The Last Brief

The Interview

Sir, ever since the Sardinian accident, you have refused to grant any interviews...

I had no desire to join the circus.

Yet you are not normally a man who shuns publicity.

Not normally, no. The matter on Sardinia, however, was blown up out of all proportion, and I saw no reason for adding fuel to the fire. I am a creator of motion pictures, not of sensational news stories for the press.

There are some ‘creators of motion pictures’ who might have welcomed the sort of publicity the Sardinian...

Not I.

Yet you will admit the accident helped the gross of the film.

I am not responsible for the morbid curiosity of the American public.

Were you responsible for what happened in Sardinia?

On Sardinia. It’s an island.

On Sardinia, if you will.

I was responsible only for directing a motion picture. Whatever else happened, happened.

You were there when it happened, however...

I was there.

So certainly...

I choose not to discuss it.

The actors and technicians present at the time have had a great deal to say about the accident. Isn’t there anything you’d like to refute or amend? Wouldn’t you like to set the record straight?

The record is the film. My films are my record. Everything else is meaningless. Actors are beasts of burden and technicians are domestic servants, and refuting or amending anything either might care to utter would be a senseless waste of time.

Would you like to elaborate on that?

On what?

On the notion that actors...

It is not a notion, it is a simple fact. I have never met an intelligent actor. Well, let me correct that. I enjoyed working with only one actor in my entire career, and I still have a great deal of respect for him — or at least as much respect as I can possibly muster for anyone who pursues a profession that requires him to apply makeup to his face.

Did you use this actor in the picture you filmed on Sardinia?

No.

Why not? Given your respect for him...

I had no desire to donate fifty percent of the gross to his already swollen bank account.

Is that what he asked for?

At the time. It may have gone up to seventy-five percent by now, I’m sure I don’t know. I have no intention of ever giving a ploughhorse or a team of oxen fifty percent of the gross of a motion picture I created.

If we understand you correctly...

You probably don’t.

Why do you say that?

Only because I have never been quoted accurately in any publication, and I have no reason to believe your magazine will prove to be an exception.

Then why did you agree to the interview?

Because I would like to discuss my new project. I have a meeting tonight with a New York playwright who will be delivering the final draft of a screenplay upon which we have laboured long and hard. I have every expectation that it will now meet my requirements. In which case, looking ahead to the future, this interview should appear in print shortly before the film is completed and ready for release. At least, I hope the timetable works out that way.

May we know who the playwright is?

I thought you were here to talk to me.

Well, yes, but...

It has been my observation that when Otto Preminger or Alfred Hitchcock or David Lean or even some of the fancy young nouvelle vague people give interviews, they rarely talk about anyone but themselves. That may be the one good notion any of them has ever contributed to the industry.

You sound as if you don’t admire too many directors.

I admire some.

Would you care to name them?

I have admiration for Griffith, DeMille, Eisenstein, several others.

Why these men in particular?

They’re all dead.

Are there no living directors you admire?

None.

None? It seems odd that a man known for his generosity would be so chary with praise for other acknowledged film artists.

Yes.

Yes, what?

Yes, it would seem odd, a distinct contradiction of personality. The fact remains that I consider every living director a threat, a challenge, and a competitor. There are only so many motion picture screens in the world, and there are thousands of films competing to fill those screens. If the latest Hitchcock thriller has them standing on line outside Radio City, the chances arc they won’t be standing on line outside my film up the street. The theory that an outstanding box-office hit helps all movies is sheer rubbish. The outstanding hit helps only itself. The other films suffer because no one wants to see them, they want to see only the big one, the champion, the one that has the line outside on the sidewalk. I try to make certain that all of my films generate the kind of excitement necessary to sustain a line on the sidewalk. And I resent the success of any film but my own.

Yet you have had some notable failures.

Failures are never notable. Besides, I do not consider any of my films failures.

Are we talking now about artistic failures or box-office failures?

I have never made an artistic failure. Some of my films were mildly disappointing at the box office. But not very many of them.

When the Sardinian film was ready to open last June...

July. It opened on the Fourth of July.

Yes, but before it opened, when...

That would have been June, yes. July is normally preceded by June.

There was speculation that the studio would not permit its showing.

Rubbish.

The rumours were unfounded? That the studio would suppress the film?

The film opened, didn’t it? And was a tremendous success, I might add.

Some observers maintain that the success of the film was due only to the publicity given the Sardinian accident. Would you agree to that?

I’ll ask you a question, young man. Suppose the accident on Sardinia had been related to a film called The Beach Girl Meets Hell’s Angels, or some such piece of trash? Do you think the attendant publicity would have insured the success of that film?

Perhaps not. But given your name and the stellar quality of...

You can stop after my name. Stars have nothing to do with any of the pictures. I could put a trained seal in one of my films, and people would come to see it. I could put you in a film, and people would come to see it.

Don’t you believe that films are a collaborative effort?

Certainly not. I tell the script writer what I want, and he writes it. I tell the set designer what to give me, and he gives it to me. I tell the cameraman where to aim his camera and what lens to use. I tell the actors where to move and how to speak their lines. Does that sound collaborative to you? Besides, I resent the word ‘effort.’

Why?

Because the word implies endeavor without success. You’ve tried to do something and you’ve failed. None of my films are ‘efforts.’ The word ‘effort’ is like the word ‘ambitious.’ They both spell failure. Haven’t you seen book jackets that proudly announce. ‘This is So-and-So’s most ambitious effort to date.’ What does that mean to you? To me, it means the poor bastard has set his sights too high. And failed.

Are you afraid of failure?

I cannot abide it.

Do you believe the Sardinian film was a success? Artistically?

I told you earlier...

Yes, but many critics felt the editing of the film was erratic. That the sequences filmed before the drowning were inserted piecemeal into...

To begin with, whenever critics begin talking about editing or camera angles or dolly shots or anything technical, I instantly fall asleep. They haven’t the faintest notion of what film-making is all about, and their pretentious chatter about the art may impress maiden ladies in Flushing Meadows, but it quite leaves me cold. In reality, none of them know what’s going on either behind the camera or up there on the screen. Do you know what a film critic’s sole requirement is? That he has seen a lot of movies, period. To my way of thinking, that qualifies him as an expert on popcorn, not on celluloid.

In any event, you were rather limited, were you not, in editing the final portion of the film?

Limited in what way?

In terms of the footage you needed to make the film a complete entity?

The film was a complete entity. Obviously, I could not include footage that did not exist. The girl drowned. That was a simple fact. We did not shoot the remainder of the film as originally planned, we could not. But the necessary script revisions were made on the spot — or rather in Rome. I flew to Rome to consult with an Italian screenwriter, who did the work I required.

He did not receive credit on the film.

He asked that his name be removed from the picture. I acceded to his wishes.

But not without a struggle.

There was no struggle.

It was reported that you struck him.

Nonsense.

On the Via Veneto.

The most violent thing I’ve ever done on the Via Veneto was to sip a Campari-soda outside Doney’s.

Yet the newspapers...

The Roman press is notoriously inaccurate. In fact, there isn’t a single good newspaper in all Italy.

But, sir, there was some dispute with the screen-writer, wasn’t there? Surely, the stories about it couldn’t all have been...

We had some words.

About what?

Oh my, we must pursue this deadly dull rot, mustn’t we? All right, all right. It was his allegation that when he accepted the job, he had no idea the publicity surrounding the girl’s death would achieve such hideous proportions. He claimed he did not wish his good Italian name — the little opportunist had written only one film prior to my hiring him, and that an Italian Western starring a second-rate American television actor — did not wish his name associated with a project that had even a cloud of suspicion hanging over it. Those were his exact words. Actually, quite the opposite was true. Which is why I resisted his idiotic ploy.

Quite the opposite? What do you mean?

Rather than trying to avoid the unfortunate publicity, I felt he was trying to capitalize on it. His move was really completely transparent, the pathetic little bastard. I finally let him have his way. I should have thought he’d be proud to have his name on one of my pictures. As an illuminating sidelight, I might add he did not return the five-thousand dollars a week I’d paid for the typing he did. Apparently, my money did not have a similar ‘cloud of suspicion’ hanging over it.

‘Typing,’ did you say?

Typing. The ideas for changing the script to accommodate the... to allow for a more plausible resolution were all mine.

A resolution to accommodate the drowning?

To explain the absence of the girl in the remainder of the film. I’m reluctant to discuss this, because it has a ghoulish quality I frankly find distasteful. The girl did, after all, drown; she did die. But that was a simple fact, and we must not lose sight of another simple fact. However coldblooded this may sound, and I am well aware that it may be an unpopular observation, there had already been an expenditure of three million dollars on that film. Now I’m sure you know that leading players have taken ill, have suffered heart attacks, have died during the filming of other pictures. To my knowledge, such events have never caused a picture to halt production, and neither do I know of a single instance in which a film was entirely scrapped, solely because of the death of one of the leading players. Yet this was the very pressure being brought to bear on me immediately following the drowning, and indeed up to the time of the film’s release.

Then the studio did try to suppress the film?

Well... at first, they only wanted to stop production. I refused. Later, when they saw the rough cut — this was when all the publicity had reached its peak — they sent in a team of strong-armed Executive Producers, and Production Chiefs, and what-have-you, all know-nothings with windy titles, who asked me to suppress the film. I told them exactly where to go. And then later on, when the film had been edited and scored, the same thing happened. I finally threatened suit. My contract called for a large percentage of the gross of that film, and I had no intention of allowing it to crumble unseen in the can.

You did not feel it was a breach of good taste to exhibit the film?

Certainly not. The girl met with an accident. The accident was no one’s fault. She drowned. If a stunt man had died riding a horse over a cliff, would there have been all that brouhaha about releasing the film? I should say not.

But you must agree the circumstances surrounding the drowning...

The drowning was entirely accidental. We were shooting in shallow water.

The reports on the depth of the water vary from ten feet to forty feet. Neither of which might be considered shallow.

The water was no higher than her waist. And she was a tall girl. Five feet seven, I believe. Or eight. I’m not sure which.

Then how did she drown, sir?

I have no idea.

You were there, were you not?

I was on the camera barge, yes.

Then what happened?

I suppose we must set this to rest once and for all, mustn’t we? I would much rather discuss the present and/or the future, but apparently we cannot do that until we’ve dealt ad nauseum with the past.

As you wish, sir.

I wish the accident had never happened, sir, that is what I wish. I also wish I would not be pestered interminably about it. The Italian inquest determined that the drowning was entirely accidental. What was good enough for the Italian courts is damn well good enough for me. But there is no satisfying the American appetite for scandal, is there? Behind each accident or incident, however innocuous, however innocent, the American public must insist upon a plot, a conspiracy, a cabal. Nothing is permitted to be exactly what it appears to be. Mystery, intrigue must surround everything. Nonsense. Do you think any of us wanted that girl to drown? I’ve already told you how much money we’d spent on the picture before the accident. I would estimate now that the delay in completion, the cost of revisions, the necessity for bringing in a second girl to resolve the love story added at least a million dollars to the proposed budget. No one wanted the drowning. If for business reasons alone, no one wanted it.

Yet it happened.

It happened.

How?

The exact sequence of events is still unclear to me.

Your assistant director...

Yes.

Testified at the inquest...

Yes, yes.

That the girl pleaded not to go into the water.

The water was unusually cold that morning. There was nothing we could do about that. It was a simple fact. The light was perfect, we had our set-up, and we were prepared to shoot. Actors are like children, you know. If I had allowed her to balk at entering the water, the next thing I knew she’d have balked at walking across a lawn.

The writer of the original screenplay claims that the scene you were shooting that morning...

Where the girl swims in to the dock? What about it?

He claims he did not write that scene. He claims it was not in the original script.

Well, let him take that up with the Writers Guild.

Was it in the original script?

I have no idea. If there were no innovations during the shooting of a film... really, does anyone expect me to follow a script precisely? What then is my function as director? To shout ‘Louder’ or ‘Softer’ to an actor? Let the writers direct their own scripts, in that case. I assure you they would not get very far.

Was the scene an innovation? The scene in the water?

It might have been. I can’t recall. If it was not in the original shooting script, as our Hollywood hack claims, then I suppose it was an innovation. By definition, yes, it would have been an innovation, isn’t that so?

When was it added to the script?

I don’t recall. I will sometimes get ideas for scenes the night before I shoot them. In which case, I will call in the technicians involved, and describe the set-up I will need the next day, and I will have it in the morning. If there is additional dialogue involved, I’ll see to it that the actors and the script girl have the necessary pages, and I’ll ask the actors to study them overnight. If there is no additional dialogue...

Was there any dialogue in this scene?

No. The girl was merely required to swim in to the dock from a speedboat.

What do you do in such a case? In an added scene where there’s no dialogue?

Oh, I’ll usually take the actor aside and sketch in the scene for him. The gist of it. This was a particularly simple scene. She had only to dive over the side of the boat and swim in to the dock.

In shallow water?

Well, not so shallow that she was in any danger of hitting the bottom, if that’s what you mean.

Then perhaps the estimates of the water’s depth...

The water’s depth was no problem for anyone who knew how to swim.

Did the girl know how to swim?

Of course she did. You certainly don’t think I’d have allowed her to play a scene in water...

I merely wondered if she was a good swimmer or...

Adequate. She was neither Eleanor Holm nor Esther Williams, but the part didn’t call for an Olympic champion, you know. She was an adequate swimmer.

When did you explain the gist of the scene to her?

That morning, I believe. If memory served me... yes, I believe the idea came to me the night before, and I called in the people involved and told them what I would need the following morning. Which is when I explained the scene to her. At least, that’s usually the way it works; I assume it worked the same way concerning this particular scene.

You explained that she would have to dive over the side of the boat and swim in to the dock?

Which is all she had to do.

Did she agree to do this?

Why, of course. She was an inexperienced little thing, this was her first film. Of course, she agreed. There was never any question of her not agreeing. She’d been modelling miniskirts or what-have-you for a teenage fashion magazine when I discovered her. This was an enormous opportunity for her, this film. Look at the people I surrounded her with!! Do you know what we had to pay her leading man? Never mind. It still irritates me.

Is it true he threatened to walk off the picture after the girl drowned?

He has said so in countless publications across the length and breadth of the world. I’m surprised he hasn’t erected a billboard on the moon, but I imagine he’s petitioning NASA for the privilege this very moment.

But did he threaten to walk off?

He did. I could not allow it, of course. Neither would his contract allow it. An actor will sometimes be deluded into believing he is something more than a beast of the field. Even with today’s largely independent production structure, the studio serves as a powerful steam roller flattening out life’s annoying little bumps for any second-rate bit player who’s ever seen his own huge face grinning down idiotically from a screen. The real head sometimes gets as big as the fantasy head up there. Walk off the picture? I’d have sued his socks from under him.

Why did he threaten to walk off?

We’d had difficulty from the start. I think he was searching for an excuse, and seized upon the girl’s drowning as a ripe opportunity.

What sort of difficulty?

I do not believe I need comment on the reputation of the gentleman involved. It has been adequately publicized, even in the most austere family publications.

Is it true, then, that a romance was developing between him and the girl?

I have never yet worked on a film in which a romance did not develop between the girl and her leading man. That is a simple fact of motion picture production.

Was it a simple fact of this motion picture?

Unfortunately, yes.

Why do you say ‘unfortunately?’

The girl had a brilliant career ahead of her. I hated to see her in a position that... I hated to see her in such a vulnerable position.

Vulnerable?

The Italian press would have enjoyed nothing better than to link her romantically with someone of his reputation. I warned her against this repeatedly. We’d spent quite a lot of money grooming this girl, you know. Stardom may happen overnight, but it takes many days of preparation for that overnight event.

Did she heed your warnings?

She was very young.

Does that mean to say...?

Nineteen, very young.

There were, of course, news stories of a developing romance between them. Despite your efforts.

Yes, despite them. Well.

Yes?

The young are susceptible. And yet, I warned her. Until the very end, I warned her. The night before she drowned, there was a large party at the hotel, given in my honour. We had seen the rushes on the shooting we’d done the day before, and we were all quite pleased, and I, of course, was more than ever certain that the girl was going to be a tremendous smash. That I had found someone, developed someone, who would most certainly become one of the screen’s enduring personalities. No question about it. She had... she had a luminous quality that... it’s impossible to explain this to a layman. There are people, however, who arc bland, colorless, insipid, until you photograph them. And suddenly, the screen is illuminated with a life force that is positively blinding. She had that quality. And so I told her again, that night of the party, I took her aside, and we were drinking quietly, and I reminded her of what she had been, an unknown model for a juvenile fashion magazine, and of what she would most certainly become once this film was released, and I begged her not to throw this away on a silly flirtation with her leading man, a man of his reputation. The press was there, you know, this was quite an occasion — I had met the host on the Riviera, oh years, ago, when I was doing another film, and this was something of a reunion. Well. Well, I suppose none of it matters quite, does it? She’s dead. She drowned the next day.

What happened? At the party?

They managed to get some photographs of her. There is a long covered walk at the hotel, leading to the tower apartments that overlook the dock. The paparazzi got some pictures of the two of them in a somewhat, shall we say, compromising attitude. I tried to get the cameras, I struggled with one of the photographers...

Were these the photographs that were later published? After the accident?

Yes, yes. I knew even then, of course. When I failed to get those cameras, I knew her career was ruined. I knew that everything I’d done, all the careful work, the preparation — and all for her, you know, all to make the girl a star, a person in her own right — all of it was wasted. I took her to her room. I scolded her severely, and reminded her that makeup call was for six a.m.

What happened the next morning?

She came out to the barge at eight o’clock, made up and in costume. She was wearing a bikini, with a robe over it. It was quite a chilly day.

Was she behaving strangely?

Strangely? I don’t know what you mean. She seemed thoroughly chastised, as well she might have. She sat alone and talked to no one. But aside from that, she seemed perfectly all right.

No animosity between you?

No, no. A bit of alienation perhaps. I had, after all, been furious with her the night before and had soundly reprimanded her. But I am a professional, you know, and I did have a scene to shoot. As I recall, I was quite courteous and friendly. When I saw she was chilled, in fact, I offered her my thermos.

Your thermos?

Yes. Tea. A thermos of tea. I like my tea strong, almost to the point of bitterness. On location, I can never get anyone to brew it to my taste, and so I do it myself, carry the thermos with me. That’s what I offered to her. The thermos of tea I had brewed in my room before going out to the barge.

And did she accept it?

Gratefully. She was shivering. There was quite a sharp wind, the beginning of the mistral, I would imagine. She sat drinking the tea while I explained the scene to her. We were alone in the stern, everyone else was up forward, bustling about, getting ready for the shot.

Did she mention anything about the night before?

Not a word. Nor did I expect her to. She only complained that the tea was too bitter. I saw to it that she drank every drop.

Why?

Why? I’ve already told you. It was uncommonly cold that day. I didn’t want to risk her coming down with anything.

Sir... was there any other reason for offering her the tea? For making certain that she drank every drop?

What do you mean?

I’m only reiterating now what some of the people on the barge have already said.

Yes, and what’s that?

That the girl was drunk when she reported for work, that you tried to sober her up, and that she was still drunk when she went into the water.

Nonsense. No one drinks on my sets. Even if I’d worked with W. C. Fields, I would not have permitted him to drink. And I respected him highly. For an actor, he was a sensitive and decent man.

Yet rumours persist that the girl was drunk when she climbed from the camera barge into the speedboat.

She was cold sober. I would just love to know how such rumours start. The girl finished her tea and was sitting alone with me for more than three hours. We were having some colour difficulty with the speedboat, I didn’t like the way the green bow was registering, and I asked that it be repainted. As a result, preparation for the shot took longer than we’d expected. I was afraid it might cloud up and we’d have to move indoors to the cover set. The point is, however, that in all that time not a single soul came anywhere near us. So how in God’s name would anyone know whether the girl was drunk or not? Which she wasn’t, I can definitely assure you.

They say, sir...

They, they, who the hell are they?

The others on the barge. They say that when she went forward to climb down into the speedboat, she seemed unsure of her footing. They say she appeared glassy-eyed...

Rubbish.

... that when she asked if the shooting might be postponed...

All rubbish.

... her voice was weak, somehow without force.

I can tell you definitely and without reservation, and I can tell you as the single human being who was with that girl from the moment she stepped onto the barge until the moment she climbed into the speedboat some three and a half-hours later, that she was at all times alert, responsive, and in complete control of her faculties. She did not want to go into the water because it was cold. But that was a simple fact, and I could hot control the temperature of the ocean or the air. Nor could I reasonably postpone shooting when we were in danger of losing our light, and when we finally had everything including the damn speedboat ready to roll.

So she went into the water. As instructed.

Yes. She was supposed to swim a short distance underwater, and then surface. That was the way I’d planned the scene. She went into the water, the cameras were rolling, we... none of us quite realized at first that she was taking an uncommonly long time to surface. By the time it dawned upon us, it was too late. He, of course, immediately jumped into the water after her...

He?

Her leading man, his heroic move, his hairy-chested star gesture. She was dead when he reached her.

What caused her to drown? A cramp? Undertow? What?

I haven’t the foggiest idea. Accidents happen. What more can I say? This was a particularly unfortunate one, and I regret it. But the past is the past, and if one continues to dwell upon it, one can easily lose sight of the present. I tend not to ruminate. Rumination is only stagnation. I plan ahead, and in that way the future never comes as a shock. It’s comforting to know, for example, that by the time this appears in print, I will be editing and scoring a film I have not yet begun to shoot. There is verity and substance to routine that varies only slightly. It provides a reality that is all too often lacking in the motion picture industry.

This new film, sir...

I thought you’d never ask.

What is it about?

I never discuss the plot or theme of a movie. If I were able to do justice to a story by capsulizing it into three or four paragraphs, why would I then have to spend long months filming it? The synopsis, as such, was invented by Hollywood executives who need so-called ‘Story analysts’ to provide simple translations because they themselves are incapable of reading anything more difficult than ‘Run, Spot, Run.’

What can you tell us about your new film, sir?

I can tell you that it is set in Yugoslavia, and that I will take full cinematic advantage of the rugged coastal terrain there. I can tell you that it is a love story of unsurpassing beauty, and that I have found an unusually talented girl to play the lead. She has never made a film before, she was working with a little theatre group on La Cienega when I discovered her, quite by chance. A friend of mine asked me to look in on an original the group was doing, thought there might be film possibilities in it, and so forth. The play was a hopeless botch, but the girl was a revelation. I had her tested immediately, and the results were staggering. What happens before the cameras is all that matters, you know, which is why some of our important stage personalities have never been able to make a successful transition to films. This girl has a vibrancy that causes one to forget completely that there are mechanical appliances such as projectors or screens involved. It is incredible, it is almost uncanny. It is as though her life force transcends the medium itself, sidesteps it so to speak; she achieves direct uninvolved communication at a response level I would never have thought existed. I’ve been working with her for, oh, easily six months now, and she’s remarkably receptive, a rare combination of intelligence and incandescent beauty. I would be foolish to make any sort of prediction about the future, considering the present climate of Hollywood, and the uncertain footing of the entire industry. But if this girl continues to listen and to learn, if she is willing to work as hard in the months ahead as she has already worked, then given the proper vehicle and the proper guidance — both of which I fully intend to supply — I cannot but foresee a brilliant career for her.

Is there anything you would care to say, sir, about the future of the industry in general?

I never deal in generalities, only specifics. I feel that so long as there are men dedicated to the art of making good motion pictures — and I’m not talking now about pornography posing as art, or pathological disorders posing as humour — as long as there are men willing to make the sacrifices necessary to bring quality films to the public, the industry will survive. I intend to survive along with it. In fact, to be more specific, I intend to endure.

Thank you, sir.