INT: What comes to mind on MISS EVERS’ BOYS? Both rewards or challenges?

JS: Again, the rewards were the, were the Actors. Alfre is brilliant, as you know. Alfre Woodard. Let me think. Boy, its something, you have to go through the pages of history--[INT: I know, I know.]--to get to some of these productions. And you don’t realize, you know, some years have passed. [INT: What’s interesting when I, when I’m asked, when I would ask myself that question, you know, and looking at stuff, you know, 20, 30 years old, there’s a moment that will flash in my mind.] Yeah. [INT: It may only be a moment, but there was a moment, you know.] Yeah. [INT: That’s what, that’s what I was thinking of and doing is being MISS EVERS’, cause I’m sure there’s a bunch of them, but what flashes in you head as you--where do you see yourself, or a scene or a moment, you know, that grabs you?] I guess, you know, going through the rationalization process that you’re trying to understand, the rationalization on the part of the U.S. [United States] Government for conducting an experiment on Black males, and I think it took place around ’32 [1932]. In a, probably the most naked example of, of Black bias that you’d imagine…I guess, you know, it tended to put me into an angry frame of mind when I took this on, and I had to get away from some of that ‘cause I didn’t want to be in a position of commenting, politically, on the subject matter, because the subject matter takes care of it. You know, its like the same challenge that an Actor has and that I try to correct and pull ‘em away from. If he’s commenting on his character, if the character’s an evil character for instance, that if the character is a priest, the temptation for Actors is to comment on the generalities of evil and priestly, and that kind of thing. As if they were behavioral factors instead of just job descriptions. And this was, this was tough. And then I, course I realized that what they were doing was a blind test in the usual insensitive scientific mode, and at the time of course, you know, Black people, especially Black males were held somewhat in lesser terms then human, so it was okay. And, it was tough, it was…Sometimes you’re dealing with content that makes you so uncomfortable that you have to transcend your emotional feelings and get into a neutral position so that you are able to, to stay objective. So you don’t tip the boat too far, and that was the case here.

INT: I wanna jump to one picture that I happen to be a big fan of. I don’t know if you’re a big fan of it. Which is, you know, your PELHAM ONE TWO THREE [THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE]. Now that’s a while ago. [JS: Yeah.] Anything come up from that?

JS: Only the amazing reaction that that picture has gotten, because at the time I was dreadfully unhappy with the fact that I was going to be doing another, a caper movie, you know, a feature that U.A. [United Artists] wanted me to do and…But however, there is a very important glitch in all of this. And what happened was, when I got to New York, U.A. sent me there of course, the Producers were not very happy with U.A’s selection because they had a Director of their own in mind. It started there. It then moved there from there and trickled down to the crew, which had resentment to this smart-ass Director being sent from Hollywood to show them how to make movies. Then I began to realize that there was an east coast, west coast rivalry going on. Which I had never imagined existed. I had no idea, it’s never, it never came up before. Even after I con--I reminded ‘em that I was basically a New Yorker, and that this was hometown for me, didn’t matter. I was from Hollywood and I was quite obviously the enemy. Now, that’s a hell of way to come into town to start a movie. [INT: Really.] Well, again, thank god for the Actors, ‘cause from Walter Matthau down, it was a joy. But the crew, the Producers, and especially the Production Manager gave me such hostility and such--Bordering on contempt. Now, go try directing a movie where you spend ten weeks in the black hole of a New York subway with that cloud over you, and that you’re trying to ignore, and you had no one really to complain to because its very amorphous, you know, everybody will deny it. You’ll look like somebody who feels paranoid rather than, you know, cause its not anything you can call up and say, “Hey, get--take these attack dogs off my ass!” You know, it was a very funny kind of thing. And I got through the day because of the Actors. I got through the day because we had a very interesting, tight script, with humor and…again, its like rising above hostile Production Managers and/or Producers. In this case, rising above a hostile crew. Being--By the way, they were whipped together by this Production Manager again. There was a time, by the way, in the Guild [DGA, Directors Guild of America] when there was a rebellion brewing about allowing Production Managers to be part of the Guild, because we’re, we were constantly, and have been classically, adversaries for a long time. That’s eased off a lot. I am very happy to report that I don’t feel that anywhere near the intensity that used to be, ‘cause I think a lot of bridge building has taken place over the years, within the Guild. But, Production Managers were, are classically hired to do a job that doesn’t necessarily coincide with what the Director’s being hired to do. And in fact, is really geared to control and to limit some of the Director’s tendencies to spend money. [INT: Yeah.] Anyway, it was tough to…[INT: It’s interesting ‘cause visually…] And out of that came a show that people--[INT: It’s a terrific show.]--are still talking about. [INT: Visually, it’s a, you know, kind of a stunning show.] Yeah.

INT: Yeah. I was thinking about something that’s much earlier here, which I was thinking about TRIBES, and the fact of here we are in 2004 and I feel like you could’ve…I mean, I haven’t seen TRIBES in a long time but you could probably play that now and it’d be a contemporary movie. What’s happened to us in…? [JS: Well, again…] It’s a political question, I’m asking, I realize.

JS: The Marine philosophy, and tradition, and culture, insists on holding to that tradition. Holding to that really tough-ass, bust heads, elitist culture, really. And that’s, that’s what TRIBES is all about, you know. [INT: I remember the scene though, I have not seen this movie I think since it came out, so this is a compliment. If I’m wrong about this scene I’ll be embarrassing, we’ll erase it. Isn’t there a moment where he gets everybody in the group to meditate?] Gets what? [INT: Everybody to meditate?] Yeah. [INT: So I’m remembering this scene with this movie from 30 years ago.] That’s wonderful. [INT: More than that. And I remember just thinking, so smart.] Okay, what--You know what I remember from that? [INT: What?] We shot the whole thing in 12 days. [INT: Wow.] That was a 78-minute picture, you know, ‘cause it was not a full two hours. And I had Russell Metty as my cameraman. Russell Metty did two of Orson Welle’s pictures, so I was in heaven. I inherited a--And he was so fast and so efficient, and so…We had a wonderful relationship because he felt I knew what I wanted, and he didn’t have time to suffer any fools. He was a, you know, a crusty old timer and he would literally turn on a 10K and walk away. One light. Now that’s okay if you’re dealing with one or two Actors, but he was dealing with a barracks full. [INT: Right.] And he would turn on one light, maybe a fill, you know. And that’s it. [INT: Great, great.] Now that’s, you know, this a guy from way back. Not one of those young hot shots. [INT: Right.] It’s… [INT: That’s, that’s perfect.]

INT: Let me ask you a question about, cause we were gonna, I wanna talk about this before you do go, and it has to do with the issue of the differences between television and feature films. And the, and the respect for and attitudes about.

JS: Well, first of all, I see absolutely no difference between features for television and theatrical features, simply because I think as we discussed before, we use the same film, same camera, same crew, same technique, same terminology. The only obvious difference is the, is the budget. The amount of money they will allocate to do one project over another. The frustration today, and the irony by the way, is that there are episodics even, never-mind a two-hour, and the mini-series that we’re doing…But in addition to the two hours of miniseries, there are even episodics that are on a better level, richer looking, beautifully directed and acted and lit, then most theatricals. Despite all of the epic special effects and all of that. People latch onto a well-made feature for television emotionally better than some of the theatricals. It’s, and, you know, ignore what the box office is all about because we know whose going to the theatre these days to watch those movies. Quality is quality whether it’s on the big screen or on the small screen. Involvement. A theatrical experience is a theatrical experience whether it’s a theatrical feature or a feature for television. Now, the term ‘movie-of-the-week’ has quite fortunately been lessened in usage, but I would like to absolutely excise it from the English language because it has formed its own stigma on a format that has gone beyond the old ‘movie-of-the-week’ concept. ‘Cause ‘movie-of-the-week’ says television. And features for television is what we’re shooting, and that’s what they should be referred to. There are as--They are features. And certainly HBO has been in the forefront of making sure that they’re features, and their willing to spend the money to do that. And when they say its not television, its HBO, right there is the opening key to what we should all be thinking and reacting to, and helping to erase that line. And it’s getting fuzzier and fuzzier, and maybe in a few years, it’ll be missing as it is in Europe, for instance. The English think nothing of--And the French as well as, I suppose the Germans and the rest of Europe; they think nothing of switching from one form to another. Or, film to stage, in the same sense. That culture is one that we should think a lot more seriously about.

INT: I didn’t ask you a camera question, I realize it’s belated, but do you use multiple cameras other than obviously for action sequences?

JS: Oh, yeah. [INT: Even for--] Oh, yeah. [INT: Even now for dialogue sequences as well?] Yes, absolutely. [INT: Alright, is it, is it standard for now?] Yes, absolutely. [INT: And how do you use them?] I use them to enhance production value sometimes, you know, to get more coverage than perhaps the schedule would allow. And sometimes I stage separately for the B camera, in addition to the A camera, so that I would have…In other words, its not always used to get the close-ups while I’m doing the master, or while I’m doing the part of the master that’s, that’s occupying the A camera. It’s interesting how you can get an effect two A camera staging’s when you’re having two cameras, as opposed to focusing primarily on just coverage of what the A camera is doing.

INT: So, do you..? And obviously there’s a lighting issue that will come up--[JS: Yeah.]--But will you then, I mean are you looking at it that, that in a sense your setting up, at times, quote “two masters?” Or you setting up a shot that in fact will then be continued by this other second camera’s position, or…[JS: Sometimes, that, that--] Or both?

JS: Yeah. That happens, but mainly its because, and it’s a rare thing where you can stage separately for the B camera as a continuation of the master…But in those large scenes, party scenes, convention scenes, scenes that contain more than five or six Actors, you have the kind of opportunity where something’s going on over here while this is going on over here, and you may wanna intercut them, etcetera. [INT: Sure.] But most of the time, the B camera comes very handy in clearing up the coverage.

INT: Is there a…Anything that you shoot differently at all in terms of a wide shot, a real giant wide-shot that you might say, “Oh, I better be closer because we’re on television.” Does that ever hit your mind? [JS: Yeah] So that might be the only real difference, yeah?

JS: Yeah, but that difference is becoming less and less of our mandate anymore, because…First of all, television screens are getting bigger. I mean, now you have a, you know, you have home theatre that’s as big as some screening room’s. [INT: Do you have--Do you have a big screen?] Pardon? [INT: In your house, do you have a big screen?] Well mine is 48, you know four feet, etcetera. But all the, even the 24’s and the 30’s, etcetera, they’re quite sizable.

INT: When you’re in the editing room looking at, you know, you’re, you know, on a monitor. Are there times when you wanna look at a larger monitor just because of this? Or are you okay with the monitors that will be in the editing room?

JS: Monitors are pretty big now. I mean, they’re using…Those are 28 to 30 inch monitors; they’re pretty good. [INT: Do you have a preference, by the way, in digital editing of any of the digital systems, or does it not make a difference to you?] Well I was excited when they, Showtime switched to Final Cut Pro. And I was excited because it then made it accessible to all of us, you know. And I thought, well I can turn my Mac [Macintosh computer] into an editing room. Which I’ve never done, because its, whose got the time, you know? There’s a reason why you have Editors because they, they’re hired on a full day basis to do what takes that much time, you know. So there’s no way I can take over the Editor’s job, nor would I want to. But its nice to know that editing has become that accessible, especially for young Directors, you know. For whom, by the way, there is absolutely no excuse anymore not to Direct a film, ‘cause you’ve got all the facilities you ever wanted, you’ll ever want, need, or use, at your disposal.

INT: What’s, what advice, if you, a new filmmaker come to you and who wants to be able to work within, lets say, the industry in some weird way. What advice would give to him or her?

JS: Well, first of all, make sure you know what you’re main resource is, and that’s your Actor. It’s all very well to know the F-stops and the film ratings and fancy angles and quick cutting, and all of the tricks of cinematics. That’s all valuable, but that ain’t the job. The job doesn’t stop there for a Director as we’ve been discussing. And one of the key areas for anyone whose gonna be directing serious film, narrative serious film as opposed to documentaries, is to know how to relate and communicate with Actors. Now some Directors, as you know, people have come in as writers who are, have switched over the--Oh, there’s so many of ‘em. Preston Sturges and…[INT: Lots of contemporaries. Billy Wilder did it and, you know…] Yeah. [INT: Richard Brooks did it…] I was thinking of most--[INT: You know, just taking some of those guys.] Yeah. Without any credentials at all with dealing with Actors, but they have a genius for knowing how to communicate with ‘em. And that’s the key: How you communicate to, to other human beings, especially if those human beings have to articulate what’s on the page. [INT: Would you recommend that they take an acting course?] Yes. Absolutely. In fact, I was a visiting professor recently at, well a college that will be nameless. Isn’t because I disagree with the syllabus, its all ass-backwards. Instead of starting with either acting classes or with classes where they are forced to deal with Actors, they start with camera. They start with documentary filmmaking. Film, film, film, film. As if this is their magic entrance into this business. And my job became dealing with graduate students now, not beginners, not 101. I was dealing with 401, and these people had never, ever directed an Actor in a scene. ‘Cause they were so used to learning film directing. And that’s almost becoming a, more of a detriment, calling it film directing, than just directing. Because the emphasis is too much on what that camera is doing as opposed to what’s going into the camera.

INT: It’s interesting because, you know, I run the directing track--[JS: Well we got time for one more point.] Yes, we’ve got time two more, cause I wanna ask you two general questions. [JS: Okay.] Go.

JS: It’s something, you know, that I’ve personally had to grow into, and it’s fairly recent too. And every--Its an area that I don’t think we talk about very much as colleague to colleague and Director to Director. And it’s an area that I think we have to air out, and that is the business of stars and working with stars. I think one of your questions on the questionnaire was what’s some of the worst things about directing.

INT: Yeah. In fact, this is the two I was gonna ask. What’s the worst and the best [parts of directing]?

JS: Well, the worst thing about directing sometimes can be directing star--insecure stars. There are stars who are absolutely comfortable with their success, they know they’re gonna be up to their reputation, but that is not as common as most people assume. A star usually is accompanied by the aura of knowing exactly what he is and she is, and exactly what the craft they have to maintain that reputation. Well that’s far from the truth. They’re scared, they are understandably scared. It’s a hell of a load for any human being to carry, to live up to all of the publicity. To live up to the image. So what you’re faced with is a frightened, insecure, human being that somehow is begging for you to be their salvation, their crutch, their--and certainly their, helper. And I bring that up only because there have been several instances of my career, and not too far back either, where I’ve run into very serious problems losing the confidence of the star. And it drove me nuts because I have been fortunate enough to be, to have some pride in how I deal with Actors and, you know, the performances I get, etcetera. So I was not used to running into a problem of suddenly losing the star. By losing, I mean of course, the confidence in my directing. And I couldn’t understand what was going wrong. Now when it happened the first time, I thought, boy, I really failed this person. And then it happened several times after that, intermittently over the years, and I, it puzzled me for so long. What was I doing wrong, where I suddenly got into conflict, adversarial position, etcetera with the star. It doesn’t happen with anyone else. It doesn’t happen with the featured people, with the day-players, etcetera. Who are all very happy with whatever help you can give them and are hip to the fact that you’re sensitive to their needs, etcetera. It was always a happy kind of thing. But every once in a while, you’ll get that terrible feeling that you did something wrong. It finally occurred to me what it was, and I think we touched on it before with, when you said, what happens with some Actors who feel that the video village feels like abandonment. You get caught up as a Director, making the days work, catching up on lost time, working with the cameraman to set the angle and the moves and the complicated moves, etcetera. And pretty soon, when you do too much of that everyday, the star feels abandoned, and you’ve lost them. So I bring it up primarily to share, really, an area--I don’t know if you’ve ever gone through this yourself. [INT: You bet.] Where you, you’ve definitely lost ‘em, you can’t get ‘em back, and you don’t know why. And that’s why. Because, they instantly feel that you are too preoccupied with everything else and everybody else except them. Now, some of that is terribly unfair. Some of it of course is perfectly understandable and very natural. And we have to be avail... we have to be available to them in a correct, collaborative relationship. And not ignore the fact that they are terribly insecure, terribly frightened. Even though they don’t show it and they’d be the last to admit it, they are scared and they need you, almost as much as you need them. And, that’s it. I…[INT: That’s well spoken. That’s well spoken.]

INT: What about the best part of directing for you?

JS: The best part is probably everything we’ve been talking about, which is the, the pulling together of all these disparate puzzle pieces into a, into a hole. When you have the job of coordinating all those departments, all those contributors to the final product, and pulling it all, and it comes out well and better than well and at least reasonably well. It’s very gratifying, and that’s the best part for me.

INT: Couple questions about the Guild [DGA] and then we’ll finish. Who did sponsor you? You did mention--[JS: Lamont Johnson.] Right. [JS: Yeah.] And?

JS: And he’s never gotten over it. He’s just…He says, “I sponsor you into the Guild and you got more Emmys than I did.” [INT: Did you make some relationship--We got about 10 or five, 10 minutes--] Oh, were fine. [INT: Yeah. Did you make some relationships because of being in the Guild that if you hadn’t joined the Guild that wouldn’t have happened?] Yes, but very few, very few. One of the things I was delighted about in the recent developments over the past couple of years, was the new member-welcoming program. Because as a new member, when I got in, I was, I was treated with a little, with you know, dismissal. I felt I wasn’t being welcomed at all into the grey club. And of course when you think of some of the, the icons that were members of this club, it felt especially non-inclusive. And I’m happy to see that, you know, we’ve gotten away from that a little bit, you know. [INT: It’s—We’ve tried to change it.]

INT: What issues that the Guild [DGA] has been involved in have been meaningful to you? Where you said, “I’m glad there’s a Guild, or I care about this issue the Guild’s taking on.

JS: Oh I’m very glad there’s a Guild because I was in on the early days when it was just a country club. And then Bob Aldrich [Robert Aldrich] came along and made it a very vital, very aggressive union, really. We call--We still call it a Guild, ‘cause the original intention and the original definition has been lost to history. To define a guild as opposed to a union now seems a little ridiculous because, in effect, when you negotiate with studios that are paying and picking up the tab, you’re a union. You’re a union of working stiffs that have to fight for every advantage. And the--[INT: And the concerns that the Gui--That you personally, sort of, have gotten involved in over the years with the Guild?] Well I was a member of council for about four, five years in the early days. And it was very gratifying, very revealing. Gil Cates [Gilbert Cates] was president when I, in one of the early ti--He was president, not at the beginning I think, George Sidney was president when I first came in. And George was, you know, just very casual about everything and the biggest issues we tackled in those days was whether we should buy 57th, an additional building on 57th Street, or what to do with the building that we had on 57th Street. I didn’t even know we had a building on 57th Street, in New York. But this didn’t seem like any kind of an issue that I, that would affect my needs and that nobody was addressing the issues that I was concerned with. You know, like what do you do about editing and being dismiss--Having your parking pass picked up the minute you yell the final cut on the set. You’re not wanted anymore, which most episodic Directors have faced. And until the bill of rights were hammered away at, and finally accepted by the studios, Directors simply had nothing to do with editing their own, their own pea--That was always the prerogative of the Producers, the studio. It was unthinkable that a Director was allowed to edit their own films.

INT: Backtracking. On editing, I have a question. Do you…You told me while you’re shooting your scene, cut footage, do you immediately after shooting go in, and work, or do you give the Editor time to set--

JS: Oh I give ‘em a time to make the first assembly, yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, because that’s his input. And then we start correcting and keeping what works and trying something else. [INT: Do you find the editing process for you as, lets say stimulating as the shooting?] In some instances, yeah, but…I mean generally I enjoy the shooting of it. I enjoy the give and take and the shroomendrang, and being in the trenches, you know. Editing is the final set of decisions, you know, not the final, there’s yet a big one coming and that’s the mix. But, it’s the beginning of the, the more painful decision-making process.

INT: Lets talk about the mix for a minute. I personally--First of all, I love sound so I’m into it, but I often find it so…It’s almost like the color timing, its like these guys go in and one day can effect your entire picture. [JS: They can ruin it.] And its like, you’ve now spent maybe three years of your life, or whatever it is, trying to get this. Now, all of a sudden, you’re in with a color-timer, so we’re spending an hour, you know, spending a day, and they’re suddenly, you know, “Next!” And the mix sometimes has that feel too, so I’m curious where you are on the mix.

JS: Well a mix can make or break the picture. If you’re not there for that mix, whoever is there, whether it be the Producer, the Producer’s Assistant, whatever, he will mix it according to his basic instincts and not yours. So, the work you’ve done up to that point could very well be, be compromised. So it’s absolutely the most important, besides shooting the film, the mix is probably the most important thing. Well, of course I suppose everything that leads up to the mix, but it can be all down the drain if the wrong values are placed on music, volume, the dialogue replacement. The ADR’ing [Automated Dialogue Replacement] could be wooden and uninteresting and not relating at all to what the Actor did originally before he was, before he--before that airplane came over. All of those factors, really, they come together as an enemy against it. And again, it’s because of the Guild [DGA] that we have the right to be in that room. [INT: Yep.] Which was unheard of before.

INT: Do you, in the mixing process, are you or do you try to do all the ADR’ing [Automated Dialogue Replacement] yourself?

JS: I do all the ADR’ing. [INT: And what is that for you? Cause its an interesting issue about getting a performance when your, you know, in that room. How do you feel about that, and have you--] Well since the concept of ADR, as opposed to the old looping concept, I find you can even improve performances because it is so accurate, and you can achieve pretty much, re-create rather, pretty much the original conditions. The original readings, and you know, the emotional values in those readings. Now, on the other hand, even with ADR you can walk away too soon from a take and realize that it doesn’t sound quite as sincere as it should, or quite as rich as it used to be. Did you know that Marlon Brando, getting back to him, insisted on looping most of his performance? Cause that gave him control. [INT: Double control, two performances.] Yeah.

INT: Have there been times when the Guild [DGA] has come to your aid?

JS: Yes. I was an Allan Ritchie [Allan Smithee, pseudonym used by Directors who seek to remove their names from a project]. At the time I was only one of the three Directors in the Guild’s history that was allowed to take my name off a picture. And it was a rather amicable situation, surprisingly. But I did a picture called THE CHALLENGE, at Fox. Two hour. And it was written brilliantly with flashbacks. And what it was, was World War III as conducted by two top warriors, one from each country, in this case China. We were having World War III between China and the United States, but instead of using all the technology and all of the nuclear capabilities, they decided to bring it down to one island on which a warrior from each country was dropped and let them fight it out. A wild concept. Well, of course, the way it was written, you started out with one of them, the American, and then discover what he’s doing by flashbacking. You go into all of the backstory and you lead up to, step by step, the precautions each of them take. You know, you would--The Chinese guy and the American guy. Mako played the Chinese--[INT: Oh, Mako, great, yeah.] Yeah. Okay, fine. Delivered the Director’s cut, worked pretty well, etcetera, we thought. And the head of T.V. production at the time decided that the audience wasn’t gonna sit still for all these flashbacks. I’m sure you’ve had the same set of conditions. So he insisted that it be re-cut in a straight, linear matter. What that did, as far as I was concerned, was make a training film. Because a straight linear thing would mean we’d have to see it step by step as to all of the, all of the good warrior training they’ve had. [INT: Oh, sure. And so the Guild came in?] So I went to the Guild and wrote my letter and then appeared in person and told them that, you know, there was no animosity involved here. It was a simple case of this being not the film that I accepted. Now, you see the one thing about the Guild’s protection has to be--Again, this was before the bill of rights--Has to be to protect our very, the area of choice. You know, we select material that we feel comfortable about, and we feel very excited about, which I did. But it was because it was a certain format. The minute you change that format to a linear format form what it was, it becomes a whole different picture. So its like not the picture that I was signed on to do. And they, they agreed. So I became Allan Ritchie [Allan Smithee, pseudonym used by Directors who seek to remove their names from a project].