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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Julia Ormond: The Hollywood Interview

Actress Julia Ormond


JULIA ORMOND IS “IN HER ANIMAL”
By
Alex Simon

Julia Ormond made an auspicious debut as an actress in the landmark 1989 British miniseries Traffik, on which the Oscar-wining Steven Soderbergh film was later based, playing the drug-addicted daughter of a member of Parliament. By 1994, Ormond was being touted as the next Audrey Hepburn, with her old school glamour and classically-trained acting chops, earned at London’s prestigious Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts. High-profile turns in big studio pictures like Legends of the Fall and First Knight suddenly propelled the young, working actress into superstar status, with all the baggage that accompanies that much sought-after, and ultimately regrettable moniker.

With her turn in Sydney Pollack’s ill-fated remake of Billy Wilder’s classic Sabrina, in 1995, it all seemed to turn 180 degrees for Ormond, who suddenly found herself excoriated by the press that had built her up the year before. Fine work in such art house fare as Smilla’s Sense of Snow and Nikita Mikhalov’s epic The Barber of Siberia got her on the good side of a handful of critics, but did little to re-establish her as a movie star.

Rather than bemoan her return to “regular actress” status, Ormond took some time off, married, had a baby, and threw herself into philanthropic work, including work with The United Nations and founding FilmAid, a non-profit that, according to their own mission statement, “uses the power of film and video to reach the world’s most vulnerable communities with messages that inspire them, address their critical shared needs, and effect social change.” She also did fine work in such varied cinematic fare as The Prime Gig, Iron Jawed Angels, and David Lynch’s Inland Empire. Julia appeared in two of last year’s highest-profile films, David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Steven Soderbergh’s epic Che.

Ormond reinvents herself with her turn in Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance, playing FBI agent Elizabeth Anderson who, with her partner (Bill Pullman), must interrogate three material witnesses to a brutal series of murders in a rural Midwestern town. Ormond offers a complex, double-barreled performance that’s a testament to the adage that artists, like fine wines, just get better over time. Julia Ormond sat down with us recently for a chat about film, the nature of violence in our society, and the beauty of being a survivor. Warning: spoilers ahead!

So tell us about going on this wild ride with Jennifer Lynch at the wheel.
Julia Ormond: It was really an amazing ride. It was right from the start, in terms of reading the script, I was aware of how clever it was, and what I believe it says, but of course they’re not going to consider me for it. (laughs) It’s just not the sort of thing I get cast in. Then she let me come in and audition, and beg for the role, and when I got the role, she asked me “Because of the nature of the film, do you think you can afford to take a risk on something like this?” My response was ‘I don’t think I can afford not to.’ Then when I actually got to work with her, I discovered this amazing force, who was so open and so…I think it was just the fact that she’d been so burned by the whole Boxing Helena experience and how indicative that was of what can happen to a filmmaker who steps out with something wholly original, then ends up being misunderstood, and then how deeply personal that response is for somebody. To come back with something like Surveillance, that is so out there and risky and be completely behind it, and not to cave to deliver something that’s more traditionally palatable or what’s “expected” from a woman director, just has to be admired. She made sure that everybody on that set felt respected and nurtured, from the cast to the drivers, and that helped get the best out of them. I wish it was something you saw more of in this business.

Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond in Surveillance.

You brought up something interesting in terms of Jennifer’s story of being a survivor. When I spoke with Jennifer earlier, we talked about you in that sense, as well. When you first “arrived” so to speak, you were being touted as the second coming of Audrey Hepburn, even before the remake of Sabrina. You were a movie star overnight, then after Sabrina, it was like the press turned on you, many of whom were really nasty to you. So you took some time off…
Yeah, I did. I had a baby and did some other things, but what I think happened to me is I believe I’m pretty grounded, and in the maelstrom of what was going on, hype is something that happens externally from you. It’s not something you generate yourself, and so you have your own perspective from within, and my sense was that when somebody is built up that high, particularly if it is movies that are not banking on you—I mean (Sabrina and First Knight) were made because of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery and Richard Gere being in them, not because of me. Until you have that legitimate grounding, that’s the point when everybody in the business recognizes you can make some claim. Up until that time, it’s just hype. What happened for me was that after I’d had the opportunity to do these movies that were high profile, I had the opportunity to do smaller films, like Smilla’s Sense of Snow and Barber of Siberia, and the experience of shooting the latter for a year in Russia really kind of wiped me out. What I perceived about myself was, aside from being creatively exhausted, I’d somehow gotten into a rut in terms of typecasting. I thought I was doing all these different movies: a cowboy film, a breezy romantic comedy, an Arthurian adventure, they all felt like they were different genres, but people would say “Oh, you’re the woman stuck between two guys, or three guys.” And I kind of had to admit, ‘Yeah.’ And that wasn’t good. So you throw that into the mix with everything else, and especially being British, you have the feeling that if you’re built up that much you have nowhere to go but down. So yes, there were people who said some nasty things, but there were also people who said some really amazing things, that were equally untrue! (laughs) I had to look at it from that perspective and what has been sort of a hard graft was stepping away from all that and doing some different stuff: having a kid, investing a lot of time in philanthropic things: building FilmAid International and doing work with the U.N. to raise awareness about human trafficking, also wanting to come back in at a certain point and do things differently, to take on roles that deliberately cut against that rut I found myself in. I’ve had a lot of people say to me “You turned your back on Hollywood,” and I never really felt that. I only felt grateful that I’d been given the opportunities that I’d been given and it took me a bit of time before I realized that the choices I’d made are what created my own rut. What has been really nice is that during the down time there has also been aging during that time (laughs) and wondering am I still going to be doing this in my forties? I breathed a big sigh of relief that I’m still employable (laughs), which was the first part of it, the second being that I find it really liberating in terms of what you’re cast as at this point in your life. So I’ve been enjoying the different range of work I’ve been doing for the past few years.

Ormond in the original Traffik, her film debut.

It makes sense that you would have made those decisions at those points in your life. We’re contemporaries, so when I look back at decisions I made in my 20s and 30s, they’re choices that I would never make now, given the perspective that I have. On the flip side of that, is the character of Elizabeth Anderson one that you would have wanted to play when you were 28?Yes! But that stuff wasn’t coming my way. Part of stepping back is about saying no to the stuff that is coming your way, that maybe career-wise is what other people would like you to do, but I’m fortunate now to be surrounded by a team that are in synch with what I see as a creative trajectory that I want to follow. What I also found was that it took me a while to process the fact that if an actor’s career is a journey and you from point A getting into drama school, point B getting your Equity card, Point C getting a lead in theater, point D getting a role in a film. The things that you relied on, your own resources that got you from A to D are not necessarily the things you want to stay with. You have to look at what’s going to get you from L to M and being an actor is the same as anything else in that it’s a craft that you learn and you grow in, and it’s sort of easy to believe that that’s what my success was founded on, and I needed to fall back on that. And feeling that I was stuck in a casting rut, that was something I had to let go of.

Julia Ormond in Sydney Pollack's remake of Sabrina.

What I hear you saying is that throughout the course of one’s life there are reset buttons. And you have to be willing to push the reset buttons.
Yes and there’s a lot of risk involved in that.

This is a risky film on many levels. Jennifer said that one reason she thinks she was so vilified was that she was a woman who was tackling this dark material, whereas if a man, like Quentin Tarantino or even her father, tackle a dark subject honestly, they’re held up as being innovators.
I think there’s a lot to that, but I would say this: it speaks to how we see violence and I think a big part of what this movie is about, is how we’re anesthetized to violence and part of what works about the movie for me is that it uses humor to provoke you to laugh at something that your brain is kind of saying “That’s bad!”

This film reminded me of two of my favorite movies for that very reason: A Clockwork Orange and Natural Born Killers, both of which were satires that employed black humor to get their very serious points across.
Okay, I see it being very close to both of those films, but also Reservoir Dogs in how you’re laughing at something that is threatening to a character within the piece. I really want this film to be something that people will go to see, then walk away from it without analyzing it to death, which is something I could definitely be criticized for (laughs), but there’s something it that says violence is something that exists within all of us, and we kind of have an approach to it globally where we’re looking to put a face on it. We’re looking for symptoms of evil. It’s like we have this fairy tale approach of still expecting to see the wicked, evil stepmother or the villain in the dark cloak, and I don’t think they exist. I think it’s much more the fact that it’s something within all of us, and until we recognize that, we can’t really tackle it. So we don’t expect something like this to come out of a woman. People also don’t like to see strong sexuality in a woman.

In terms of the woman being the seducer or the aggressor, you mean?
Yes, there are still a lot of areas in which men and women don’t have equality and to me, part of that equality is gained when I will celebrate the day when a woman directs the next Bond film. Then we’ll be in a position to be treated as equals. At the moment, the expectations of us are still somewhat in a box, and what I love about Jen is that even after all that stuff she went through in her life, she knows how to make a film. With her contacts and resources, she could have picked up any number of more conventional scripts, executed them brilliantly and done a great job. But she didn’t. She stuck firm by her artistic voice and what she wanted to say as a human being, and that to me takes a great deal of courage. I like the fact that all of us are flawed, all of us make crazy choices. Some get stuck in a pattern where they’re consistently doing it (laughs). But what does that say about our capacity for violence? And when somebody is under surveillance and they’re doing something that is perceptively dubious, what does that then lead people to think of as our connection to it? So often, when you look at abuse, and this is a story about violence that has come from abuse, it’s right there close to us where we least expect it. We’ve sort of normalized violence as it’s seen culturally. Explosions. Guns. Legends of the Fall, violence. A situation that is violently dealt with, but nobody is outraged by that. It was deemed as heroics. Look at kids’ films today. How many animals use force, bash each other over head…

Julia Ormond and Anthony Hopkins in Legends of the Fall.

But that’s always been the case, going back to the old Warner Bros. cartoons.
Right, it’s always been the case, even earlier, with classic fairy tales, the poisoned apple. So I think how we see violence is blurred and distorted and normalized. And by losing the capacity to own it, we lose the capacity to see it. And the child in this story is the center of it all. Because she is still innocent, she is able to see.

I thought it was a really brilliant touch that the child was the touchstone for every very disparate character in this film. Each person who came in contact with her had a different take on what had happened. They all met different fates and different epiphanies in the process. I also liked your character’s backstory of abuse.Yes, exactly. I don’t want to give too much away because there are so many great twists and turns in the film, but the way I describe her is usually ‘I play an FBI agent who has to go in and find out who saw what, who knows what, and then deal with them appropriately.’

That’s both a very honest and very ambiguous answer.
(laughs) Why, thank you.

You said something interesting in the press notes about Jennifer “being in her animal” during the shoot. What did that mean?
She’s on her game. It’s like she was in her stride. I think she is somebody who has done a great deal of work on herself, knows herself, is still growing, still speaks of that, but it using herself in a totally full-blooded way to draw herself forward. It’s a very powerful thing when you see somebody hit their sweet spot as an artist. It’s very infectious and it rubs off on other people.


Trailer for Surveillance.

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Agnès Varda: The Hollywood Interview

Filmmaker Agnès Varda and friend.

Editor's note: "The Beaches of Agnes" opens in a limited run in New York and L.A. this week for Academy Award consideration. If you reside on either coast, do yourself a favor and run, don't walk, to "Beaches."

Agnès Varda Hits the BeachBy
Alex Simon
Born in Belgium in 1928, Agnès Varda is renowned for being the only female member of France’s legendary “Nouvelle Vague” (which also includes such luminaries as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Varda’s late husband, Jacques Demy) school of filmmaking when, in 1954, she formed a film company called Cine-Tamaris for her first feature, La Pointe Courte. It earned her the title of “Grand Mother of the French New Wave,” at the tender age of 26.



Varda has made 33 films since then, alternating between shorts and features, fiction and documentaries. Some of her most famous titles include Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961), Le Bonheur (1964), One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977), Vagabond (1985), Jacquot de Nantes (1990), and The Gleaners and I (2000). Since 2003, Varda has completed two major video installations for the Venice Art Biennale and the Taipei Museum, as well as serving on the jury of the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Agnès Varda’s latest cinematic gem is the autobiographical documentary The Beaches of Agnes, in which Varda looks back upon the seminal experiences of her life: the people, places and films that shaped it. A fascinating blend of fact, fantasy and pure cinema, The Cinema Guild release hits theaters July 3. Still active as ever, the 81 year-old auteur sat down with us in the palatial Santa Monica home of friend and fellow filmmaker Zalman King to discuss her newest film, and remarkable life.

Tell us about how this film was born.Agnès Varda: When I saw that I was about to be 80, I saw that number flashing in front of me, when I was on a beach in Noirmoutier. I realized how many other beaches had influenced my life. These beaches are the thread through which I chose to describe, to friends, family, and others, some of my work and the events of my life. When you reach a certain age, many feel the need to recount their lives. It sort of came like bubbles, on the surface of the water. I wanted to be precise about not only my life, but how I structured some of my films, so five or six times I’ll stop to say how I made a film, and how that reflected on what was happening in my life at the time. It’s not enough to tell a story. You have to find a way to make it cinematic.

Varda on the beach in Belgium.

And you really blended reality with fantasy seamlessly.
Well, that is because of my love of the surrealists and their work, like the image of me in the belly of the whale. And I’ve always given myself the freedom to go from one thing to another: from documentary to fiction, short to feature, reality to fantasy, so I wanted to incorporate all of these aspects of myself into the film. Not all of it is to be taken seriously. It’s my life, and sometimes I enjoy, not laughing, but smiling at myself. It was difficult to complete as a film because I had to integrate so many different things, and then rediscover it all over again during the editing.

Did it take a long time to edit?
Yes, we were editing for a very long time. I wanted to be able to tell some stories, and entertain people, simple as that.

Varda poses with circus performers in The Beaches of Agnès.

One thing that’s fascinating to watch is how the world changed through your eyes. I’m thinking of your trips to China, to Cuba, and your film about the abortion issue, Once Sings, the Other Doesn’t. Did you have the same feeling when you reflected back on these times and these films?Oh yes, my God! You know, so many people said to me, “How could you go to Cuba?” But when I was there in 1961-62, it was the most exciting place politically on the planet. There was such an enthusiasm and passion, after being a bordello for America, Havana became this free city. It’s hard to understand now, fifty years later. But I was lucky to be able to have witnessed that, just like with The Black Panthers. I did a documentary about them, as well. The Party vanished, in a way, after two years, but at the time, they were very strong in their vision of what they wanted to achieve. I was in China during the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, in 1957. China wasn’t even accepted by the United Nations then. It didn’t even exist in the economic market. Can you believe it, when you see what’s happening there now? As far as the subject of abortion goes, there used to be groups of women who would go to Amsterdam to get abortions, because the Church had such a strict hold over society in France, for so many years, even into the ‘70s. There was such a stigma, and a shame attached to it. It’s remarkable the changes I’ve seen over 80 years, some for good, some not.

Jacquot de Nantes must have been a very personal experience for both you and Jacques Demy. What was it like making that, with Jacques?Well, he knew he was dying when we did it. He didn’t have the strength to do it himself, which is why I directed it. It was an interesting experience making a film about somebody else’s childhood, almost like approaching a mystery, in a way. This is the part that can escape you, in a way, when you’re with someone for many years. So entering his childhood with his complicity, and his agreement, was an incredible experience. So my films have always been vital experiences for me. That’s why I made a career of it. Each film was born from a specific reason, bad or good, but growing organically.

Varda and her husband, the late Jacques Demy.

What was it like in with this film, to view your own life as a spectator, the same way you did with Jacquot?
It’s funny, one day I was filming my hands, and I thought, instead of ‘Oh, my hands look so old, with spots, I thought, that’s a beautiful landscape.’ It’s another aspect of being a filmmaker: my own age, my own life, becomes a landscape.

Was it difficult directing yourself, or could you just tune out when the camera was on you and “act”?
I was very conscious of the fact that there was a camera, and I was being filmed, and it was a very organized shoot, with shots either accepted or not by me. Two women were the cinematographers on this film, one in France, one in the U.S. for the Los Angeles sequences, and they were both wonderful, which helped a great deal. So no, it wasn’t hard. It felt quite natural after a time.

You and Jacques came to the U.S. at the height of the anti-war and hippie movement, in 1967. What were your impressions of that time in America, compared to what was happening in Europe?
It was right before the ’68 movement, which now everyone knows about and romanticizes. But in ’67, France was really dull, and being in America, it was like this shower of freedom, counterculture, the way people spoke and dressed. There was all this loving and all these “happenings,” all these meetings, picnics with people, sharing things. It must be difficult for you to image how it was. It was so open, like everybody should love everybody. Even the studio people were wearing peace and love signs on the lapels of their suits. (laughs) I don’t know that they knew what it meant, but everybody had to be “peace and love.” It was really nice, and we were so delighted to be sharing in that at that time in our lives when we were about 40. It’s an age in which you can still discover new things, have an open mind, and not be stuck in a routine. I hope the film shows that. I made a film during that time, a hippie Hollywood film.

Agnès Varda, circa mid-1960s.

One thing you touched on regarding that time was how different it was trying to work within the American studio system compared with the freedom you had back home in France. Could you speak about that?
My friend had written a screenplay called Peace and Love, and the studio accepted the screenplay, but wouldn’t give me final cut. I was stupid. I should have said yes, and then asked to do a cut for Europe, or just for France. I was too stubborn. I should have made the film, and then negotiated, but sometimes we make mistakes. It was a subject I really liked and related to. I still relate to it now. (laughs) I tried another with EMI, with a step deal, and they called it off, ten years later. So who knows, maybe I would not have been so happy inside the system. So the films I did make here, that were completed, were made with French money and total freedom.

Jacques made The Model Shop around that time, for Columbia Pictures. Was he frustrated by it all, as well?He wasn’t frustrated. He just wouldn’t play the game. He didn’t want to have a crew of 70 people in a parking lot shooting two people sitting in a car. He’d shoot it hand-held with a crew of maybe five or six people. He could have done a big musical, with a big crew. He had done Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort back in France, both muscials. The Model Shop is a beautiful film, but it’s a French film, not a Hollywood film. For some reason, he just turned his back on the system, and what was proposed to him.

It’s also a rather humorous side note that Jacques wanted to cast a young unknown named Harrison Ford in the lead…
Yes and the studio said they didn’t see anything in him, and the film would make no money if he was cast! (laughs) Harrison was nice enough to appear in Beaches and talk about this. But looking back, I think Jacques wished he would have done things differently. So when you ask what’s it like to look at myself, I ask the question ‘Maybe I should have done this differently here,’ but I didn’t do it, and life is what we did and what we do, not what we wish we had done.

Can you talk a bit more about the metaphor of the beach for the way you look at your life?
I think because growing up, when I was born in Belgium and then we moved to the south of France, my parents always took us to the beach. Jacques and I would always go to the beach. I’ve never been into surfing or swimming, or beach sports of any kind, but the beach itself is something that has always drawn me in. Full or empty, the beach is a beautiful landscape: the sky, the water, and the earth. You can understand the whole world there, as a landscape.

Sandrine Bonnaire and Varda on the set of Vagabond (1985).

I also thought it was an interesting metaphor, because the beach is where everything begins and everything ends, an appropriate place to be if you’re looking back over the seminal moments of your life, right?Yes, it is true. I made a film called Vagabond. At the beginning, Sandrine Bonnaire comes out of the ocean, naked, and little by little she gets dirtier, and dirtier, and suddenly she’s full of mud, so it’s also a metaphor, as you say, for the beginning of the world, which is also so indifferent to us.

Corinne Marchand in Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961).

Something else you’ve always done is play with the concept of time in your films, which you do in Beaches, and you’ve done going back to Cleo from 5 to 7.
Cinema is light and time. We know that. The time element is the one you work on, the one you play with. Then you have the other aspect, which is duration. Time and duration, and they’re not the same. To tell a story with film, you must know the difference.

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