John Boorman: The Hollywood Interview

Filmmaker John Boorman.


JOHN BOORMAN: FIVE-STAR GENERAL
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the December 1998/January 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.

It's Fall of 1979, and I'm living in forced exile with my parents in Vancouver, Canada. This was before the time of cable TV and VCR's, and therefore were dark times for adolescent geek movie buffs like myself who had little else to look forward to but a dark movie theater on a Saturday afternoon where we could spend a couple hours forgetting how pathetic we really were. On those days or evenings when a ride down to the movie center of Granville Street wasn't available, the TV would have to do. But Canada had a dark little secret: French TV. The French language network showed movies of all nationalities, uncut and without commercials. The only catch was the flicks were dubbed in French, of which I didn't speak or understand a word. Language barriers aside, the French channel was great place to catch some graphic violence or a hot babe nuding up for your viewing pleasure. One such Saturday night, they featured a double bill of two movies by this guy John Boorman. Their French titles made no sense to me, but WOW, what movies! The first one had Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson (nude! Yeah!) in a two-fisted tale of revenge, violence and just general all around sex and smashing things up that made my head spin, not to mention some truly eye-popping camerawork. The second featured Marvin again and Toshiro Mifune as two guys duking it out on an island somewhere. Very minimal dialogue in this one, anyway. Cool. After both films were over and it was bedtime, something struck me: about ten minutes into the first film, I forgot that I was watching movies that were dubbed into French. Both were so well made, acted and shot, that their stories were completely coherent visually and made perfect sense. I decided that I had to find out more about this guy, this Boorman.

John Boorman was born January 18, 1933 in Shepperton, near London. After an inauspicious start in the dry cleaning business, and writing film reviews for a girl's magazine and for radio, he entered British television in 1955 as an assistant editor. He worked his way up through provincial TV studios into the BBC , where he distinguished himself as an innovative documentary director. In 1962 he became head of the BBC documentary unit in Bristol. He made his debut as a feature director in 1965 with the sleeper hit Catch Us If You Can (aka Having a Wild Weekend), starring the British pop group The Dave Clark Five. Originally conceived by its producers as a way to cash in on fertile territory carved out by The Beatles in Richard Lester's films A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965), the film proved to be the only other rock-oriented comedy of the period that stood up to Lester's work, and was a critical and commercial hit in its own right, noted by many for its darker, more cynical take on corporate values specifically and the world in general than either of the Beatles films were. After doing additional work for the BBC, including a highly-regarded documentary on cinema pioneer D.W. Griffith, Boorman came to Hollywood to direct two films with Lee Marvin, who became a lifelong friend. Point Blank (1967) is now regarded by many as a seminal film of the 60's, notorious at the time of its release for its graphic violence and (albeit brief) frontal nudity, Point Blank foreshadowed the edgy, minimalist thrillers that the 70's were made of, such as The French Connection (1971), Get Carter (1971), and Marathon Man (1976). Boorman and Marvin followed Blank with Hell in the Pacific (1968), a brilliant metaphorical drama about an American (Marvin) and Japanese pilot (the great Toshiro Mifune) stranded on a desolate South Pacific island together in the waning days of WW II. Boorman returned to England to direct Leo the Last (1970) which won him the Best Director prize at Cannes, then came back to the States for Deliverance (1972) the white water thriller about man's primal nature which made stars of Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty, and burned itself a place in the world's consciousness as one of the most harrowing cinematic experiences ever put on film.

Boorman's next two films, Zardoz (1974) and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) were resounding flops. He left the States and returned made his new home in Ireland, scoring big with the now-classic King Arthur epic Excalibur in 1981. This was followed by the fact-based adventure The Emerald Forest (1985) about an American businessman's hunt for his young son (played by Boorman's own son, Charley), kidnapped and raised by Amazonian Indians in the Brazilian jungle. Boorman was named Best Director by the National Society of Film Critics for Hope and Glory (1987), an autobiographical story of a young boy's adventures in blitz-devastated London during WW II. It was also nominated for Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay. Boorman also recently completed work on Lee Marvin: A Personal Portrait by John Boorman, which premiered November 17 on American Movie Classics and paints a vivid picture of the late actor, one of Boorman's closest friends. Boorman's latest film, The General, earned him a second Best Director prize at Cannes and ranks with some of his finest work ever. The General tells the true story of Irish crime lord Martin Cahill, whose 20 year career netted him over $60 million and managed to keep both the police and other underworld organizations at bay, until his assassination by the IRA ended his prolific, and often comical reign of crime. The General stars Irish actor Brendan Gleeson (last seen by U.S. audiences as 'Hamish' in Mel Gibson's Braveheart (1995)) as Cahill, who was also known as "The General," and co-stars Jon Voight as the Irish police inspector who always seems to be one step behind Cahill and his capers. Rock legend Van Morrison supplies the soundtrack's music. The film opens December 25 in New York and Los Angeles for much-deserved Academy Award consideration.

John Boorman doesn't look like your stereotypical film director, but has the kindly eyes and reserve that you might expect to find on a favorite college professor or man of letters: a good conversationalist and an even better listener who makes the other half of the talk feel completely at ease. Mr. Boorman, who resides full time in Ireland, sat down recently to talk about life, movies and the ever-mysterious Martin Cahill.

How did you first hear about Martin Cahill?
John Boorman: (laughs) Well I'll tell you: in 1981, he robbed my house! That was the first time I heard his name. He wasn't really notorious at that point, but was a well-known cat burglar. Amongst the things he took were a gold record that I have for the music of Deliverance, "Dueling Banjos." He took it, thinking it was really made of gold. And I put that episode in the movie. Even then, he was always boasting about his conquests and went on in that style for many years. None of these crimes that I depict in the film, he wasn't convicted for any of them. I wouldn't have been able to make the film, had he not been dead.

Had the IRA not gotten him, do you think Cahill would still be working today?
I think someone would've gotten him in the end. He did have a sense of recklessness in which he sort of invited his own death. His sister told me that (Cahill) always said he'd be killed with a bullet. That's why in the film he's got that slight smile on his face right before the hit happens. It was inevitable. He just had too many enemies, but lived as long as he did because he was so outrageous, he just disarmed people. There's something in this film to upset pretty much everybody (laughs).

Judging by the production notes, this film was a real labor of love for you.
Well, before I started writing the script, there were two fixed points for me. One was Brendan Gleeson. I knew his work. I knew him personally and just knew he was the guy for this. He even had a strong physical resemblance to the real Martin Cahill. And the other starting point was Van Morrison. I felt that Van's voice was the voice of this character, that raw energy and roughness...with Jon Voight, who's brilliant at accents, I knew I had to have an actor who could stand up to Brendan's power. And Jon's been a very good friend over the years, a close friend, really. I originally had an Irish actor cast in Jon's role, a guy named Kieran Hines, then he had a scheduling conflict and wasn't available. There wasn't another Irish actor available who could've played the part. So I called Jon up, told Jon I was in trouble. He said "When do you need me?" I said "How about tomorrow?" (laughs) And the next day, there he was. I introduced Jon to this Detective Inspector Carrol, who was the advisor to the film. And Jon just completely took his accent, his personality, everything.

It sounds like there were a lot of other problems getting it made as well.
The problem was, when I was trying to finance it, everybody said "Well look, we like the script, but we need a star." And that was a sticking point, because I wanted Brendan. So at the end of the day, we didn't get any backing but we managed to borrow the money from the bank, and it was great. I probably wouldn't have been able to shoot it in black & white if I'd done it with a studio.

I really liked your choice of black & white.
Thank you. It's a real thrill to see black & white on the screen again, for me.

One of the things I loved about it was that you didn't shoot it like a traditional gangster movie. It was more like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1961) or Look Back in Anger (1959). It had a real "kitchen sink" feel to it, almost like you were eavesdropping on real people.
People have said that a lot, that it was like watching real people live their lives, particularly in reference to Brendan Gleeson.

The other thing I liked about it, was that it took its time, which a lot of filmmakers just aren't doing anymore.
Yes, everything's MTV, chop-chop, isn't it? They'll make a cut if anything lasts more than five seconds.

Even with Having a Wild Weekend, which was a pre-cursor to rock video, you took your time to frame an interesting shot and let that shot happen.
Well you don't necessarily get pace out of fast cutting. You can get pace out of movement within the frame, but I notice that even in mainstream movies now, people use these sort of MTV techniques, which is alright if you've got a music beat to hold it together, but it's disorienting. What I always try to do is put and leave the camera where it ought to be. If there's a close-up here, there's a reason for it being there, and I hope that engenders a kind of trust in the audience. They feel that there's nothing arbitrary about it. I seldom move the camera, unless it's to follow action. I never move the camera for the sake of moving the camera, and that's so you strike up a relationship with the audience. It's unconscious, but every film does that. When you go to see a film, after about 10 minutes you know whether there's a vision there, an intelligence at work. It's about building a relationship with the audience so they suspend disbelief and sort of drift into the film. When you see a film like that where you just drift into it and become lost in it, it's so marvelous! That's the joy of going to movies, isn't it?

I found (a big summer blockbuster) completely uninvolving because it cut so fast and furious that I didn't have time to be involved in one scene before it cut to another.
I think that those kind of movies bear the seeds of their own destruction. I think people are getting a diminishing return from that. People will look at those things, think it's come from a computer and say "Well, that's great. Next." (laughs)I saw What Dreams May Come recently and thought the effects were just extraordinary. It was wonderful to see computer generated effects used to create beauty, rather than for blowing things up.

Let's talk about some of your earlier films, staring with Having a Wild Weekend.
Well, the Beatles had just done A Hard Day's Night, and they came to me and asked if I wanted to make a film with the Dave Clark Five. I wasn't terribly interested, but they said "Look, you can do whatever you like, just as long as they're in it." So I got my friend Peter Nichols, who's a wonderful playwright, and we wrote the script in three weeks. It involved characters and locations that I'd encountered during my documentary days with the BBC. So we sort of threw it together and I shot it. There weren't any scenes of people actually singing or playing instruments. It just used music as part of the soundtrack. To my astonishment, Pauline Kael gave it this rave review. So again, to my surprise, this led to offers from Hollywood, which eventually led to Point Blank.

One thing I found interesting about Having a Wild Weekend was how heavily The Monkees copied from it in their TV show, especially the layout of their "pad."
You know, actually Bob Rafelson (creator of The Monkees, Five Easy Pieces) said that very thing to me in Telluride this year: "I ripped off your movie!" (laughs)

A montage of images from Boorman's Point Blank (1967) with Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson.

Let's talk about Point Blank.
This producer, Judd Bernard, gave me the script, then gave it to Lee (Marvin). We met over lunch. Lee said "What do you think of the script." He said "I think it's a piece of shit." (laughs). So he was over in London doing The Dirty Dozen at the time and had a lot of time on his hands, so we met many times and I got to learn a great deal about him, and I could see that he'd been in WW II, had been shot, had killed people and had this compulsion to play out this violence. That's why his on-screen violence was so compelling, because he'd been there. It was coming from a real place. So in many ways, Point Blank became a film about him. In the end, we met a final time and he said "I'll do this picture under one condition." And he took the script, and threw it out the window! (laughs) He committed to a conversation. You could never image that happening today. So I came over here, to L.A., with Alex Jacobs, another friend of mine, and worked with Lee throughout the process. Lee called a meeting with MGM, with the head of the studio. He'd just won the Best Actor Oscar (for Cat Ballou) and was very hot. Lee said "I have script approval, right?" They said "Yes Lee, of course." "I have cast approval?" "Yes Lee, you do." "I defer these approvals to John." And he turned around and walked out! So I had this kind of extraordinary power on my first film in Hollywood, which Lee knew I'd need, because the film was quite daring and avant-garde for its time. There were two other bits of luck that got the picture through to the end. O'Brien, who was running MGM at the time, called me in and had a copy of the script and said "Look, we want to do a picture with Lee Marvin, but I'm not sure this is it. This doesn't resemble a movie in the way MGM defines a movie." At that point the phone rang. He picks it up, says "I said no calls...oh!" It was David Lean in Spain where he was shooting Doctor Zhivago. He stood up, almost at attention, he was so in awe of Lean, saying "Yes! David, of course! Another 1,000 extras, fine! The dailies are amazing! We're so delighted to be working with you. Whatever you want, I'll fix it!" He put the phone down, looked at me, and clearly had forgotten who I was! (laughs) He said "Well...go off and make a good movie, kid." So I got out of there very fast! When I'd finished the picture, I showed it to the studio heads. Margaret Booth was the supervising film editor and head of post production at MGM then. She was Louis Mayer's film editor, had cut Gone With the Wind, had been there for years, and years. She was greatly feared because she re-cut everything. So the lights went up with all the executives mumbling about re-shoots and re-cutting, and she looked up and said "You touch a frame of this movie over my dead body!" (laughs) And that was it! I saw Point Blank recently for the first time in years at the New York Film Festival. And what struck me was the amount of silence on the film's soundtrack. I think what we're seeing in films today is a proliferation of soundtracks dominating the visuals. They're leading the film and the audience is getting used to the idea of sound effects, music and dialogue forcing the picture and they rely on that, rather than the visuals leading the attack. It's very odd.

Were you concerned that Point Blank would be taken away from you, due to its sexual and violent content?
I was. And to combat that, I shot what was, at that time, the lowest ratio of film in MGM's history. I think I shot 70,000 feet or something. I was determined to just shoot the shots I was going to use, so there would be nothing anybody could do about it. (laughs)

L to R: Cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, Lee Marvin, Boorman, and Toshiro Mifune on the set of Hell in the Pacific (1968).

Tell us about the genesis of Hell in the Pacific.
What happened was, someone came to Lee, who was a tremendous admirer of Mifune, about doing a film with Mifune. This producer had a short story about this Japanese and American who were stranded on an island together. Lee came to me and asked me if I thought it would make a good movie. I had my doubts, but said "Okay, let's have a go." I worked with a Japanese and an English writer on the script. It was the toughest script I ever worked on, due to the language barriers...the filming itself was very tough, as well. Mifune spoke very little English and I spoke no Japanese. Mifune had this interpreter working for him. This was a largely Japanese crew, except for Conrad Hall, the cameraman. So I would say something to the interpreter, if I didn't like what Mifune had done, which was a loss of face for him in front of the crew. The interpreter would say "Please don't ask me to say that to him." "Just translate it!" So he'd translate it, and Mifune would scream at him, then turn around and smile at me, as though I had nothing to do with it. (laughs) It was really weird!

Watching Mifune and Marvin work together is interesting because they have very similar styles: both are very minimalist, very physical.
Very, yes. You know Lee saw himself as a sort of samurai. He had that balletic way of moving and the way he used his hands.

Mifune was a WW II vet also, wasn't he?
Yes he was. Do you know what his job was in the war? He was a quartermaster and one of his jobs was to hand out sake to the kamikaze pilots before they flew off on their missions! Can you imagine?!

To me, the sign of a great film is you can have seen it dozens of times, know it like the back of your hand, but if you walk in on the middle of it, and then can't stop watching it, that's a great movie, and Deliverance is one of those films for me. One thing that always strikes me is your use of the real Appalachian people in the film. How did you get them to be in the film and how, if at all, did you direct them?
Well, oddly enough those people in Clayton, Georgia, their isolation is due to the fact that they intermarried with Indians. So they were unacceptable to the whites and unacceptable to the Indians, and that's how all this inbreeding started. I just went up there to talk to these people and they were very suspicious, hostile. But when you got to know them, they were okay. They had such fascinating faces and we eventually just got many of them to (appear in the film). The boy, for instance, who "plays the banjo" just had this extraordinary face without any eyebrows or eyelashes...and he couldn't play the banjo, so I had another kid behind him with his arm through the arm of the shirt actually fretting the banjo while the kid we all know strummed it. We did that scene and I thought it was a good scene, but I never guessed it would have the kind of effect it has on people today.

The other shot that stays in my mind is the one of the old woman sitting with the child who was a basket case.
That was extraordinary. That woman was in her 90's at the time. This child had been born retarded and looked after it for the parents. It kept her alive, really, this having to care for the child. The juxtaposition of this old lady and the child, it summed it all up really, the horror of it.

How did Deliverance avoid getting an 'X' rating in this country?
Well, there was a huge controversy about it. They wanted to cut stuff. Do you know what they particularly wanted to cut? When Burt Reynolds shoots the guy and he falls onto the limb of the tree and takes a long time to die, they wanted to cut that. And I argued that, saying "What I'm trying to show is the consequences of what they've just done. You can't just have it be 'Bang!' and he goes down dead. The Burt Reynolds character has this romantic notion about killing, when in reality it's this ghastly, ghastly thing. So I fought that tooth and nail, then of course there was the rape scene. Then Barbara Streisand phoned me up and said "I want to see a guy get raped. I'm tired of seeing women get raped in movies. I want to see this before you have to make any cuts." So I showed it to her, then started showing it to other people in the community, and there was such an outcry of people objecting to it being cut, that Warners eventually left it alone.

I know filming on the river must've been a nightmare. Any stories come to mind?
There was one really frightening moment when Ned Beatty got sucked under by a whirlpool. We waited, and waited and Ned didn't come up. So I sent my two divers in after him and they finally brought him up in the nick of time. I asked him what went through his mind when he was going under. He said "My first thought was 'How is John going to finish the movie without me?' My second thought was 'He'll find a way,' and that's when I became determined to live!" (laughs)

Burt Reynolds tells a story where Bill McKinney, who played one of the mountain men, was really going to try and rape Ned Beatty, then Burt saved the day. True?
Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. You know Burt wrote his autobiography, I saw it on a bookshelf, I didn't buy it. And in the book he tells a story about how I screened the film for the actors and a few friends and went afterwards to my lawyer's house for dinner and everyone was telling him "Oh Burt, Burt, you're going to win the Academy Award for that one scene where you make that big speech." So he tells that I then came over to him and said "Look Burt, I'm going to have to cut that scene, because it unbalances the picture." He was living with Dinah Shore at the time, and tells how on the way home in the car, Dinah tells him "Burt you're to win the Academy Award for that speech you made in that one scene." Burt says "John just told me he's going to cut it." And then the book goes "And we wept all night." (laughs) Well, there was such scene in an early draft of the script--and I never shot it! I never shot it! So he fantasized this whole thing! (laughs)

Let's talk about Excalibur, another one of my favorite films. To me, it's one of the only films that takes on Shakespearean proportions without having actually been written by Shakespeare.
That legend is something that I'd been obsessed with since childhood. I was educated by Catholic priests and to me, Christianity was always so remote, whereas the Arthurian legend was all about forests and oak trees and rivers and things that were around me that I could relate to. It always stayed with me and as I got older I started reading T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland , and I had tried to get it done in different versions and different aspects. I had one that was all about Arthur's childhood and another that was all about Merlin. Then I thought that I really wanted to do the whole thing, the whole legend, the whole span. I've always gravitated towards that scope more out of the feeling that unless I've extended myself to my limits, I'm not really doing justice to the picture. So much of those films I've made involve every sinew strained to the limit. Excalibur was a picture I made completely within myself, in a kind of relaxed way. It was the first time I've been able to not feel guilty about not driving myself into the ground, or others for that matter. I'd always had this theory that people work best under those conditions. I think to some extent that's true, but there's other ways of getting there, as well.

With Hope and Glory did you find it difficult to write autobiographical material, since you were so close to it?
No, because I wasn't that close to it, since so much time had passed. What did astonish me, is that when I started writing it, how it triggered memories of things I hadn't thought about for 40 years, or had nearly forgotten. Just the act of writing brought them back. It was extraordinary how vivid it all was. When we were designing the film, Tony Pratt our designer came up with wallpaper designs for the house. Going through the samples I found one and said "That was the wallpaper in our house!" So we had it all made up, which was quite expensive, and when we'd finished the set I got my mother and three sisters to come down and look at it. And they were just astonished by how well we re-created the house. Then one of my aunts said to me "You know it's remarkable how you got everything so right, and you've got the wrong wallpaper!" (laughs) The tricks of memory.

How long do you rehearse before you shoot?
Generally about 3 weeks. I like to rehearse in the afternoons, then in the mornings do all the other preparations for the picture. For The General, we only had two weeks to rehearse. I also always do another draft of the script after we rehearse, after I hear the actors read their lines. That's the most important part of the preparation, because that's the time I let the actors experiment and play around with things, because by the time we're shooting, we're locked in. I never go on the set and say "Let's play around with this scene." The actor comes in, hits his mark and we start. I don't shoot master shots, I just shoot whatever's in the shot, and that's it. I find that actors like that, being given a structure. They're very reassured by it. The function of the director is to establish an environment of trust for the actors. That's a great gift for the audience when the actors open themselves up.

Any advice for first-time directors?
Planning is so important, trying to visualize the films. One of the most important things is to try and time your script, honestly. So many people evade that, then the script's too long, and the film comes out to be four hours and you have to lose so much of it. If you can get your script down to length, then you'll be spending all your time and resources on stuff that'll be in the picture, rather than have it not be in the picture! It forces you to visualize it, analyze it and time it in your head, to feel the rhythm of it. The other thing is, when you've done all that, make sure you and the actors know that the intention of the scene is clear and that you agree on that. And there it is.

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CHEN KAIGE: The Hollywood Interview

[Chen Kaige directing the tied-up Cecilia Cheung on the set of THE PROMISE]

Chen Kaige Makes The Promise
by Terry Keefe

For fans of epic martial arts films fantasy films, we're in a renaissance period of sorts on the Asian front, with larger budgets than ever before and some interesting directors such as Zhang Yimou trying their hands at martial arts stories. The advances in CGI have made possible a level of spectacle that filmmakers from previous generations could have only dreamt of, with wire work now only one of a virtual toychest of effects tools available. Looming on the martial arts horizon for some time has been the long-awaited American release of The Promise, which is Chen Kaige's first stab at the genre, as well as being the most expensive Chinese film produced to date. Like Zhang with Hero, The Promise marks a significant cinematic departure from the previous work which made Chen an international star director.

It was 1984 when Chen first came to prominence with his feature Yellow Earth, which was about a Communist soldier sent to the countryside to collect traditional folk songs. Chen soon found himself the subject of much discussion in the film communities at home and abroad as a director at the forefront of a group of recent graduates of the Beijing Film Academy who became known as "the Fifth Generation." Marked by a desire to move away from propaganda and social-realism cinema, the Fifth Generation were the first in China to have been greatly influenced by Western movies and their films received worldwide acclaim as the beginning of a new age in Chinese filmmaking. Chen's true international breakthrough though, critically and commercially, came with Farewell, My Concubine, which was honored with the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1993, the first time a Chinese film had won that prestigious award. In the years that followed, Chen directed Temptress Moon [1996], The Emperor and the Assassin [1999], and Together [2002]. He also helmed his first English-language feature in 2002 with Killing Me Softly, which starred Joseph Fiennes and Heather Graham.

The story of The Promise follows a beautiful Princess (Cecilia Cheung), who wins the hearts of three very different men: a General (Hiroyuki Sanada), a Slave (Jang Dong-Gun - see our interview with him here), and a Duke (Nicholas Tse). The fates of all four are intertwined, and sealed, due to a deal that the Princess struck with the Goddess Manshen (Chen Hong) as a young girl: she would receive great riches and beauty, but forever lose any man whom she fell in love with. Well, there was a way out of this bargain with the Goddess, but it seemed impossible, as the Goddess proclaimed, "Once you have accepted your destiny, nothing can alter it unless time flows backwards, snow falls in the spring, and the dead come back to life." The Princess seems content with this set of cards, until she falls in love, and meets the one man who might be able to meet all of the Goddess' terms for a dealbreaker: the Slave named Kunlun who can run so fast that he can travel back in time.

As it was for many of his generation in China, the Cultural Revolution of 1966 was a world-shattering event for Chen. Prior to the Revolution, he attended a good school in Beijing and lived a privileged life as the son of the famous film director Chen Huaikai. But he quickly found himself sent into the countryside for "re-education," where he was assigned to clear trees for a living. At the age of 15, he was inducted into the Red Guard and forced to publicly denounce his own father. A rescue of sorts came in 1978, when he became one of the first students to attend the newly reopened Beijing Film Academy.

In person, Chen Kaige is quite tall, and every bit a formidable presence, which is softened by an easy laugh and sense of humor.

Had you wished to work in the martial arts fantasy genre for a long time prior to the making of The Promise?

Chen Kaige: Not really. Because, you know, I wasn't a big fan of martial arts stories when I was young, because all the martial arts books had been banned at that time. So I didn't always have the idea that I wanted to do a martial arts film. But now, if the chance comes, I wouldn't mind doing another one in the future [laughs].

So what was it that sparked your interest in The Promise?

It was a couple of years ago. After I had done a film like Together, which was a small, contemporary piece, I was thinking that there was just more I could do. I wanted to try new styles. I knew that there was a risk, always, when you try to do something very new. But I was inspired by some of the interesting myths that existed in Chinese cultural history. I knew I would be able to use those materials to develop the characters.

Which myths did you pull from?

There is the one interesting story about a man who can run very fast, like the wind. And he has a big ambition, that one day, he can catch the sun. But obviously, his story ends up badly, with death, because he runs too close to the sun. It was an interesting and naive story, almost like a fairy tale. But I think it contained the original energy of what I envisioned. That story which I just mentioned was written some 3,000 years ago.

Let's talk about the process from when you started developing the script to when you wrapped production.

It was very difficult. If you look at a lot of the films which have come out internationally from China, most of them are dramas. So, when I was presenting the idea that I wanted to do a sort of magical fantasy combined with a love story, with martial arts, it was really a big challenge. I spent nearly a year, working closely with my co-writer, to make sure that the story would work on the big screen. Then I think we took slightly longer than 6 months for the shooting. In order to find the best locations, we were very ambitious, and sometimes we'd travel from one far place to the other. Literally, from the north to the south, back to the north again. So there was a lot of time spent just on the way to the locations. Visually, you can see that the film is beautiful and I wanted to find good locations. Otherwise, I was going to have to use visual effects.

Was CGI used to create any of the locations?

Yes, because some of the locations we were trying to find only existed in my mind or dreams [laughs]. Like in the beginning of the film, where we see the Young Girl speaking to the Goddess, that location I couldn't find, so I shot all of that in front of the green screen.

This is the most CGI which you've worked with. The Emperor and the Assassin had a big scope, but not nearly as many computer-generated effects.

The Assassin probably only had 5 or 6 shots which were involved with visual effects, but this time we have almost 1,000.

How did that change your directing mindset?

Well, I don't know, but I did continue to criticize myself for having too many shots like that. We should have had a more limited number of effects shots. It was kind of tough for me to have too many.

The stampede scene with the Slave running in front of the buffalo was one of the most memorable, and visually complicated, of the film. How was it created?

We had a lot of the Tibetan Buffalo, which we took down to the lower lands. They're used to living in very high altitudes, so they become safe when they're in lower altitudes. We did three or four shots with them, and then we sent them back, because we didn't want them to lose their lives. Then we had to animate almost everything with the computer. I also worked with 1,000 soldiers as extras on that scene, so combined with all the moves it was quite a difficult scene to shoot.

Was it only in the editing room, when everything was put together, that you had any idea if it worked at all?

Right. On the set, I had no idea. I just thought, "Oh my god, this is difficult." I was very nervous and anxious about how it would look visually at the end of the day, but I had no clue at all until we were totally done.

What other scenes stood out as your greatest challenges on the film?

The fight between the Snow Wolf (Liu Ye) and the Duke of the North was very difficult. Doing those shots with wires. Although, in the film, the shots last less than 10 seconds, they easily took 14-15 hours to do. And that's tough.

Had you worked with wires before?

No, this was my first time. It was really a big change. I have to say that if I do a martial arts film in the future, I don't know what I will do [in terms of wires]. It's a challenge.

You had movie star leads from Korea (Jang Don-Gun) and Japan (Hiroyuki Sanada), as well as China. Were the language and cultural barriers a significant challenge on the film?

It wasn't that difficult. It's always been my dream to work with the best talents from different countries in Asia. I don't mean that politically, but if you look at the history of these three countries, it's very complicated. I think at least that if we show we can work together as artists, when the politicians are fighting against each other, we'll show what we can do. We'll show our dream of a peaceful future for Asia. There were cultural differences, sure, when we were working. It was like the UN, with interpreters all around. But I think they all understood their characters very well, so the languages weren't a huge problem for me.

This is the most expensive film made in China to date. Did you feel the need to justify that expense on the screen or did you just try to block it out of your mind?

Of course there is pressure. But I was okay, and I tried very hard to just concentrate on shooting the film and not to pay too much attention to the market. Obviously, though, the pressure was there and I had to deal with it on a day-to-day business. But I think if you look at the film, you can understand why so much money was spent. Still, compared to American studio films, The Promise would be a lower-budgeted film. Around 30 million dollars. But by Chinese standards, that's considered very high.

My guess is that it would have cost 120 million or so here to shoot the equivalent of The Promise. This is the trimmed version being released here in the United States, which has lost almost 20 minutes. Do you think this version is stronger?

Well, I think I'm sort of losing my judgment, but I was told many times I should make a version simpler for North American audiences. I think that makes sense because there is always a culture difference between east and west. And if we can do something to help an audience understand the story better, why not?

There is a big theme in the film that life is partially predetermined by fate but through a lot of effort, fate can sometimes be changed. Is that a personal philosophy?

You can say that it's a personal philosophy, but you can also say that it's a part of Chinese culture. We're used to believing that there is a destiny above us that controls everything we do. I think that it's sort of believable, because even here in the west, you can't always get everything you want, although you may make a great effort towards that. And you don't know why. It's not logical. Basically, you should have your harvest if you work really hard in the field, but sometimes there are other things out of your control. This is sort of what's called destiny. But I think to believe in destiny means that you should encourage yourself more to continue to do the things you believe. And by continuing to do what you believe, you can challenge your destiny. Just like what we see in this film. The destiny for the Princess seems unchangeable, but through love and freedom, I think the two men help her to change her destiny.

Had you wanted to be a filmmaker prior to the Cultural Revolution, when you were forced to move to the countryside, or did that desire come much later?

I didn't want to be a filmmaker at all, at first, although my father was a famous filmmaker. I think the reason was that I didn't have any kind of concentration when I was a kid. I found it too boring to do a film, spending so much time on the set and all. And also, I was only a first-year student in middle school when the Cultural Revolution broke out. So I had no idea what was going on. So that's what happened. I think I confirmed that I wanted to be a film director only after I became a film student. Even before I went to the film school, I just said that I needed to be educated and I needed to find a way for myself to do something in the future. But it was after I saw so many classical movies from the west and from Japan and Russia, and some good films from China, that I decided I wanted to be a director.

What do you think of the term "Fifth Generation?" Does it mean something to you or is it just a label?

It means something. I think that the directors from my generation all shared the same backgrounds and experiences during the Cultural Revolution. Then eventually, we became a small group of people who wanted to try to do something completely different from the past. We wanted to touch on the very sensitive subject matter of the society and to also develop a style of the cinema language. So that's why this group of people were so different, and special, from other generations.

You've spoken about one day perhaps wanting to do a film about the Cultural Revolution.

I want to do that, not because I try to be political or anything, but because there are so many strong and beautiful stories about human nature from that period that need to be told. But we want to wait until the time comes when we can just do it, and I don't know how long that will be.

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Lou Reed: The Hollywood Interview

Singer/songwriter Lou Reed.


LOU REED QUOTHES THE RAVEN
By
Alex Simon

Editor's Note: This article orginally appeared in the June 2003 issue of Venice Magazine.


Lou Reed has been one of rock music’s most profound innovators since bursting onto the New York club scene in the mid 60s with his now-legendary band, The Velvet Underground. Discovered and supported by Andy Warhol, the Velvets, which also featured John Cale, Maureen Tucker, Sterling Morrison, and German chanteuse Nico, were arguably rock’s first “progressive” band, their work clearly aimed at intelligent adults, and not the bubblegum set. The Velvet Underground and Nico, their premiere album from 1966 with Andy Warhol’s famed “banana” cover, was a sublime blend of rock, folk, blues and ballads that would set the pace for an entirely new generation of rock and rollers: Iggy Pop, The New York Dolls, The Ramones, David Bowie, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, Nine Inch Nails, U2, Patti Smith, and David Byrne have all cited the Velvets, and Lou Reed in particular, as one of the architects that helped them discover their own unique sounds.
Lewis Alan Reed was born March 2, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York to an affluent, upper middle class family. After majoring in English at Syracuse University (where he studied with mentor Delmore Schwartz), Reed toiled in the New York club scene with various bands, until one fateful night when Andy Warhol saw The Velvet Underground performing in a dive bar, somewhere in New York. After the release of their first album, the Velvets continued to push the musical envelope, in spite of the band’s line-up changing over the years. After their final album, Loaded, was released in 1970, the Velvets disbanded, with Reed pursuing a highly-acclaimed (and, in some circles, vilified) solo career. Although his only mainstream “hit” as a solo artist was the classic Walk on the Wild Side in 1972, the album it made its debut on, Transformer, is now regarded as a seminal work in rock history, produced by no less than David Bowie.
Much of Lou Reed’s career has followed this path: work that was often misunderstood upon its first release, then usually hailed as a masterpiece in retrospect. The old adage that “A prophet is never recognized in his own time” seems to apply to Reed in spades, although a big part of his appeal always lay in the fact that he never seemed to care what anyone else thought.
Lou Reed’s latest work doesn’t disappoint, as it also breaks new musical ground. The Raven, released by Warner Bros. Records, is a blend of music and spoken word pieces, inspired by the work of Edgar Alan Poe. Theatrical in nature (it was inspired by a stage version of Poe’s work that Reed took part in) and boasting an incredible cast of actors (Willem Dafoe, Amanda Plummer, Steve Buscemi, Elizabeth Ashley) and musicians (David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Ornette Coleman, The Blind Boys of Alabama), The Raven is a moving, entertaining and highly disturbing work, one that requires repeated listening and discussion. Also new from Reed is the compilation NYC Man, being released by BMG Music on June 3.
Lou Reed met with us recently in his offices, located in the heart of NYC’s Soho district, to discuss his work, past, present and future.

Tell us about the genesis of The Raven.
Lou Reed: Bob Wilson about four years ago said it will be great to do a play about Edgar Allan Poe and that I should write it. That's how it all came about. So I wrote the play, and we did it in Hamburg, Germany. When the opportunity came to make a CD of it, I rewrote it. So this time it was an audio experience, not a visual one.

Did you initially discover Poe as a kid?
No.

When did you become a fan?
Maybe 10 years ago. My co-producer, Hal Wilner, was doing these Halloween extravaganzas at St. Anne's Church, which is now St. Anne's warehouse. Last year, he did one at Royce Hall at UCLA. Everybody there acted out something by Poe. I did The Tell-tale Heart, and that was the first time I really got it. I thought I understood Poe the first time I read him, but I didn't.

I like the way you modernized much of the language on a CD, especially the scatological language. I think had Poe been a contemporary writer, he would have used profanity much like Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, and other authors who use language to express rage.
What a vocabulary Poe had. My God! I'm writing about Poe's work, not his life. I'm not an expert on his life: where he was educated, how he was educated, or even whether he was self-educated. I did some research at one point, but I've forgotten most of it. But what I do remember, is sitting with an Oxford dictionary going through everything, loosely translating, because as far as I'm concerned, most people, myself included, would not understand parts of those texts. You do what most people do, which I think is what most people will do when they listen to The Raven, which is understand it by context. But that can only get you so far, and it's not always right either. A lot of the language he used was arcane by the standards of Poe's own time. It wasn't that he was a show off, because he was very specific with his words. It's very, very beautiful. The rhythm is beautiful. And it's something about this idea that there’s somebody alone somewhere, in a dark room somewhere, in a building somewhere, and there’s a tapping at his door somewhere, after midnight, and it's a big dark bird that's not friendly. That feeling has communicated itself now for over 100 years, that set up. But what is the poem actually about once you get past there? That’s what I was trying to get across, and I was trying to do it somewhat quicker. I think there’s 18 or 19 verses in the original text, and we do 13 or 14. When I first was looking at that rhythm, and I was an English major in college, initially I looked at that rhyme scheme and assumed it was a formal, well-known rhyme scheme. But it's not. He invented that. And no one had done it before, and no one’s done it since. Now to couple that rhyme scheme with this incredible language, and what it's about to boot, then this is something that can’t miss. You're talking major greatness, because nobody can forget that rhythm once they've heard it. I think if Poe were taught better in schools, people would respond to him better, especially teenagers. The right teacher could show how The Raven plays directly into all their teenage angst. That something I've been thinking that doing: rewriting some of the other classics for high schoolers, to make it more accessible for them.

You know what my teachers did? They showed all the old Vincent Price/Roger Corman movies from the 60s.
That's interesting, because Wilner loves those movies. Loves them, loves them, loves them. I think they're okay too, with one problem: they don't really tell you what Poe is all about. It's the surface version. Like The Tell-Tale Heart, for example. Why does he say that to the cop? “Do you mock me?” It’s like, “Hey, don’t tell me you don’t hear that, motherfucker! Are you mocking me? Are you calling me a fool, you little pissant?” Is he crazy? No, he does it because he thinks the cop is making fun of him. It’s a macho thing. It’s almost like “You talkin’ to me?’ (laughs) Right? It’s probably his own heart beating. That’s kind of an interesting parallel to draw, with De Niro in Taxi Driver. “You talkin’ to me?” Gone. Over and out. Straight to Rikers. (laughs) No need for a public defender for this one. This guy confessed. He would never claim insanity.

That intensity is there from the moment the CD starts when Willem Dafoe starts speaking. I also liked how rapid-fire his delivery was in the opening. It gave the whole thing a real ferocity.
Yeah, well Dafoe’s from New York. (laughs) And then he suddenly slows. His voice is like ice cream. You could just listen to his voice all day, he wouldn’t even have to be saying anything. On headphones it's particularly beguiling. I like listening to stuff on headphones anyway, just to get a sense of things spatially, the way different sounds are mixed. But listening to Willem's voice was just mesmeric. We were all like “this must have been what Jim Jones was like. Willem, we’ll follow you anywhere.” (laughs) Some criminals I've known have these very seductive voices.

You put together an incredible cast of both actors and musicians for this recording.
We got the crème de la crème of New York for this record. Hal and I made up a little dream list of all the people we'd love to have involved with this, and that's what we wound up with. That hasn't happened very often my life.

Elizabeth Ashley is another voice I could listen to all day. God, what a sexy voice!
Elizabeth Ashley is a force of nature. She is more fun to work with… she is a tornado, but a friendly tornado. If you see thing starting to move on their own, it's because Elizabeth has arrived. (laughs) She would spend more time than anybody because she really wanted to get things right, whenever “right” is. She would give us choices, very receptive to doing rewriting on the spot, and having her lines changed. I ran into her after I saw her in the Gore Vidal play The Best Man, and, what could I say, she's Elizabeth Ashley! Both Elizabeth, and Amanda Plummer, seemed to have a direct line into the psyche, any part of the psyche that you choose to go with them. And they can just go! After a while we’d have to tell them “Okay, okay, OKAY! YOU CAN STOP NOW!” (laughs)

How long did it take to record the entire piece?
I think about four months. You’d have to check with Wilner for the exact number. He's the keeper of the records.

I also thought that casting David Bowie as Hop Frog was really inspired.
That's him, not me. He chose that part. I was pretty astonished myself, because I thought he would have picked one of the other parts. I thought he would go for one of the power ballads, but it turns out that he was a perfect Hop Frog. I realized that David wanted to have some fun, and have some fun just being Bowie. He did the kind of background vocals on this that I really like, all the way back to my Transformer record when he did those kind of things. I liked it then and I still love it now.

Tell us more about Hal Wilner, who's been important collaborator for you for some time.
Someone should do the Wilner collection. There is a collection of stuff that would be astonishing. All the different records he's put out by all these amazing poets and writers. You name it: from Lenny Bruce, to William S. Burroughs, to Ginsberg, to Brecht and Weil. That's Wilner. He's like a musician’s, musician’s scholar. He would wince if I said this in front of him, of course.

I also thought it was great that you had Ornette Coleman on the record.
That was my big desire. Ornette has been one of my heroes forever, and it turned out that Ornette was just a few blocks from the studio, and he came over the next day. He's amazing. When I was kid, I used to follow him around from gig to gig when he played the Village, because I couldn't afford to see his shows, so I’d stand outside the stage door, or by the window, were sitting on the subway grating, and just listen to him. It was kind of funny for me when he came in, because he doesn't know any of this.

One track that really stood out for me was Fire Music. I read in the notes that you recorded it just days after Sept. 11th.
Fire Music always existed, it's when the orangutans burn up during Hop Frog. But I hadn't been happy with it, and I had also been working for a long time on how I could do Metal Machine Music Part II with contemporary gadgets, so I could go past where I was when I left off. So I had figured that out, and was working on it when Sept. 11th happened. Two days later, I wrote the new Fire Music, which is what you hear on the record now. If you ever get a chance to hear it on big speakers, and I mean BIG speakers, that have bottom, turn that sucker up! When it goes up, it takes you with it, and then just drops you. It's amazing that you can do that with sound.

One thing I’ve noticed about all your work, going back to the Velvets, is that you can’t date it. There’s certain music when you hear it, you immediately say “Oh, 1966,” or but that’s never been the case with your work.
Yeah, I certainly know what you mean. I was pretty careful not to use contemporary slang that would date it. The only thing that could date it would be if 1) It was old-fashioned, which it never was, or 2) it was recorded in a way that dates it, which we never did, either. Some of the older recordings just sound like they’re by a garage band, that were playing yesterday. So, that’s a good thing, yeah! It was like ‘I’m trying so hard not to be slick.’ That was Warhol. That was the Warhol University ethic.

How did you guys first get involved with Warhol?
One of his people came to this dive that we were playing in. His name was Gerard Malanga, and Gerard told Andy that maybe he should come see us, and Andy did. Then we got fired, and Andy adopted us, and we all moved into The Factory, and then we got to work on the first Velvet Underground record.

Since we’re talking about the Velvets, I have to thank you for the work you guys did. You changed the way that I, and so many other people listened to music. When I got the first Velvet Underground record for my 13th birthday, it was the first time I really had to sit down and listen to the music, the lyrics, everything. My musical tastes seemed to mature almost overnight.
Well, thank you. That’s a big compliment.

You guys obviously wrote for adults, and you never talked down to your audience.
No, we were trying to talk directly to them, and certainly not down. This was stuff we wanted to listen to. It was something we thought was worthwhile. If you don’t like it in the first place, how can you expect others to? We never set out to write things for other people to like, you understand. We were trying to write things that we really liked, and hoped other people would like, as well. The operating philosophy was, if we like it, why shouldn’t others. How different can we be?

Do you still think of yourself primarily as a writer?
Yeah, oh yeah. I mean, in anything, anything musical has to be written. So yeah, I think of it as writing. I think of photography as writing. It looks like a book of my photographs will be coming out down the road. Mostly black & white stuff. It’s funny, I just got a new digital camera that is able to capture as much information as 35mm. It’s pretty stunning what they can do with that stuff now, all the advantages to it. But it will still never look quite like film does. People say the same thing about records: CDs sounds great, but they’ll never sound like a record. Records, analog recording, has it’s own fascination. I have a compilation coming out in June called NYC Man, and when we were remastering all those old tracks, we were listening to the title track, which was recorded in my home studio on a D-88 in 1996, and it wasn’t even a 24-bit D-88. And we were listening to it, and you could hear me tapping my foot! Since this was CD, this was digital land, it was a whole different game. It was so intimate. It has its own place. The knock on digital is that it’s cold, and sterile and all that, but it doesn’t have to be that. It’ll never have the pumping bass that an analog on vinyl will have. But this other thing, my God! We wanted to shape the bass better from the way it was on the original CD, and the original recording was fine, but years go by, and the technology gets better. Now you can really, really make it sound great, just pump like shit.

Along with Andy, the author Delmore Schwartz was a great mentor to you.
He was my teacher at Syracuse. He was the first really great teacher I ever had. Everyone should have at least one great teacher in their lives. I’ve been really lucky to go from Delmore to Warhol.

What makes a great teacher?
Passion and the ability to communicate it, which elevates you as a student. They’re inspiring. With Delmore, what he could do with five words, was astonishing to me. He had an advanced vocabulary, but he could also write the simplest things conceivable and there would be such beauty in them. The supreme example of that is a short story called In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. That changed my life, reading that story. What that story was about, the way it was written, the language it’s written in. There’s no 50 cent words in there. There’s no college degree words in there. This is the democracy of the verb. Anybody could step up to the plate and write a story like this. All you needed to be was a genius. Nothing I can say here can prepare you for that story. It’s about a boy who walks into a movie theater. He sits down. They’re showing a short, silent movie, and the movie is his parents courting at Coney Island. And they’re walking on the boardwalk and the kid stand up and starts screaming “Stop this! Stop this movie!” The usher comes up and says “Sit down, or we throw you out.” It goes on from there. It won the Bolinger Prize for the best American short story in 1938. It’s five pages long. So here’s somebody who wants to be a writer, and he finds something like this. It was like a revelation. “Holy shit!”

How was Andy a great teacher?
His work ethic, what he was about, the way he turned things around, anti-slick. Genius. An enormous, insane talent, brilliant with colors and composition. Ideas. He’d look at something that you’d be looking at, and then you’d hear what Andy sees. He was so receptive to your ideas, he made you feel like he really believed in you, and he did. He believed in us, and that’s why he made us part of it all. He got it. He really got it. Then you look at what he did and you say “Wow! If he says it’s okay, then we must be okay. Because as far as other people were concerned (at that point), we were less than a Campbell’s soup can. We weren’t even the paper bag it comes in. “Some Warhol toy.” They didn’t think that for long after we came in and really hauled off and batted them.

Did you stay close with Andy up until his death?
Some of us did. I always saw Andy. Whenever I had problems I’d go see Andy. He was so smart. It’s very, very difficult losing someone who’s that smart, that kind of smart. It’s not something that gets replaced. He would get savagely criticized and made fun of, for everything: his work, his persona, his lifestyle. “He’s gay.” “He’s this.” “He’s that.” On and on and on. Now, $10 million a painting later, it’s like, Jesus Christ! It would’ve been nice if some of that adulation had been given to him while he was still here, but who knows what Andy actually wanted? Andy liked to paint, he liked to work. 24 hours a day. And he would always harangue me: “Why haven’t you written something today?” “How much did you write?” “Do more.” “Why are you so lazy?” “What are you waiting for?” Considering the milieu this is all in, this might seem a little shocking. I remember when John Cale and I were doing Songs for Drella at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and some idiot stands up and yells at us “Tell us something we don’t know!” And I think we really had. But Andy used to say that you can’t tell anybody anything, and I think that’s really true. As far as I’m concerned, journalists and audiences like that one want to know one thing, and that’s how big your dick is. That’s what they want to know. That’s the width, breadth, and depth of their interest. I don’t know if that’s the lowest common denominator. There’s still lower, and those are the critics.

You, the Velvets and Andy were all ahead of your time. The old saying goes “A prophet is never recognized in his own time.”
Andy was always ahead of his time. You look around now at ads and things, the use of colors, and I think ‘My God, how is that possible to be that smart?’ But he was. He’s still here, and most people don’t even know it! The little squirt is still making fun of them! (laughs) That’s why my view of critics and everything is very, very jaundiced.

Even Poe was regarded as a pulp writer in his day. No one took him seriously.
Poe…how did he get that vocabulary? There was this thing in The Times, that talked about this poem Poe did called Eureka. It was all about the planets and the universe and in it, he predicates the big bang theory! And T.S. Eliot later attacked Poe, saying he should stick to writing horror stories and leave physics and astronomy to scientists. But Poe was right, he said they’re going to find that the whole universe comes from a sliver. Do you believe along with the first science fiction story, the first detective story, he came up with this? No slouch he! (laughs)

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Robbie Robertson: The Hollywood Interview

Musician and actor Robbie Robertson.


ROBBIE ROBERTSON IS MAKING SOME NOISE
by
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: The following article originally appeared in the December 1998 issue of Venice Magazine.

Robbie Robertson achieved international fame and prominence with his groundbreaking work in the legendary 60's and early 70's rock group The Band. Known for their innovative blend of roots rock n' roll, blues and country, The Band forged the way for such eclectic groups as The Eagles, R.E.M., and Hootie and the Blowfish with their blend of musical styles and genres. Born Jamie Robbie Robertson on July 5, 1943 in Toronto, Canada to an Anglo father and Native American mother from the Mohawk tribe, Robertson was taught to play the guitar by relatives living on the Six Nations Indian Reservation where his mother was raised, outside Toronto. He spent his teens in various rock groups around Toronto, finally joining up with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks in 1960. The group also included future Band members Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson. During his time with the Hawks, Robertson found time to work with other musicians as well, most notably Bob Dylan on his classic Blonde On Blonde album. The Hawks became The Band in 1968, and gained instant fame with their debut LP, Music From Big Pink. The group disbanded in 1977, documented in Martin Scorsese's now-legendary film The Last Waltz (1978). Robertson has led a troubadour's life since The Band's break-up, continuing to record new music, act in films, and work with pal Scorsese on the music scores of some of his most famous works, including Raging Bull, King of Comedy, Color of Money, and Casino.

Robertson has never let his fascination with different types of music leave him, this being evident with is newest album release, Contact From the Underworld of Redboy, which finds Robertson re-embracing the music of his Native American roots, and the hour-long documentary Robbie Robertson: Making a Noise, which airs on PBS this month. The film documents Robertson's return to the Six Nations Indian Reservation outside Toronto, Canada, reuniting with friends and relatives, many of whom he hadn't seen in over 30 years. Robertson is joined by other notable Native American musicians, such as Rita Coolidge, Buffy Saint-Marie, John Trudell, and Ulali. Robertson sat down recently to discuss his work, past, present, and future.

I thought Making a Noise was really terrific. It gave me an appreciation of Native American music that I didn't previously have.
ROBBIE ROBERTSON: Yeah, (the filmmakers) did a really terrific job. Making something like this is a little more delicate and complicated than it might seem from the outside. Several people in the Native American community couldn't do it, because they have to answer to their elders, and in Indian country, you do not cross that line. It's a very, very sensitive place. You don't want people from the outside there. It's like it's bad jiu-jiu.

So it's a very closed culture in that sense.
It is, and you have to keep in mind that for so long, a lot of this musicality and the culture has been very private, and in some cases sacred and secret. Like in the case of the peyote ceremony, it's been illegal for 100 years and now has just kind of opened up...after people have been punished and thrown in jail for the past 100 years, just for practicing their religion, that takes kind of a long time to believe again that it's okay to practice it openly. The Native American Church is still very sensitive about it.

When you say the Native American Church, is that a Native American religion that's actually organized like a white church would be?
There's this thing called the N.A.C. and it's an organization that goes from up in Canada, to Arizona, over to Oklahoma, all the way down to Mexico, it's called the "Peyote Belt." There are many nations in this area that are part of the N.A.C. which is another way of saying the peyote religion. I went to a peyote ceremonial a couple months back with this friend of mine, John Trudell, who's a poet and activist. And we went to meet Primo and Mike, these two young guys that I work with. And their attitude is "Come on, it's a new millennium. It's time to share these things, to let people know how beautiful and simple this whole thing is, that it's not threatening. That it's a beautiful way for us to take this sacred medicine and connect with our creator. And this is the way we've been doing it for hundreds and hundreds of years." The older people who may have gotten in trouble for it, are a little less trusting. So right now it's a little in between the two beliefs...There's this guy up in Canada who's the head of the peyote church. He has to approve everything to do with the ceremonial. And during the ceremony, they have a log, where they write down everyone's name, what their affiliation with the church is, what your native connection is...So it's not a lose thing because of the repercussions that vary from state-to-state and district-to-district. At this point, the doors to this world have opened just a little bit for the first time. But even me, going back to where I come from, I have to get permission from everybody to do this. They're gunshy.

Let's talk about your own personal journey. You grew up in Toronto, right?
In my early years I grew up going back and forth between the two worlds. But when I got older, I didn't go as much into Six Nations because I was starting to go deeper into my own existence and own discovery.

What was it like going between those two worlds? Did you encounter a lot of prejudice?
I didn't encounter a lot of prejudice because I could pass (as all-white)...the only predominant time was when I was playing with a couple of my cousins and they had come to Toronto to visit with me. We were playing up at these railroad tracks by this field. One of the things that impressed me so much as a little boy, was how my cousins could see a tree, a branch and could jump up, snap the branch off, and within moments, make the most beautiful weapon you've ever seen! It's such a boy thing! It's awful, but boys love it! So one of my cousins made a bow for me and I was trying it out, hanging by the field. Then these older kids showed up, and because my cousins looked more like Indians than I did, these older kids said "Hey redboy! Where you goin' with that bow in your hand?" And I saw my cousins, and their heads just dropped. And a chill ran through me, from them. I got to feel something through them this time, and it was this sick feeling. You could feel hate in it. And it's stayed with me my whole life. So when I was making this record, I wanted to be blatantly honest, and thought "This is a time for me to bring this out, and get it out of my system." Because of a certain boldness that I wanted to get across in this, that's why I used ("Redboy") in the title. I thought, "I can say this now, and it's healthy for me to say this." I grew up with a philosophy from my mother, which was "Be proud that you're an Indian, but be careful who you tell." And when my mother was growing up, the idea was "The whole Indian thing, it's gotta go." When my mother left the reservation to come to Toronto to live with her aunt, her aunt told her "Don't you tell anybody you're from the reservation. Let them think whatever they want, that you're from another country, but don't tell anyone unless you absolutely have to."

So they made this whole generation of people ashamed of who they were.
More than ashamed. It was like "It's over. You have to become white."

A lot of the archival footage and photos you used in the film showing these Indian kids in their lettermen's sweaters with short haircuts trying to look like Wally and the Beav', were such ironic images.
That's just it. They were trying to be white. This guy I met while we were shooting the film was telling me that as a kid he was taken away from his parents, sent off to a school to be trained to become a white person. He went to this school and within a couple weeks, he was so ashamed of his heritage, that one day he found himself in the boy's bathroom with this bucket of soapwater and an iron brush, trying to wash the Indian off his skin. He said he scrubbed himself raw all over his body trying to "wash the Indian off." For a little boy especially, that's as horrible a story as you ever want to hear.

We've done that to almost every culture in this country. Everyone's expected to assimilate into this little box.
Yeah. People don't like "different." I guess native people from all countries who were invaded by Europeans, had a horrible experience. There's this place I really love called Acoma in New Mexico. Acoma is the name of the tribe and is one of the oldest civilizations in North America, over a thousand years old. They live on top of this huge mesa in the desert. The original buildings from over a thousand years ago are still there, and are still lived in. There's a church up there that was built when the Spanish came. The Spanish made these Indians into slaves, and used to make these Indians run relay-style, with these logs that they had to get dozens of miles away, in order to build this church. So they had this reminder there. And some were affected by Christianity. And there's a place there that's sort of in between both worlds. The peyote religion is some of that, too. They think Jesus was a good guy. Here was a guy just trying to do his best to fight against oppression. But you look at that church, and just think, "God, how cruel," even though it's a beautiful structure.

When you reached your teens, had you begun to pull away from the Indian world?
It wasn't a pulling away. I was from this city environment. My mother didn't want me to have to grow up the way she did. I had this key to go inside these two worlds freely, with no one to check my passport. That was a wonderful gift. When I was very young, in my mind, I thought the cool action was on the reservation, because you were connected to outside, to a freedom. Your playground was the world, it felt like to me. In the city you were confined to a back yard. I didn't have any brothers or sisters. On the reservation, I had hundreds of them. Plus they were amazingly in touch with nature, in ways that never happened in the city. They'd take you out into this lush field and find this one little plant and pull it up, and yank this thing from the bottom and taste it, and it tasted more wonderful than anything you'd find in the city! It was amazing. They could all do shit that nobody else could do!

How did you get back into Native American music again?
It's one of those things that just creeps into your consciousness and creeps into your soul, and you don't have a reason why except that it's in the air, and it's part of this unknown magical thing in life that you're really thankful for, that these gifts come along. It isn't a calculated move. It isn't clever. It isn't intellectual. It's just something that comes from its own place. In music in general, a lot that you count on is based on accidents and discoveries that you trip over that leads you to do something you never would have been able to calculate and figure out. It's also something to do with the fact that parts of you that (are left behind) are almost always going to come back and want to be acknowledged.

It sounds like you were always drawn to music, from the time you were a kid, at a very deep, "soul" level.
That was due to these people on Six Nations. I was in a lot of bands growing up, many of whom were made up of people who were just sort of (playing around). It was never that way for me. From my earliest memories there was music behind me, music in front of me, music was a part of the celebration of these people being together. It got ingrained in me. When I reached puberty and rock and roll came along at the same time and these relatives of mine are already teaching me to play guitar, it was perfect timing! Then when I met Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, there was something about what they did that really pushed some buttons in me. There was a violence, an anger, a power...there was something that wasn't just happy-go-lucky (sings)"We're gonna rock around the clock tonight..." It wasn't like that. There was something mean and demonic and the music was like people really trying to play some shit and play it harder and faster than it had ever been done before!

Do you see the doors opening a little further to Native American culture in the coming millennium?
That's what something like this film is all about. I'm in the position to help out a little bit and say "There's something here in your own back yard that you don't really know that much about that happens to be the original roots music of North America. It happens to be something that's really quite beautiful and magical and for a long time it was your job to ignore it, but now I'm going to turn you on to it, but not in a stereotypical way. This is not the clichés you've seen in the movies. I'm going to do it the way I know people in the Native community hear it. This isn't about 200 years ago, or how it was 100 years ago, this is about right now. It's how we feel today. It's not over. It's not dead. It's not extinct, close enough, but not gone." People are so inclined to think anything to do with Native North America as yesterday's news. "Oh, that was beautiful. Those people, they used to be so wonderful 200 years ago." It's kind of a disregard for now. So I thought it was really important to say "No, no, no! We're makin' a noise right now, right today!"

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Quincy Jones: The Hollywood Interview

Composer/producer/renaissance man Quincy Jones.


QUINCY JONES:
FROM 'Q' WITH LOVE
By
Alex Simon

Editor's Note: The following article appeared in the February 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.

Quincy Jones is to music what Steven Spielberg is to film. In a career that has spanned 50 years, Jones has been a musician, composer, producer, mentor, philanthropist and guiding force that has helped shape the music business, popular culture, and much of society's manners, mores and events as we know them today. In fact, Jones has led an almost Forrest Gump-like charmed life, utilizing his undeniable instinct for spotting raw talent in young performers, as well as his own talent innovations in musical composition and production, which has led him to collaborations and long-time friendships with everyone from jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Sarah Vaughn, to all-time great Frank Sinatra, to rappers Ice T, Big Daddy Kane and Melle Mel, to rockers Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson, to Presidents, Prime Ministers, and, yes, even his filmic counterpart, Steven Spielberg, with whom he produced the classic 1985 film The Color Purple (it was Jones who also discovered a talented young woman whom he cast in the film, named Oprah Winfrey).

Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. was born March 14, 1933 in Chicago, spending his first ten years on the city's tough south side. He and his younger brother, Lloyd, traversed the minefield-like landscape and managed to get out in one piece when their father moved them to Bremerton, Washington, outside Seattle, in 1943. In junior high, Jones took up the trumpet and sang in a gospel quartet, sticking with music through high school and earning a scholarship to Boston's prestigious Berklee School of Music. Before completing his freshman year, Jones was offered a spot in jazz great Lionel Hampton's band as a trumpeter, arranger and sometimes-pianist. Jones moved to New York where his reputation grew.

The imprint of the horrific things Jones witnessed during his early years stayed with him, however, most evident in his music for three groundbreaking films of the 1960's: The Pawnbroker (1965), In Cold Blood (1967) and In the Heat of the Night (1967). Jones also composed the theme for the hit 60's TV show Ironside, which was the first synthesizer-based pop theme song. Never before had music felt so "violent" in motion pictures and TV, laying the groundwork for the raw, violence-themed music of the rap artists whom Jones would mentor and produce twenty and thirty years later.

In addition to the aforementioned people and projects, Jones has recorded more than 30 albums of his own compositions since 1959, as well as producing for such artists as Lesley Gore, The Brothers Johnson, Michael Jackson (Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad), Miles Davis, and Frank Sinatra. He composed the music for the landmark TV miniseries Roots (1977), as well as organizing, producing and conducting the We Are the World benefit recording (the best-selling single of all time) in 1985. Jones has launched the careers of dozens of artists on his record label, Qwest Records, as well as publishing Vibe and Spin magazines, owning interest in radio and television stations around the country, was the producer of the hit TV series' Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, In the House, and Mad TV. Jones also executive produced the 68th Annual Academy Awards in 1996. In 1990, the documentary Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones was produced by Courtney Sale Ross, illustrating Jones' life, work and friendships. Jones' other credits, activities and endeavors would more than likely take up every column inch of this magazine, so just trust us when we say THIS MAN'S DONE IT ALL!!

The other prevalent theme in Jones' work has been love. Described by pal Spielberg as "a spraygun of love," Jones' latest endeavor is the compilation CD From Q, With Love, set for release in time for Valentine's Day, February 9. The two CD set features love songs from 1966 (Sinatra's rendition of The Shadow of Your Smile) to the present, from such diverse artists as Michael Jackson, Heavy D, Barry White and Qwest Records' newest artist, Catero. The collection's origins are surprisingly humble: they began as a mix Jones made to listen to while traveling. Following a 40th birthday party he threw for pal Oprah Winfrey, Jones gave out cassette versions of the mix as party favors. The response he got from the party guests was so strong, he was encouraged to release the set to the public.

In spite of his prolific and legendarily successful career, Jones has had some rough spots in his life, highlighted by two brain aneurysms that nearly claimed his life in 1974, when he was at the peak of his career. In spite of his doctor's orders to slow down after the second, successful operation, Jones continued his workaholic pace and lifestyle. The past year has been a tough one for Jones as well. His younger brother Lloyd died of cancer last summer (From Q, With Love is dedicated to him) and just days before this interview was conducted, Jones learned his mother had passed away in Seattle. In spite of the pain and personal loss he must have been feeling, Jones indeed proved himself to be that "spraygun of love" that Steven Spielberg described: hugging, kissing, and touching everyone in his path. After a few minutes alone with Quincy Jones, it's easy to see why everyone from Miles Davis to Hillary Clinton could claim him as a friend. His effusive personality and genuine warmth make him a man you want to be around, and want to please. Here now is one tiny chapter in the Biblically-proportioned life of Quincy Delight Jones, Jr.

The thing I love about the new record is how effortlessly it blends genres, artists and periods of time.
Quincy Jones: I am so myopic with this record, I have no objectivity about it at all. I just know I love it more than anything I've ever done.

Love is a theme that you've obviously always been very preoccupied about.
You know what it is about, and I just realized it because I'm going to bury my mother in Seattle tomorrow, it really is about (her). I'm sure it's about that. She was hospitalized when I was five, and I never knew her, really. And I'm sure that feeling was intensified because it's all about the inner child, like John Bradshaw talks about claiming your inner child. I'm sure it's about that. And you've got to be honest about that as you get older, because you don't have time to bullshit yourself about it anymore! (laughs) All the relationships I've had throughout my life, up and down, good and bad, have all really been based on what I went through in my childhood. There were times when I'd just seduce, seduce, seduce, and then just run away once I'd conquered. And that was all based on that parent-child relationship. Whatever the opposite of Oedipus is, it was very much like that...I'm lucky though, because I'm in a wonderful relationship now, and it's beautiful. It astounds me though, that it takes you so long to get it together, man! But what Bradshaw said is right, I think. That it usually happens from nine to eighteen months, where you have a male and female caretaker, not necessarily mother and father, who nurture you, validate you, love you, help you identify yourself within the microcosm of the world and guide you--from nine to eighteen months! There really are two kinds of people: those who have had nurturing with their own parents, and those who haven't.

Do you think it's easier to learn to love as you grow older?
Yes. Yes, because number one, you learn to surrender, and most of love is about surrendering your ego, because when you fall in love, you do some stupid stuff, man! (laughs) I mean really stupid! The best couples are those that are already 100% complete people. Because most of the time, the people are trying to get you to fill the percentage e that's lacking in them. That's the first mistake we make. "I need somebody to help me fill up my deficiencies." I don't know man, I just hope and pray that God gives me the ability every day to say "Okay, I was wrong and my life would be better if I could do it this way instead of that way, and not get stuck in anything and just keep going."

You can almost trace your own personal growth through your music. If you listen to the soundtracks from The Pawnbroker and In Cold Blood, for example, that's raw, violent music. No love in sight.
Exactly! Raw, angry. Subconsciously I guess I was really angry. It's interesting though, my brother Lloyd just passed away last July and we always used to talk about this, because the rage...well, here's an example, my daughter has two sons, my grandsons, who are now in their 20's. She still says "I've gotta get home and take care of the boys' dinners!" And I'm going "'Boys'?! They're practically on social security!" (laughs) And that's the way it should be, you know?

How do you balance career and family and still be successful in both?
The word "nurture" wasn't around in the 30's, 40's and 50's. Neither was "cholesterol." (laughs) I've learned more as I've gotten older what nurturing is all about. I can't undo the things I didn't do for my kids. All I can do is say "I'm sorry." I thought I was doing a good job if they were sheltered, had some good food, decent clothes, that was my understanding. My father didn't have time to nuture us. There were eight kids, he was making $55.00 a week. I thought I was doing a good job, not understanding that they needed a lot more of me than what I was giving. But they all turned out pretty great. I still can't get rid of them! (laughs) The girls you never get rid of! (laughs) But they're all beautiful, just wonderful. We're getting closer and closer every day, because they're all realizing, too, that this is stuff you can't take for granted. When Lloyd died, it really hit them hard. They lost two uncles within two months. Peggy Lipton, my ex-wife, her brother Kenny died two months after Lloyd. It shocked them.

What did your brother Lloyd do?
He was Chief of sound at KOMO in Seattle. He was with them 28 years. He'd go on the road with the Huskies for the games. He was just a great, brilliant human being. My other brother is a superior court judge up there. It was just such a shock losing him.

You dedicated the album to Lloyd.
Yes. He's organically tied to the album because in '66 I brought him with me when I recorded Sinatra. He and his wife Gloria met there and they were together until he died. Theirs was the greatest love story in the world.

The album has the greatest variety of artists I've heard on any compilation.
Thank you. You know if you think about it, Frank was a phenomenon of the 40's, Elvis the 50's, The Beatles the 60's, the 70's were about Star Wars, and then the 80's was Michael Jackson. And I remember introducing Michael to Frank, and seeing them come together was like seeing 40 years of legends come together full circle. I've got a strong connection with everyone on that record. Patti Austin's my Goddaughter since she was four. Luther Vandross, we recorded him before anyone knew who he was. Brian McKnight, Tevin Campbell, who I recorded at 12, everyone. It's funny I met Michael at 12, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder. Stevie's 48 now! I'm younger than him! (laughs)

Let's talk about your early years. When did you first realize that music was your calling?
I guess when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I sang with a little a cappella gospel group called The Challengers. A man named Joseph Towe put us together. He was a very elegant man, was a swing musician. I used to baby-sit for him for free so I could read his Glenn Miller book on orchestration. One thing led to another and I first picked up the horn in '45. I never stopped. I've been like a junkie, and orchestration is what I've always loved. It just fascinates me. Every band that came to Seattle, I just used to sit there right in front and lose it! (laughs) Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnett...Charlie Barnett came to Seattle when I was 14, and two dudes came out front and started playing. One was Clark Terry, the other was Maynard Ferguson. I almost had a stroke, man! I thought they were from Mars! The same with Woody Herman. When those bands came through, I just couldn't get enough. It was like dope, man. Pure dope.

When you joined up with Lionel Hampton in 1951, that was your first big break.
He actually asked me to join when I was 15 years-old. This lady named Janet Thurillo, a singer from Seattle, had been bugging him about getting me in the band. I was already to go and Gladys Hampton said "Get that young sucker off the bus! He's going back to school!" Then later on when I was in school back in Boston, they asked me again. I was there on scholarship and I said to the school "I'll be back soon." Biggest lie in the world! (laughs) I mean this band had Clifford Brown, Art Farmer, Joe Newman, Jimmy Nottingham, Charlie Mingus, Wes Montgomery, it was like a college. That band was almost like the first rock and roll band, really. He also loved modern jazz, so it was the perfect world. It also took me to Europe for the first time, which is one of the best things that ever happened to me.

That first trip to Europe was the first time you hadn't encountered any racism, correct?
Exactly. It was so evident, because all the conflict (in the U.S.) was always white and black. I remember we were in Oslo and it was so beautiful. It was almost unreal, not like the south side of Chicago. And these beautiful girls would put all their purses on the bandstand! 800 purses on the bandstand! I said "Boy, they wouldn't do that in New York. The junkies would kill 'em!" (laughs) This girl invited all of us to her house for dinner, saying her parents wanted to make us dinner. It was midnight, but we said "Sure," still feeling a little suspicious from what we knew in the States. So we walked to her house, three of us from the band and three of the girls. And this car pulls up behind us, like trailing us, with a Norwegian guy behind the wheel. So coming from the States, our antennae went off, and our hands go in our pockets, getting our knives ready. And the guy calls something out to us in Norwegian and one the girls runs over to him, and the smiles on both their faces were so pure and so beautiful, I'll never forget this. She comes back and we said "What?! What?!" She says "He wants to know if you want a ride over to the party." (laughs) It turned me around to opening up your soul to one-on-one, that whole trip.

After you formed your own band you went through some tough times, right?
Oh please, almost suicide. I came back to the States after Hampton and freelanced and paid my New York dues. Did everything imaginable. Worked for Bassie, Ray Anthony, Tommy Dorsey, everybody...it ended with my band and I being stranded in Paris, completely broke. I had to finally get a regular job as an A&R man for Mercury Records and they made me Vice-President two years later...I'm glad now I did the corporate route, because I learned so much. I wouldn't be doing all I'm doing now had I not done that. What turned me out of that world was they offered me a lot of money to stay on for 20 years. And that freaked me out, man. I said "20 years, that's my whole life!" I quit my job, got divorced, went to California. I had just scored one movie at that point, The Pawnbroker, and thought that I'd be able to write my own ticket in the movies--not quite! (laughs) I did one TV show called Hey Landlord with Will Hutchins. James L. Brooks, Garry Marshall, Ed Weinberger and Jerry Belson were all writers on it. Richard Dreyfuss was on the show. It was amazing. It's like it just happens. If I'd gone around the block twenty seconds earlier, I'd have missed it.

You just reminded me of the most profound thing you said in Listen Up when you were talking with Ice T: "Twenty seconds in the other direction for any of us, and we'd have would up in the penitentiary."
No doubt. We were this close, man. We did all the same things. We were the biggest thugs that ever lived. I was right at that crossroads, man. Thank God for music...Chicago was the breeding ground for gangsters, white and black. The best in the world. The fascination with violence that kids have now, that all started in Chicago. It's not new to me. Hip-hop is not hard for me to relate to because of that. My father was a carpenter who worked for these black gangsters named the Jones Brothers (no relation), and we'd walk over to see him at Drexel Food and Liquor. I remember walking up the steps, they looked so huge. This was in about 1938. The Jones Brothers did policy rackets...all the stereotype Elliot Ness stuff you with the hats, suits, big stogies and tommy guns, it's all true. There were a couple dudes upstairs (at the liquor store) behind a one-way mirror with tommy guns, man! I thought that was great, man! It's funny when people think that gangsterism and that kind of violence is something new. Chicago in the 30's makes Harlem and Compton look like Disneyland. We had to leave Chicago when the Jones brothers got run out of town.

Tell the story about Joe Louis and the pair of boxing gloves.
My father also worked for Julian Black, who managed Joe Louis, and we were given a pair of gloves that Joe Louis won in. Three doors down from me was this kid named Waymond who had this BB gun I used to dream about. I wanted it more than anything in the world and I traded the boxing gloves for that pistol! My dad came home and my little brother Lloyd said "Daddy, Dewie got a pistol." (laughs) My dad said "What?!" So daddy went back to get the gloves and came back with the woman who became my stepmother and my stepbrothers and sisters. Then we left Chicago right after that. Life's a trip, man, I'll tell you. Once I had those two operations and lived, I said, 'Well, God must be keeping me here for something."

Tell us about how those aneurysms changed your outlook on life.
They made me more of a workaholic! (laughs) I thought before I was going to live 'til 200, now I'm not so sure. I've got that clip in my brain holding things together, so I figure now I can work twice as hard. (laughs) But you know, now what I do really doesn't feel like work. It's a lot of time, a lot of energy, but it's an adventure, man! I don't want to miss any of it! What else are you going to do, go fishing in Colorado, or something? Hell, no! Life's too short for that.

Tell us about when you first came to Hollywood.
That was scary because I'd left the security of my corporate job and just seeing history unfolding before my eyes every day. I knew the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Streisand, Brando, all these people before they hit it big. People say to me now "How come you only hang out with stars, man?" I say "Stars, my ass! I knew these people when none of us could afford a hot dog!" Harry Belefonte, Sidney Poitier, Ray Charles, everybody was payin' dues. They're just people I know from a long time ago.

Tell us about working with Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood) who I think is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
Richard used to say "We're all like a river, man. People cool their toes in you, throw their beer cans in you, swim in you, pee in you (laughs), fish in you..." He said "When we finish this movie we'll either be best friends for life or kill each other." We were best friends. He taught me how to use the Movieola (editing machine). Richard did something great. Truman Capote wanted Leonard Bernstein to do the music, and I don't blame him! Leonard was a genius. But Richard stuck to his guns and said "No, Quincy's doing this movie!" In fact, I suggested Scott Wilson to him. Richard would call me for advice before he'd call the actors. That meant so much to me, on a picture that big?! Please! Then after the premiere, Truman Capote called, apologized to me, was crying...it was beautiful. Richard had so much faith in me, there was no way I was going to let him down.

Tell us about Francis Albert.
This is his ring with the family crest that Tina gave me for Christmas. (shows the ring on his pinkie). I loved that man. But before we met, I was so in awe, I couldn't approach him. He was one of those people, you couldn't approach him. You'd just have to wait, man. (laughs) And you may wait all your life and nothing would happen. I never obsessed on it, or anything, but I would just listen to him and say "Damn! That's as good as it gets." So one day in Paris...Ava Gardner had told Frank I was living there, I don't know how she found out. So we went down to Monaco to play a gig for one of Grace Kelly's events and there he was, getting ready to perform. We met and I thought "Wow, he's real!" (laughs) But he was a bigger than life dude, man. He told me "Open with "Man With the Golden Arm," and keep playing 'til I go into "Come Fly With Me." So I had never worked with anyone that big before, right? I was used to starting up when the applause died down. So Frank comes out, all cool, we're playing "Man With the Golden Arm," people are just screaming, everyone in the audience you can imagine: Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, David Niven, Noel Coward. He stops and kisses and shakes hands with everybody. I'm looking at him like "Hurry up and get up here, man! The applause is gonna stop soon!" Not knowing who I'm dealing with here, right? (laughs) So he stops in the middle of the floor, takes out his gold cigarette case, lights it, walks real slow up on stage, hums the opening of "Come Fly With Me," sings it. My mouth is still hanging open, and just before the middle part that goes (singing) "...When I get you up there..." he takes a deep drag on the cigarette, and now there's just a pin spot lighting him, right? So he sings "When I get you up there, where the air is..." then he goes "raaarrrified..." and blows all the smoke out of his mouth! I had never seen anything like this in my life, man! He sang over the smoke! He was like a magician...I remember another time we were flying to Vegas and he said "You know, it'd be kind of kooky, man, if we could play 'Shadow of Your Smile' in the show tomorrow night." And I said "Do you know the lyrics?" "By the time you get the music, I'll know the lyrics." So he sat on that plane and wrote down the lyrics to that song 18 times on a yellow pad, force-feeding the subconscious mind. And the next night, the same song that's on the new album, he sang the shit out of it, man. Those are the moments you never forget. Some people played with him, some people worked with him, and some people like Steve and Edie and myself, got to play and work with him, and that was truly the joy of it.

You said that Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis were your two biggest influences growing up. Tell us about them.
Well, when you look at the evolution of the trumpet you've got Louis Armstrong, who begat Roy Eldrige, who begat Dizzy, who begat Miles along with the saxophone of Charlie Parker, and Clark Terry. Miles and Dizzy changed the sound of the trumpet. They were the Bachs and Beethovens of the 20th century. Please. To this day I play "Kind of Blue" four times a week. It's like Picasso.

Did you know Chet Baker at all? Was he influenced by Miles? They both had such a tragic sound and you could hear how much pain they were in.
Oh yeah, I knew Chet and he and everyone else was influenced by Miles. The thing is, the subtheme of the whole be-bop period was black musicians saying "We do not want to be entertainers anymore. We do not want to sing and roll our eyes and clown for people anymore. We want to be artists." And they lived accordingly. But the consequences were the (established artists) rejected them. But they didn't care and went on anyway, blazing a path that has never been surpassed in the 20th century. Kids haven't even begun to catch up to Miles, Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy. Not even close, man! I don't give a shit if you've sold 20 million records. It's not about that. It's about the fact that they changed the course of music.

What's the famous quote, I think it's from the Bible: "A prophet is never recognized in his own time."
Absolutely right. And we didn't care about money, or two ounces of cocaine or having airplanes. We didn't care about that stuff. We just wanted to be as good as we could be, or close to as good as they were. We didn't care about numbers and money. That's a stupid goal, you know, fame and fortune. If you are pursuing it, it's a stupid goal. Sure we like hit records. But I have a line I will not cross. I know how to make a hit record, and I love when it's a hit, don't get me wrong. But I won't go over that line. There's an integrity you have to hold on to...I don't care how hungry the musician is, you could put $100,000 on the piano, write a hit, take home that $100,000, but the subconscious mind doesn't care about that $100,000. It doesn't care about whether it's bad, or good, it just says "Do the work." It's blind. That's what always surprising to me when people say they do this for the money. Because if you don't believe in the music and if it doesn't make your hair rise and give you goose bumps when you listen to it, how do you expect anyone else to? So to me, it's not the commerciality, it's the sincerity.

All the classic work from any artist is classic because it's honest, and that will always come through.
That's right, man. The real stuff is coming from a place of personality and commitment. They're not saying "Well here's what the audience likes and the demographics tell us this," this is what I like. This is what I feel. And I want other people to like and feel this, as well. So I feel good looking back that those things were always in mind, going back to '66, on this album.

What's in store for you in the coming millennium?
I just had a meeting with the First Lady yesterday and Steven Spielberg, George Stevens and I are going to produce the Millennium celebration for the Clintons. I had all these plans for being on a boat somewhere with some champagne, but Hillary blew that! (laughs)

Tell us about your upcoming CD-rom project, Microsoft Encarta Africana.
It's really got its genesis from the dreams of W.P. DuBois, 90 years ago. He wanted to have in one volume, all the information on Africa and African-Americans. Because when I was a kid, there was no black history...so we made a deal with Bill Gates at Microsoft and they're going to put it in Sunday schools and history classes and it's going to be awesome! 2.2 million words. 3,000 essays from Buffalo Soldiers to Colin Powell, everything. It's really great and something that was vital and needed. It's being released sometime in February. I know Gates is really excited about it, because no one's seen anything like this before.

Where do you see the future of the media heading in the 21st century, and where do you hope to see it go?
I think the writing's on the wall in a way. I'm not trying to be glib about it, but I think when Bill Gates put down a billion dollars for Comcast, that cast the die. Clearly the computer kings are going cable...it's fascinating. We have to be sure that the further we get into technology, the closer we get to spirituality. Even the scientists, I think, would agree with that. It's fascinating. I remember taking $27.00 and flying on a prop plane to Oslo in the 50's. Then the jet engine came and revolutionized the world. The next phase was satellites, cellular and fax. Awesome effects! That technology is everywhere now. And now, we're moving into fiberoptics, and the potential is really endless.

Do you think it will be easier for us to be technological or spiritual?
I don't think we'll have a choice, you're going to have to become spiritual to deal with the technology. Otherwise we're going to go crazy. Maybe my imagination is off the hook, but I always try to look at the subtext. I look at Dolly (the genetically-cloned sheep) in Scotland. I look at the 22 mice in Hawaii and the eight calves in Japan two months ago. You know what's next. You know it, man. And it's going to be something civilization has never dreamed of before. With genetic engineering you can alter 2500 characteristics, there's microchips now that can disperse energy, medicine, all kinds of stuff. It's going to be freaky, man! Spirituality is going to be number one in the place, otherwise this stuff isn't going to be able to happen. I can feel it. Man just cannot leave that stuff alone. They're always trying to play God. Computers are designed like the human brain. When I was dying I saw a tunnel of gold and white light and I saw a computer read-out, that's exactly what the mind is like, only the computer is now better at it than we are! There's always been something like that dealing looming in the future. Man's always dealt with it.

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