The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

I remember when we were writing that sometimes... We realized whenever Jason would say, "I have a really dumb idea. I could tell you what they'd on TV..." ...then he'd usually say something that was kind of what maybe they'd do on TV or in a corny movie, but it would usually be, the thing he'd say, that would work. - Huh. I always felt Jason had good ideas when he would compare them to TV shows. You know, like, for me, that was a real fun thing to do, was whenever we would be stuck and couldn't find the next place in the movie as we were writing, we would say, "Now, let's go do the totally broad comedy version of this." You know, "Now let's go do the-- What's the Robert Altman version of this? What's the Adam Sandler version of this? What's the Jack Nicholson ver--? You know, just kind of like playing games and doing... not parodies, but, you know, just taking on a new skin for a second just to kind of free up our rust. Yes. This shot of the down angle looking at the tray, I remember we shot in the middle of the desert in a totally different circumstance than being on a train. Yes. At the same time you did the funeral scene in one area, we were shooting inserts in a whole other area. I think that's one of the most peculiar movie sets that I've ever experienced, which is, we have this whole train that we've gone to tremendous lengths to get ahold of and be able to film in every day of our shoot, and after having finished all our train work, we owe a couple of insert shots. And I remember, while we were shooting something else, walking over to where-- Roman, where you were working, and there was a piece of carpet from the train laid on the sand in the middle of the wide-open Rajasthan desert. We're in the middle of absolutely nowhere, with the whole crew, with a camera pointed straight at the ground. And... Yeah, here, this shot there of the itinerary... Oh, yeah. ...that tracking shot in the middle of the desert. But it appears to feel like it's on the train. ...and expedite hotels and transportation and everything. How's he going do that? - I had him bring a printer... I'm noticing all the elephants painted on the side of the wall. And that's-- I think that was something pretty remarkable about our circumstance shooting in India. Do you wanna describe where those came from? Well, the-- One thing that I loved about working in India is that that's a place where it's actually more practical to have the thing you want custom-made by hand than it is to have anything machine-made. There are always people who are craftsmen who can make the thing for you. And signage and things is almo-- You know, is so often made by hand. I mean, the-- I suppose this is changing more and more, but still, so much is done by hand in India. And we actually had dozens, maybe a hundred guys who were just painting on our train, and they were all-- You know, there's some patterns on the walls of the compartment, for instance, and those are just-- You know, we saw them on the walls of a building and we said, "Who did this?" We found out who did this, and there are guys who just paint these patterns. And so there were many people who were doing that. And there are guys who paint signage, and we had guys who were just painting elephants for us. So there are elephants all over the train, and each one's a bit different. And was there some--? Was there more about that, Roman? No, it was just that very fact that every single one of those elephants was hand-painted, including the dishes and the plates and whatnot in the train. And it lent a quality when you walked onto the set that was so... you know, unique and distinctive. Yeah. I also think it's worth mentioning for anyone who doesn't know that it is a real train that would depart every morning from a train station in Jodhpur. We would get on it, and off we would go into the desert until the sun went down. So that's-- What you see in the background is the real Indian desert, and it's not being repeated, like we would shoot and go a hundred feet and then back it up and just go up and down the same track, you know, over and over again. That was constantly changing, and we were really on an adventure and a real trajectory every day. You want to read a short story I wrote in France? How long is it? - What? How long is it? - How long is it? Never mind. Forget it. Well, should we talk about our...? Yeah, that's the short story Jason wrote. Should we talk about our cast or should we talk about our writing process? What do you think? Both. Well, let's introduce the cast, maybe, and then we can segue into the writing. Okay. We have Owen Wilson, who plays Francis Whitman. But maybe-- You know what? It says that on the box of the DVD, even. I mean, I don't know, it's a-- What do we wanna say about the guys? I bet that's delicious. And, Peter, the lamb? A chicken, a fish and a lamb? Well, we could say that it was a real-- Adrien Brody was an actor who you had never worked with before. And you had worked with Owen and myself but never together. So this was really a fun new experience for all of us 'cause this was the first time these three people had been together. And it was really fun to play brothers because... I don't know, I just admire their work. It was fun to play their brothers. Yeah.

Well, one thing we can say is that as we were writing, we each sort of took on a role as we were trying out dialogue and experimenting. So I was the Peter character, of course, Jason was his character, and Wes was Francis. And that was kind of a fun thing, to, you know, have your guy that you were kind of watching out for and, in the little improvs we would do, you know, to assume that character, and I enjoyed that. Yeah, it was nice because we could write scenes and then play them out, you know, that day or that night or the next day. And we each had our character that we were working on, and as we wrote, the years that it took to write, we were constantly acting out these scenes. So we became rather familiar with portraying these characters. Yeah. You know, I also-- We wrote quite a bit of the script abroad. And we went on a trip together ourselves in India while we were writing. In fact, we were traveling with a printer, which got destroyed. But I think there was something about traveling together, both with the mission of our movie that we're planning to make and with the characters that we actually are meant to sort of... be I don't know if exactly representing, but we each had our role we were playing. So I felt like we were kind of traveling in character to some degree. And that was very... That-- I really enjoyed doing that. It was almost like the writing process was a little work of theater without-- That we were the only audience for. Although we occasionally had some other people with us. Yeah, no, it's true that the writing of this, or the making of this movie, is less the experience of sitting at a typewriter or computer writing and really experiencing the movie throughout the whole period. So it at once-- Initially, we were just traveling around, observing things, and then we started to flesh ideas out, and before you knew it, we were scouting and then shooting. And it was all one big experience entering into the movie, as opposed to broken up to conceive it, to write it, to prepare it, to shoot it. It was all one big experience that was, you know, a big... Well, very meaningful to me. Yeah. Yeah. I remember early on, we sort of made this decision that we were going to try to make the movie-- That we wanted the movie to be very personal to us. Which, I don't even know what it means in the end, but it was something that, you know, that I always felt. It always felt like it was that-- I felt that we were very close to the movie as we went along, in whatever ways. And it-- Rarely have I ever felt something-- You know, people sometimes will describe that they've made some artwork in order to get through something in their life or to help them with something in their life. Or-- And for me, it's-- It rarely feels that way. Usually it feels like I-- You know, you-- For me, I've always wanted to do it because I wanna make a movie and I have something I'm interested in doing. With this, it did feel like we were kind of working through something together. Yeah. Absolutely. - I guess. I don't know about his face, but I think his brain might be pretty traumatized. Damn it! Come down to this spot over here. Call her again right now and keep calling every ten minutes until you get through. Okay. - This is urgent. We're almost there. Okay. - Once again, so we're explicitly clear, I don't want you to mention this or discuss it with anyone. In other words, it's a surprise. - Okay. Did you find me a power adapter? - Not yet. I'm noticing the little candle here. And that sort of indicates to me some of the details, often from your life, Wes, that you recall or some little texture or detail and how it's woven in. And that was something, I think-- Was it Alice's mom made those little pots or...? Alice made the pots in the movie. But in fact, the pots are made by Hugo... Okay. - ...by my friend Hugo, who has gotten out of the pottery business over the years, but he used to be a potter. I point it out only because there's so many little details that are kind of charged with some other experience or relevance somehow. Here I think we find Jack, who's-- There's something a bit solitary about-- Or he's referred to by one of the brothers as the lone wolf of the family. And I think, in this moment, he's kind of looking for his next short story. This girl, I think he will write about her eventually.

The other thing we could mention is, a lot of the stuff in the corridors, in the corridor of the train, we did with a camera that we had attached to a rail that moved along the ceiling. We eventually figured out that was our best bet for moving up and down the corridors, which we did a lot, because it's just-- It's hard to keep things steady and move around properly in these-- On a moving train. That was-- Our grip had devised a very clever system. He had, like, an I-beam that he's put up there. And it was a very inexpensive and clever way to give us all that flexibility. Yeah, that's Sanjay Sami. He-- In fact, interesting because Sanjay Sami is a wonderful grip and also used to be a professional-- I believe professional cricket player. Or rugby player, actually. But some of the grip equipment we used in this movie were things I'd never heard of. Air Italiano? What the fuck is this? I'm keeping his passport. In fact, give me yours too. I want to keep all the passports so nothing happens to them. I'm keeping mine. - No. I want to keep them all together.

This scene, something interesting happened, I remember, which is... You know, we'd worked together. Jason and Roman and I had played these scenes together many times as we wrote the script. Adrien had come early and worked with us, and then Owen had come, and we'd rehearsed the whole movie a number of times together, and we'd practiced the blocking in India. But this scene, on the night that we were shooting it, it wasn't quite clicking. And I remember an odd thing happened... which is the power went off. You know, this-- The first part of it here, watching, that was all going fine. And that somehow-- We just made that up on the spot, this sort of telling-- In fact, we cut out another scene with Waris, the chief steward on the train because we felt like it was communicated just with an image of him and Rita. But this scene when they're talking in the compartment wasn't working, and the electricity went out, as it often would, and we ended up-- You know, the operation was shut down for a little while, and we were all in the train together in the dark. And Jason and Adrien and Owen and I went into another compartment. And, Roman, did you come with us? I don't recall. I don't think I was present, but I don't recall. We went in another room and rehearsed this scene for about 45 minutes in the pitch-black darkness. We actually couldn't see each other at all. And then the lights came back up, and we had it all figured out and we went back in and completely changed what we were planning to do. And the scene was-- Had been all sorted out. I think it's an unusual circumstance, for me, to have a scene that kind of solved itself in the dark. But it probably doesn't reflect well on me. Give me a little light. Okay, here we go. Train stops first thing tomorrow morning... This is also an example of a scene where, like, we're acting all this out and I didn't know what was out that window. I wasn't aware there was a cow right there. So that's a pleasant surprise when I watched the movie for the first time. I was like, "There was a cow there?" There was an elephant out there. I think we cut before we got to it. - I know. Well, I remember these people, as we pass by there, those people in the temple there, the man with the baby and the woman... Yeah. - ...that was the man who was the caretaker of that temple, who lived in the room up above it. Remember him? - Mm-hm. And this is also the first thing we ever shot. First day-- This is day one, shot one. Yeah, you're right, it is. Kind of a complicated... Robert Altman style. Or at least, that's what-- I think of it that way. Maybe that's-- - Yeah. Maybe I'm flattering the movie. But the long take with the zoom...

People always ask us, "Was there a lot that was improvised?" And I always say that there wasn't much improvisation, if any, with the dialogue, but, you know, because, you know, it was India and you really can't control the streets there and the environment, and we were on a real moving train and we were walking around, you know, streets where it was just the three actors, a camera, Wes, soundman, and then everyone else were just going about their day. It was really fun because each scene, even though the dialogue was the same, each take was completely different because you never-- You know, one take, a cow walks through the shot, another take, you know, someone throws a rock at a piece of glass. You know what I mean? It was always different, and you had to always be reacting to the environment around you. It was really fun 'cause you never knew what could happen. You had something you would say when people asked you about not wearing shoes, and that kind of relates to that thing a little bit. What did I say? Something to the effect that you're kind of feeling that the ground is not smooth in a place like India. You know, there's all sorts of... things that you step on, and in a way, it-- Oh, yeah. It makes you consider each step. Exactly. Let's get into it! - You told him? It's okay. These streets are in the old market section of Jodhpur. And we spent a lot of time around here. We stayed in a-- We all stayed together in a house not far from the middle of Jodhpur. And we would often walk around in this area. And you can travel on these streets in auto rickshaws. The streets are too narrow for bigger cars, really. And we really loved it around there. And the... I remember there's a cricket field that comes up in a few minutes, which we found-- We were looking through a telescope and we saw it from the top of the fort above Jodhpur. And this man who just walked in, by the way, was-- I remember him heading into the shot, and I was about to signal him to stop, but he kept walking and never looked back, never did anything. He was the most natural extra. It was one of those-- Part of what we enjoyed about working here. You never knew-- You know, people are gonna come in and out of the shot. But he did the right thing. ...cricket with a tennis ball.

You know, when we made The Life Aquatic in Italy, and, Roman, you were over there, and you know that it was very challenging. And working at sea, we really struggled. - Yeah. And in fact, I remember, the first time we actually worked together was on The Life Aquatic, and you had called and said, "If you need any help on anything, you know, I'm happy to come over and help you with something." And I could never think of what I needed help with, except at a certain point you called and I realized I... Not-- I needed-- I desperately needed help. I just couldn't really-- I just had no idea what to ask for. And you said, "Well, I'm just-- I'm gonna come over." And you then-- The day you arrived, you arrived at like 5:00 in the morning. And I remember when you got there, you said, "I'm here." And I said, "Okay, how would you feel about going to an island called Ponza in about two hours and filming this ship being towed into the harbor?" And I think you were literally-- You got there at 5:00 in the morning, and, you know, a few hours later, you were on another seaplane to Ponza, filming these giant ships. And the sort of massive struggle of getting that movie done, it-- I really-- It had quite an effect on me, so that when we went to do this, a movie, in another place that has its own special unpredictability and a place that's a bit uncontrollable like the weather, I remember that we had this conversation: "Whatever it brings us, we're gonna go with that. We're not going to-- We're gonna just sort of let the circumstances guide us, and whatever sort of happens, we're just gonna say, 'Well, that's part of the-- That's gonna become part of the movie."' Mm-hm. - And that approach, you know, to whatever degree we actually implemented that, which was I think quite a significant degree, that really made it a pleasure to make the movie. I felt like we were just always discovering something that wanted to be in the movie. And it was nice to just say, "Please, come right in." No, I remember even talking about it and how-- Saying, you know, if we ask for a car and we get a pickup truck or, you know, whatever might come our way, which often happens in a place like India, where things-- There's a lot of improvisation in that culture, that we would just embrace it. And I think it definitely comes across in the movie. Yeah. I almost died. Give me a second. The snake, I remember... Roman, you described the feeling of somebody traveling around the world and buying things as they travel. A certain kind of person that we have experienced that can-- That will really find things wherever he's going that are kind of exotic objects. - Mm-hm. And the snake came from that, a guy who's-- You know, the same guy who's gonna have the special belt custom-made is also gonna say, "And also, you know, I think I should have a small cobra, but have the poison removed, the... But it's probably a good thing for me to have back home. I mean, that'll be great to have." - Yeah. This is another scene that I remember playing, the three of us, and going there and acting it out and wearing the headscarf. Yeah, you had to wear the headscarf to go into this building. I remember that we modeled the way we each wore-- Each-- Adrien, Owen and myself all wear these headscarves based on how the three of us really did on that day. Remember? Yes. Well, remember, that was... That was in... Was that in Delhi? Yeah. Was that the night with Waris in Old Delhi? Was it? And Alice, isn't that right? Didn't we go out late at night and we ended up in the Sikh temple... - Oh, yes, yes, yes. ...in Old Delhi? And is that the one you're thinking of, or you're thinking of the other Sikh temple? I think that's the one I'm thinking of, actually. The larger one. - I'm thinking of that one.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this a set, this little thing? Yes. Remember, sometimes we were-- It's not easy to stop the train on the tracks for any extended period of time. These were working tracks. So when we shot this scene, we actually built a little set to shoot out the window while our train was away because we only had so much time to shoot this main shot, which is this longer take here of the outside of it. So we built a little set for the inside just looking out to do this one. Yeah. And those are the camels, in the background, that later were used to carry all the camera gear up to the top of that mountain. Yes, yes, we used them on-camera and off-. That's crazy. - How far off course are we? Nobody knows. We haven't located us yet. What'd you just say? There's Kumar in the background, who-- Remember, Kumar's character-- And also Bhawani, right? Is that...? - Oh, yeah. Bhawani, who worked at the Balsamand, is one of the guys back there. Kumar doesn't really have an elaborately well-developed character, I would say, in this one, he's-- We didn't quite come up with a full role for him. But in our minds, he was a-- He was the minister of trains. Remember? He was a government minister. - Yes. Or maybe a secretary, you know, an assistant minister of trains or something. They're practicing this religious ceremony, which is based on a-- What is it? What is the--? What Native American tribe? The... It was the... It was in Arizona at the Grand Canyon. It was the... I'll think of it in a second. I'm drawing a blank right now. - Feather ceremony. The feather ceremony was something that Jason and I and another person close to us actually performed this real ceremony. Yes. This is sort of a, I think, slightly distorted version of that, but also distorted because they can never seem to remember exactly how it's supposed to go anyway, even though it has been laminated. It was the Havasu Tribe, was the-- Just came back to me. American Indians. - Oh, yeah. In the vortex of some sort of power zone in Arizona. Isn't it like a strong place? - Near Sedona. Near Sedona. I'm scared too. She's obviously suffered some kind of mental collapse and we've got to get her... I was gonna say that my character doesn't say a lot in this scene, and in a lot of scenes, he's very quiet and stoic. And I remember this movie was a very big lesson for me, which was that when we were writing it, there were lots of scenes that-- And story lines that didn't end up totally making it into the film. And, you know, Owen's character talks a lot, and Adrien's character is very vocal about how he's feeling, and my character is very thoughtful and, you know, is a writer and is very much in his own head. And I was having trouble in the rehearsals just thinking about how to do it. And then I remember having this kind of a miniature breakthrough for myself just in terms of how to act it, which was: Just because it's not in the script, doesn't mean it's not in the movie in my character. Mm-hm. - Just because we cut some of those scenes, doesn't mean that, you know, it's not still part of the history of my character. And so up on that hill, I remember, just when Owen was talking and I'm not saying very much, I'm just thinking about all the other scenes that got cut that are meaningful to my character. Not literally thinking about the scenes that got cut, but you know what I mean. Yeah.

Here Jack has gone to Rita's compartment, which is not really where she wants him. I think... they're each-- They each have their own story they're inventing, and... they're not lining up at this point. Actually, I just broke up with him. Or I'm about to. I really need someone to talk to right now, and I feel like you might be very important to me in my life.

Amara is actually-- She's from England, but she's-- Her family is from Sri Lanka. And Waris, who grew up in Brooklyn, is from Amritsar in Punjab. What's happening? - What do you mean? I rang the bell. - I'll be right there. Remember this? - This was fun. This was a memorable shot that we did at our headquarters, which was at a train station, and the train was parked there. And we decided to do it in sort of an old-fashioned, slightly theatrical way in which we moved the lighting, and actually, the post that goes by, in fact, that was slid by on a little platform. And I was pleased 'cause I personally held some little cardboard cutouts of kind of blurry tree shapes that I moved past the lens to enhance the illusion that we are traveling. So that was a fun shot to do. Can I tell you about doing this one? Do you remember I was standing in a corner shaving and I had to be in this very specific spot? And every time, like, the camera would move away, they would push me into the corner. And then every time... Like, right there, I was pull-- I was pushed into that by an off-camera person. With the dolly. - Yeah, and right here, they're pushing me back in. Like the whole time, they're like-- Every time the camera has to be where I'm standing, they would just grab me by the back of the coat and yank me. Well, I remember that you were often having to lean to be seen in the reflection. - Yeah. And here's where Adrien and Owen-- The fight begins. This is where it all becomes-- Suddenly it's all physicalized.

Your fake tooth's gone. Fuck. What did you say? Shame on you! Now, Amara, when Amara auditioned, she played this scene in the window of the train. And that was the reason why we cast her, I think, was because she knew just how to play this moment. And sometimes it's a thing. When somebody does something so well when they audition, often you'd say they were good but never as good as they did in the audition. Well, she, I felt like, was just as-- She equaled herself... - Yeah. ...when we did the real scene, and, yeah, she brought quite a lot to this character, I thought.

Goodbye, Rita. So long, Sweet Lime!

The rock throwing, I think, always seemed a very clear expression of the evolution of these characters. They're three people who are capable, in the wrong moment, of throwing rocks at the train that just asked them to leave. - Yeah. They're not really quite there yet as men. I just remember how hard it was to keep up with Owen and Adrien shoeless. Yes. ...travel plans in a document sent to me from a man named Brendan. Unfortunately, I cannot receive you now. A neighboring village requires our urgent assistance due to an emergency... Do you hear Arrow snoring? Yeah, I do. Now, remember, this scene, we shot in a mine. A kind of vast mine. And I remember we shot it with no lights, just fire. Yeah. So we shot that wide shot before the sun went down. After the sun had gone down but before dark. And then the rest of it, we just shot with these torches, which Sandy Hamilton, our prop master, was in charge of. And Bob Yeoman, our director of photography, just kind of kept moving these fires around. It was very hot, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, the closer it got to your face, especially. Yes. And often you had to hold them rather close. Yeah. - But it was nice to be-- One thing I remember is the set was dark. There were no work lights or anything. It was just fire. - Yeah. I remember this being one of my favorite, favorite nights of shooting. It was somebody's birthday. Maybe Sandy's birthday. - Yeah. Because I remember we launched some fireworks in this mine after we finished the scene. That's actually one of my favorite moments of the three of your characters together. Mine too. Maybe this is how it's supposed to happen. It could all be part of it. Maybe this is where the spiritual journey ends.

Also, Adrien's parents were visiting this time. Yes, we had-- Both Adrien and Owen's mothers are well-known photographers. So we got some very good on-set photography... Yeah. - ...from the parents' visits. I'm gonna go over here. - Yeah. That's good. Get on the rock, yeah. Peter, you got-- Yeah. - Yeah, okay. Everybody ready? - Yeah. Ah! Oh! - Zsa-loh!

Okay, that's it. - That's it? Okay. I remember that we had some negative damage... Oh, yeah. - ...from the wide shot. And our editor, Andy Weisblum, managed to take the first moments-- Essentially, the action of it was not damaged. It was all around it. But there were a few moments of it that were okay and-- He's very good with digital stuff because he-- Before being an editor, he was a visual-effects supervisor. And it-- You know, it was salvaged in a way that you just couldn't do ten years ago. You couldn't even think-- You'd never dream of it ten years ago. That would have been unusable. But it was a very simple fix. Hmm. You know, just thinking about all three of these actors in this scene, I really enjoyed working with the three of them. Obviously, you know, Owen is really not like any other actor that ever lived, as far as I can tell. And he brings something completely unique. And he's one of the funniest guys I've ever met. And Jason has a completely different kind of brightness and a real sparkle to his personality. And Adrien had-- And Adrien is really one of the most talented actors I've ever met. He's very natural and automatic and quick to get everything. This is obviously-- Well, this is-- This scene is kind of the turning point in the story, what happens here. And I remember we wrote this on Rue de l'Abbaye. Hmm. - Yeah. En urgence. Urgence. Urgence, oui. Go! I remember that shot with them running. Bob Yeoman and I took turns doing takes running with it. Yeah, I think your shot was steadier and the one that was used. I don't think so. I think it was-- Mine was too shaky. And Bob's-- I think we used Bob's in the end. I think at the time we felt that mine had an energy. But when we really studied them, Bob's seemed like the work of a professional cameraman and mine seemed like a crazy nut running with the camera. I remember being in this water. We had special suits built. All of our clothes were built two sizes bigger, and then they put swim-- Wetsuits underneath our suits because the water was so cold.

He's dead, he's dead. - He's dead? The rocks killed him. - You're bleeding like crazy. And these boys were all brothers, isn't that right? They were Ramesh, Mukesh and Dinesh, who we-- Remember, we met them because we were... in the desert, location scouting a Bishnoi village. And a man drove past us on a motorcycle with his son sitting on the motorcycle with him. And I liked his face. And I thought we should have him-- That he might be able to play the role-- You know, one of the parts in the story. And we stopped and we paused. He wasn't sure what was going on. This is Irrfan Khan who appears now, who is a great, great actor. The-- Anyway, the man didn't ultimately wanna be in the movie, but he-- But before he decided, we met him again, and he turned out to have three sons of the exact age that we needed. And so we ended up casting his sons, and who became-- Who were not just in the movie but, you know, came to visit a lot and sort of just became part of the production. Yeah. It's hard not to see this scene and think of the first time we visited this particular village and the welcoming ceremony that was offered to us. In Dhandoli village, yeah. Well, yes, the traditional welcoming ceremony is that you share opium tea. And I remember that man playing the doctor is a Bishnoi that we saw when we visited another village not far away. And he looked exactly like that and had the greatest face that just-- His character is just-- And also, there's one we always called Sean Connery, the tall one. But the-- I remember that we-- Remember, when you take the opium tea, you drink it from someone's hand. And you have to take three sips. Or you can-- I think you can take one or you can take three. And we all took three, as I recall. And it was about like the feeling of half a Xanax or something like that.

You know, it's-- By the way, some of the inspiration for the movie, one was Jean Renoir's film The River, which The Film Foundation had restored, and Martin Scorsese, it was one of his favorite movies. For some reason, he thought I would like it, and he actually screened it to me. And that was sort of what cemented my wish to make a movie in India. But before that, I had also been inspired especially by Satyajit Ray's films. And in fact, we use quite a lot of music from his movies, most of which he scored himself. He was the composer of the movies as well as the writer, director and producer. And some of the ones we use, one called Teen Kanya, which is a wonderful sort of omnibus-type movie. And we use music from World of Apu, the last of the Apu Trilogy, and Charulata, one of his greatest films, that we-- That music plays in some of the scenes with Rita. And we also used music from The Music Room and... And other Ray music also. And along with that, we also use music from the Merchant Ivory films, like The Householder, which is a Ray-like film and which Ray was involved with the soundtrack for. We use the music from the soundtrack of the first Merchant Ivory movie, The Householder, and as well as Bombay Talkie and one called The Guru, which I've actually not even seen, because it's not possible to see it. And along with The River and Louis Malle's documentaries about India... anyway, the Ray movies were really a part of the inspiration for making a movie in India in the first place for me. I can't believe you just said that. Why not? It's the truth. - He didn't really mean it. And there was an element to this, to the film and to the writing, which related to short stories. And of course, you had written the Hotel Chevalier short film that had a spirit of a short story. And we decided that Jason's character would be a writer of short stories. And then this little episode is kind of in the spirit of that as well. I don't-- It wasn't something we really thought about too much consciously, but it's just part of the DNA of this. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That-- It's-- And I think we related it a bit to Raise High the Roof Beams-- The Roof Beam, Carpenters. - Yeah. I remember this scene evolved out of our assignments that we were given. And I was in Tunisia at the time. And the little sketch that I composed, I asked you to read it, Wes. And coming from your voice, it all-- It took on the flavor of the movie and seemed right somehow. Yes. Well, I-- And Roman is describing how-- Often while we were writing this script, we would end up-- We would work together somewhere, but then sometimes we were-- Then we'd separate, and we hadn't finished the movie, and we'd schedule our appointments, and sometimes we'd come to the appointments with homework assignments. And in the case of this, we knew we had this missing part of the story that was gonna relate to their father's funeral, but we just didn't know what happened. And we each wrote something and came in with it. And we built it on what you wrote, Roman. Your homework assignment was the only one that was actually accepted. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. I don't think you did the homework that day, Wes. I did-- I did not. Jason did the homework, and he had like a 30-page whole play unto itself. And I think you said, "I didn't do the homework this time." Ah. Yes, yes. - As I recall. I could be wrong. Yeah. Well, you got the homework right. Barbet Schroeder. Yes, we got Barbet to be in the movie. He said-- You know, Barbet Schroeder is-- You know, we have this German car dealership, and Barbet has always-- You know, I always thought he was German because he looks like he's-- He could have been in the SS or something. He has this kind of face and everything, even though he has such a-- He's very warm and extremely intelligent, and he's the opposite of that in every single possible imaginable respect. But in fact, I had always heard that he was Swiss and part Brazilian or something like... Well, after we shot this, he actually found out he was German. He'd never known that. - Really? But he got some news about the history of his family, and it turned out he actually is German, if I understand it properly. ...tell them to go fuck themselves. Hold the line. Who is the car repairman? Are those the guys who worked in this shop? They were-- Those were real mechanics from this shop. And it was very difficult to get them to stay. And we had to pay the mechanic wages to have them stand in the background, as I recall. It was incredibly cold this day as well. Wes, did we have to do another--? Did we have to do a reshoot of this again? We picked up some shots. - We did, right? Yes. Roman was saying how cold it was when we shot this. Well, we'd been shooting in the desert in Rajasthan. And, you know, it was certainly over 100 degrees often. And then about, oh, you know, 48 hours later, we were in New York. We wrapped the movie and immediately traveled to New York to shoot this flashback scene, the last scene of the movie, and it was so cold. It was an absolutely freezing day in New York. And it was so cold, in fact, that the-- A thing I've never seen happen, which is the camera froze in the middle of a take, remember? Yeah. It just stopped-- It stopped spinning. Wes, what was the actual last shot we were shooting and then Owen got out of the car and just went to the airport? Did we miss that? We were shooting in the-- I know-- I remember we were-- After all the-- After shooting the movie, we were in Harlem shooting the shot of Jason, Adrien and Owen in the car, and we got it. And I said, "Good. I-- We got it." And that was the moment where we would look to each other to say, "We've finished it." Very emotional moment. And I remember just as that moment was occurring, Owen said, "You know, I think I'm gonna try to make the 5:15." And he said, "Can you stop right here?" And the car stopped, and Owen jumped out of the car still wearing his wireless microphone and said, "I'm gonna call you guys when I get back. I'm headed to L.A." And he ran across the street and hailed a taxi... Yeah. - ...and he was gone. And it was funny. And it was kind of... not exactly touching, but there actually was something kind of moving about it, even though it doesn't really sound like it.

I told you not to come here.

What's that noise? That's the chair I'm sitting on. Oh, I know that chair. That's one of the noisiest chairs there is. Here Jason is reading his new short story, which is actually The Hotel Chevalier. And the brothers are not... deeply impressed with it, but I think they appreciate that he's a developing talent. "He nodded. 'I don't care.' He would not be going to Italy." This was Jason's line at the end. This was one that-- Yes, well, anyway. I like how mean you are. Well, the characters are all... "Thanks." Thanks. So here we are for the last scene of the film. The last sort of-- I have a feeling-- We give it plenty of endings. For some reason, I'm always comfortable with that. My only regret with this scene is that people often refer to the fact that they're throwing away their emotional baggage. And for us, it was really more about them just getting rid of all this luggage. And I think they take the emotional baggage with them, but they leave behind the father's luggage. We also-- Noticed a shot that just went by where Adrien was using the rickshaw camera, which we described earlier. And you see his two hands as if he's holding the luggage, but in fact he's... - Operating the rickshaw dolly. Exactly. - Yeah. And remember there was that boy. The day before this, when we were here prepping, we'd seen this kid in the background who was spinning one of these wheels, rolling a wheel like that, so we asked him to come back the next day and reprise what he was doing.

Welcome aboard. - Thank you. Thank you. Sweet lime? So that's Satyajit Ray on the wall there.