Pacing & rhythm

I'm really excited we're going to be spending Christmas together. It's been too long. Yeah, it has. I'm really looking forward to it. Well, uh... Fun little detail, like the scars on her face. See you soon. Love you. I love you more.

41:43 · jump to transcript →

new casts, but your teeth also shift. So Dave and Samantha, everybody, they all talked about how, you know, they weren't uncomfortable to wear, but they, you know, they had moments of being uncomfortable, and too long in the mouth would make them uncomfortable. So again, all the right reasons for making new ones. And so we took new casts of their teeth,

1:13:49 · jump to transcript →

It reminds me slightly of Karloff's introduction in Frankenstein where you see the back first. And so your lead guy is sort of given a bit of mystery. Do you think it was done on purpose like that? My sense is that there was another scene which we've never caught up with. That's also possible. And Barrymore, one of the things he does is he... You can see why he got his star billing because he walks in, he takes over this film. He, in fact, changes the pace of the film. Watching it again for the first time recently...

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Tim Lucas

And now we see the cell invaded by its liberators, who address themselves not to the pacing man, but rather the lazy man. This is Jean-Marie Volanté as our third principal character, El Indio, destined to be our next poster boy with an even higher bounty on his head. He will become the shared quarry that will bring our two competitors together.

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which wasn't very difficult to do because we got one of the jackpot mechanics to come and fix the machine, and sure enough, the jackpot comes up every time. The mechanic is quite interested because he works very hard. On weekends, he has to tighten them all up, and on Mondays, which is the slack day, the ones outside by the door loosen them up so that people pull and say, oh, this is my lucky place, and come inside.

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is so grounded, you totally believe that this would happen. That's Barry Snyder there, the guy wearing the suit. And he was, again, kind of a character actor fixture. And I think we have, it's not too long from now, where the character known as the Hippie reveals himself as a police officer.

1:22:02 · jump to transcript →

Nick Pinkerton

the boss is Clint. Charles Okun who was the first assistant director on the film said that quote Clint was the only guy that ever said no Michael said okay let's go for it another take it was take four Clint would say no we got enough we got it and if Cimino took too long to get it ready Clint would say it's good let's go

1:11:52 · jump to transcript →

Strange how music works that goes completely against the rhythm. On the square we did play music, too, so the people would move with the rhythm.

1:30:56 · jump to transcript →

Did we cut it before we shot it or did we shoot it? No, we cut some of it before we shot it and then we shot it. And you looked at it and you said, well, you know, something's got to go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, films have to be a certain length. Most films are too long. Yeah, but unfortunately you ultimately have to make these choices. Indeed. And some certain characters have to suffer as a result. But I don't think the character suffered as such because...

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Yeah, play the shrimp luncheon special. And in fact, the guy, there's Bobby Ellis. Yeah, there is. Number one teamster in... And I had to call time here because it was a working phone booth and it would start... Because the scene was too long. So as I'm talking on the phone, I'm listening to time. Yeah. There's Miguel. LAUGHTER

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Roger Moore

cut the blinks out when I'm holding a gun, because I blink before the gun goes off. The trick, of course, of firing a gun is that you sort of squint your eyes together a little bit, which Gary Cooper used to have a little yip when he was, yip, and those eyes would just tighten up around the edges so you didn't blink.

1:18:35 · jump to transcript →

I assume he was auditioning for Empire of the Sun before this. I don't know what it was. And, of course, this is before he really hit it big with Dead Poets Society, so it must have been cool to see him make it, you know, suddenly have a big hit not too long after this came out. Right. And he really carries this whole film. I mean, he's in virtually every scene in the movie, you know, so it's kind of a make or break based on his performance. Well, yes, and that became a problem because during the movie he came down with mononucleosis. Oh. And...

3:32 · jump to transcript →

So this is Long Beach now. This is a little area that we... You have to realize the politics of the movie were very interesting at the time because when we were shooting in Pittsburgh, that was the end of the movie. And we had already shot too long, according to the studio and our own schedule. I had gone over schedule. And Jon said, you know, we have no time to finish the movie this way. And...

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And so, just looking, you know, at pacing and a sense of momentum, you can feel what John was after. You can feel how this movie's now getting to the point where something's gonna blow, and here it is.

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What was the other job you were doing at the time? Oh, it was actually a commercial. Oh. But it was a whole bunch of commercials, and this was the last one I did for this company. But when it happened, we started this 10 days later. Wow. You lost points for driving too slow. Well, this is where it rebroke, okay? You're kidding. No, but I'll show you where, because originally...

1:00:29 · jump to transcript →

I think you're both right as well. At some point, it's just going to take too long to try to explain what's actually going to happen, so you may as well just go for it. Yeah, no. No. Right, yeah. It would have required half of the day. Nobody got time for that. I'm very curious when, so you finish the film. You're done. It's pretty quick. Three months, right? Pretty tight turnaround. Three months done. Film comes out.

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Stephen Prince

At the top are the emperor and empress, and we see them in a series of five shots that are cut together in rapid succession, a little montage that is different from the slow tempo that Kurosawa uses through the movie. It's the kind of compressed, rapid editing that Kurosawa excelled at using in his earlier films to create tension and pacing. The I character tells the group that one of their members is missing, and they deny this, which creates an intriguing discrepancy.

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It's interesting, there's a couple of movies that were saved because the effects props didn't work very well. And one was Alien. In the movie Alien, if you had the camera on that thing for more than a second it gave itself away. Ridley set it up So you saw it for less than a second. And it actually made the movie more... That first movie really helped establish a technique for this horror-action stuff. And Jaws was a nightmare for Steven. He couldn't get this big rubber shark to work. But the few frames that it did worked really wonderful. Whereas maybe, if it had worked better, he'd have overdone it. Left it on the screen too long, which is always the...

2:05:02 · jump to transcript →

Forgive me, I'm getting excited watching my stuff all over again. Actually, that was a cut we made. We actually had the camera move up like this in one shot, but pacing, we had to do certain cutting. Nathan, come on, what are you doing? But I think Tori, or Jennifer, looks adorable, and I don't know, she was so cute and really did have a presence on the set and sort of a charisma, I'm sure, gave you...

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Tony Scott

...on Bronson whilst he's waiting and prepping for Clowns in Alabama to arrive. Which is brilliant. It's very, very funny. It just, when my final cut, it felt a little bit too long. So that's why I took it out. But if you've got the DVD, you can see it. The scene in the elevator, I think, is also... ...one of the great scenes in the movie. And really the tone of the scene...

1:34:44 · jump to transcript →

wasn't but there are some things like the mary ellen trainer and stewart penkin or peter jason or there's a geode room later um where i feel like did they have to cut some things you know um that just couldn't you know just be too long well it's a nice tight you know hour and 45 minutes or so when you think about a lot of movies like this tend to have this kind of bloated two and a half hour running time that's one of the things i like about this is it's nice and you know

1:00:09 · jump to transcript →

To cauterize it? No. I'm not messing up my booty for that. So this scene, which I wish that they had kept in full because there's several... Initially, when the studio recut the film, they cut it into an absolute disaster. And they were particularly... This is too long, this is too long. And they cut out some of your best material. But they left it so that the...

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It was a bit longer, this scene. - We had an additional hole. Exactly, an additional hole. You can see something strange on the hole, because... You can see something strange, because he's grabbed by the feet by the alien through a hole which doesn't exist here. He had to walk for an additional 10m or something to get there. It was too long. That was one of the remarks we had from the first test screening. They made, if I remember, something like 100 remarks. I remember, sometimes we were defiant, but we were pretty upset. And sometimes we said "They're right." And sometimes we said "They're right." We were very upset at first, but looking at the questions which were asked, we realized that, each time, it was somewhere where... we thought it could go like that. In the time we had for doing it, we thought it was OK. As we could have more time, that was... Most of the notes, we found an answer. We never really followed the propositions we had, but we found the creative answer to the question asked. I think that was what the studio was waiting for us to do. But it was a good lesson for me and for us. Since that time, for each film I'm cutting I'm organizing previews, which is not in the French tradition. For Amélie we did some test screenings. In fact, I copy the answer from Hollywood, but the big difference is: I have the final cut, I can choose. The difference is on the use you do from the answers. Exactly. But we don't have to complain. - I love this idea. This is a simple shot that was hard. That head was long and heavy, and trying to keep it smooth and even and not drag across Michael's face, and make it all the way up to that opening in the chest. You always said that this cut, the final cut, was your cut. We did it with the production notes and... If the studio would ask me to make a director's cut, I would say "That's mine." Yeah, that would be a problem, because we're very happy with what we have.

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You know, it has the feel of reality to it, as though if you were in one, that's what it would look like. The abruptness and the, I always think that violence, they always tend to, you know, the fights now, because they don't know what to do with it, they always string them out too long.

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Taylor Hackford

And Mary Ann, who's innocent, just like she was in the beginning... ...she's right alongside. What I wanted to do at the end of this film, and that's why at this point... ...you see Neal Jones morph into Al Pacino... ...you realize you can't beat the devil every time. You might win one battle, but he's back there the next morning. I would not leave this film with you having a happy ending. I did that with Officer and a Gentleman. I want to basically say: Every single day of your life you can't get smug... ...and you have to confront morality. I think we all do. And that's why this is a moral tale. I'm not deeply religious and I don't think of this as a religious film... ...but I do think that it is a film of somebody who still feels... ...a certain idealism, and a realization that we have responsibilities in our life. And I think that all the people that worked on the film worked on it... ...in a fairly righteous way. You know, Andrew Neiderman wrote a novel at the beginning. Four writers contributed to the screenplay. And I want to mention the people I haven't mentioned. There's Mark Warner... ...who is my collaborator, my editor, fabulous collaborator through... ...this process. You can feel the pace of this film. Everybody put themselves into something here. I also want to give credit to Per Hallberg, who was the sound designer. All the way through this I think there are subtle effects in addition to the score... ...that really give you the feeling that there is something else going on. There are a lot of artists that worked on this film, and when you go through... ...the process of collaboration, you have a vision as a film maker... ...and you want to get that vision on the screen. But you can't do it alone. I know it's trite to say this, but you utilize... ...and when someone has a great idea, you grab it. I encourage that, and I worked with a wonderful group of collaborators... ...on this film, and I'm very proud of it. After having gone and talked for two hours here, almost nonstop... ...this must be a lot of dribble. I apologize if, in fact, it's gone on... ...ad nauseam, but, again, we had an opportunity to make a film. I appreciate Warner Bros. was very tough to work for. We had a lot of disagreements, but they did allow me to make a film... ...and, they did, ultimately, give me final cut of the film... ...so that I was able to make the film I wanted. No excuses. I'm very proud of it. I hope you enjoyed it. Subtitles conformed by SOFTITLER

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