Paul Thomas Anderson & Richard Linklater in Conversation | 2018 Texas Film Awards

is joined in conversation with director Richard I promised Paul II wouldn't have to give a speech we're gonna sit here and talk about Jonathan Demi so I wanna I want to say thank you to whoever edited that clip real you deserve an award to a lot of work yeah yeah well congratulations Paul and just thanks so much for being here it means so much to all of us here and I know if Jonathan Jonathan probably wouldn't want an award named after him but he's not here he would want you to be the first one and it just means so much to us that as hard as you are coming off the circuit and everything no no no it's funny it's crazy I feel really emotional about hearing Luis speak and I know and seeing Jonathan it maybe it reminded me though of Jonny Greenwood who I work with his brilliant has a thing that he does that's really smart that he just knows he'll never be able to hear ever all the music that's out there so he will take three months and focus on one thing you know he'll focus on ska music he'll focus on reggae whatever whatever it is even he even stopped and did like heavy metal for three months he said it kind of almost stopped but but it's a way to compartmentalize so just to give it made me think like Jonathan did so much work you know if you are not familiar with his work as well as we are and there's so much out there just so much so lock it all out and just take Jonathan's work no matter time his clip reel was was great but Jonathan was so prolific he did so much that's what I think will always be in awe of I think he's the most versatile filmmaker imaginable and you know in so many different categories there was the narrative features most the ones in the clip reel but there were so many documentaries yeah and he really showed his soul so you know cousin Bobby the grommet his you know Haiti dreams of democracy he even it has two categories of documentaries like it may be through you know there's the actual documentary often those are inspiring portraits often of people who he wants us to get to know whether it's Jimmy Carter yeah or I'm Carolyn Parker he probably made to me it's the best post Katrina movie yeah this beautiful woman in New Orleans who's just fighting to stay in her neighborhood in her house and Jonathan just met her kind of randomly and went back for years and it's this wonderful portrait so these films are great and then there's the performance films right well yeah first on making sense or Spalding Gray stuff Neil Young stuff he just I thought was like when I first came to Jonathan that was it it was new to me somehow I was introduced to me like there was this person that did something wild and I thought oh well when's his next film coming out and you find out on PBS he just did a short film that's coming up you know and then there the music videos that would turn up so you're constantly getting in foreign stuff from him it was all wildly different but the same you know it was some persons his voice was there and he would aim it where he wanted to aim you but the it was it it was in a career to aspire to his like wow you can do absolutely anything thing and that same beautiful sensibility just permeated everything yeah if he was adapting you know he a master builder his absent apt ation with wally and andre gregory there was a play but it's it's kind of like made a demi film out of it it's just beautiful yeah and he just did this time and time again can I digress for just a second I want to say my own personal journey with with the Jonathan I think he was a equally you know how we all influenced each other in our lives before I even met Jonathan personally and not from his I mean I loved his movies but just what he did he refers to it in in the clip he said I saw those films that is true I was not a wildcatter by the way people in Texas know what that is that I wish you know I was a grunt laborer a shift worker on offshore oil rigs one time I made a suggestion and that boss told me hey you're getting paid from here down so that's who I was that's who I was but I was aspiring I was falling in love with cinemas going to movies all the time I was writing I was just kind of getting obsessed with films and I went to the River Oaks theater in Houston and there was this flyer they were showing some yeah they were showing some films that have been made in Austin that Jonathan Demi had presented in New York and they were only showing at that point it was in a little art gallery in Houston they were showing invasion of lumen people and speed of light so I just kind of went to this showing of them and it got me thinking like Oh Austin because I didn't know where to take my film energy but it was like oh those films are getting made in Austin well maybe there's something Austin's a cool down maybe you know so I think he just seeing those influence me you know to check out Austin this is in the early 80s so I moved here in 83 and then also in another way just that a director would be showing films yeah but that's not that love of cinema is it just like oh I want to make films sure but it's also it's all encompassing you're writing about films you're showing films so it implanted in me like oh yeah let's show films too and a couple years after moving here we started the Film Society you know we show films so before I even met him years before I even met him just him Jonathan being Jonathan yeah influenced me so I just you know I think and everyone you meet has stories in in various ways but I was so lucky to get to know him later and he was always such a positive I remember one time being in New York and being I just saw him and yeah you know I couldn't get funding for a movie I was kind of complaining kind of with Andy said and he just like well it's he just wouldn't let you be bombed or depressed or feeling sorry for yourself at all he wouldn't have that and he always it was a great pick-me-up so I think we'll always have Jonathan in our ear you see yeah absolutely I mean I just thinking about it and seeing the connections he's like if you imagine him being a pinball in a pinball machine the way that he's ricocheted around here through the course of his life and and the tree trunks that have grown the branches that have grown off of these things that he's done how he influenced me I mean he was my hero that was a person I looked at like that's what if I could make my films I want to make films I would make him look like that won't sound like that everything and yeah we the last shot of phantom thread was when I got the news that he'd passed away and it was this horrible feeling like you know you have to go and you're supposed to be celebratory and you've gotten to the end of this road and you're standing there and you're just and you just hear him in your head going buddy buddy that big smile buddy come on it's your movie you know you do it like don't don't don't pause for me later or something but take care of your movie you know yeah yeah it's yeah once he's gotten inside your head he's gonna ring around in there for no but but who better to be in your head yeah what a positive there's enough negative things that could be rolling around your head jonathan is such a such a positive such a positive and yeah yeah the testimonies from actors who loved him I mean they loved him yeah he was a life changer for so many actors he worked with did you ever talk too much about his methodology with actors cuz I heard and I didn't really ever talk too much about it but he he said he wasn't a big rehearsal guy but he certainly got incredible performances my impression things that were in our conversations and things that I read was that he didn't like to get into really deep philosophical conversations and he didn't like actors who wanted to engage in deep philosophical conversations about a character he kind of expected that they they should do a lot of the work he would be there for them but he he really wanted it to be immediate spontaneous he didn't want to walk around too much with rehearsals that's that's the impression that I got and I think he was kind of as you see his films go along as constant more and they got um more they became more and more like his documentaries you know they kind of really started to intersect like he would he would mess around in styles but this is the one that seemed to suit him best like more and more as he gonna went on was like its handheld you don't know what's gonna happen and here we go like Rachel Getting Married he that's taken that absolutely which is really after truth about Charlie where maybe he felt like something had gotten away from them were away from where he wanted to be yeah but that kind of the passion that he would get from actors yeah because you would also think of an actor to be in a part that no one would really think of to you know and it was right you know Anthony Hopkins was not you know people wanted who they want of Louis they wanted Tommy Lee Jones know who was the other activated Gene Hackman you know you know imagine a time when you had to fight for Anthony Hopkins and was really not really true like I'm gonna get Anthony Hopkins and it was like a risk and there was Jonathan or even Tom Hanks she was right Tandy's right you know the way they movies look I mean it's funny to hear about inclusion these days like those Jonathan's casting his movies and filling them up to look like a kaleidoscope for so long you know that that he's just he's God his generosity was like that what led first feeling insane generosity where did you get on the demi bandwagon what was the first one you remember seeing well I that we went there was really was really something wild like but stop making sense I had seen and I was a little too young but I had seen I'm yeah well melanin Howard had been on TV only what he wanted to do at a very young age though who may we'll talk about that yes keep going but but the sweet spot of my age and and seeing stop making sense but then something wild or as 15 followed by Mary to them up followed by a lot of shorts followed by cousin Bobby followed by like new order music videos and things like that then just endless and ub40 he did these great music videos so there was a lot of stuff to sort of and then I was catching up on everything but then it followed married to the mob and then the kind of grand finale one-two punch of silence of the Lamb suddenly coming along that was like kind of the only movie that he made that made any money Philadelphia was right after silence at all yeah so it's kind of amazing and then but those films happened in in a row you know and look at that as a stretch I mean who wouldn't want to say like I did stop making sense I did something while then I didn't marry the mom and then I just sound so lamps I finished it up with Philadelphia like poof that's a run yeah do you think that was just his he was an enthusiast do you think he was easily excitable like he was doing swing shift and then he started to do stop making sense kind of yeah during it or you know he just seems like he couldn't he couldn't resist yeah yes he was excitable but I think he talking about stop making sense is that his definition of cinema his idea of pure cinema was when a filmmaker films a musician that was to him yeah what right Louis I'm keep looking at Louis because yeah your that's right in the book but I went to India to make to do with my Jonathan Demi fan I was gonna say you did a music film Jonathan Demi movie and I realized he was right when you're in the room and you're just walking there's there's it taking away any dramatic structure just felt like this rush that there was performance you're filming people's faces and that's what Jonathan would do when you see a lot of these music films that he makes yeah he spends more time just looking at some looking like close-up of somebody playing then anybody normally would normally see so much of the stage like that but he'll do this like giant close-up of somewhere not even the guitar is inclusive of their face and it's takes your breath away I always felt he was trying to approximate the enthusiasm he felt right being in the room with them yeah most filmmakers get really fancy and do a lot they make it about them he made it about what he was excited about yeah which was the music yeah you know he didn't want to interfere with that too much yeah did he give you advice when you were heading to India to do your move did you talk to him about it did you I told him I was going down there but I just secretly knew I was just gonna go nice you already had it I had it cuz I was gonna do exactly what he would have done you know but and then I got to show it to him too which was great and I was wondering what's it like for him he's really think just how much I'm ripping him off here where's your film that's it's your least seen film its recent though well yeah about let's let's put a plug in because I know it didn't but it's called Junoon yeah yes it was you following with Johnny I went with John Jonny Greenwood asked me if I wanted to go to India with him and and it sounds sounds very George Harrison II but it's not you know yeah but it was a group of musicians and they all we all made music together in this fort and in Rajasthan and yeah it's 48 minutes long won't won't take too much of your time it's really good it's watching people play music yeah you know I was thinking when after the loss you know when Demi passed away last April it took me a while because you know you feel the personal thing and then I thought of that Billy Wilder joke he's supposed you know he was the king of the one-liner walking out of Ernst Lubitsch funeral Lubitsch died young you know when he says oh poor no more Lubitsch and he goes worse no more Lubitsch movies and I felt that about Jonathan finally there was a delay Slyke no more job in movies no more documentaries he was young but you know he had so much more to to say what what we had 20 more years of things he would be excited about yeah and try to make a film about but that said watching the clip real yeah there's enough that I haven't seen enough of you know maybe I'll go back and see a gag exactly yeah you know to revisit again yeah there's a lot of TV work there that I haven't seen to so yeah yeah it's there for us but yes too soon I would ask you do you you know speaking of you know actors and stuff do you have do you work with actors differently filmed a film or do you you know I've always been curious I know well just on the new film you and Daniel's relationship was sounds like different than a lot he was like a coke collaborator all the way from the beginning yeah I I don't know how you do it but I always kind of go I let the actor lead usually like mainly sort of with Adam Sandler was the first time I was I was born I was working with him I realized that I'd sought him out to work with him because I liked his performances and we made two sort of different kinds of movies and I remember things not going that well and maybe I was trying to shoehorn something that I had thought in in and and there he was we were floundering and second I just sort of realized like the movies got to come to him you know it was it was it was kind of a way of sort of working that in following him encouraging him how did he like to work it he liked to improvise but he liked to improvise within a tight structure so ever since then on staff if an actor wants to rehearse they want to prepare I'll absolutely do that if they don't like Daniel doesn't Joaquin doesn't if you have different act one wants to rehearse and one doesn't and they're in the same movie I've had that a little bit what do you do I make the one who doesn't want to rehearse rehearse yeah but usually that problem that tension will probably come out in the scene somehow and you just probably have to kind of navigate that in a very delicate way where maybe you're pretending like you're not rehearsing but you are well yeah if someone kind of has enough and someone's not satisfied and then hopefully before you know it you just roll roll roll roll roll right and you had that kind of deep relation I love Phil Hoffman's scene in heart eight just is that the first time you knew him did you know him from before was the first time we ever met we'd only talked on the telephone okay and the first time that I met him was when he came that night to Racine and then did you say okay I want that guy in some movies moving forward I'm gonna I love that guy isn't that great yes he said yeah I want it yeah that scene should have been you know thirty seconds and the forever were in the cut it was about five minutes before saying like I don't know why we have the scene for five minutes in this movie and I realized for the good of the film it needed to be cut down but that that feeling when you see somebody that you connect with which I know you've had to is yeah you just you want to run home and get to your typewriter and start making stuff come out movie so I mean that reaches its pinnacle in the master did he did you run the idea by him before you were at the germ of the idea or were you sending him stuff in advance how does that work it worked that I had loads of pages and a premise and I would I needed his help really as an editor I said I have this idea and I forgot a ton of stuff but we need I need your help and he was very busy would go off but we steal time together over the course of a year or two when we get together and it was really I it was a process of me going away and coming back and him helping to shape what was interesting about the story what became what was really smart when we were doing that he said this isn't my character story it's the other guy's story that was a really big moment so it's collaborating with an actor who whose only goal is a great story and a great movie not how many lines he's gonna have I know yeah just well you picked - I'm just thinking of he and Daniel Joaquin oh you know just major-league artists who are sharing your vision but it's a it's a unique collaboration when it do you feel that way with Lesley Manville coming out of phantom thread she's she's special I remember her from all the Mike Lee movies and what a career but yeah and her and Daniel together just magic I yeah I I can't shake the feeling that I have more business with Leslie you know I hope so yeah I hope so yeah now did you rehearse okay so they didn't want to rehearse much I don't know like sorry I can already but cuz she Mike Lee they rehearsed six months eight months this is what's great about Leslie it Leslie won't be the more says I want to rehearse Leslie Leslie will go whatever you boys want it's like you fellas figure out what you want to do and let me know and you just think there's something so appealing about I'm gonna come in and be great no matter what you guys see but she's a powerhouse she I mean she is on stage right now and somehow simultaneously was in rehearsals for being on stage in London and doing a television show and flew to the Oscars and arrived at one o'clock was on the red carpet at five o'clock lost an award at seven and was back onto the red I caught the red-eye right back and miss a beat back that kind of a worker and and pleasurable throughout you know what more could you have you know I was reflecting on you know the different generations here like I've always said I'm so grateful for that the guys of Jonathan's generation you know he's kind of an the younger and of the Francis Coppola and Scorsese's and Bogdanovich's and you know all those guys the way you got started in the film industry and their day and Jonathan did this you know he was of that generation you had to I mean Jonathan was a publicist he was you know it was from the bottom up yeah good you know you go work for Corman he started writing scripts for Corman you got to do you know cage t crazy mama you know direct you get in the director's chair you just kind of you pay your dues and we're sort of the inheritors of that like we can stay where we are now the indie world that you know was developed through them and around that and we're just so lucky to stay where we are and like your first film is your film you weren't making working for someone else trying to get a foot in the door it never crossed your mind probably to do anything other than the film you wanted to make right right right and you you were young you grew up let's just talk about your origin I'm kind of fast me like you were so damn young when you made your first feature I was twenty four three or four yeah you're working with like Gwyneth and Sam Jackson how do you get them has a 24 year old get well I met a girl named Gwyneth Paltrow who had never been on the moon she wasn't quite as yet and then I took it took a year and a half to get the money for the movie and in that year and a half she went off and became Gwyneth Paltrow and I was like the jackpot you know she didn't which which was really really sweet no she's stuck stuck with me yeah she showed up she showed up to the set and she said I'm dating Brad Pitt but and Sam Jackson is just and had come off cold fiction right so that was that Sam Sam was basically lending his his week to us because I work with John Lyons was a great casting director who I met at the Sundance labs and he was very very helpful he looked back at the people who were really like instrumental in those defining moments earlier on and John would be one of them through Sundance Institute when I was a fellow and I got to be gone through the workshop you making shorts how old were you when you first decided like okay I'm making films I have a note from when I was six years old that we were meant to write on we were meant to write in the school I went to the top penmanship and you're supposed to write a a a want it and like wanted to add that you wanted a job and what and you should say what why you should get the job and my ad says ad and very beautiful penmanship and says my name is Paul Anderson I'm a writer and a director and a special-effects you should hire me because I know everything about everything so when I read it now I want to apologize to my mother I say you put up with that yes there's something telling though a director has to exude that kind of confidence yeah so many directors and Augustine just hearing her story and knowing her and what she went through on her film that's really the big leap you know to be confident to be whatever age you are to say hey let's all do this this film it's a big leap some people can't make it is it's the same thing it's like you you know you're the one just say like just come on everybody wake up it's just at 6:00 a.m. we've got to get that shot as the Sun comes up and I feel still feel exactly the same way like I'm the one ruling everybody ensure you have that that that thing but that doesn't make the insecurity go away you're just faking it yeah we just just fake fake Bluff Bluff blood and but the more confident you get with experience you can kind of own that a little better yeah it's like when you're just starting out you can't say I don't know what I'm doing here but you can say that now and people go oh that's cool we're gonna find some because they just assume something Goods gonna come out of that isn't it great to give ya that level yes yeah on the other yes and the danger of that is when nothing good comes out and yeah I got nothing that day there's like one bad idea after another yeah when I first would show up on the set I was the youngest person on the set so everything was so meticulously planned I just thought there's no way through this unless everything is pinpoint accurate and yeah you get looser and yes you get more confident and you get a little bit looser and that has it certainly has his benefits but and yeah you got to be enthusiastic you got to be your own cheerleader I think I think with with Jonathan his enthusiasm for what he was doing most event was so infectious yeah I'm sure it just trickled down to everybody working on it every actor every you know every part of the whole process what will you think of when you when you think of Jonathan going for what do you think twenty years from now you'll be thinking of one thing you made me think of is that those moments were not when you are on I don't know if you have a filmmaker you go to in a situation when you feel it you're in a jam you have to say yourself if you feel you've you're your toast and you don't know what to do I do say what would Jonathan do and it is a very helpful just to get yourself back on track and sort of it's it's but in 20 years well I'll have my memories of him I just hope my kids are of them like my kids are watching his films and seeing them the way that I saw them and feeling them the same way that I did do you have a filmmaker when you go to when you when you are in trouble a few I have a few who will remain nameless I go what would they do do the opposite like the sensibility you're going for something 180 degrees of difference so whatever gets you there that's helpful but that's rude but you know well I've had that as well where you suddenly you're in the middle of doing something and you you kind of are horrified that it looks like I know there's no makers I don't know what you maybe you don't really think it should look like I think oh my god how did this happen well I'll always remember you know after he was already diagnosed and had been through treatment I'll never forget Jonathan the artist intensive that Augustine talked about Jonathan even when he was sick this was a couple years ago he came out and you know we mentor these three feature films that are about to about to go and there he was it was the last time I saw him there he spent significant time with him we emailed and sent each other stuff but there he was sick but putting three solid days of his life into reading scripts cast readings showing a movie he had just seen at a festival that he was so excited about we all sat down and watched it and just you know I'm never driving him to the airport he was talking about a project he was excited about was asking me if I wouldn't you know just you know just that enthusiasm and that support I think a lot of people I mean it's that's just who he was I'll just always remember that enthusiasm and that Dad you know courage and just life force you know yeah I don't want I just don't want to make sure don't paint a false picture he could also be that way in a very intense way you know when he'd saw something that wasn't right or that he disagreed with oh oh my goodness you see right up in somebody's face you know oh you're right really express the enthusiasm turned and it was like and for good you know like I'm gonna call this out his sense of justice was intense very and you see that in the documentaries go every the Doc's are about that yeah yeah it wasn't all just flowers and enthusiasts yeah a real you know some really core beliefs yeah yeah with that Sensibility so anyway we could talk forever but they gave me so it's just again Paul thanks so much for being here this means so much to all of us more pictures more pictures during the thing should we act like we're talking yes like we're gonna pretend that we're logging interesting port water well I direct like but if there was a line yeah but what about yeah [Laughter] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Austin Film Society

Views: 117,491

Keywords: Paul Thomas Anderson, Richard Linklater, Jonathan Demme, Austin Film Society, Texas Film Awards, Texas Film, Austin Texas, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia Film, Boogie Nights, The Master Film, Phantom Thread, Inherent Vice, Daniel Day Lewis, Punch-Drunk Love, Filmmaking, Independent Filmmakers

Id: Dy9UwJafRxk

Length: 31min 25sec (1885 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 26 2018