Clint Eastwood inside the actors studio (2003) (part 1/2)

[Applause] tell me a little bit more about that postage stamp Naidu you haven't seen it well use you're dead when they do fortunately Nigeria has a good scent maybe they thought I was gone no they just were impatient to honor you and I don't blame them oh let's stop let's not rush it [Music] the purpose of these evenings is to trace the path that shaped the guests in that chair in the hope of understanding the person and the artist for you where did the path begin well I was born in San Francisco and lived in the Bay Area in the early years of my life your mother has said that you were famous the day were born yeah but that's just in her eyes she was slightly she was slightly prejudiced and in pain and in pain and is it possible the reason she was in pain was because you wait what do you hungry I don't I don't recall six 11 pounds six ounces it wasn't 205 which I am your mother was pregnant with you when the stock market crashed so you were born into a very hard world where and how did your father earn his living it was a working-class guy when we were down here in Pacific Palisades he worked at the standard station on the Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Boulevard we travel all the way from Sacramento Pacific Palisades to get a job as a gas station attendant that's how few and far between the jobs were at that particular history was he an important influence on you well yeah he was he was the only guy I knew at that time we were kind of a family that moved around a lot we didn't know too many people he was my first male influence have a sister and my mother and father myself we just kind of moved around and we just kind of stayed very close didn't your father once say to you you either progress or you decay yeah he did say that he always felt that that one must constantly be absorbing life and educating oneself in life and that that that if you didn't you just you just stood pat or slid back can you remember the first movie that you ever saw remember my dad taking me to see sergeant York when that first came out this was of course before television and you only had radio in a movie was a tremendous treat for a boss or a family did you listen to the radio yeah what programs did you listen to all of the I love a mystery and the Green Hornet and and the shadow your mother has said that your toys were the kind that talked and did things other children didn't do were you a solitary child I'd rather not talk about that thank you to remember this of course in a university we can write is this a psychiatric course we didn't have a lot of toys so you sort of made up the toy as you made up the game would you describe yourself as a shy child were you a shy child yeah I think I was yeah we moved so much and I think going to different schools I was a little bit tall for my age and so we changing schools all the time I was always having to defend myself one way or another and so I think I think I was sort of an introverted guy I think I was somewhat dyslexic too but I don't I've never proven that for sure but I I was changed from left-handed because we used ink wells and I was a left-handed writer and I wrote left hand and they said no you can't do that so you gonna write right-handed and so all of a sudden the other side of my brain was operating and that side wasn't too developed so it took me a little time to get going do you remember how old you were when you saw the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy no I can't remember did it influence you did see it wasn't that something that you impressed you my president I think it was very impressive I'd like to have James Cagney anyway did you I was a big fan of it as I thought he there's something about his energy something about his his persona that was great I thought he was fearless I've never tried to pattern myself after anybody eight course he and I had totally different types but when he's eating the chicken leg at firing bullets through the trunk of the car in white heat I said now there's a guy who's afraid of nothing I read it he's not worried about the people out in the audience thinking gee I'm a good guy what about Cooper well I thought he was terrific because I had a sergeant York and he was he was a wonderful great minimalist actor and probably one of the best during those years growing up was there music in your house yeah there was my mother liked music and both my parents did and we had records and as I got a little older I started purchasing records all the time right I have first let started liking Dixieland jazz and I liked rhythm and blues and then blues and then sort of shout blues and jazz and I then I got into the bebop craze and they in the mid forties or you know kind of fell in love with that when did you first try your own hand at music that's about eight or nine or something I like it that was on grandma Andes piano before Andes piano it's still around is it it's still around yeah the piano is not Graham and II know she she was actually not my grandma she was my dad's grandma yeah he goes back a ways but that's what he started playing on that piano didn't it travel with you yeah that was the only piece of furniture we had that actually moved around that was large I started fiddling with the piano and then one time I was at a party when I was a young kid and I started playing the piano and all of a sudden they all these gals kept coming around the piano and I thought gee this is great why am I not home practicing every day as so so I did I started practicing a priest a knife I started playing in different at school assemblies and then I started playing it I go into a nightclub down and Oakland and I play and they give it wasn't really a nightclub was just a saloon but they had pizza there and so I could eat pizza and and maybe even drink a beer for before just playing how old were you then I was about 15 and how did it was the things are a little different then yeah kids good kids isn't have much to do and nobody cared much about it yeah if a kid drank a few but if you could put your quarter on them on the bar everybody was happy how did you learn to play the piano just by ear just stay tuned to records I just imitated records and then what records you do imitate for example well I tried my mother brought home a bunch of Fats Waller records and I like those a lot and then so I tried to learn stride piano and then we used to listen to Albert a man's Pete Johnson made Lex Lewis records and these guys were all piano players and played boogie so I played that for a while and I tried a little bit of everything during those years that you were going to various schools how did you do academically in the schools with all of this moving about just average if I like this subject I I could do pretty well if I didn't like a subject I'd kind of struggle along with it I did okay who was Gertrude Faulk Oh Gertrude Faulk was a English teacher I had who and she'd cast me and I want to act play and the only reason she cast me as the lead is because I was the only person in the class who wanted nothing to do with when I had nothing to do with acting whatsoever and didn't understand or think anything about it that had no concept of what it took to be on a stage the idea of being up in front of people like this was what a nightmare and so but she said that law worked for you what did you do after graduation from Oakland Tech my parents moved to Seattle and when I was there I worked for Boeing aircraft and I worked for a color shake organization I worked for Bethlehem Steel air and what you do for Bethlehem Steel just just stoke these furnaces it was pretty hot I didn't last very long did you have plans to go to school I think your plans to go to school were thwarted when you were well yeah I was going to go to Seattle University yeah and I liked the school I went down to the music program Quincy Jones was around at that time in Seattle oh but meanwhile my draft board was from the San Francisco came up and sent out a draft notice where were you during your service where did you serve a four door at calliphoridae well I went to through basic there and then I worked the swimming pool as a swimming instructor I didn't go to Korea which was kind of fortunate I don't think anybody wanted to go at that time it was a police action that was never even declared in a war when you were discharged you moved to Los Angeles didn't you then enroll in college yeah I went to LA City College and what was your major Business Administration why did you choose it I figured I'd it's this thing that everyone takes when they don't know what they want to do but they have a very good drama department don't they it actually they did but I wasn't in it I didn't get involved but you know I still remembered Gertrude Faulk and I still remember swearing I would never do that again but you did encounter somebody named George stun off there's a bunch of acting groups there was one ranked inventor Reeve and they all sort of taught the Michael Chekov Stanislavski oriented method of teaching one self to act so I just became interested in it and finally I started attending a few classes and and and going to school in the daytime and working after school so I was doing a lot of things and then finally I had a contract a fellow named Irving Glasper who was the cinematographer at Universal and he sort of talked me into coming out they made a test at me so I Here I am in the contract player at Universal for $78 a week 78 that sounds like every week I was steadily employed that would sound pretty good when you were studying acting did you get into the business of a psychological Jess for which mango check oh yes you very name we will the handbooks in those days I guess they are now does was a stanislavski's the actor prepares and then check off to the actor and yeah Michael Chekhov did believe in the physical gesture stimulating the interaction and where cenis Laos ki felt more it was more important to start it from the core and work its way out the check off also had a theory of centering the character somewhere specific in your body he had this feeling if you could place the psychological Center any place in your body and if you were playing somebody who's terribly introverted of course you'd place it it much further inward if you were playing a military man you'd place you'd sit see it you would imagine a shield out in front of you and you're sort of reaching towards that shield keeping a sort of military presence what were you required to do as a Universal Pictures contract player we're talking about the end of the studio system not too much they would have classes and you could go out in the back and in those days it was very rural out the back of universal you could go out there and ride horses if you wanted to you they'd hold have dance classes they'd have did you take dance yeah Fred Astaire wasn't worried if he'd been in Universal he would have been one thing that it takes to be an actor is you got to be crazy so you got to not to be afraid to try anything so I figured what the hell if I'm in for a penny I'm in for a pound yeah so I kind of I I attended everything I never missed a lot of people would come one day a week or something I came I went there every day and I just figured I'd just keep going then I'd go out and and watch other groups or study but other groups in the evening so eventually you get a kind of an idea of what it is that teaches you how to act and you never really know it till you feel that one day you feel it and you sort of say yeah now I think I'm on the road to something but because you're not using an instrument like a saxophone or any kind of musical instrument where you're playing through something and you're using yourself you never really know what the instant is doing you just only feel a certain emotion gives it to you and there you are as the person you don't know it's your reacting or what's happening until eventually it kicks in you know that people start responding to it yeah in our school we call that breakthrough precisely that how long were you there in universe I was there a year and a half but in the second year they said well we don't want to keep you around anymore to give you a raise my salary went up over a hundred dollars a week so they said now we're but if you'll stay at the same rate we'll keep you another six months so I did that I stayed the same rate and then finally after six months they kind of gave me the old and I went out there we were getting too expensive for them I'm very expensive very expensive I went out into the cold world of television how long were you on rawhide I started the pilot I think it was 58 I got out there till 65 seven years yeah and you've said you learned a lot on that you know I did everybody used to be nuts about doing a series they always thought well it locks you down it inhibits you I found nothing inhibiting bye that was a great learning ground you can screw up every day and still have a chance to redeem yourself yeah as you you can experiment on film all the time during this time when you were on rawhide something happened from 1964 to 1966 a lot of things changed with the three Sergio Leone westerns for you and for the traditional Western form which had previously been America's exclusive province how did a fistful of dollars come to you or I was going into a hiatus on on rawhide three months layoff and they said well we've got this Western we want to make in Europe Italian company made in Spain German co-production about a two hundred thousand dollar budget and I said I don't think so you know I'd really like to just take the time off I've got a job and I coming back to a job in a few months and then guy said well I promised the Rome office that you'd read it and I read it and I read it I recognized it right away as your Jimbo so I thought well you're Jimbo that was great I love that movie and was it a conscious yeah it was a conscious adaptation of via Jimbo though the Italians neglected to tell the Japanese that they were doing this how much input did you have in the look and the sound of that character sergio leone didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Italian so I was kind of on my own where did you get your wardrobe well I brought it I brought it from this country they didn't picked out a bunch of stuff where'd you get the little cigars I got him in Beverly Hills really Hills yeah yeah they're Beverly Hills cigar they had a cigar called the Virginia cigar as long and had a big stem through it and I just bought him and cut him up in three pieces and use him like that so I made a whole box up and last length of the picture one of the most striking elements of your character in that film was his laconic speech was that simply part of the script or did you develop that that style I kind of developed that I enjoyed that the listening aspect more than I did the speaking aspect of the procedure anyway so it it for me it was I was a I was a person who observed everything what was it that was going on around him right so I figured the more he talked the more he dissipated the strength of the character so I I opted for a very little dialogue and created an unforgettable character the film and it's two sequels broke any number of rules one of them being that in Motion Pictures characters usually have names what was your character's name Joe but he was never called Joe no just it was just Joe for the script they just didn't call him anything he was the man with no name he's a man with no name that was a United Artists thing in in Italy it was called for impunity dollar II we made it under the title of Magnifico stern arrow magnificent stranger some guy at United Artists had the brilliant concept of making it at the man with no name and and I had star billing on that and the credits and they came and asked me to waive that because they wanted to do just present the picture the man and I was just a television actor at that time so so I did I said yeah okay I'll go along with that this man was just a television actor became an instant massive international star and radically new Western mythos with that film when eli wallach was a guest on this series we talked about the good the bad and the ugly we were together in Actors Studio board meeting couple of weeks ago he sent you his very warmest wishes Eli Wallach has spoken of his admiration for your calmness as an actor and you've said I played the character down while everyone else was operatic Eli was playing this sort of frantic Latino yeah and so we worked well together and it was great it was great fun one of the fundamental principles of the Western that was demolished by this trilogy was the pure black and white structure of the good guy and the bad guy your character was I think the first will be character really who didn't wait for the other guy to draw his gun yeah he's shot first yeah well it doesn't make sense why would you wait for somebody at American westerns I never could understand that I remember Don Siegel got in trouble when he was doing a film called The Shootist some years later and he was working with John Wayne the villain gets sneaks around the room and John Wayne comes up behind him and he says then just shoot him and they said there's a long pause he said John Wayne said you may not shoot him in the back he says yeah yeah you shoot him just shoot him get rid of him because you got four other guys and he said I don't shoot anyone in the back and Don made a terrible error he said Clint Eastwood would've shot him in the back and he said Wayne Wayne turn blue and so and he said I don't care what that kid would have done I don't shoot one of the most famous scenes in the film deservedly is what I suspect is the longest faceoff in western movie history it's going the close-ups of the eyes your eyes yeah they're Bank leaf size Eli's eyes yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] in the course of shooting the trilogy did you realize that it might have considerably more importance than you or anyone else had anticipated the first one I wasn't sure would do any business I thought it would either either do okay or with this to zero and then all of a sudden I read several some weeks later I read in trades a variety a reporter one of them that this picture for impunity dollar he is doing sensational business well I didn't think anything of it because I had made a film called Magnifico stern arrow some weeks later they started reporting more on it and finally said for for a fistful of dollars starring Clint Eastwood and all of us said that all of a sudden that the call started coming in to my agency and saying well could he come over and do more and would he do this and do that so things started picking up a little after that and that was then it started becoming fun and when they perked up you chose a very interesting role and a very interesting will be called hang em high hang em high was a co-production what were the companies well mal Paso which is my company why did you form your own production company I wanted to do these smaller films and I felt that I could control my destiny a little bit by maybe looking up some pieces of material that other people that overlooked or or we're not interested in and maybe I could have some effect by getting him produced where'd you get the name el paso from a piece of property on Big Sur coast where you were living yeah I know Paso means bad pass or bad step in Spanish and I'm not superstitious so one of the purposes of this evening is to trace the evolution of a film director who directed you in coogans bluff.the girl yeah didn't Marc Riedel recommend him very yeah Marc right there well I talked to Marc rondell about possibly directing this film and Marc says I couldn't prepare it in a month he said who else you talking to I said well the studio's hung up on don segal he couldn't do better - Don Stig I've worked for him as an actor he says don siegel is the only guy I can think of who could prepare in one month and be ready to roll so I said okay what the hell I'll go with Don Siegel you would wind up doing five films with Siegel obviously you were impressed with his work on coogans bluff.the guile which is I think a wonderful movie you directed a documentary what was that documentary well it was a documentary on Don and his participation beguiled was a interesting film because Don had never made a film like this well I hadn't either it was a very very bizarre kind of book you played McBurney with your usual conviction as the actor how do you justify yourself to the characters worst traits McBurney's not a very nice guy I didn't think he was so bad he was a guy who was trying to survive gets taken into a girl school in the southeast southern soldier and he he starts manipulating them and they start manipulating him and it's sort of a mutual manipulation Society but they eventually it all it all goes goes bad and he ends up daed but I think the scene in which you wake up and find that your leg has been needlessly amputated is one of the best scenes you were done to that point my legs alright I could feel all the way down at my toes oh but you're too intelligent not I'm just a dirty [ __ ] because I didn't go to your bed just because I went to someone else's bears let you dice why should I have denied myself after all I've been through you wanted to be so much the goddamn lady though thirsty get out of here who sang the song on the track as your body was carried out by the vengeful girls I think I did that yes you did yes it was in my Rex Harrison best sort of a talk song in 1971 while you're receiving a Golden Globe and appearing on the cover of Life magazine as the world's top movie star beguiled opened two enormous popular success in Europe with many critics hailing it as a great film when you're considering any project as actor or director what makes you say I'll devote the next year or two of my life to this do I like it just that simple as that I mean I read the story whether it's in the book form script form or whatever I say do I like this what I like to see this if the answer is yes and and as a role in there that is interesting for me would I like to be in it if the answers yes then I move the next stage how did you make that important leap in 1971 to directing a movie play misty for me [Applause] obviously a very sensitive audience a friend of mine wrote the story a girl who I used to know was a legal secretary who sent me this a 60 page treatment of this story and I I saw a lot of things in there that there's something about that the stalker mentality is very popular nowadays stalker mentality yes what have you and the pictures been ripped off at two or three times in various forms in your first term as director you began what will become a hallmark of your style the significant use of music misty is a song right the Erroll garner record and then we heard first time ever I saw your face which became hugely popular yeah did you pick that music or did it yeah I picked that I'm using it was originally written as as play misty for me Universal wanted to change it to play strangers in the night for me or something because they owned they owned the music I said and then I said they can't do that and they said you could call it play Scooby dooby doo for me anyway these are the kind of suggestions you got along the way that we're always very exciting so I I finally held out and we bought misty for 25,000 the rights to use it and and for the film which was rather expensive considering the whole film was about $700,000 this was your first directorial job did you bring it in on budget yeah yeah yeah brought in under budget a little bit it was a funny thing I went into Luis Amin who is the head of Universal at the time and said how how about me making this picture it's a little picture and I want to direct it and he sat there and looked at me he said okay I said god that's easy I was with my agent Leonard Hirsch and so this is great I get so I get up I'm oh nice to see you mr. wasn't my head down the hallway and I think he goes Lenny come back here I want to talk to you so they go in the other room and then let he comes out says yeah he he wants to he can let you do it I said terrific he says he doesn't want to pay and I said well you know something he's right let me show what I can do and then I'll show him that he would he was right to have faith in me [Music] one of the characteristics of the career that were examining tonight is the way in which it continually rewrites the traditional rules and charts new territory an obvious example of that is the series in which you created another movie icon who wasn't quite like anybody who'd preceded him on the screen Dirty Harry Callahan how did Dirty Harry come into your life and ours it was a Jennings lang an executive at Universal said I've got this I've got the script I'd like to look at this is called Dirty Harry he said Paul Newman just told me the other day said he really liked the script but he didn't want to do it because it had political overtones he didn't like about and I said really I said let me look I don't know if this is true I've never talked to Paul about it yeah but I but I did I said well let me look at it anyway so I read it and I really liked it I thought it's great I said I said I'd I'd do this the scene in which Clint delivers a tribute to the Magnum and utters the famous word you got to ask yourself one question do I feel lucky set the thematic tone for the whole series actually were you aware at that point that it would be picked up like that it would become a catch word well I thought it was interesting they showed the cop as being a guy with a somewhat devious sense of humor and so I just thought well this is gonna be an interesting character it was during a time in history where people hadn't been giving a lot of attention to the victims of violent crime and so I thought this is an interesting statement somebody who's absolutely is obsessed about the well-being of a victim out there who he's never met never will meet during those years you did most of your own stunts didn't you well a lot of them yeah and this if it came to jumping off a ten story building I would probably opt for having someone else who jumped from the bridge to the top of the school bus oh yeah I do that were you scared no you're once you're in the character you can do anything if our students don't take a note of that they're missing out on what's exactly yeah if you're if you're really in the character you can do that on several occasions in this series notably with Steven Spielberg with Ben Kingsley we've talked about the virtue and use of silence in film don siegel has said the hardest thing to do is nothing a number of people have paid tribute to your expressive use of silence what you're doing with me this moment is what you do so extraordinarily well on the screen you listen is it that important to you I think this most important thing it's certainly the most important thing is that as in acting is listening anybody can expound a lot of dialogue but a lot of people don't listen well in fact I think it's something in life and my wife and I were talking about this the other night is one of the great things I think they ought to be teaching in school and not for acting but for just life in general is the art of listening it's something that a lot of people don't understand and a lot of people may listen or attempt to listen but they don't hear or they don't they don't absorb what they're what they're what they're listening to is acting students we used to have to stand in front the audience with your hands at your side not in your pocket thing and stand there and just be and you're doing nothing and and in the end you're like okay but at first you're embarrassed about but after a while you just take a position about it and you take an observation about it and you look at people and regard things around you and it's amazing which the feeling it comes over you when you master it to the point where you're not inhibited from any outside effects are you not worried about what he or she out there is thinking about you a lot of actors nowadays feel they have to do more in the 50s when I first started acting the Actors Studio was coming into prominence but from the group theater Marlon was the big big guy on the scene at that time so everyone was trying to act like Marlon and and it was embarrassing because guys would be playing neurosurgeons and they'd be talking like whoo fault is God's middle and and it was a it it was but because every actor wanted to be him and and and they didn't realize that he was playing a character of this fighter punch truck fighter and and and it was it was a brilliant job with High Plains Drifter you directed your first Western what drew you to that project I liked the fact that the allegorical a quality of it it had you weren't sure actually was sure as it was written you knew it was the that the the guy who comes back was the brother of the murdered Sheriff that was the thing but I'd made it very ambiguous II the audience could draw in their own conclusions to it was this some sort of mythical deal was this some sort of apparition and you were working with Bruce's thirties a great DP how do you work with your DP when does he enter the picture literally and figuratively Bruce was a kind of a funny guy he wouldn't he didn't like to know too much he kind of liked this shoot-from-the-hip but so I tell him how I saw the look and we sometimes I'd show him pictures I'd show him pictures out of magazines or art books or something I said this is a look I like let's look here how to get this how do you do that and so we just kind of made it up as we went how involved are you in the selection of the set up and the lens in those days I I yeah I would look through the lens and sometimes we juiced variable lenses in recent years I've tended to go back to fix lenses more because the fixed lenses seem to have less problem they seem to have a clarity that you can't quite get from a variable lens if you're using anamorphic for instance I use predominantly a 50 75 and a hundred and maybe a twenty eight and that knows it probably the only four lenses I'd use the whole picture the fifty would probably get the most action and then the 75 100 for close work and do you rehearse your actors before photography begins ever I don't necessarily rehearse the actors and go through everything beforehand 9 we just kind of talk it through talk through the scenes most of the time just get out and do it if you think about something long enough you'll find a million reasons why not to do it and I think if you can get in and jump in feet first and and just get boiling and the certain actors you can do that some you can't I've worked with actors you can't you have to rehearse you have to run the scene about number six eight ten they start really feeling pretty decent and then other actors who want six eight or ten but the first one is the best and so you have to kind of feel everybody's a little bit different this is the film in which the flat hat and a long frock-coat make their appearance was that your choice yeah how involved you get in the appearance of each of your characters there's a character I get involved if I'm directing the film I get involved with the appearance of everyone what led you to the Outlaw Josey Wales [Applause] okay it was interesting this is the first Western that I'd ever read where Indians were not treated as as just stoic howdy okay I'm getting better sneaking up on you like this only an Indian can do something like this that's what I figured your figured only the Indian could do something like that in 1978 the highest grossing film of the year was Superman second highest-grossing movie was every which way but loose what persuaded you that the time had come to co-star with an orangutan well there's another insanity moment a brilliant this is the picture that nobody wanted to make in a Vegas God who's that I'm everybody my business manager my agent who's here tonight everybody hated it they said this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard and and I said yeah it is it is but I'm gonna do it so it's a challenge and I like animals so what happened anyway I thought it was funny you know I thought hey this and there was something kind of even though it was a kind of offbeat project it was something kind of hip about I'm the guy he falls in love with a girl and he and and and he gets dumped yeah he has to tell all his troubles to the orangutan takes me a long time to get to know they're even longer to let her know me know what I mean [Music] yeah I'm not afraid of any man but Cubs are sure and my feelings for a woman the stomach just turns to royal jelly no suppose that ever happens [Music] well you just keep howling sometime they held back huh what's it like to work with an orangutan very much like humans they now he's Clyde in the movie but his real name was Manus wasn't that nice yeah they they're actually because there's sort of a co-evolved they well they are a co-evolved a species and and to some some degree they have a lot of characteristics they're about this about like dealing with a seven-year-old and they they have an attention span of a seven-year-old and you have to do everything there you have to do everything at first takes yeah and you have Cameron people who were very very on the ball and ready to go when that rangatahi starts doing something great and even today when I do movies with with no animals and just actors I always keep the set extremely quiet so I can go like this and get the camera rolling and the sound guy rolling and they talk through radios a la Secret Service kind of thing and read and shouting and yelling and all that crap you who directed the fourth Dirty Harry movie sudden impact who did that one you know I did that this was the darkest of the films with a very ambiguous ending how much responsibility did you have for the story in the screenplay when he says go ahead and make my day I realized that that was going to be the key word out of the picture did you know it oh yeah yeah you knew that is you're gonna point a gun to somebody and tell them go ahead and make my day I right away you do yeah the audience is gonna go for this go ahead make my day when you did Pale Rider you returned to the Western form and I would like to ask you now what appears to be at least on the surface a kind of pattern in a fistful of dollars you were described by Richard Corliss as a Christ figure in hang em high you were lynched and then resurrected to fight against Lynch law in High Plains Drifter the screenplay hints that you're an avenging angel in Pale Rider you're called the preacher why are you so drawn to the mystical and the supernatural is a creative or religious conviction or both or neither or none of my business I don't know I think because because I left the ending of High Plains Drifter in such an ambiguous way that maybe in Pale Rider I decided that maybe I should just make him an out-and-out apparition I think Pale Rider took you to Khan didn't it you went to the Khan Film Fest yeah I did I enjoyed it going there because we took a Western there nobody ever took takes westerns there so it was kind of fun and and it was received rather well when you were there that time weren't you knighted by the French well they give you a thing called the like Chevalier of Arts and Letters and that's a knighthood and then they gave later on they gave me the the commander of Arts your command of the Arts I know a commander so watch your step I'm only a shabad yeah yeah though that's okay well no I have to die I think I think I have to salute you or kiss your ring for the club we have a handshake or something do we know I play didn't tell me holy all I did is give you a kiss I remember the guy gives you a kiss on both cheeks you know who gave me my kiss was on door now no the countess going on oh oh the Doble Film Festival where you have yeah I'd go on you've gone to the DOE the old fantastic that's a great I've been to Deauville and I met her on many occasion mine was Jack Chuck long Jack I got kissed by a woman yeah some guys but you're a commander some guys you'll do anything to be a commander see what happens with a couple of knights get together knowing what we do I suspect that for you bird was a dream come true bird is a dream come true what a movie [Applause] who is the bird of the title Charlie Parker and when did you encounter his music I went to a jazz the Philharmonic in Oakland this guy comes out and he's got a pinstripe suit he's standing off to one side and all these people are playing and it's the joints kind of jumping you know and then he all of a sudden he this guy he steps up he starts playing and everything is doubled up and I'm just thinking how the hell did he do that and how does he come out where he does at the end so I just kind of get fascinated by it and also it was a great acting lesson because you the amount of confidence that he exuded I had never seen and our artists have that kind of confidence standing there actor paid or anything and then I heard they had a script over at Columbia about Charlie Parker and so I went over and I read that I read the script and I really liked it so I talked Warner Brothers into trading off another another piece of material that Columbia wasn't the commercial project it wasn't intended to be commerce he was just intended to be this movie about the life and it was taken from Qian Parker's in my life and b-flat one of the ways you could discern the quality of a director is from the performances that the director consistently gets from his or her actors I would submit that Clint gets great performances in picture after picture after picture [Music] [Music] Steve telegram this is jann Parker one five one happen to be New York City Chan , help yet Charlie Parker [Music] the film is dedicated is it not to musicians everywhere oh yeah yeah yeah who was your director of photography on that you had a new one on this one Jack green was on that one who is operator for Bruce Jackman has said Clint doesn't say action or cut he says okay let's start now and okay they'll be enough which distinguishes you from nearly every other film director on this planet now that has to be a conscious decision on your part why do you do it it started out in the westerns you'd ride in for horses you got a camera here you've got four writers and they're supposed to all be side by side that's very difficult to do to get into a fairly close shot and then right away they come out and they zing a boom a mic boom out there the horses don't like that so they're just getting edgy in that and then just when you start and you got the four horses up there they're gonna come riding in the shot some guy yells at the top of the lung through a megaphone action well these horses go every which way and I'm on it and they're bouncing this way that way and when you get them in the scene they're just backing in and out if the directors are going to cut now why the hell can't these damn horses and you just say how about just not saying action how about saying something else I said say say something say anything you know and and so I never could get him to do it but to to just yell action and stop and the actors it came to my attention that actors are not like horses but they do have a central nervous system and they're sitting there they're sitting there with a certain amount of anxiety about the scene they're depending on their experience level but they have a certain kind of approach they're ready I believe in the nearly ten years of this series the word masterpiece has been uttered twice tonight I think it can be employed a third time in reference of course to Unforgiven what is the genesis of this film well it was submitted to my company at Warner Brothers some years ago many years ago actually in 1980 I think who submitted to Sonia Chernus and she wrote a scathing notice on this script she said it was just barbaric terrible thing it would be awful and so that was put in the file meanwhile another person that told me about this writer David peoples and he's written some interesting than God I'll give you this western city the Western was called the the William Munny killings I said this is an interesting script but I said it's not available it was just being given to me as reference because Francis Coppola was going to make the film mm-hmm so I called up the agent who represented David peoples and I said I really like this screenplay and I would like to employ this guy and he said well you could buy the screenplay and I said no no I I know all about Francis Coppola heavy he said no no that that expired yesterday and I said no kidding I said well what's the deal on it so he told me the deal I said I'll take that deal my plan was it's somewhere I just felt that a guy needed a little bit more age on him than it was at that particular time in 1991 I brought it out and dusted it off and this started for the prep on it I felt maybe it was a kind of a risky project but I said I loved it and I wanted to do it and that's all that that those last two sentences are they the key for my you said I felt elements of myself in will money what elements of yourself the presentation of them is so anti-western he's a pig farmer out there with his kids and the ruffians they're all scruffy looking he's scruffy looking and he's destitute can't get on his horse yeah okay and the guy comes along and talks him into and and his reputation the past of being a renegade and he talked him into sort of coming back out of it and he's in desperation he decides to do it and of course he starts to mount his horse he hasn't ridden in a while he can't get on it I thought that's interesting why would a guy write that and what goes into a writers imagination that you would think of that approach to to the Western hero you take care of your sister on the Sun and you kill a few chickens if you have to and keep those hogs who got the fever separate you have any problem you go see Sally two trees it has Logan's the guy was totally tormented by by his past and and trying to reconcile them and and channeling it all through this memory of the deceased wife would you like a free one no I I guess not I I didn't mean with me I meant Allison silky would be happy to give you a free one that if you want it one that's but fall in that oh I didn't mean I I didn't want a free one on account of you being cut up and all and what what I said the other day about you looking like me that ain't true you ain't ugly like me it's just that we both got scars but you're a beautiful woman if I was to water a free one I'd water with you I guess more than their mother too just so they I can't on account of my wife there were so many oddities to it and I thought this could make a really good Western I don't know if anybody liked it but I would like it so there seems to be a strong strain of feminism in several of your movies it's certainly evident in Unforgiven where the [ __ ] get together pool their money to avenge their brutalized sister yeah and I mean the fact that the women were treated terribly and they they have to figure out something to get justice and it just shows these faint driven stories and I've been involved with a few of them that there's the train is on the track and there's nothing you can do to stop it and fate is leading its way towards the end of it and you know that that they set off by sending out a bounty on this thing they set off a chain of events that are unstoppable the casting of that film is impeccable when Gene Hackman was our hundredth guest in this series we talked at length about the film about you I understand he was very reluctant to play that role at first but you changed his mind yeah I did he was in a kick then in his life we said didn't want to do anything with violence in it and I I said gee I said I said gene I know where you're coming from and I know I've got kids and everything and I'm getting sick of violent films that are overly overly violent and the fact that you're playing a character that is not just the black hat villain that comes in and and and there's snarling and everybody you're a decent guy you believe you have strong beliefs you believe in gun control you believe especially if you're controlling it but you anyway it's it's it's that he believes in controlling his town his domain and Francis's roll.take sort of the lead and setting up this this bounty they put out and they send out the word and all these strange characters get together yes shall we pause for one brief second I'd like to acknowledge a distinguished member of the Actors Studio person to whom Clint has just referred Francis Fisher we do stand it [Applause] Jean spoke to us with great enthusiasm about being directed by you and working with you acting with you tell us about the experience of working with Gene Hackman Jean once he decided he liked the character and came aboard he's an intense worker and just totally professional it seems obvious to me that almost every film you make has a purpose beyond its surface purpose Unforgiven seems to be a kind of meditation what do you think Unforgiven says to us the protagonist which I played was a man who had had a terrible past as far as being a renegade and an ax murderer and he wasn't just a noble guy in a white hat riding him saying where's the school you know like this I was building a house deserves got nothing to do what I did I'll see you in hell with money [Music] you've described the lighting of Unforgiven as being inspired in part by Carroll reads the third man you described it as being only partially the faces are only partially seen you see streaks of light on faces and with regard to that you said something very interesting audiences are very smart they don't have to see everything if one were to look for a guiding central principle as actor and director it would seem to be at least in part that is it a fair assumption is that what I have that you have faith in your own yeah I do I feel that if you're doing a whole film you just spend two hours watching it you have to see the same set of eyes same looking out the same lighting the same flat look or every time or you can you can sometimes see you know Carol Reed did a wonderful thing in third man is sometimes you just do the lower face yeah and the eyes were not visible at all yes and and it became very interesting as you saw the character when Orson Welles steps out you don't see it you just you get the feeling of the onliest knows who it is because we've been talking about this character for an hour and then all of a sudden so they they read in things you give them a chance to imagine with you give them a chance to participate in the film not just Boyer it and that that I think is is something that make a film a little deeper for him Unforgiven received nine Academy Award nominations and one for what was the Oscar experience like for you well it was good you think back on time and you go back to the rawhide days or earlier the only days you think well here you are all these years later you're directing a film and now this film is from out of nowhere and westerns are not supposed to win yes so you take the work seriously but don't take yourself seriously and if you keep that in mind you'll do well the rest of your life all right [Applause] you [Applause]

Channel: Ligue de Corinthe

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Id: KFg33cOg3dA

Length: 60min 30sec (3630 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020