Talking with Korean Movie Star Jan Dong-gun

Note: This article orginally appeared in the April 2005 issue of Venice Magazine. It was an odd interview experience, although not unpleasant. Jang Dong-gun was quite nice, but I interviewed him in his hotel suite surrounded by approximately 8 of his entourage and handlers. None of them spoke other than he. None were introduced to me. They were just in the room when I got there. Some of them sat behind me. Some of them around him. Men and women. They all listened to every word he said. And then it was over and I quickly left.
Acting Typhoon Jang Dong-gun
by Terry Keefe

It's been the Spring of Jang Dong-gun these past few months in the United States, in which the South Korean movie star has seen two of his most spectacular cinematic works released here in rapid succession. A leading man for years now in his home country, the actor is finally in the middle of an arrival of sorts on these shores. The month of May saw the long-awaited opening of The Promise, in which Jang Dong-gun starred as the slave Kunlun in director Chen Kaige's martial arts epic, and this month brings the ominous approach of Typhoon, a big-budget action thriller which has the distinction of being the most expensive Korean film ever produced.

Directed by leading Korean director Kwak Kyung-taek, who Jang Dong-gun worked with previously in 2001 on Friend, Typhoon revolves around a grand terrorist scheme by Jang Dong-gun's Sin, a North Korean who, along with his family, was refused entry as a child into South Korea. Subsequently, his family were executed by the North Koreans, while Sin escaped into the country with his sister Choi Myung-ju (Lee Mi-yeon), who he was nonetheless quickly separated from. Filled with unquenchable rage, the now-adult Sin wishes to inflict utter destruction upon both Koreas by combining the devastating power of an approaching typhoon with that of biological warfare. The only one who stands between Sin and the loss of the North and South is Kang Se-jong (Lee Jung-jae), an elite naval lieutenant. If this sounds like the plot of the latest Jerry Bruckheimer spectacular, it could be, and it also looks the part, climaxing in a spectacular battle on board a freighter out in the middle of the storm. Typhoon is a big-budget Korean action spectacular that rivals the production values of similar Hollywood product, although its scale was a serious financial roll of the dice for the filmmakers. Explains Jang Dong-gun, " In general, the action movies in Korea cost a little more than the melodramas or romantic comedies. But this film, I can honestly say, cost 5 times that of a melodrama." However, the film with a huge budget also became a massive hit, raising the next question of whether the rest of the Korean film industry is going to have to start spending a lot more to compete with the likes of Typhoon. It's a concern shared by Jang Dong-gun, who says, "I personally support making this type of big-budget film, just as long as the smaller indie films also will have a chance to be seen. I really believe personally in maintaining our diversity in filmmaking. At the same time, Korea is the only Asian country which can produce this kind of big-budget film with domestic funding."

The role of Sin was a linguistically challenging one for Jang Dong-gun, as he had to also learn Russian and Thai for the role, as well as speak with a North Korean dialect. Comparably difficult was his work on the Chinese production of The Promise, where he had to do his entire performance in Mandarin. Says Jang Dong-gun of his experience on The Promise, in which he starred opposite both Chinese and Japanese actors, "It was my first time working in an arrangement with multinational casting. So I was very afraid before it started, but once the shooting began, I realized that most filmmaking environments are really quite similar, regardless of your nationality or cultural differences. And I found that things were more similar than they were different. I also realized that sharing feelings and emotions is more important than language itself when you act with a multinational cast. Plus, we were there to achieve the same goals and that made us become one."

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Ridley Scott: The Hollywood Interview

Filmmaker Sir Ridley Scott.


RIDLEY SCOTT:
CAESAR CINEMATICA MAXIMUS
by
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the May 2000 issue of Venice Magazine.

Ridley Scott has been one of the cinema's most successful commercial filmmakers, boasting one of the most distinctive visual styles in film history. Born November 30, 1937 in South Shields, England, he entered the BBC in the mid-60's as a set designer, and soon moved on to directing, turning out slick episodes for such series as Z Cars and The Informer. He then set up his own production company, Ridley Scott and Associates, through which he produced and directed television commercials that became noted for their technical superiority and visual dazzle. (Talent runs in the Scott family: brother Tony is a renowned director himself (Top Gun, True Romance, Crimson Tide) and son Jake made his directorial debut last year with Plunkett and McCleane.)

Scott brought that flair for sumptuous design to the big screen when he made his debut as a feature director in 1977: his adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Duellists won the Camera D'Or at Cannes, for Best First Film. He hit paydirt with Alien in 1979. The box office smash about a monstrous stowaway aboard a space ship made a star of Sigourney Weaver, spawned three sequels and countless imitations. With Blade Runner (1983) Scott created what many feel is his signature film: a futuristic detective story starring Harrison Ford, bolstered by the most innovative production design in film history. Although many found the film's narrative muddy, due to a hastily re-shot ending and a tacked-on voice-over by Ford, Scott's Blade Runner: The Director's Cut was released in 1993, featuring Scott's original cut of the film, which many feel is far superior to the original. It also spawned the trend for "Director's Cuts" of every film under the sun being re-released in theaters, and on video and DVD.

Scott's next two films, the sumptuous fantasy Legend (1985) starring Tom Cruise, and the thriller Someone to Watch Over Me (1987) performed poorly at the box office, in spite of critical acclaim for the latter. Black Rain, a police thriller set mostly in Japan starring Michael Douglas, proved a big hit worldwide, putting Scott back on the A list map, and paving the way for Thelma and Louise (1991), an Oscar winner for Best Screenplay, following the exploits of two daring heroines (Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis) as they make a mad dash across the southwest.

Scott's next three films: the Christopher Columbus biopic 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), the sea-faring adventure White Squall (1996) starring Venice fave Jeff Bridges, and the military drama G.I. Jane (1997) starring Demi Moore, failed to garner much critical or box office kudos for Scott, although each film has its defenders, and all three boasted some spectacular moments.

Scott's latest should put him back on the critical and box office map where he belongs. Gladiator tells the story of Rome's greatest general Maximus (Russell Crowe), the favorite of ailing Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). When the emperor lets it be known that Maximus will be his successor, passing over son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), Commodus tries to have Maximus assassinated. With being too much a spoiler, let's just say that Maximus is reborn a gladiator, eventually making his way to the Coliseum in Rome, where he and Commodus meet for a final show-down! Great writing, characters, direction, cinematography, and performances from the entire cast, which also includes Connie Nielsen, Djimon Hounsou, and the great Oliver Reed in his final role, make this winner the one to beat this summer. The Dreamworks release hits theaters on May 5.

Ridley Scott sat down over a fine Cuban cigar with Venice to discuss his latest cinematic opus, the genius of Oliver Reed, and what really happened with Blade Runner.

Was there trepidation on your part making a gladiator picture in the shadow of a classic like Spartacus?
No, the only film that I was worried about was Airplane! Remember the scene when Peter Graves asked the little boy if he liked "gladiator pictures"? (laughs) But seriously, no. I mean, you could never hope to duplicate Spartacus, or any great film for that matter. I saw Gladiator as a historical epic that was character-driven. All the characters in it have a great deal of humanity, especially Russell's character, Maxiumus.

Tell us about working with Russell Crowe. There's no doubt after seeing this film that he's going to be a huge star.
Russell's a collaborator. He brings a great deal to the table when he takes on a role, really gives it his all and has a lot of ideas. As soon as we cast him as Maximus, he started reading Marcus Arrelius' writings and familiarizing himself with the history of the Roman Empire. He's very well read on a lot of other subjects, as well.

The battle scenes were tremendous. They really put you in the middle of the action. Were they difficult to shoot logistically?
Not at all. Originally we went to Germany to shoot the opening scenes, then relocated to the UK when we discovered that a section of forest near Galway airport was going to be razed for construction. The owners of the land said it would be cheaper if we burned it down that if they cut it down, so they said "come in and do what you like." We were able to shoot a lot of the film there, and did the entire opening in just three weeks. Any time you change locations, you're costing yourself a great deal of time and money, so it helps if you can contain it.

Oliver Reed gives his last performance in Gladiator. He was a legendary character.
Oliver was what I'd call a "charming scoundrel." He was a wonderful actor, incredibly intense. I knew for that role I needed a Robert Shaw-type actor who was tough as nails, but also had a sensitive side. There aren't too many actors like Shaw, or Reed around anymore. The only other two would be Richard Harris and David Hemmings, both of whom are in the film as well. Although, I think Russell has a lot in common with them. Very straightforward, no-nonsense sort of guys. Old school.

Didn't Reed still have scenes left to shoot when he died?
Yeah. He still had three weeks left. I had to shoot most of his scenes at the end of the film using his body double, then for the close-ups we superimposed Oliver's face onto the body double's. Eerie, eh? I also was able to use some shots from earlier scenes and outtakes. But thank God for digital technology...Oliver went out the way he would have wanted to, I should think: with a pint glass in his hand.

Let's talk about your background.
I was born in the north of England, near Newcastle where my father was in the shipbuilding business and also in the army. We lived all over Europe, in Germany for five years. That was a wonderful experience. I wanted to be an artist, so my dad encouraged me to pursue art school, which I did. Then I went to work for the BBC, started as a set dresser and enrolled in their production program. Then I started directing live television shows like Z Cars and a show not many people in America know called The Informer, which was created by a wonderful director by the name of Peter Collinson (The Italian Job).

Then you went on to become the top commercial director in Britain. Ridley Scott and Associates was the biggest firm of its kind, right?
Still is, actually. We employ over 50 directors at the moment. I loved doing commercials. It was a great training ground for me. But I couldn't wait to start making features.

When you were a kid, was there one film you saw that really grabbed you where you said "This is what I have to do?"
The Searchers (1956). I remember just being blown away by that film. I love westerns. I want to do a western some day. I don't think anyone else ever captured the west the way John Ford did. I actually went to the hotel in Monument Valley, where they used to stay. They have the "John Ford Room" there with all these production photographs that he took. Vistas, panoramas, that sort of thing. They're the most extraordinary photographs...As far as other films that influenced me, I'd have to say The Third Man (1949), and later on 2001 (1968).

I understand that with Alien, you never intended it to be thought of as a "horror film."
No, not at all. What we were after was sort of a variation on Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians set in space. We wanted it to be character-driven, and suspenseful, and not all about jumping out of your seat in fright. One of the things I'm most proud of about that film is Jerry Goldsmith's score. My God, what a score! I think it's one of the most-imitated film scores ever written, and for good reason. I just saw a sci-fi horror film the other day that had a score that was almost exactly like Jerry's score from Alien. I guess when you've got a good thing...

Why weren't you involved with the sequel, Aliens (1986), which James Cameron did?
Very simple: they didn't ask me! To this day I have no idea why. It hurt my feelings, really, because I thought we did quite a good job on the first one. I had an idea for a fifth installment in the series. It would be all about the aliens themselves: what their world and civilization are like. What made them tick. We always thought of that derelict spacecraft where they found all the eggs in the first one was a sort of aircraft carrier or bomber. They would drop the eggs on the planets they wanted to conquer, then come back a few years later after the landscape had been "cleared," so to speak.

Sounds like a great idea.
Yeah, but they still haven't asked me to do it! (laughs)

What happened with Blade Runner? Was it taken away from you and re-cut, then you released The Director's Cut 10 years later?
No, not at all. It wasn't taken away from me. The version that was The Director's Cut was in fact my original cut, and it tested badly. That simple. So we went and re-cut it, added in Harrison's narration and tried to play up the Raymond Chandler angle, which just didn't work. We never really nailed the Chandler feel in that narration. The last film that really did was Apocalypse Now (1979), where the narration was done brilliantly.

You could hear the disdain in Harrison Ford's voice in that narration.
Oh yeah, he was not happy about doing that at all. The funny thing was, looking back on the test scores, they really weren't all that bad, in the 60's I think.

Any advice for first-time directors?
Even when you feel like you don't know what you're doing, give a direction, give an order to the crew, then very calmly go into your trailer, sit down and say to yourself "What the fuck am I going to do?" (laughs) You can never know exactly what you're going to do at any given time during a shoot. You have to be open to changes, to accidents, many of which are happy ones. Just remember: even after you've been directing a long time, there are going to be days when you still feel like you don't know what you're doing! (laughs)

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John Schlesinger: The Hollywood Interview

Director John Schlesinger.



JOHN SCHLESINGER:
HIS BEST NEXT THING
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the March 2000 issue of Venice Magazine.

John Schlesinger is celebrated for his ability to elicit sensitive performances from his actors, a skill which draws on his own experience on the British stage in the 1950s. His style is also influenced by techniques he developed while directing TV documentaries—a period of his career characterized by extensive location shooting, tight production schedules and an emphasis on the role of editing in shaping narrative structure.

Schlesinger was born in London February 16, 1926, the son of a pediatrician. He first became interested in film at the age of 11, when he received a 9.5 mm movie camera as a gift. While serving with the Royal Engineers during WWII he made an amateur film, Horrors, and performed as a magician in the Combined Services Entertainment Unit. When he resumed his education in 1945 he immersed himself in the theater, joining the Oxford University Dramatic Society and soon becoming president of the Oxford Experimental Theater Company. (He would continue to direct for the stage, in between movie assignments, throughout the 1960s and 70s.)

From 1952 to 1957 Schlesinger worked in England, Australia and New Zealand, appearing in five feature films, acting in nearly 20 plays with various repertory companies and performing on TV and radio. During this period, a chance meeting with director/producer Roy Boulting catalyzed his interest in photography and filmmaking and led to the creation, with theatrical agent Basil Appleby, of a 15-minute documentary, Sunday in the Park (1956). The film brought Schlesinger a series of documentary assignments for the BBC. After a stint as a second-unit director, he was commissioned to make an industrial documentary of daily life in London's Waterloo Station. The poignant result, Terminus (1961), achieved nationwide commercial distribution and earned him a Venice Festival Gold Lion and a British Academy Award.

Motivated in part by the festival success of Terminus, producer Joseph Janni offered Schlesinger his first shot at a feature film with A Kind of Loving (1962). The result was a critical and financial success which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival and propelled its director into the front rank of young British filmmakers. In Billy Liar (1963), Schlesinger continued to examine the themes of inarticulate ambition and frustrated tenderness he had explored in A Kind of Loving. Both films showed the influence of the British Free Cinema (or "kitchen sink drama") movement, with its emphasis on the constraints and restrictions of working-class life. Schlesinger then moved into very different terrain with Darling (1965), a flashy satire of "swinging London" that certified its lead actress, Julie Christie, as an international star when she won the Academy Award for best actress. Schlesinger followed this with a sweeping adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic Far From the Maddening Crowd (1967) starring Christie again, and Terrence Stamp.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) was perhaps Schlesinger's greatest success commercially and critically, winning Oscars for best picture and best director and launching a long but rather turbulent Hollywood career for Schlesinger. Films such as the bi-sexual love triangle drama Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), the vastly underrated adaptation of Nathanael West's Hollywood novel The Day of the Locust (1975) and the classic thriller Marathon Man (1976) all bear witness to Schlesinger's remarkable ability to weave meticulously observed, realistic backgrounds into his complex studies of human relationships.

Schlesinger's later films have included The Believers(1987), a gripping contemporary horror story starring Martin Sheen and Helen Shaver, Madame Sousatzka (1988), about an eccentric London piano teacher (Shirley MacLaine) and her gifted young student, the thrillers Pacific Heights (1990), The Innocent (1993), and An Eye for An Eye (1995). Schlesigner most recently helmed a delightful adaptation of Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm (1996) starring Kate Beckinsale and Ian McKellen.

Schlesinger's latest effort is the comedy-drama The Next Best Thing, starring Madonna, Rupert Everett and Benjamin Bratt. Madonna plays a yoga instructor who is devastated after a nasty break-up with her boyfriend. When her gay best friend (Everett) accidentally gets her pregnant, she decides to have the child, and the three as a happy, if unconventional, family. Several years later, when Madonna falls in love with überhunk Benjamin Bratt, complications ensue when she and Bratt decide to marry, and move the boy with them to New York. John Schlesinger sat down with Venice recently to reflect on his remarkable career.

The Next Best Thing is an unusual film, in that it starts out as a comedy, then turns very serious toward the end. What are some of the things you hope people will take away from this story?
I hope they realize that a family can be made up of all sorts of elements that are not necessarily conventional. I hope they'll understand the issues of biology versus commitment to being a parent, because I think Rupert's character is dedicated to being a father...and his commitment to this child is very strong and powerful, and not the accepted thing from a gay man, necessarily. It also addresses the fact that being gay is all things to all people. It isn't just a limp-wristed fag going to the gym all the time. I hope they'll accept that. It's all there, for anyone who wants to see it.

Many of your films have featured up-and-coming talent. Can you tell us about working with Benjamin Bratt?
We took our time (casting the role). I had seen him in Law & Order and thought he was rather serious, never smiled, rather mournful at times. But he came out and read absolutely brilliantly for us. The light side of the character was there. It was very obvious that all our preconceived notions went out the window, which is what happens in casting quite often, and one of the delights of making movies. Jon Voight, for example, was all wrong for me as Joe Buck initially, then he just came round to it from tests, and things like that.

This isn't the first film you've done that dealt with gay relationships. Midnight Cowboy, and particularly Sunday Bloody Sunday, very honestly portrayed homosexuals. Do you think society has become more accepting of the gay lifestyle in the 30 years since those films?
Yes, I think it has. I still think there's an awful lot of prejudice and I think that AIDS, seen by many as a "gay disease" even though it clearly isn't, has not helped at all. I hope this film will bring some understanding of that, as well, since we address the issue.

Tell us about your background.
My father was a pediatrician. I suppose I was always drawn towards the arts. It was encouraged in the family. My father met my mother in a children's orchestra. He played the cello and my mother was a violinist. So musically, the family was encouraged. I was the eldest of five and we all played instruments. During the second World War, my father was in the army in India, and we'd send him records that we'd all made, to show how our music was progressing. They gave us a very good musical upbringing, taking us to opera, festivals, and so forth. So I was very privileged in that way to have parents who were that committed to the arts. It was a happy childhood, really.

When did your fascination with film begin?
I suppose when I was in school. I was very interested in film and theater. I never thought I was going to get involved the way I have done, but I made various amateur films when I was at university (Oxford). During my vacations, we made movies which got some attention critically and the opportunity to go to work for Ealing Studios presented, then taken away because they didn't really have a vacancy. It was a long time before I really got into (making films) professionally. I became a researcher and assistant director on a British documentary about cheese! (laughs) It was one of my first professional jobs. Then I got the opportunity to go to the BBC and make documentaries for magazine programs. I worked on a documentary series about Winston Churchill and interviewed all these high-ranking members of the military brass who were just incredible prima donnas! (laughs) Then I bummed around in the profession for years before I settled. I never would have been a good corporation man at the Beeb (BBC). Never would have been able to adapt to that corporate attitude.

Was there one film you saw as a young man that inspired you to become a filmmaker?
No, it wasn't like that. There are dozens of famous films I've never seen. Then you have someone like Marty Scorsese who's devoted his life to seeing every film imaginable. He'll call me up and say "I just saw this amazing film with Rex Ingram!" (laughs) I could never be like that. There are other things I enjoy far too much, like opera, like ballet, like music. I want different experiences because they all inform each other.

A Kind of Loving was your first feature.
Yes, it was a great success. Won the Golden Bear at Berlin and started an association I had with a wonderful producer called Joe Janni. He's dead now, but we made six films together and it was wonderful at the time. I was fond of that film, but Billy Liar, my second film, far eclipsed it.

That film introduced both Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie.
Yes, it was. I had made a documentary called Monitor for the BBC about the Central School of Acting in London. Julie was in one of the classes. She wasn't in the film, but we noted her. She was very striking. When we came to cast Billy Liar, there we were in Joe Janni's office, and there was a magazine which Julie was on the cover of. I pointed at it and said 'Someone like her,' not recognizing her. She came in and tested, twice, and we turned her down. I didn't think she was "earth mother" enough. The other girl who we cast got ill during the first week of shooting and had to drop out. So we went back to the tests and saw Julie, and thought 'My God, we're mad! Why didn't we cast Julie?' So we put her in and that's how it happened.

Since we're talking about Julie Christie, let's talk about Darling.
The genesis of that was a conversation we had with a journalist called Godfrey Winn, who played the man in Billy Liar who played all the records on Housewives' Choice. He was quite a character. He told me a story about a syndicate of show biz people who'd rented a flat for a kind of call girl to live in, to whom they all had access, and how she eventually threw herself off the balcony, in Park Lane. We thought that was an interesting premise, but we veered very far away from it. Freddie Raphael came on board to write his script and it was total fantasy. Joe Janni said, 'I know a girl who I'd like you to spend time with and follow around, who's the perfect type for this movie.' So we spent a lot of time with this girl, and finally a script based to a certain extent on her life, was produced by Freddie, which was much closer to the mark. And we went ahead and made it.

Dirk Bogarde, who died last year, was also wonderful in that film. He was also an accomplished author, painter, a real renaissance man. Tell us about him.
He was wonderful and was very nice to Julie during the shoot. He became rather a bitter older man, I don't know why. But he was very embittered. We rather fell out as friends, which is sad, but it happens. Julie still remains a good friend of mine. As was Laurence Harvey, who died far too young.

Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy (1969).

Tell us about how Midnight Cowboy came about.
A friend of mine, an American painter living in London, had read the book and suggested that I look at it. I read it and thought 'If I'm going to make a film in America, then this is the one that I want to do.' David Picker of United Artists had issued a kind of blanket invitation, saying "When you find something you want to do, do bring it to us." So Jerry Hellman, who was a producer I knew, and I brought the book to David, who agreed to do it if we could keep the budget low enough.

Parts of it were improvised, right? Like Hoffman's famous "I'm walkin' here!" bit.
I don't know that that was improvised. I think we got an extra inside a cab and did it. I can't swear to the fact that it was in the script or not, but I don't think that was improvised.

Waldo Salt, who did the screenplay for Midnight Cowboy, was a fascinating character. Talk about a man who could have been embittered (from the Blacklist).
He never was. Never was. He chose to be amused by the memories of it all. He was great to work with and I loved him dearly. He also did Day of the Locust for us.

Let's talk about Day of the Locust, which is a wonderful, very underrated film.
Thank you. It's one of my favorites, as well. I was fortunate to have wonderful designers. We got Richard MacDonald out here to do it. Driving from the airport to his hotel, he did a little tour. He said, "I'll tell you what my impression of L.A. is: it's tied together by telegraph wires with bizarre architecture." He did a marvelous job, with Ann Roth doing the costumes...the final scene, the riot, took about 10 days to shoot. We used three stages at Paramount, linked together with black plastic. The fumes from the cars was one of the problems. But it was very exciting to do.

Marathon Man is one of my favorite films. It had a wonderful sense of foreboding. Was Hitchcock an influence on that film?
Well, I can't say I was imitating him, although I'm accused of it. You can't help but be influenced by his mixture of humor and suspense. I hadn't done a thriller up to that point, and I loved doing it. I got very hooked on making suspense pieces after that. It's a game you play with the audience that's unlike any other kind of filmmaking.

Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier in the notorious "Is it safe?" sequence from Marathon Man (1976).

There are all the legends of Olivier and Hoffman clashing. How much is truth, and how much is legend?
I think that Olivier didn't want to improvise and Hoffman did. And it's true, Olivier's line "Why doesn't he just act?" that he said to me, not Hoffman, happened, because Hoffman was trying various acting techniques to appear out-of-it during the dental scenes. When I looked at the dailies I realized there was no reaction from Hoffman's eyes, so I had to completely reshoot all the close-ups. That's when Olivier said to me "Why doesn't he just try acting?" (laughs)

Any advice for first-time directors?
Never take 'no' for an answer. It's a long business getting something off the ground and it takes very great determination. That's the only advice I can really offer.

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John Frankenheimer: The Hollywood Interview

Director John Frankenheimer.


JOHN FRANKENHEIMER:
RENAISSANCE AUTEUR
By
Alex Simon

This article originally appeared in the October 1998 issue of Venice Magazine.

John Frankenheimer is responsible for some of the hallmark productions of American cinema and television. An innovator in both fields, he helped pave the way for later generations of filmmakers to express their social, political and artistic points of view in bold and breathtaking ways. Consider this:

BEFORE THERE WAS STEVEN SPIELBERG, THERE WAS JOHN FRANKENHEIMER. Frankenheimer was the original wünderkind, having directed over 150 TV plays during the days of live television in the 1950’s while still in his 20’s, including many of the celebrated Playhouse 90 series. His landmark productions of Rod Serling's "The Comedian" and J.P. Miller's "Days of Wine and Roses" catapulted him to the top of the new medium of television. By the time he was 30 years old in 1960, Frankenheimer was firmly established as the top television director in the country. By the time he was 34, he had been at the helm of the most important political films of the 1960’s, which brings us to our next point:

BEFORE THERE WAS OLIVER STONE (OR COSTA-GAVRAS), THERE WAS JOHN FRANKENHEIMER. Frankenheimer’s trilogy of Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Seven Days in May(1964) explored American political life, thinking and philosophy like no other filmmaker has done before or since. All three films were bold indictments of the paranoia, corruption and dehumanization that the political process (and politically-motivated institutions) can bring down upon the common man. Plus, he did them in exciting and breathtaking ways, bending the cinematic form into a gritty, visually intoxicating canvas. Which brings us to our next point:

BEFORE THERE WAS JOHN WOO, JAN DE BONT, RICHARD DONNER OR (INSERT THE NAME OF ANY OTHER ACTION MOVIE DIRECTOR HERE________), THERE WAS JOHN FRANKENHEIMER. Frankenheimer redefined the way action and suspense were portrayed on-screen, taking cues from his idols Alfred Hitchcock, Carol Reed and George Stevens (as well as French master Jean-Pierre Melville), using not only action, but character to build suspense. The Manchurian Candidate, the World War II thrillerThe Train (1964), the science-fiction/realism masterpiece Seconds (1966), and the landmark racing epic Grand Prix (1966) which gave the viewer a front seat perspective for what it felt like to travel at speeds that make the corners of your mouth bend and leave bugs firmly planted in your teeth, all redefined the action film in their own way, while remaining true to Frankenheimer’s own vision, and very plainly carrying his distinctive filmmaking stamp.

Frankenheimer kept his love of politics and action alive in later films as well, including the dynamite sequel French Connection II (1975);Black Sunday (1977), in which the late, great Robert Shaw must stop Black September terrorists (led by Bruce Dern, in a brilliant performance) from blowing up the Super Bowl; Dead Bang (1989) in which cop Don Johnson takes on neo-Nazis in the midwest; The Fourth War (1990), an end of the cold war thriller; and Year of the Gun (1991), which dramatized the true kidnapping and murder of Italian Premier Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades terrorist group in the late 1970’s. Frankenheimer has continued his innovative work in television as well, with a series of made-for-cable films that have tackled subjects that many of the big studios thought too hot to handle, including Against the Wall, a dramatization of the 1971 prison riot at Attica, New York; The Burning Season in 1994, which marked the final performance of the great Raul Julia and won three Golden Globe Awards and two cable ACE Awards. “Andersonville,” a Civil War mini-series for Turner Network Television, which earned Frankenheimer his third consecutive Emmy. The following year, Frankenheimer helmed the critically lauded “George Wallace,” with Gary Sinise in the title role. It won the Golden Globe for Best Film for Television along with the George Foster Peabody Award. Frankenheimer also received another Emmy nomination. In 1996, the American Cinema Editors honored Frankenheimer with the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award, celebrating his lifetime achievement as a filmmaker.

Frankenheimer’s latest ranks with the finest work of his career. “Ronin” tells the story of a disparate group of freelance covert operatives, led by Robert De Niro, who must retrieve a briefcase, the contents of which are a mystery, for an unknown client. The film is one of the best of the year, having all the great qualities of the thrillers of the 60’s and 70’s (intelligence and nail-biting suspense), along with what this writer feels is the finest car chase ever put onto celluloid and some other truly breathtaking action sequences. This is one that keeps you guessing what’s going to happen next right up to the closing credits, after which you find yourself begging for more. Its stellar supporting cast includes Natascha McElhone, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Bean and Jonathan Pryce. In other words, run, don’t walk to see “Ronin” when it opens in October from MGM/UA.

A true renaissance man, Mr. Frankenheimer is an accomplished chef, having studied at the legendary Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, as well as an accomplished race car driver and tennis player, a sport in which he excelled during his years at Williams College. Mr. Frankenheimer sat down recently to reflect on his truly rich and remarkable life.

Most of your films seem to have either political themes or socio-political overtones. Where does this fascination with politics come from?
JOHN FRANKENHEIMER: It stems from the fact that when I was in high school, I started disagreeing a lot with my father on politics, because he was really very conservative. He really wanted the status quo, and I didn’t want the status quo. The whole racial question really, really bothered me. I came from New York, and one of my first girlfriends was an African-American dancer. And this caused a furor of sorts within my family. And the more furor it caused, the more I realized that this was something I wanted. Then I got a lot of exposure to a lot of actors, dancers and writers at a very young age, and I got really involved in that kind of cause. Then when I got into live television, there was the whole business of McCarthy, which was...you can’t imagine how terrible that was. That really galvanized me into a political arena. And of course in live television it was very hard to do political stuff because there was the blacklist. You could do anything psychological, but nothing sociological. So I couldn’t wait to really be able to do that, which is what I think what attracted me to “Birdman of Alcatraz,” which is a very political picture...then there was this tremendous involvement with Robert Kennedy. We were very, very close friends and I did all the film and television for his campaign. He stayed with me and I drove him to the Ambassador Hotel the night he was shot. All his clothes were in my house...and I really had a nervous breakdown after that. That’s when I went to France, and that’s when I went to the (Cordon Bleu), because I just had to do something else with my life, and I really couldn’t go near politics for a long time after that. Then little by little, I came back to it. It was really the cable movies that got me back into it, “Against the Wall,” for instance, then “The Burning Season,” and then really plunging right back into it with “George Wallace,” which is something that goes way back to my younger days. Then when (“Ronin”) presented itself...I love that kind of story, where things are never as they seem to be.

It really reminded me a lot of one of my favorite movies, “The Third Man” (1949).
I’m so glad you said that because whenever anyone asks me about “Ronin,” I always say that the film that I want it to remind them of is “The Third Man.” Carol Reed influenced me more than any other director with “Odd Man Out” (1947), “The Fallen Idol” (1948), “The Man Between” (1953)...I have two biographies of Carol Reed that I use as my bibles.

Frankenheimer on the Paris set of Ronin, with Robert De Niro (1998).

The look of “Ronin” was reminiscent of “The Third Man” as well, with its emphasis on light and dark, sharp camera angles, and the way you made all those old buildings around Paris into characters of their own.
Well the whole business of depth of focus, which I use a great deal, goes back to my days in live TV, because we were able to use a big, big stop there, like F-11. We didn’t have instant access to video cassettes or film stock the way young filmmakers do today. So the first time I ever saw “Citizen Kane” (1941), which was after I’d already become a director and was doing all that stuff myself, and saw that Welles did it too so much earlier was great vindication for me. And I discovered Carol Reed earlier than that, because I always went to see foreign films. Hitchcock also, and George Stevens really helped to form me.

I thought “Ronin” had a lot of Hitchcockian overtones, in terms of all the deceptions, double-crosses and twists. How did you come to the script initially?
What happened was I read a script that I really loved that was owned by MGM/UA and the producer was Frank Mancuso, Jr. I really wanted to do this picture...I felt that I got along with Frank terribly well, but they seemed to be ambivalent about doing this movie. So I came home after being away for the weekend, and there was this script, Ronin, that my agent had sent me. He said “Look, they really loved meeting with you, and the fact that you lived in France and speak French, they think you’d be perfect for this movie.” So I read it and I was very ambivalent about wanting to do it, because I was very passionate about the other one. But I really liked Frank. He’s the best producer I’ve ever worked with, along with Fred Coe, and that’s crucial. You’ve got to get along with management, or you can be sunk. So I thought about it, and I’d always wanted to shoot a picture like this. I got a brilliant cameraman, Robert Fraisse, most of my crew I had worked with on “French Connection II,”...then we were lucky enough to get DeNiro. After that, the rest of the cast just fell into place.

I thought the film hearkened back to the best thrillers of the 60’s and 70’s that had action, but were also smart.
Well you have to be smart, and you have to have style. All the great action films that we love when you look at them, they all have this terrific style to them, like “The Third Man.” I just think that’s part of the genre.

I find most of the action movies today frustrating because they’re all style and no substance.
The action has to come out of character, it can’t come out of technology. We didn’t use any of that computer shit in the picture. Everything you see, we really did it. And I think you can tell the difference.

As a director you obviously learn a lot from your actors. What did you learn from De Niro?
I learned that you can have a lot of fun, and still do good work. DeNiro’s done 50 movies. I’ve done 35, plus 150 live television shows, so neither one of us had a whole hell of a lot to prove. We both knew that the other knew what they were doing. The other thing I learned from DeNiro which validated something I’ve always known, is that the good thing about experience is that it enables you to know that no matter how bad a situation might be and how much you might not know the answer to something, that you will find your way out of it. You’ll find the solution. You’ll find a way to do it. Whereas when you’re first beginning, you tend to panic. Just trust your instincts, which is what DeNiro does. He trusts himself, and I’m learning to do that. The other thing he does well is listen, as do all the actors in this film.

That’s something else I’ve noticed about your films. You shoot in such a way where the actors just communicate physically, often with very minimal dialogue, another thing lacking in film today. It's almost like the newer filmmakers don't trust the actors or the material.
You have to keep in mind, though, that many of the new filmmakers haven't had the experience. Again, I directed over 150 live television shows, which really let me work with how to stage scenes, with how to let an actor express themselves. I also had great material, written by Rod Serling, Reginald Rose, J.P. Miller, Clifford Odets...and what it enabled you to do was trust the material. And when you trusted the material, you trusted the actors and then used the camera to help that, you don't use the camera to intrude, to just constantly cut, cut, cut, cut. You try and stage the scene in such a way that movement tells you something. George Stevens was brilliant at that. So was William Wyler. So was Carol Reed. And so was Hitchcock. If you look you can really see the influence of George Stevens in my work, especially my TV work, with all the triple and quadruple dissolves. "A Place in the Sun" (1951) I think, is the greatest movie ever made.

Let's talk about your beginnings. It sounds like you were a middle class kid?
Yeah, my father was a stockbroker, then he retired and lost a lot of money. My dad was Jewish and my mother was Irish-Catholic, which was never an issue because my father was never a practicing Jew. He's the one who drove us to (Catholic) Sunday school. I went to a Catholic military academy for high school. I had wanted to be a priest. I didn't really find out I was half-Jewish until I went to college, when my father told me I'd never get into a fraternity if people knew that. So I left that out on the questionnaire. It wasn't a lie, just an omission. So I did get into a fraternity, and then they found out about it, and I was absolutely ostracized. This was at Williams College, which was interesting because it forced me to go to the theater, and that's the reason I'm here talking to you. I always liked the theater. In prep school I always felt more comfortable being in school plays. I was a very shy kid and my father made me study public speaking and play tennis at a very early age to sort of bring me out of my shell. So theater was just kind of a natural outlet for me.

Were you a good actor?
I don't think so. I thought I was at the time, but looking back I don't think I worked at it hard enough. But I always loved the movies, as well, was always going from the time I was a little kid.

Was there one movie you saw as a kid that made you say "This is it. This is what I have to do?"
No, because at that time I didn't equate movies with something I wanted to do professionally. I just loved to go. I do remember the film that had the most influence on me as an actor, because it made me start smoking, and that was "Sunset Boulevard." I was cast at 19 years old in this play as a 35 year-old, very sophisticated New York guy, and I knew that I couldn't do this. My hands just felt like two dumbbells. Then I went to see "Sunset Boulevard" and there was Bill Holden looking very cool with his cigarette...so the next day I walk on stage with a cigarette, looking very cool, and I trip over the foot of the leading lady! (laughs) The director said "I don't care if you smoke, just learn how to do it!" So I spent many nights alone in my room practicing smoking, which I got very good at, but on opening night, I still stunk in the play.

Did you start directing in college?
I did one play in college, Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest." It was done in the round and it was a disaster! It started out with the leading man tripping over the legs of the head of the English department! (laughs) Then I did a lot of summer stock when I was in college. We re-did the University Players, that whole group that was Joshua Logan, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart...all these students from Ivy League colleges. We formed the theater in Cape Cod, and it was a great experience. Then the Korean War started, and I had a commission in the Air Force after being in a Catholic military school. I got stationed in Washington D.C. with the aeronautical chart and information service, through which a stroke of absolute luck, they combined with the Air Pictorial Service and formed the Aerial Photographic Unit, and I got assigned out here, in Burbank to make training films. It was great, and I really learned a lot.

Frankenheimer as an assistant director in the early days of live TV (1953).

How many films did you direct during that period?
Well, that's the other thing. The Air Force didn't know what to do with all these guys out here, and the Air Force (brass) didn't even know that they had this unit, so there was nothing for them to do! So the Major in charge took me aside when I arrived, I was a lieutenant, and said "Look, my men are all going AWOL, going into Hollywood and bouncing checks and picking up prostitutes...I want my men kept busy!" Now this was at the Burbank Airport. So nearby was this asphalt plant. The Major said "I want you to take all these men, go to the asphalt plant and make a film about asphalt." And I didn't have the faintest idea how to do this! So we get there, and this tough guy, a former taxi driver in New York named Kizumplik, he says "You don't really expect us to make this stupid goddamn movie about asphalt, do you Lieutenant?" They wanted to go to Hollywood, and I wasn't about to say 'no' to him. So they all left and it was just me and this young black guy, and we stayed and read the manual about how to operate the camera, and made this film about asphalt. When we finished it was all under-exposed, because we didn't know what we were doing, but we kept at it, and we learned. Then I did some training films, and my introduction to television was doing a piece about registered cattle over in Northridge! (laughs) This guy had a weekly television show called "Harvey Howard's Ranch Round-up." He said "Lieutenant, do you write?" I said "I sure do." "I just fired my writer. You're my new writer." So I wrote for Harvey Howard for about 18 weeks. It was a country western show where I'd write the introduction for Harvey, he'd come out and sell his cows, and he'd introduce the country-western numbers. The FCC finally came to us and said "Gentlemen, on an hour show you're allowed to have 12 minutes of commercials and 48 minutes of show. You have 12 minutes of show and 48 minutes of commercials. You're off the air!" (laughs)

24 year-old John Frankenheimer directing a live television broadcast (1954).

How did you go from there to live TV in New York?
This was about 1952, and I had decided then that I really wanted to get into film. I heard a phrase from Fred Coe once. He said "Talent is doing easily what other people find difficult." And working with the camera was very easy for me. I'm not going to tell you it's enough, but it was very easy for me. I was born with that. I had an aunt who lived out here, retired in Palm Desert, and she knew a bunch of old-time film actors. One of them, a woman named Sally O'Neil, had been a silent film star. She knew John Ford and through her, I got an introduction. John was about to do "The Thin Gray Line," about West Point. Since I had been to military school, he promised me a job as his sort of assistant/gofer and technical advisor. Then he wound up in the hospital for a cataract operation. He called me in and said "Look John, I don't know when I'm gonna get out of here. If I were you, I'd consider getting into television. But, I'm not going to help you because you have to do it yourself." So I took his advice and went here to NBC and they offered me a job as a pageboy. I went to CBS and they offered me a job as a parking lot attendant. There were guys with PhD's in that job, why not me? ABC didn't really exist as a network at that time, they just had a series of stations, but they offered me a job as a scenery construction coordinator. So I got my mustering out pay from the Air Force and went back to New York where some guys and girls I had done theater with were now working in television. And they were all very glad to see me until they found out what I wanted, which was a job. So I did the rounds, and through a stroke of luck got into see the guy at CBS who hired assistant directors. It turned out that he had been in the same Air Force outfit that I'd been in, only he'd been in during WW II. So we had a lot in common. And he looked at me, then looked at this pile of resumes and said "Why should I hire you, with your limited Air Force experience, over one of these people who've had years of experience in theater and the movies?" I was 23 years old, and you're brave at 23, and I said "Well, I won't have to unlearn any bad habits because I don't have any bad habits yet." He laughed and said "You know what, I have a feeling that you wouldn't get lost. I'll call you when I have something." So I went to this fleabag hotel over on the west side, and they didn't have any sort of message service back then, and every morning I'd buy a sandwich, then sit by the phone during CBS office hours and wait for it to ring. I started to get pretty goddamn depressed after about three weeks, but then he called. He said "I've got a temporary position for an associate director. Are you interested?" So I took it and learned on the job, and it was all about camera. I started out on the "Gary Moore Show," then "Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person," then to "You are There," which was Sidney Lumet and I became Sidney's associate director. He was great to me. I learned a lot from Sidney, the way he worked with actors and everything else, and he became my mentor. Then in 1954, he left the show and I got to direct. And that's what happened.

Tell us about what it felt like working in live TV.
I'll start out by saying this: from 1954 to 1960 when I was working in live TV, I look back on that as the highlight of my life. It was a time when this amazing group of actors, writers and directors was able to get together and do some fine work. Just look at some of the actors there: Paul Newman, Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Steve McQueen, Eva Marie Saint. The directors: George Roy Hill, Franklin Schaffner, Arthur Penn, Bob Mulligan, Sidney Lumet...just a tremendous talent pool and we all knew each other and were all friends and really liked each other, which is completely different than it is today. And we're still all friends today. It was a combination of theater and film, because you rehearsed as a play, then had to put it on camera, the difference being that with live TV you only had one night, and with a play, if you were successful, you went on. Sidney Blackmer, who I worked with, once described live TV as "Summer stock in an iron lung." (laughs) Which was pretty apt, because the pressure was just tremendous...You were always rehearsing one show, and working on two or three other scripts simultaneously. You would finish a show on a Thursday night, then the next day on Friday, would begin a production meeting for the next one. It was a constant turnover.

The Young Stranger was your first feature in 1957. How did you find the change from TV to film?
I didn't like it. The film was based on a play that I'd done on TV, also with James MacArthur (Dan-O on "Hawaii Five-O") in the lead. I felt the crew had no interest in the quality of the movie. I didn't get along with the cameraman, who didn't want to shoot the movie the way I wanted it shot...I like the kinescope version better, honestly. So I went back to "Playhouse 90" after that and stayed another three years.

An original poster for Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

In watching "The Manchurian Candidate" again, it struck me by how contemporary it felt. At the time (1962), did you realize how innovative it was?
No. I loved the book (by Richard Condon). I loved George Axelrod's script. I had a great crew and we just went ahead and made the movie. It's funny that you should ask that question. I was in a meeting yesterday with a producer, discussing this movie that I'm going to do, and the producer said "You know, we've got to approach this like we've got a real shot at the Academy Award." And I said "Everytime I've approached something with the idea that I have a real shot at being nominated for the Academy Award or the Emmy, I haven't been," because you start to take yourself much too seriously, and that makes you much more restricted in what you do. The thing I remember most about "The Manchurian Candidate" is what a wonderful time we all had making it. And I think it shows. "Ronin" was the same way. Both films mark very good points in my life.

Frankenheimer on the set of The Train (1964).

You worked with Rod Serling both on "The Comedian" and "Seven Days in May." Tell us about him.
The second show I ever did was with Rod. It was in 1954, called "A Knife in the Dark." It was a prison drama, with Paul Newman in the lead, which he did for $300. I got $250 for directing it and Rod got $200 for writing it. That was the start of our relationship and I did seven other Serling shows. I hired him to do "Seven Days in May." We were very, very good friends. He was a terrific writer, never believed totally in himself, and never thought he could write a love scene. I did a "Playhouse 90" once where we were in really bad, bad trouble with the script. Nothing was working. And Serling had another show coming up the next week called "The Velvet Alley," which Schaffner directed and he was staying up at the Bel Air Hotel, so I went to see him. Told him what the problem was, especially with this love scene. He asked a lot of questions about the scene, about what it was about, and he'd never read the script, mind you...and in a matter of hours, the new scene was ready and it worked beautifully. Rod was a genuinely good man and he died much, much too young.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy during his 1968 presidential campaign. Frankenheimer was in charge of his publicity. The two men became close, and it was JF who drove RFK to the Ambassador Hotel the night he was assassinated.

Tell us how your association with Robert Kennedy began.
In 1960 I was probably the best-known television director around. And I was approached to do some work for John Kennedy. And I don't know...I was 30 years old. I was going through a divorce, and I just didn't want to deal with it, so I said no. Then when we were in pre-production on "The Manchurian Candidate" a couple years later, there was a great deal of concern that JFK wouldn't like it because of its subject matter. So Sinatra, who was great friends with him, flew up to Hyannis Port and told Kennedy he was doing the film, to which Kennedy replied "I love 'The Manchurian Candidate.'Who's going to play the mother?" (laughs) So Kennedy loved the movie, and then when we were getting ready to do "Seven Days in May" and wanted to shoot in the White House, I'd gotten to know Pierre Salinger. Salinger went to the President to see if it was okay, and the President said "Absolutely, if it's John Frankenheimer. I want to meet him." So I met him, went to a press conference with him. He was wonderful to me. He said "So you want to shoot this riot in front of the White House?" I said "Yes sir." He said "Fine. I'll be gone to Hyannis Port for the weekend. You just be sure you're done by 6:30 on Sunday when I get back." (laughs) Then he was killed, and I'd always felt guilty about not having done that work for him early on. So then when his brother declared his candidacy in '68, I immediately called Pierre Salinger and said "Pierre, I want to be part of this." He said "Well, the candidate is going to be over at the Sportsman's Lodge tonight at 6:00 if you want to come over and meet him." So we met, and it was all very nice. The next day, Salinger called me and said "John, the candidate has to go to Gary, Indiana tonight to do a debate with high school students and after that he has to record a speech. Would you come and do it?" So I took about one second, and I said 'Yes.' So I flew to Chicago, rented a car, and drove to Gary. I got there and it came time to do the speech. And Bobby said "I've only got about ten minutes to do this, I'm in a hurry." And I said "It's going to take more than ten minutes, senator." "Well I don't have more than ten minutes." "Then why did you send for me all the way from California? Why didn't you just get some flunky local director to put the camera on you?" He said "Let's just do it." Fine, so he did it, and his people said "What do you think?" And I said "I think it's terrible. He looked cold. He looked angry. He looked hostile. Awful." So Kennedy said "Well, thank you very much." And I said "Well guys, thanks." And I left and got a call later from Richard Goodwin (one of RFK's staff), who asked if I could come tell the senator what I just told them. So I went to see him and he said "What?!" And I said "Well Senator, I don't think that's the Robert Kennedy that people are going to want to vote for. You seemed very ill at ease and when you're ill at ease you have a tendency to withdraw." "Well how do you propose to fix it?" I said "Well Senator, I don't know if I can fix it, but I think if we sat down and took our time, and talked about it, the worst that could happen is that you wasted an hour and a half of your time and you just wind up with what you already had. The best that could happen is that we could do something really good. I think you really need help in television because people have this opinion of you as being arrogant and cold and you don't need that." So we sat and we talked and we got to know each other a little bit, and said 'Okay, let's just do it.' And we ran the tape, and I said "Just do it to me." So he did it, and it was much better. We did it again, and it was really good. And I said "That's it!" So he was very pleased and thanked me, and I headed out to my car. Then Goodwin and Ethel Kennedy came out and said "We don't know what your plans are, but he really liked you a lot and you really made him good. We have to go to Michigan. Would you consider canceling whatever it is that you're doing and coming with us?" So to make a long story very, very short, I never left him. I was there with him for 102 days.

If Bobby Kennedy were in the room with us right now, what would I feel? What would my impression be?
Well I think you'd be very impressed. I think you'd see a man who was totally dedicated to everything he believed in. He was funny. He was shy. He listened beautifully. And he got to the point (of what he was saying) extremely quickly. I think if what happened had not happened, I think he would've won the Democratic nomination. I think it would've been tight, but he would've won. I think he would've been elected President and I think a lot of the bad things that happened in this country after 1968 would not have happened.

How do you think the country would be different?
I don't think we'd have the racial problems that we have. I don't think there would be this terrible line of delineation between the poor and the rich. I think we would have had a great more deal national pride. I think we would have gotten out of Vietnam much, much sooner. All the cynicism that came out of Richard Nixon's administration would be gone. I think we lost our innocence as a country with John F. Kennedy's death. Then with Bobby's death, Martin Luther King's death and the scandal of the Nixon administration...had Bobby lived, I think this country would have gone through a healing process. And I think that we would be a United States today.

Everyone I've seen interviewed who was involved with RFK says that his death was the defining moment of their lives.
Absolutely. It was the defining moment of mine.

You were supposed to be up on the dais with him at the Ambassador, weren't you?
Yes, then at the last moment, it was decided that having a film director up on stage with him wasn't the image they wanted, so we had a friend named Paul Schrade, who was about my size and complexion, take my place. And he was one of the three people shot in the kitchen. Bobby said "As soon as I say 'On to Chicago,' get the car and have it waiting around back by the kitchen." So I got the car and pulled up and the cops started pounding on the car yelling "Move it! Move it!" Then this woman came running out of the side entrance screaming "Kennedy's been shot! Kennedy's been shot!" Then we saw the cops dragging this guy out from the side entrance, and the guy turned out to be Sirhan. My wife said "That's not Kennedy! He hasn't been shot!" The cops were pounding on the car now yelling for us to move, so I pulled away, then I flipped on the radio, when the news came over: "Senator Robert Kennedy, his brother in law Steven Smith and film director John Frankenheimer have been shot in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel." They thought Paul Schrade was me. This will show you how your mind plays tricks on you: for years I thought the driveway to the Ambassador Hotel was as long as a football field, but it's only about 150 feet long, as I found out when I went back to shoot "George Wallace" there thirty years later. But that night, as the news came over the radio, it seemed that long.

Was that the first time you'd been back since that night?
Yes. I just couldn't go back before then. And now it's in complete disrepair, just falling apart, almost symbolically.

After RFK's assassination, you took some time off.
Yeah. I managed to finish one film, "The Gypsy Moths," (1968) but I just felt like "What's the point? What does any of this really matter?" I mean, when you're a part of something like that and then all of the sudden it's taken away with just one bullet (snaps fingers). It really makes you take stock in what's important.

How did you get your faith back?
Time repairs a lot of that, really. And for me it wasn't a matter of getting it back, it was about finding a new reason to continue. And I found some material that I really was passionate about, which for me was Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" (1973).

Let's talk about some of the later films. "French Connection II" was the only sequel you've done so far. Was that difficult doing a sequel to a film when you hadn't done part I?
I wasn't prepared for how hard it was. I wanted to do the story, which (writer) Robert Dillon and I had made up. I had lived in France, so it seemed a logical match. Then when I actually sat down and looked at the original again, I was just awed time and again with how great it was and what a terrific film William Friedkin had made. So I realized that I had to keep that distinctive style, and that was hard, very hard.

Frankenheimer directing Burt Lancaster in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).

You did five films with Burt Lancaster. Tell us about him.
He was very professional. He set a terrific example for everyone else with his work ethic, which is probably the finest I've ever seen, his and Gary Sinise's. He was very nice to the crew and the other actors. He was a great collaborator because he knew a lot about script. And a lot about producing. We became very good friends. I have nothing but respect for him...He was very well-read, entirely self-educated. He taught me an awful lot. I learned more about stunt work from him, because he was a terrific stunt man. Burt really knew more about how to make a movie than anyone I ever met. What I learned from Burt was to have the courage to take my time. To really rehearse the scene, to examine it.

How much do you generally rehearse?
As much as I can. During "George Wallace" we rehearsed 2 1/2 weeks. During "Ronin" because we were so rushed to get going, not as much before shooting, but a lot during the production itself. I also like to shoot a lot of set-ups. On "George Wallace" for example, we shot 20 to 1. I like to work at a fast pace and I expect the people around me to do the same...It's interesting, because I went back and looked at some of my television work, and I found it a lot more interesting than a lot of my film work. And I thought "Why is this?" I mean, "Days of Wine and Roses," for example, is really interesting visually. Then I realized of every actor I had three different sized close-ups. Whereas in movies I'd been saying "Okay, let's shoot a close-up." And we'd do a lot of takes of that close-up, but it was always the same bloody shot. And it wasn't until I did "The Burning Season" that I deliberately did three sizes of close-ups on every shot. So when you edit, it becomes very interesting, because you can use whichever one you want. When you look at "Ronin," it's filled with different sized close-ups.

Frankenheimer with his 1995 Best Director Emmy for Against The Wall (1994).

Do you do a lot of takes?
No. We rehearse a lot, but don't do a lot of takes. A lot of times I like the first take best. Not always, but often, which is another reason to rehearse as much as you can. That's one reason Sinatra and I were perfect together.

Frankenheimer directing Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

Tell us about Frank.
Well I was terrified of him. He had this reputation that he chewed up directors for breakfast, that he'd only do one take, that he was always late, things like that. And I said to my partner George Axelrod "I don't know if I want to do a picture with Sinatra." "Well then dear boy, we'll buy you out. United Artists has put up a lot of money to make a picture with Sinatra, much more so than with you. If you've got a problem with Mr. Sinatra, I suggest you call him up and discuss it with him." So I did. I went up to see him at his house on Coldwater Canyon, and he couldn't have been nicer. I mean this was a guy who could turn on the charm like no other. So I was honest with him about why I was there. That there was no way I could work with him only doing one take, that sometimes it took longer, and so on. And I finished it by saying "I say these things to you because I'd rather get it out now, rather than waiting until we start shooting. I also realize that what I'm saying could mean my leaving the picture, because if it becomes a choice between you and me, United Artists is going to choose you." So he said he really appreciated my honesty and said "Look, I'm an insomniac. I can't get to sleep before 5 am on any given night. If you can arrange it so we can start shooting at 12:00 noon, I promise you I'll be there on time each and every day." I said "You got it." And he was. Regarding the "first take" issue he said, "I'm an entertainer, not an actor. I'm better on the first take. It's very hard for me to do it again. Is there any way you could simplify the camera shots?" I said "If that's what you want, you might as well hire some hack, because part of what I bring to the party is to make the film visually interesting. But why don't we do this. We'll rehearse really thoroughly, and that'll make it more likely that we'll do fewer takes, but that means you'll have to come in and rehearse every day, with a full crew and cameras and everything." He said "Okay," and that's what we did. The first scene we shot, was the scene where Doug Henderson comes to visit him after he's had this nervous breakdown. And we rehearsed it, and rehearsed it and everyone was very nervous and finally we did the take, and I said "Cut." And Sinatra turned to me and I said "That was it. Print it!" And this big smile came over is face and he said "This is going to be okay!" And it was, it was more than okay. I'll never forget that smile "Are you sure you don't wanna do it again?" (laughs)

Frankenheimer lines up a shot on the set of The Challenge (1982).

Any advice for first-time directors?
Yeah. Joe Sargent and I were talking about that. He said, "You know when I first started out I almost set myself up for failure, because I waited so long to do my preparation. I kept putting it off, and putting it off. Then by the time I did my third picture I really dragged myself into it and started to prepare." So I think you really have to prepare thoroughly. Then I think you have to surround yourself with the best people you can surround yourself with. Not necessarily the best people who are qualified, but the people you feel the most comfortable with. And make sure to the best of your ability that the script is in the best bloody shape it can be in. If you have any questions about the script, ask the writer. Try and have a couple read-throughs before production begins. Then try to make sure you're not trying to do a schedule that' s too short, because once you fall behind, the pressure really starts to build and you start to worry about all the wrong things. You have to remember that when people see the movie, they have no idea if you were ahead or behind schedule. They don't care! The other thing I would tell you is what Henry Hathaway told me: "The movie business is a business of compromises. If you make one compromise a day on a 25 day shoot, you're gonna have a movie with 25 compromises." And that's the best advice I ever got: don't compromise.

Frankenheimer with actor Michael Gambon, portraying President Lyndon Johnson, in JF's final film, Path to War (2002).

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Joe Eszterhas: The Hollywood Interview

Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas.



JOE ESZTERHAS
IS TELLING NO LIES IN AMERICA
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the October 1997 issue of Venice Magazine.

Joe Eszterhas has been one of Hollywood's top screenwriters for the past fifteen years. The author of such diverse works as Jagged Edge, Music Box, Basic Instinct, Flashdance and Showgirls, Eszterhas is a man of many voices and many lives, his having begun in Hungary in 1944, born in a tiny town near the Austrian border. Eszterhas spent his first six years in German and Austrian refugee camps, emigrating to the U.S. in 1950, settling with his family in Cleveland, Ohio. There, Eszterhas attended Catholic schools and developed an interest in writing. After graduation from Ohio University where he majored in journalism and English, Eszterhas first made a name for himself as a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and later Rolling Stone, writing what many consider to be the definitive coverage of the aftermath of the Kent State shootings in May of 1970. Eszterhas followed this with a book on the shootings called 13 Seconds, written with Michael D. Roberts. In 1974 Eszterhas wrote Charlie Simpson's Apocalypse, which won a nomination for the National Book Award and gained the attention of a Hollywood producer, who thought the young scribe should try his hand at screenwriting. Eszterhas' first script F.I.S.T., a fictionalized story about a Jimmy Hoffa-type labor leader played by Sylvester Stallone, was produced in 1977. He hasn't stopped working since.

Eszterhas' latest film, his 17th produced, is Telling Lies in America, a semi-autobiographical story about a Hungarian immigrant teenager named Karchy Jonas (Brad Renfro) growing up in Cleveland in the early 1960's. Karchy is an outcast as a scholarship student in his preppy high school, seeking solace in the seemingly glamorous world of rock & roll. When a slick local disc jockey (Kevin Bacon) agrees to take Karchy under his wing, Karchy embarks on a voyage of self-discovery that takes him from being a wide-eyed boy, to a much wiser young man. Directed by Guy Ferland and produced by Banner Entertainment the film also stars Calista Flockhart and Maximilian Schell.Telling Lies is a bittersweet memoir, full of truth, nostalgia and laughter that stings in your throat. It is by far Eszterhas' most personal, and finest work to date.

Among Eszterhas' upcoming projects are the satirical comedy An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn, Reliable Sources, Evil Empire, and Blaze of Glory, a biopic about the life of singer Otis Redding.

Eszterhas and his wife Naomi, who are expecting their third child soon, sat down recently in their magnificent Malibu home to discuss Joe's remarkable life, past, present and future.

When did you develop an interest in writing and storytelling?
JOE ESZTERHAS: My dad's a writer in the Hungarian language and he's written about 30 Hungarian novels. I grew up on the near-West side of Cleveland, which is a tough, sort of polyglot neighborhood with everyone having their individual turf. Until I was 13 or so, I didn't even read. It was the classic thing of the immigrant kid who comes to the new world, feels his parents are out of touch with the new world and goes in exactly the other direction. So I was really into baseball and rock & roll. There was a lot of bad stuff happening in the neighborhood. It was a time when people had zip guns and knives...and I got into a lot of juvenile trouble. When I was 13, I got into some serious trouble because I hit a kid in the back of the head with a baseball bat who'd been taunting me for a lot of years and was older, calling me names like D.P. (displaced person), Greenhorn...this kept going on for a while. I fought him a couple times, but always lost since he was about four years older than me. Then one time at a baseball game when he was up to bat, I just went up behind him and hit him the back of the head. I went to Juvenile. Went through the whole process. And I realized then that if I kept living the way I had been living, there was no future. And I started to read, read voraciously. Read anything at all. There was this paperback bookstore in my neighborhood, and I'd go down there. The guy liked me and he'd give me the books and I'd bring them back, like a library. And I read anything and everything: Tennessee Williams one day, A.J. Cronin the next day, Steinbeck, Forrester. I fell in love with reading. That's where it really began. I took notes on the books I had read, made lists for myself. I remember one year I went through 300 some books. What happened then is that I stayed off the street. I was petrified about what had happened to the kid that I'd hit. He was in the hospital for something like ten days and there was a period when no one was sure if he was going to survive. The only thing left with neighborhood that I really did was play basketball, which I usually did by myself because I didn't want to mix with the same kids I was with before, because it was all trouble. I just turned to reading completely. After two or three years of that, I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful to tell a story. So I wrote some stories for myself and fell in love with writing. I decided early on to do journalism as a way of making a living in the hopes of eventually writing fiction. It was the old Hemingway school where his theory was that every writer should spend five years doing journalism and not a minute more because those five years would be extremely educational, but if you stayed a minute longer, you'd get totally jaded and lose all of your sensitivity.

What was your beat during your newspaper days?
I was a street reporter. The intent was always that I'd use the experience for some day writing fiction. The political beat or the city hall beat were beauracratized beats, where you weren't really responding to experiences. As a street reporter, I covered whatever happened. From car wrecks, plane crashes, shootings, riots...I was always interested in the human aspects of those things. Then I was a feature writer and wound up getting a Jimmy Breslin-style column. Journalism, in my case, was an amazing training ground, first because I didn't know American society since I was an immigrant and in an ethnic sort of background for much of the time. And two, I was intensely shy as a kid and it was very difficult for me to talk to people. Journalism throws you into all levels of American society and forces you to interact with people.

How did you go from The Plain Dealer to Rolling Stone?
In 1971 I was fired from The Plain Dealer for writing a piece in The Evergreen Review on the My-Lai massacre. It became a huge national case that was about if you are employed by a publication, can you criticize that publication in a different venue if you're still paid by them. I had written as a free-lancer before I was fired in Cleveland, a couple of pieces for Rolling Stone. One of the pieces was on a biker gang shoot-out in Cleveland. After I did this piece, Hunter Thompson wrote me a note that said "Goddammit, now I know there's someone else out there that knows about bikers besides me." (laughs). Hunter, unbeknownst to me, went to (Rolling Stone publisher) Jann (Wenner) and said "I think this guy's a really terrific writer." So it was like a gift from God. Two days after I got fired in Cleveland, I get the call from Rolling Stone saying we'd like you to come out to San Francisco to do a piece on narcotics agents. Can you get a leave? I said "Yeah, no problem pal. I've just been canned!" (laughs) So I went out to San Francisco and met everybody, liked everybody. You have to remember that at the time, this publication was just raising its head from being absolutely underground. I went to Rolling Stone at a time when the closet was filled with shoeboxes full of cash from people sending cash for subscriptions, and we didn't know what the hell to do with it. Finally it got full one day, Jann called the Brink's truck one day and they came in and took it all away! (laughs) It was the very early stages of Rolling Stone. It was the fun stage. It was the kind of period where if you wrote a piece about narcotics agents who were abusive, and many were, and it was about busting kids with a little weed instead of going after the big smack dealers because that was too complicated and they may have been getting paid off. So they'd bust kids for having a little weed, get big headlines and look like heroes, which is total bullshit, right? So I wrote some pieces that brought that out. And when they came out, we had some of the biggest dope dealers in San Francisco coming by the office saying "Hey man, that was a really great story," and bringing us huge bags of dope! The office was filled with huge garbage bags full of marijuana! That's when I was with Rolling Stone. (laughs) We all felt that we were doing something different in journalism that was challenging to the establishment and the journalistic structure. There was hardly any advertising, no holds barred writing. You could have a piece that ran 40,000 words and if it was too long, they'd bump an ad to run the whole story! Imagine that today!

Let's talk about Kent State and your pieces on the killings of the four students by National Guardsmen in May of 1970.
The thing about Kent that I'm really proud of is that I wrote a book on it called 13 Seconds that came out at the same time as a book James Michner wrote on Kent State. The Michner book was a complete whitewash. His book's thesis was that the confrontation between student demonstrators and National Guardsmen had been caused by outside agitators and political radicals and that they were the people at fault. The truth about Kent State was that it was the culmination of months of red-hot rhetoric not only by Richard Nixon, but by James A. Rhodes, the Governor of Ohio, who kept attacking the protesters as "bums" and "lowlifes." The rhetoric had a prevailing psychological affect on everyone in the state, including the guardsmen. So you take a bunch of kids who are 18-21, put them in Kent with gas masks and helmets and guns, and they've been conditioned by this horrendous rhetoric, and suddenly they're there with protesters yelling at them, throwing stones but nothing else. And in the deepest part of themselves, they had bought the fact that these people were radicals, outside agitators, Communists, all that, and they lost it. They opened fire. That they lost it is understandable because they were kids. What got them to the point where it was easier for them to lose it, in my mind, which the Michner book ignored purposely because Michner was, in my mind, a Republican apologist, was that they had been conditioned by the rhetoric from Nixon and James A. Rhodes. I remember doing an hour on the Today show in 1971 with Michner and Izzy Stone, when it was done live. I was just a kid, 27 years old. I'm really proud that I wrote this book because otherwise I think Michner would've gotten away with his incredible whitewash...I covered it as a journalist. I wasn't there the moment of the shootings but I had covered the previous weeks protests and I was there an hour after the shootings, so I knew the build up. It is one of the great tragedies of our time, in my mind.

Tell me about the genesis of Telling Lies in America.
I wrote it around 1984. Everyone passed on it initially. Then through the years, many people started responding to it. Fran Kuzui, who is one of the producers...sometime in the late 80's, got a hold of the script, tried to get the financing for it and just couldn't do it. John Candy at one time wanted to do it, which would have been very interesting...then, ironically what happened is that I forgot about the piece because I don't like to re-read my stuff. Then after I met my wife Naomi, she wanted to read everything I'd written and went on this gigantic hunt.

NAOMI ESZTERHAS: I searched everywhere! Joe didn't have copies of a lot of his old scripts, so I went to studios, agencies, places like Script City...then I read Telling Lies and I told Joe that I couldn't believe it hadn't been made. It's such a wonderful story, so moving.

JOE: What Naomi did that was really cool was get obsessed with the piece in a very lovely, gingerly way...but then what happened was that she kept re-reading it and one day came in and said to me, very lovingly and gingerly, I've got an idea here that the relationship between Karchy (the protagonist) and his dad really isn't explored enough...so I took the script and re-wrote it from page one. So there were a lot of different little things changed. So Fran Kuzui had kept telling people how much she loved this. She and Guy Ferland were friends, she was kind of a mentor to him...Guy read it and said he'd love to direct it. So Guy and I talked. I looked at his film The Babysitter, which I thought had a lot of terrific things in it...then I gave Guy the re-write and felt that he really understood the piece from the inside. So he, Fran and Ben Myron took it to Banner, which was just started out and they agreed to do it for $4 mil, in 20 days for shooting! It's amazing.

I find it interesting that, even at your level, you still have a hard time getting your projects set up.
Oh, constantly! Constantly! I did a piece on Otis Redding two years ago called Blaze of Glory, another spec piece. People warned me, told me it was a tough sell, that nobody knew who the fuck he was. To me, the strength of the story, in addition to the great music, was the relationship between Otis and Phil Walden, who was his manager and his friend. On a whole other level it's about a black man who realizes his blackness and becomes in charge of himself and his company and of his destiny, even though he's begun with a white man who was his friend, which makes it very difficult...so we took the script out, everybody loved it, but nobody wanted to do it! (laughs)

How did you become interested in Otis Redding?
I was the last guy to interview him before he died. I was a young reporter in Cleveland and there was a place called Leo's Casino, which was the only place in Cleveland where people like Otis and Aretha Franklin and Lee Dorsey played. I was always in love with R & B, and that's where it was. And Otis was really sweet to me. We talked for about an hour. The next afternoon I was in the city room when a guy brought the wire up to me. Otis had flown out of Cleveland that afternoon and crashed in that lake in Wisconsin. So I had met the man. I felt this amazing warmth. I listened to his music all the time as the years went by, and I really felt something, so I decided to do it. About six months after we sent it out, Jon Avnet, the director, read it and liked it and we did sell it to Universal, then Jon decided he was going to do something else and the piece was just sort of up in the air. Only in the last couple months has something started to come together again because Iain Softley (Backbeat) wants to do it as his next movie. So it looks like it might finally happen now with Miramax. So to answer your question, is it difficult getting things set up? Oh yeah.

I hear there's a great story about you, Jimi Hendrix and a Hungarian restaurant.
(laughs) Hendrix comes into Cleveland in '69 and at that point is this totally feared, sexual, hot, stunning black person who's got all these young, white women around him. He's playing the Public Auditorium in town and the cops are very nervous. It was the same time that they busted Jim Morrison in Miami (for indecent exposure). So I go back and interview him for The Plain Dealer. What struck me about him was that he was one of the gentlest human beings I'd ever met. He had this wonderful gentleness and warmth that just sort of enveloped you. I talked with him for about an hour. He was there with Chas Chandler and Noel Redding. Jimi says he's hungry and what's good in Cleveland. I suggested this Hungarian restaurant...he sort of looks at these two other guys and says "Okay, cool. Let's go." So I take him to this little Hungarian restaurant on Buckeye road in Cleveland, filled with people in their 60's in black suits, women in babushkas and shit (laughs) and here we come as this fucking limo stops! Jimi gets out, things are dangling, hair is exploding. Here come the other two guys, bopping out! The owner knew me, comes running up "What the fuck are you doing?! Who are these guys?!" And we sit down and have this wonderful, big dinner and he loved it! Then what was funny, after dinner Jimi says "Man, I gotta buy a car. I want a blue Corvette." So Chas makes a couple calls. An hour later we're at a Corvette dealer in Shaker Heights. Jimi picks it right off the floor, hires some guy to drive it down. We go back to the concert and Jimi's in a great mood. We've been smoking dope all afternoon. Jimi does "Purple Haze," then the house lights suddenly go up. There's been a bomb threat! Everybody gets cleared out. I'm not certain to this day whether that was a real bomb threat, or whether the cops were just trying to fuck with him.

The first film of yours that had a big effect on my generation was Flashdance.
I was hired on Flashdance to rewrite the original script by Tom Hedley. A couple stories I remember about that. The lead role was down to three girls: Jenny Beals, Demi Moore, and this New York model named Leslie Wing. They were all terrific. Michael Eisner at the time was the head of Paramount and he had a hard time making up his mind as well. So Michael gathered the toughest, grungiest Teamsters and macho guys on the lot, put 200 of them in a screening room. Michael got up, said "Guys, I'm going to show you three screen tests. The only thing I want to know when they're done is, which one of these women would you really want?" Jenny Beals won hands down! (laughs) The other story is that (director) Adrian Lyne's cut was 40 minutes longer than the theatrical version. Paramount literally took the film away from Adrian and chopped it down to what it now is. If you can imagine taking 40 minutes out of a picture! Adrian's cut was much closer to Fame with that kind of character development than the movie that you saw. Paramount had so little faith in the picture that they sold off 34% of their own rights to the picture to a private investor group, thinking this movie was going to bomb. Those private investors were really lucky! (laughs) The movie wound up doing something like $380 million worldwide.

A lot of your films have dealt with the theme of betrayal: Jagged Edge, Music Box, Betrayed, Basic Instinct. Where does the need to keep exploring this theme come from?
First of all you have to realize that I've written a lot of other scripts in between those, some of which got produced and some which didn't--all with very different themes and of different genres. It's tricky for a screenwriter. A novelist writes what he writes and it's published. If you look at his body of work, you can see everything he's written and his progression. The screenwriter doesn't have the choice of publishing it. The studio either makes it, or not. That's why if you look at four things in a row that a screenwriter has had produced, they might all be of a similar nature or theme, and the assumption is that this is the only theme the writer writes about, when the reality most likely is, these are the sorts of films that the studio is out to make. In terms of the theme itself, it's one I would articulate as 'we don't know the people we love.' And there's part of them we will never know. And I think films like Betrayed, Music Box, Basic Instinct, certainly played off of that theme. I've always been fascinated by the hidden parts of us. I think a close relationship with someone, man or woman, is a lifelong quest to find that hidden part. And unfortunately in most relationships I don't think people do find that hidden part. They don't share it.

Let's go back to Telling Lies. Is it autobiographical?
I've called it figuratively autobiographical. What I mean is, it's always tough to tell how much is and how much isn't because it's a sort of swirl of imagination...parts of it certainly are. The kid certainly reminds me very much of how I was at that age. The insecurity, the false bravado, the desperation to do something and to be somebody when there ain't but a piece of fuckin' evidence that you can