was at here's the origin story I was a party one night everyone at the party was from Darien Connecticut except one other Jewish guy who looked like Howard Stern across the room and that was Joel Cohen and I guess we smelled each other I don't know what happened but we met in the middle and we were talking about vim vendors and American friend which had just come out of great movie and he said that he and his brother Ethan who is a statistical typist at Macy's and he had just written this grip called Blood Simple and they were going to raise the 750 grand to make the movie by shooting a trailer like it was a finished film uh-huh and then show dentists investing clubs and doctors and stuff like that and the Hadassah group from Minneapolis the trailer because no dentists can read a script and say this is good right they can see a trailer and go I'd go see that right so I said to Joel I own a camera and Joel said you're hired so I Joel and Ethan and I shot the trailer and became very good friends and the trailer was great it took a year and we raised the 750 grand bringing a projector I was the only one working I was shooting industrials for rabbi Gelman productions and so I was I would buy them the fresh orange juice you know at the diner at the Greek coffee shop it was always hey back and we have the fresh orange juice yeah Joel you can and we went and the first day on the set of blood simple we raise the money we go to Austin Texas where it was written for the first day on the set of Blood Simple was the first day Joel Ethan or I had ever been on a movie set Wow I didn't work my way up as a camera operator Joel was never an assistant director or Ethan never had produced anything and my my ex-girlfriend at the time at the time who is the first assistant director who had worked on films would say oh this will never I don't want to rain on your parade she would say but this set won't work you can't shoot here and Joel and Ethan and I would say no well shoot here we'll be fine and we made Blood Simple the investors hated it hated it 2/3 of them walked out we had an investor screening at the Bombay movie theater on 57th right across from Carnegie Hall and they left the movie ended and 2/3 of them were gone Wow but we got into the New York Film Festival and the night it showed Janet Maslin who reviewed it said these Coen brothers are going to go far and the last two paragraphs who are all about Barry son and Feld cinematography that's a great so that's the origin story Jack that is fantastic all right so I don't have anything else okay I've got a few things I can say to you okay for now oh yeah we got another ten minutes then we're gonna take some of your questions so if you want you why don't we you can you got some stuff for me yes okay that's a great story that I never knew by the way one of the few you didn't know yeah yeah yeah that's fantastic did you move by yourself to the city yeah did you have a roommate no where was it 81st in Columbus one block oh my god one block from where I live now but it's a big block and do you like duck I had ducked the other night and yes I do like it let me yes I don't like to kill the duck I'll out the dock right I think the duck really is the perfect model of how to live paddle as hard as you can beneath the surface let everything else roll off your back and have a little sense of humor about your appearance [Laughter] No well let me ask you this about duck there are two kinds of duck there's a duck breast where they say oh it's the rare duck breast and then there's the roasted fall-off-the-bone duck do you have a preference well this restaurant we went to the other night which I don't really remember the name of it it's really it's a really hot new Chinese restaurant like on 54th or something I don't know my wife always knows that yes great places so um and they brought the duck out and a guy cut it up for the first time which I never want like you don't really want to see that but it was the first time I saw oh that's where the meat is from but that but what are you trying to find out I'm trying to find out if you like duck yes listen you gave me eight minutes of questions to ask you and that's where I'm starting I can go this way sure if if you want a desert island and you could only eat one cuisine the rest of your life it seems to be very food-related I know but where you going you're going Italian viously you're going to Italian but it's really Chinese you think you could last longer with Chinese it's it's a oh yeah an easier diet to live with the rest of your life it's not about what's easy it's about what tastes good right right let me ask you some more questions okay well why don't we why don't we go okay well yeah right yeah well here so it's a way that they wait here they are arts of questions here they are thank you very much terrible well I'll help this question out a little so you would you told the story of how you met the Coen brothers yes a great story really I loved there and so this person would like to know what it's like to work with them what what is there's no way of working their way of working is that I'm charming and I'm very accessible and they're not this question was asked by Ethan Coen somewhere and so here's Joel and Ethan they do a set we do a set up we do a few takes Joel turns to Ethan and Ethan goes we move on to the next shot and and that and in fact on Miller's Crossing which was the last film I did for them at the wrap party John Turturro came up to me John plays a whiny gay man in in the movie and came up to me and said I wanted to thank you so much and I said oh it was fine it was great he said no I want to thank you for my performance and I said what are you talking about he said I just watch you and imitated you the entire you're welcome you're welcome - Turo okay this this individual would like to know I don't this is for me or you but it doesn't say oh it's for it wants to know how you how did you stay away from the dark side of the movie business drugs and other kinds of well how did you then I'll go say I I just I just had no interest in it I guess I I have a friend know when we talk about this all the time there was so much drugs around me all the time and I still have net her even seen it I think people right you know they just I think I don't know if you're into that people know who else is into it and if you're not they know you're not and they don't even offer it to you for me it was total fear right I mean the last thing I would ever want to do would be not in control right I was 30 before sweetie my wife introduced me to you know like sex or or alcohol all right in that order all right what advice of this what advice you have for comedians and actors just starting out in the business pick one [Laughter] advice you know it's it's not something you choose to do either one of those michael riches were told me a funny story the other day about someone coming up to him on the street and and he said i was thinking about becoming an X's you'll never make it if you even think about thinking about it it's it's it has to be something you can't not do would you what do you feel that you when did it click in that I I I have to do this I'm gonna do this or die still happen right now I'm still waiting for still waiting for it to happen yeah but I do think that if you that if I was like a refrigerator repairman I think I'd be really good at it I think I'd be a fantastic FedEx guy I will you know oh god I would know everyone and I would go hey your Amazon thing is here I know I would be I would be a whatever I did I do feel I would put all my being into Wow and it just so happens it's the film business but it could have been anything really right similar yeah what was it like working with Penny Marshall there's a very mean long chapter about working with penny in the book and I only wrote the chapter because she's dead otherwise I feel so sensitive as a person I would not have been that mean to her if she was alive and so no I will say that people asked me because I'm very mean to my parents in the book and they say would you have written this book if your parents were alive and I said I wish they were so that they how me and I am in this book to them yeah it's so funny how people always ask this what was it like working with wet Joel Andy opana this one is about Nicolas Cage how what was it like working with Nic Cage on raising Arizona he was fine you know he's one of there's certain actors that you never want to work with who believe in props as acting technique and Nikko's wanted props there's a insert of a long shoehorn because he thought he should have an infatuated with shoe horns that's really not what acting is about I disagree no it is no it can't be about jords comedy is about shoe horns right acting is about talking very fast right it's just all you need to do to be a good actors talk fast and react that's not good for a comedian it's good for acting but what do you think about you horns Jerry you you think that acting I think that's a totally legitimate thing for an actor to focus on that that this guy is obsessed with shoe horns and then they find the character in some way in that in that eccentricity I think that's a legitimate I think it's totally legitimate for the guide to be obsessed with shoe horns just keep it out of the movie yes what characteristic did you inherit from your mother profound fear you know when my daughter Chloe who's here flies from let's say la de Tokyo I am on flight aware watching her flight for the 14 hours going why are they going from 37,000 feet 6,800 feet for no reason you're over the Pacific Ocean and I live in total fear until she lands and then she texts me and then I go to sleep right so I learnt about fear for my mother this is a question for me do I have a theory as to why so many funny people are from Long Island I don't I don't know if that's true I do think there's a lot of talent and Long Island I think it's probably you have you know if I look at if you look at kind of a gene pool of New York City and then you have these people that kind of got thrown off the kind of in as a centrifuge would would just you know certain would cast off a certain amount and then they're kind of trapped in this petri dish of Long Island that's surrounded by water and so it's protected from any healthy influence of the mainstream American culture and so they they grew up it is a hothouse of eccentricity and I didn't realize it growing up there but a lot of people I I have a friend who's from Long Island that I spend a lot of time with now you know my friend Johnny Muse yeah and he's he's a tree guy he owns a tree farm right and I find him as funny as anybody I've ever met right comedy because he's from Long Island and you know if you are from Long Island you're probably 50% funnier than everybody else in ever and and you don't think it's because people on Long Island don't care about their children you don't think it no it's not that right no it doesn't work with New Jersey for some reason you have to go yeah I have a bit about that we lived in the city but if you move out of the city you live on Long Island that's right but you don't live in it you live on it say would you talk about trains all yes and we would get on the train you don't get it don't get in the train right and on the train even though there's nobody on the train they're all in the train right and then you get off the train and get in the cab even though you got on the ranch right I love that yeah this is a reminder copies of call your mother are available for sale and berry will be signing them afterwards well that's nice yeah and that's oh those are all the questions that I have well maybe we can take a couple from the from the audience anything yes go ahead yes we're not there yet out yes a long happy marriage well it's the key to marriage of course is to make the other person happy I tell all my guy friends make your wife happy you're not going to be happy so don't even worry about and that's good because that cuts your work in half and further that men don't want to be happy we don't know what it is we don't care what it is we've never experienced it and couldn't be less interested what he just want to do whatever stupid thing it is that we're doing this one over there I'll let's just change that phraseology [Laughter] well Larry is a stand-up comic so this is really more about you I I say I understand I understand your purpose in this question yes really yes I knew Larry from the stand-up scene in New York in the 70s and we were friends so um and you know this story right everybody knows this story that I had this meeting at NBC about doing some kind of show and they said what kind of show do you want to do and I said I I don't have any ideas I just always wanted to have a meeting like this and I was a catcher izing star some older people might remember that Club on the Upper East Side and I was telling Larry the story and then we went across the street to mr. Lee's Korean deli and we were getting something to eat because we didn't do drugs either right and we were eating and we were making fun of all the Korean crazy things that they would always have by the cash register those weird Fig Newtons with no label on it and we were laughing and having fun and larry says this is what the show should be it should be just two comedians walking around making fun of things right and I said I like that and that is actually how it started and the character of George was originally a comedian when we first wrote it and that's what the show was gonna be and then we you know just developed it from there but that's how it happened yes dear hi okay happy birthday oh thank you right you see the Long Island mint it's all about me sure I love chocolate pop guy would definitely eat it yeah not if some stranger handed it to me of course yes how do you remember flake oh it's yeah yeah flake which was a great bakery around exit 106 100 around 106 107 off of the Li e that made an amazing raisin pumpernickel Wow true story chair yes this young lady well finding something funny is just something that you're born with but the writing my writing process is you take that thing and then you you just say okay I'm gonna work on this thing for this period of time and I'm not going to do anything else I'm not going to talk on the phone or look at the internet and and I mean I've been doing this since before those things existed and so it's really just the secret of writing I think and this is what I this is my dream that I have of teaching this class here's the here's the great thing about writing you don't have to do it all you have to do is not do anything else in that timeframe so you put your idea down and now you don't have to do anything you just sit there and you eventually will realize there's a problem here and your brain will naturally try and solve the problem and the next thing you know you're writing so it's not about forcing yourself to write it's about creating a what do we call it a discrete space is that it right word so that's how you write create a place in time where that's what's happening but you don't have to write just be there with the problem that's my writing technique wow you could be a teacher at NYU really yeah yes sir with the camp yeah Florida well first we trying to the question is how do I determine which cities to go to to perform well firstly the first thing I ask is that they use American money mm-hmm and if the answer is yes we go there no I I grew up in an era when we we had to learn to do comedy for any audience you know the biggest job you could get in the 70s or 80s would be opening for Frankie Valli which I did a lot of or Tom Jones or Diana Ross and you would walk out in front of their audience who did not want to see you at all and if you could make them laugh then you worked and so that was always you know convenience today develop a following very quickly and next thing you know you're playing to your following which is very different than playing to a general audience that doesn't even want to hear you so no I mean we there's no place that I do or don't want to go Jerry would send me photos from motels throughout the United States and you I promise you there's no place he won't go yeah based on these photos of you know the Quad Cities in I yeah anyway anyway it's it's about the the experience of the of the show it's not about the the particular city it doesn't matter it's what happens in that room yes sir yes it's not Jerry's fault that's a good question yeah well thank you well my favorite cinematographer was Gordon Willis I thought he he shot the Woody Allen films and the Godfather movies and shot a movie very few people saw called pennies from heaven ah Steve Martin Steve Martin right yeah really good movie that Noah that you saw right but I here's the thing I'm a Jewish person I'm I'm an only child of Jewish persuasion I want to be noticed and for me using the camera was a way to be noticed so instead of using the camera as a recording device I use it as a character in the movie so if you see throw momma from the train or you see Raising Arizona or some of the movies I shot directed Addams Family the camera is literally a character in the movie yeah you know it races in or this is shot and in Blood Simple where the camera is tracking along the bar but there's a drunk asleep on the bar and the camera booms up over the drunk and so for me it was my way of being an actor without having to be an actor so I loved that the camera can be a character in a movie so there there really weren't a lot of cameramen that were doing what I think I was trying to do and what Joel and Ethan did with me which is really use the camera as a storytelling device instead of a recording device yeah that's great what was the biggest fight you guys ever had always about money I remember on raising Arizona and and again I don't know if Ethan is here tonight but I'm raising Arizona I was really mad because Joel Ethan had said to me we're going to pay you and it was $2,600 a week to be the cameraman and that's all we can afford and I don't want to discuss it with you but I promise you no one will get more money than you do as on the crew and then again my former ex-girlfriend Debby Rheinische the grips the electricians we're all making more than I was and I went to Ethan and I said hey you know you promised I want more money you know we're four weeks into shooting you promised I would be the highest-paid crew member and everyone's making more than I am and Ethan said no you were you agreed to 2,600 week and I said but you said that you couldn't afford any more no one else's and we got more than I was and he said well that was just my opening bargaining position you you accepted it so in fact Joel was so angry because I was so bitter while shooting raising Arizona that he he said yours bad and he mentioned this guy that we all knew that used to lick his finger and put it in the sugar bowl anyway it was like so anyway so it was always about money right well we always got along except for that right it was an incredible creative synthesis you guys had together that's when I saw that movie I was so excited by the camerawork and the and the acting style but yeah equally both and so would you say that you both would generate the ideas for the shots we we always work together in pre-production way booked months but the one place you don't want to make decisions when you're working on a movie is on a movie set because it's expensive and the grips are laying on furniture blankets are playing frisbee while you're trying to figure stuff out so Joel and Ethan and I would spend months before we ever started to shoot with Joanie's and pacing their Pacers designing shops just designing shots and figs stuffed out and then I would pick the lenses which was always a very wide angle lenses wide-angle lenses have a lot of energy you very quickly like with a 21 millimeter I'm seeing your whole body from your head to the shoe your shoe and then this little move now I'm in a close-up of you with the long lens with a telephoto lens the audience feels distance and feels not involved so that's something I sort of did with Joel and Ethan and we all loved it and that's what happened so we we designed it together great all right we have time one more question yes maybe there's something I'm I might be doing but as Jerry knows in this business and Jerry doesn't know this what am I Who am I fooling whatever Jerry wants to do he does but in my case until it happens it's not happening but yes maybe so you'll you'll buy a book and and and let's see what happens yes get shorty thanks what's interesting about get shorty is that no one wanted to make it it took Danny DeVito and myself about six years again get it made no movie ever made from an L Marlon Leonard novel had ever made money no one wanted to make movies about inside Hollywood I write about it in the book they're a couple of get shorty trap chapters the first half of the book is about growing up in Washington Heights where we also had some funny people chair the heights was like a disgusting Long Island and the second half is about some some of the movies I shot and directed but get shorty is an example that you just gotta keep persevering everyone turned us down everyone studio heads changed and the new studio head would turn us down and eventually a studio said yes and we got to make it shorty and and now I'll say hey you should do this it's like get shorty and they go well get shorty was a slam dunk and I said well you pass on it twice so it was an amateur slam dunk so for me get shorty so Barry is gonna be out front after we're done here and he's going to be selling and signing books and we thank you all for coming we thank you joy tower you

Channel: The 92nd Street Y, New York

Views: 91,115

Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y, Jerry Seinfeld, Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker, Coen brothers, The Addams Family, Men in Black, Pushing Daisies, film, cinematography

Id: 1-yg_n5vx5o

Length: 52min 14sec (3134 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 10 2020