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Hello. I'm Guillermo del Toro,
and I'm here with Matthew Robbins.
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Matthew.
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It's Matthew Robbins here.
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We're looking at Dragonslayer
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And he's co-writer and director
of this fantastic film.
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We're going to start with this.
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-This is Alex North, the score.
-Yeah.
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I think he reused some ideas
that he had for 2001 in the score.
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That's true. I was unaware of it.
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I was very happy with his score,
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-and I wasn't--
-Yeah.
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It was years later
that somebody gave me a--
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-2001, the score.
-Yes, and it sounded very familiar.
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This is very similar to, for example,
a track on 2001 called "Foraging."
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-Uh-huh.
-Very, very similar.
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And I think him and Jerry Goldsmith
were on the same track.
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There was Planet of the Apes and 2001.
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So it has a lot of that concrete music.
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How was your relationship with Alex?
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Very, very good. We--
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He was known to be snappy, right?
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Well, he was a senior and I was a junior,
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and he was vastly more experienced
than I was.
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But we saw eye to eye right away
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when I told him
that I did not want a traditional score.
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I like dissonance and I like Prokofiev.
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And so he said, "Prokofiev is
my favorite composer. This is great."
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That was our very first conversation,
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and if you listen to what he's done
in this movie,
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-you'll hear some of the influence.
-Yes.
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It is one of the best scores
and one of the scores that I listened to
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when I was writing screenplay
and so forth.
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And speaking of screenplay,
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you coauthor with Hal Barwood...
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-Yeah.
-...as you did many, many times.
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He was your writing partner for how long?
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For 11, 12 years.
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Yeah. And I must say, Matthew,
we could have a separate track--
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We won't-- But we could have
a separate track only on the screenplay.
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This is one of those great, beautifully,
perfectly-measured screenplays.
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How long did it take you to write it?
Let's talk a little about that.
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Well, our practice was
to spend a lot of time
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before going to pages and writing dialogue
to think about the structure of the movie.
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Who are the characters, what are
they about, and what do they want?
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And once we got some
sufficiently vivid characters going,
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we began to lay out the movie.
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We, in those days, used 3-by-5 cards
on a big board with pushpins.
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Which was a fantastic method.
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And we took, on all our screenplays--
something I still do actually--
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Is far more time planning
the architecture of the movie
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and making sure that we're getting all
the maximum value out of those characters
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before we ever set pen to paper
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and start painting in
the descriptions and the dialogue.
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So, we would take-- we took a few months
just laying out a format for the film,
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and then we write pages pretty quickly.
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I don't remember the total amount
of time we took on this thing,
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but I should tell you among the origins
of this project was two things.
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One is the fact that George Lucas,
who was our pal from film school days,
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had created Industrial Light & Magic.
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And we were there
when the company was born.
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And witness--
witness to the outer space environments
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and all the things-- the wizardry that
ILM was putting together in that world,
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you know, a galaxy far, far away.
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And Hal and I thought, "Wait a second.
What about putting the same"--
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-In fantasy?
-Yeah.
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Put it-- In another realm,
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can they bring to life this--
a story like this?
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That was the first impulse.
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The second impulse was that Hal had become
very interested in Tolkien and the story--
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I was gonna talk about that, yes.
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And he made me dive into it,
and I, too, responded to it.
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And we got very inspired by setting
a story in a world
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of, you know, centuries ago
with this fantastical element of a dragon.
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But it was, in fact, I believe--
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I may be wrong, but I think
it was the first non-Lucas ILM movie
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to utilize the facility.
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That's correct.
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And then Raiders of the Lost Ark
followed or it was a little later.
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But it was--
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And it came right at the perfect timing
because-- and we'll talk about it--
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Phil Tippett had just developed Go Motion...
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Yes.
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...which was the capacity
to repeat not only a camera move,
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but a movement on a puppet
to create a blur.
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-Exactly.
-And we'll talk about it in a minute.
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But what is fantastic for me is this:
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There's an aspect of Tolkien
that is very, very present.
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Obviously, the universes.
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The names have a little echo of Tolkien,
but very important.
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Tolkien writes after the disillusionment
and destruction of World War I.
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And there is this feeling
of the twilight of magic,
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and how magic is worn and old,
and fading from the world.
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And both the Ralph Richardson character
and the dragon,
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which you empathize in a monologue.
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That is phenomenal
where he's talking about the dragon
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when he's talking about himself,
which is right upcoming.
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That's very explicit.
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We were very aware of that in the movie,
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and that's why there is the element
of the arrival of Christianity
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in the early pre-Roman times.
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And it's presumably somewhere
in the United Kingdom, or prior to that.
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You know, some Anglo-Saxon realm.
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And so that's part of the story,
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the idea that there's another way,
another consciousness,
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-coming into this world.
-The world of magic.
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-Yes.
-Which is very present in Tolkien.
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But what I love is that Hal and you,
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who had, obviously,
lived through the '60s and '70s,
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you know, you bring
a very political element to the movie.
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Very political, very contestataire.
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Very much showing you how, quote, unquote,
"the Man" co-opts everything,
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including the triumph
of killing the dragon,
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and the legend of it,
and how religion is colluded with that.
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Did you discuss, explicitly, this element?
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Sure. We did.
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I don't know that we used
those exact terms,
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but we were very much
putting those elements into play
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because of the power structure
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and the fact that there is a king
that has made a deal with this monster.
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And there's a lot of resonance in that.
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It was a source a lot of,
not just the mood, but of the drama.
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It is, but what I love is this:
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You have you have, obviously,
Tolkien fading of the magic,
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you have the political structure,
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and then very, very importantly,
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you also have an incredibly forward
attitude towards the heroines.
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And I'm not talking only about Valerian,
but the princess.
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They are incredibly active, incredibly
strong female leads or characters.
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Completely modern in that sense.
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-Did you guys talk about that?
-Yes.
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Well, sure, we were very interested in
both of those characters.
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They both have--
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They're both in a lurking,
compromised position
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due to the fact that
they're available for sacrifice.
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And they both have, you know,
found, they think, some terms
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under which they can survive it,
but they are compromised by it.
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And so, that-- we were-- it's--
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Today, when I get asked about this movie,
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I get asked about that
because the whole issue of feminism
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and the role of women
in the power structure,
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who holds the power, was not explicit
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back in 1980-81
when we were making this movie.
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It was not a headline issue
politically or sociologically.
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It was maybe aborning,
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but we weren't really reading about it
or involved in discussion about it.
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But, dramatically, I think we are
instinctively aware of the interest
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and the power of the predicament
of both those characters.
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And there is also--
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I think it's funny,
because it's a very forward-looking movie,
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and when it looks at the past,
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it has this idea that the world is
going to become far more vulgar.
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Not only is it gonna lose the magic,
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but it will be plotting in vulgarity,
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and this and that, and there's a moment
upcoming with Richardson, where he--
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-In this scene? Uh-huh.
-No, in the next scene with the dagger.
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Where the banality of his death is--
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There's a moment where he sells it
beautifully, looking up to the sky.
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And I wanted to talk to you
about working with him
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because he is in the movie
very, very briefly,
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but he is absolutely a touchstone
for the movie.
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When you contacted him-- First of all,
talk to me-- contacting him--
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Talk a little about casting him.
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What was your first chat with him?
As much as you can.
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Well, he was one of the great joys
of this production,
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although it was not easy
to get close to him.
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He was very good friends
with Alec Guinness,
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who had reached meteoric heights
with Star Wars,
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and here he is being approached
by another group of young Americans
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with their special effects wizardry
behind them, and he was--
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So, I think he was intrigued by that.
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But he was not easy.
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In those rehearsals,
he would challenge the dialogue,
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he would ask very probing questions
where he had lots of notes,
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and he was a little contentious
and grouchy and unsettled.
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I think he was feeling a discomfort
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with working with people
he didn't know at all
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and with the prospect
of doing a lot of effects work.
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And he just--
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But over the course of a pretty
challenging shoot,
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where we took him out into the wilds
of, what, Northern Wales,
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and had him walking
up and down hillsides, and this and that.
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And I just was very sympathetic to
the fact that I realized I was putting--
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He was 79 years old, which is a year older
than I am now, right?
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But, you know, he was--
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And he was having some struggles and
he reached out to me for some patience,
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and I was more than happy to offer it
because one of the things about--
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Look at him here.
He's a very, very unusual screen presence.
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Yes, yes.
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He has a manner unlike anybody else
in all that group of--
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He's just got an eerie,
otherworldly presence to him.
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Well that's why he could play this
or play God.
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-Yeah.
-You know, he could--
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He has a unique authority.
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Well, during the course of this shoot,
he and I became very close and it became--
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My greatest joy was spending time
in between shots
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with him in conversation,
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because he was so full
of strange quirks and behaviors.
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He came to the set with his rat.
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He had a pet rat, Ratty.
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It was a white rat
that he kept in his pocket.
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And he would take the rat out
and put it on his shoulder while chatting,
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and he would feed it little crackers
while you were talking.
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-And-- And--
-It's--
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It's beautiful you say that,
because he has the authority,
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he has the Shakespearean root
and all that,
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but he is quirky in his performance.
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His choices are really beautiful
and inspired and odd.
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What did you find him to be,
quite erudite?
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Did you find him
to be literary, instinctive?
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-How would you define him?
-It was instinctive.
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He asked probing questions
about terminology,
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choice of vocabulary, repetitions,
do we need this and that,
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which are not unusual questions
for an actor.
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But in terms of his line readings,
I never knew what he was going to offer.
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He wasn't really one
for a lot of rehearsal time.
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He would do things but he-- it was--
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I just was thrilled,
while behind the camera,
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to see this intensity that he has.
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But he has a unique--
I mean, and we're gonna see it here.
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He does two things
that I find are extraordinary.
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The way he listens—-
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and you should rewind, or rather,
skip back on the disk or whatever--
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The way he listens to the other actors
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and the way he looks around
is a fully-formed ecosystem.
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He looks at his apprentice,
he looks at our villain, he looks--
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He's listening.
And we are about to see it.
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He is amazing with props.
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-He is really--
-No, no. He--
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The easiness of that.
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He is very interested in props
and in all the physical aspects of the--
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-And the way he grabs--
-Yeah.
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The way he places the dagger
and uncovers his chest,
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00:13:33,478 --> 00:13:37,274
which is almost like
a renaissance martyr painting.
234
00:13:37,858 --> 00:13:42,738
He's almost like really a Titian
or Tintoretto or something.
235
00:13:42,821 --> 00:13:46,283
There's something really holy--
236
00:13:46,366 --> 00:13:49,328
Look at his eyes her --
his eyes in this scene.
237
00:13:49,411 --> 00:13:56,335
And the way he transitions from
"I'm immortal" to "I'm gonna die"
238
00:13:56,418 --> 00:13:59,504
and the ceremonial of it--
I mean, it's incredible.
239
00:13:59,588 --> 00:14:01,673
How many days did you work with him?
240
00:14:01,757 --> 00:14:04,343
It was several weeks,
but he was there interregnum.
241
00:14:04,426 --> 00:14:06,303
He had a few weeks in the beginning
of the shoot,
242
00:14:06,386 --> 00:14:08,513
and then we went off without him,
and then he came back,
243
00:14:08,597 --> 00:14:11,099
much as in the structure
of the story itself.
244
00:14:12,309 --> 00:14:14,269
But, no,
245
00:14:14,353 --> 00:14:17,564
he began to appreciate what we were doing
246
00:14:17,647 --> 00:14:19,733
as he became more and more comfortable
with the demands
247
00:14:19,816 --> 00:14:21,276
of a production like this.
248
00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:26,490
But this look on his face here
and the intensity of his eyes,
249
00:14:26,573 --> 00:14:29,159
I think that even as a young actor,
250
00:14:29,242 --> 00:14:35,374
there was something compelling and
riveting and disturbing about his gaze.
251
00:14:35,457 --> 00:14:39,211
Yeah, he-- the way he transitions--
and we're about to see it--
252
00:14:39,294 --> 00:14:44,508
From being all-powerful
to "I'm dying and how banal,"
253
00:14:44,591 --> 00:14:49,763
the surprise he has because he knows
there's the prophecy that he inhabits.
254
00:14:49,846 --> 00:14:54,393
He will die, and it will be passed on,
his wisdom and all that.
255
00:14:54,476 --> 00:14:58,563
But he-- This look-up is fantastic.
256
00:14:58,647 --> 00:15:01,733
It's just this beautiful moment
in which he says--
257
00:15:01,817 --> 00:15:08,073
There's a final line on Daphne
du Maurier's short story, Don't Look Now.
258
00:15:08,156 --> 00:15:13,829
And the final line in the story says,
"What a silly way to die."
259
00:15:14,496 --> 00:15:19,042
And I think all that is in-- I'm not
saying there's a specific reference,
260
00:15:19,126 --> 00:15:22,462
but there is-- so beautiful--
the intrusion of his real death.
261
00:15:23,338 --> 00:15:27,259
When he worked with somebody
as young as Peter MacNicol,
262
00:15:28,593 --> 00:15:31,638
even although, again,
they have few scenes together,
263
00:15:32,722 --> 00:15:34,141
how was the dynamic?
264
00:15:34,224 --> 00:15:35,934
And talk a little about Peter.
265
00:15:36,017 --> 00:15:41,690
Well, this was a co-production
of Disney and Paramount
266
00:15:41,773 --> 00:15:44,860
and they were very intrigued
by the screenplay,
267
00:15:44,943 --> 00:15:49,531
but they were concerned that
it would be overly English, both studios.
268
00:15:49,614 --> 00:15:53,034
This is long before the era
of Harry Potter and--
269
00:15:53,118 --> 00:15:55,245
-Lord of the Rings.
-Long before.
270
00:15:55,328 --> 00:15:59,207
And the idea
of English accents concerned them,
271
00:15:59,291 --> 00:16:03,086
so we really needed to cast somebody
who would sound Mid-Atlantic
272
00:16:03,170 --> 00:16:04,671
and be a good actor of course,
273
00:16:04,754 --> 00:16:09,551
but able to mix, in terms of voice
quality, with a largely English cast.
274
00:16:09,634 --> 00:16:11,470
And so there are some American actors,
275
00:16:11,553 --> 00:16:13,972
and Peter, of course,
was the lead American actor
276
00:16:14,556 --> 00:16:16,266
and he, as far as I know,
277
00:16:16,349 --> 00:16:22,689
had a perfectly respectful
working relationship with Sir Ralph.
278
00:16:22,772 --> 00:16:29,529
But Sir Ralph did not socialize
with the rest of the cast.
279
00:16:29,613 --> 00:16:34,618
He kept to his trailer between shots
280
00:16:34,701 --> 00:16:39,915
and would be reading
or smoking his pipe on his own.
281
00:16:39,998 --> 00:16:43,585
But they had, I thought,
282
00:16:43,668 --> 00:16:49,591
just the right mix of master and acolyte,
which--
283
00:16:50,675 --> 00:16:53,762
So I was not troubled by the fact
that they weren't particularly close--
284
00:16:53,845 --> 00:16:56,973
What was the background with Peter?
What was his background?
285
00:16:57,057 --> 00:16:59,851
He had done, I think,
some television and some plays.
286
00:17:01,144 --> 00:17:04,147
We auditioned many young actors,
287
00:17:04,231 --> 00:17:10,362
and both Hal Barwood
and I were just very taken with him,
288
00:17:10,445 --> 00:17:13,865
and there's sort of a wide-eyed appeal,
289
00:17:13,949 --> 00:17:17,452
his big eyes and his humor,
290
00:17:17,536 --> 00:17:23,333
and the awkwardness that he could display
as he gets too big for his britches.
291
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:27,587
He plays this-- He's over his head...
292
00:17:27,671 --> 00:17:29,464
-Yes.
-.. .three-quarters of the movie.
293
00:17:29,548 --> 00:17:32,217
I have to tell you something
that has come up over the years
294
00:17:32,300 --> 00:17:35,554
when I talk about this movie that people
just find a little hard to believe,
295
00:17:35,637 --> 00:17:39,808
but it was actually one of the touchstones
of our story, was Fantasia.
296
00:17:39,891 --> 00:17:44,187
-Yeah. I believe you.
-Because of Mickey and the brooms.
297
00:17:44,271 --> 00:17:47,566
-And here he's putting on...
-Yeah.
298
00:17:47,649 --> 00:17:49,317
-The sorcerer's hat.
-...the sorcerer's hat.
299
00:17:49,401 --> 00:17:53,780
And this is Mickey, when he's left all--
he's gotta do his chores, and he's--
300
00:17:54,322 --> 00:17:56,157
And so--
301
00:17:57,284 --> 00:18:02,831
And the return of Ralph at the end of this
story is very reminiscent of Fantasia.
302
00:18:02,914 --> 00:18:03,915
-Of the return--
-Sure.
303
00:18:03,999 --> 00:18:08,003
Even the appearance
of the sorcerer is similar in a way,
304
00:18:08,086 --> 00:18:11,756
the intensity of the--
No, I 100% can see it.
305
00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:14,718
Also, there was something
deliberately tawdry about the setup
306
00:18:14,801 --> 00:18:17,178
that they're going to
try to impress the visitors
307
00:18:17,262 --> 00:18:19,472
with these stage magic and tricks.
308
00:18:19,556 --> 00:18:23,310
They're quite aware of the fact
that it's kind of a shabby show.
309
00:18:23,393 --> 00:18:26,062
But this is the best they can do
under diminished circumstances.
310
00:18:26,146 --> 00:18:28,398
After all, as you pointed out,
this whole era is--
311
00:18:28,481 --> 00:18:31,943
You know,
it's the decline of a magical time.
312
00:18:32,027 --> 00:18:34,195
I should also tell you something else,
Guillermo,
313
00:18:34,279 --> 00:18:36,740
about the thinking behind the movie,
314
00:18:37,365 --> 00:18:41,745
which is that both Hal and I connected
on the fact that, as children,
315
00:18:42,370 --> 00:18:45,457
we hated stories
in which anything could happen.
316
00:18:45,957 --> 00:18:47,959
-I agree with you.
-Hated that idea where
317
00:18:48,043 --> 00:18:51,046
it's a magical world,
and it was all a dream.
318
00:18:51,129 --> 00:18:55,050
And so one of the things that's operating
in this story very deliberately
319
00:18:55,133 --> 00:18:56,968
and was explicitly discussed beforehand
320
00:18:57,052 --> 00:19:00,805
is that there would
be an extremely realistic world
321
00:19:00,889 --> 00:19:04,309
with one fantastical element.
322
00:19:04,392 --> 00:19:07,228
Which is the best way
to construct a world.
323
00:19:07,312 --> 00:19:11,941
And it's almost Pasolini-esque
in some of the art directing
324
00:19:12,025 --> 00:19:15,487
and the muddiness
and the "ratty-ness" of the wardrobe,
325
00:19:15,570 --> 00:19:21,868
and there's all that wabi-sabi
Japanese destruction of the world that--
326
00:19:21,951 --> 00:19:23,620
It's a very used world.
327
00:19:24,412 --> 00:19:28,875
And-- But you guided it
also through costume and sets.
328
00:19:28,958 --> 00:19:32,962
Yes. The costume designer,
Anthony Mendelssohn--
329
00:19:33,046 --> 00:19:35,340
He was a brilliant,
experienced costume designer,
330
00:19:35,423 --> 00:19:37,759
had done many, many films,
331
00:19:37,842 --> 00:19:43,473
and he just loved collaborating on this
and with Sir Ralph in particular.
332
00:19:44,140 --> 00:19:48,311
And the production design
was Elliot Scott,
333
00:19:48,395 --> 00:19:53,650
who was the senior influence on a whole
generation of production designers
334
00:19:53,733 --> 00:19:56,027
out of the UK in the '80s.
335
00:19:57,612 --> 00:20:00,323
When you look up his credits
and see who worked under him
336
00:20:00,407 --> 00:20:02,325
as art directors and set decorators,
337
00:20:02,409 --> 00:20:05,453
this is a generation that became
very prominent in and of themselves.
338
00:20:05,537 --> 00:20:10,208
And when Hal and I went to England to put
a company together to make this film,
339
00:20:10,291 --> 00:20:13,002
we immediately started asking
about people who we had heard of
340
00:20:13,086 --> 00:20:15,755
on films that had been in production,
and nobody was available.
341
00:20:15,839 --> 00:20:20,427
They all kept saying, "Why are you coming
to us when Scotty," as he was known--
342
00:20:20,510 --> 00:20:22,178
"Scotty is your man. He's available."
343
00:20:22,262 --> 00:20:23,763
And we met with him,
344
00:20:23,847 --> 00:20:28,977
and he was himself a very unusual and
interesting sort of Ralph-like character.
345
00:20:29,060 --> 00:20:30,562
-Yes.
-He was--
346
00:20:31,688 --> 00:20:38,194
He was a super talented, self-deprecating,
but very imaginative character.
347
00:20:38,278 --> 00:20:40,363
I say self-deprecating
because I'll never forget--
348
00:20:40,447 --> 00:20:42,240
-In a very English way.
-Well, what happened--
349
00:20:42,323 --> 00:20:45,034
I had an unforgettable episode with him
350
00:20:45,118 --> 00:20:50,373
when he presented his first drawings
for the interior of Ulrich's castle.
351
00:20:50,957 --> 00:20:57,255
He had sketched on large sheets
of sort of butcher paper, in red chalk,
352
00:20:57,922 --> 00:21:00,884
these rooms with arches and stones--
353
00:21:00,967 --> 00:21:02,343
Very angular and low.
354
00:21:02,427 --> 00:21:03,595
Well, in the caves.
355
00:21:03,678 --> 00:21:05,638
But, in this series--
356
00:21:05,722 --> 00:21:09,559
And for whatever reason,
it was not how I had seen it at all.
357
00:21:10,226 --> 00:21:13,396
And I hadn't gone 10 to 15 seconds
358
00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:16,191
in equivocation about,
"That's not quite what I wanted."
359
00:21:16,274 --> 00:21:19,402
He took his drawings
and he crumpled them up.
360
00:21:19,486 --> 00:21:21,446
Scooped them up off the table
and crumpled up.
361
00:21:21,529 --> 00:21:24,741
And I was horrified because they were
beautiful drawings. It just wasn't--
362
00:21:24,824 --> 00:21:27,744
But he said, "Okay, we'll start over."
And he just pushed them aside.
363
00:21:27,827 --> 00:21:31,039
He was a little bit like Sir Ralph
in that unpredictability.
364
00:21:31,122 --> 00:21:32,832
-Yes.
-But--
365
00:21:32,916 --> 00:21:36,085
And I think the work that he did in
the picture was absolutely extraordinary.
366
00:21:36,169 --> 00:21:37,545
I was so happy"
367
00:21:37,629 --> 00:21:41,382
It's extraordinary,
and I think that the way--
368
00:21:41,466 --> 00:21:43,718
It feels not only like a real world.
369
00:21:43,802 --> 00:21:48,890
It matches perfectly the exterior
locations, which is quite a feat.
370
00:21:48,973 --> 00:21:51,684
But I think it defines the characters.
371
00:21:51,768 --> 00:21:53,436
In a certain way,
372
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:58,733
the environment for Sir Ralph is
reminiscent of the caves of the dragon.
373
00:22:00,026 --> 00:22:02,946
-The two old relics of the past...
-Yes. Yes.
374
00:22:03,029 --> 00:22:08,701
...ultimately inhabit badly lit,
low-hanging ceilings, you know.
375
00:22:08,785 --> 00:22:11,746
-Yeah. Ambiguous spaces.
-Ambiguous spaces.
376
00:22:11,830 --> 00:22:16,376
And I think-- One element that I think
is not apparent on the first viewing,
377
00:22:17,335 --> 00:22:19,754
but it is in subsequent viewings,
378
00:22:19,838 --> 00:22:23,132
there are really large reservoirs of fire.
379
00:22:23,967 --> 00:22:25,260
In the case of the sorcerer,
380
00:22:25,343 --> 00:22:31,766
the big earth that he summons
381
00:22:31,850 --> 00:22:34,394
and the dragon,
the lake of fire and all that--
382
00:22:34,936 --> 00:22:37,188
And here comes one scene--
383
00:22:37,272 --> 00:22:40,650
And this is very important
to also distinguish--
384
00:22:40,733 --> 00:22:44,153
The movie is punctuated,
385
00:22:44,237 --> 00:22:47,657
I think,
in a completely groundbreaking way.
386
00:22:48,241 --> 00:22:49,492
Completely.
387
00:22:49,576 --> 00:22:55,039
I was a kid watching this movie,
and all of a sudden there was nudity,
388
00:22:55,123 --> 00:22:58,877
and there was violence,
and there was real scariness.
389
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:03,256
And in this, I also link it
to the original Disney spirit
390
00:23:03,339 --> 00:23:05,675
that gave birth to Fantasia,
391
00:23:05,758 --> 00:23:10,263
because Chernabog
in "Night of the Bald Mountain" is scary.
392
00:23:10,346 --> 00:23:12,557
Even the episode with Mickey.
He has a nightmare.
393
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:13,725
-He has--
-Yes.
394
00:23:13,808 --> 00:23:15,351
And this movie--
395
00:23:15,435 --> 00:23:17,312
I remember when this moment happened
396
00:23:17,395 --> 00:23:22,692
and the unforgettable shot
that I have quoted to you many times.
397
00:23:22,775 --> 00:23:25,028
The dragon head and the crane behind it.
398
00:23:25,904 --> 00:23:28,656
Amazing moment where we will not--
399
00:23:30,074 --> 00:23:32,201
Tell me you knew--
400
00:23:32,285 --> 00:23:35,204
Now this is directorial because,
401
00:23:35,288 --> 00:23:40,793
no matter how you guys write it,
it is your choice to obviate the scariness
402
00:23:40,877 --> 00:23:47,050
or make it really very virtuoso,
like here, and make it land.
403
00:23:47,133 --> 00:23:49,010
And the gore and the nudity.
404
00:23:49,093 --> 00:23:54,265
These are decisions
that were not common in 1980.
405
00:23:54,349 --> 00:23:57,101
I have to tell you, yes, that's all true,
406
00:23:57,185 --> 00:24:01,898
but I had not planned to violate
any traditions or break new ground.
407
00:24:01,981 --> 00:24:05,109
I was following an instinct
that I felt I owed to the material
408
00:24:05,193 --> 00:24:08,613
given the roughness of the world
and the consequences of the situation.
409
00:24:08,696 --> 00:24:09,989
It's inherent in the drama.
410
00:24:10,073 --> 00:24:12,325
You're talking about something
as desperate and--
411
00:24:12,408 --> 00:24:15,578
Even the way she spits and bleeds...
412
00:24:15,662 --> 00:24:17,580
-Yes.
-.. .to get out of the manacles.
413
00:24:17,664 --> 00:24:20,291
I mean I think, again, this--
414
00:24:20,959 --> 00:24:26,965
The paradox in the material is
what makes this the great movie it is.
415
00:24:27,590 --> 00:24:29,175
Why is it paradoxical?
416
00:24:29,258 --> 00:24:31,135
You have a dragon but he's aging.
417
00:24:31,761 --> 00:24:33,930
You have a dragon
that should be fantastic,
418
00:24:34,013 --> 00:24:36,724
but there's something--
and we will talk about it--
419
00:24:36,808 --> 00:24:40,937
Eminently zoological
and biologically real about it,
420
00:24:41,521 --> 00:24:43,940
and you have beauty and brutality.
421
00:24:44,023 --> 00:24:48,361
These are paradoxes
that coexist in a fantastic way.
422
00:24:48,444 --> 00:24:52,657
And you were completely in this,
423
00:24:52,740 --> 00:24:55,535
and you have the same panache...
424
00:24:58,454 --> 00:25:02,208
that you would have
in a non-children's movie,
425
00:25:02,291 --> 00:25:04,127
the way you set up-- This is--
426
00:25:04,210 --> 00:25:07,755
The way you set up the dragon
little by little.
427
00:25:08,506 --> 00:25:10,675
And this is--
428
00:25:10,758 --> 00:25:13,511
-Yeah, this is the first appearance.
-The first appearance.
429
00:25:13,594 --> 00:25:17,682
And then it becomes desperate.
430
00:25:17,765 --> 00:25:19,350
The way you--
431
00:25:19,434 --> 00:25:21,602
What were you think--
432
00:25:21,686 --> 00:25:24,439
Tell me, where were you in your career?
433
00:25:24,522 --> 00:25:25,857
This was very early. I was--
434
00:25:25,940 --> 00:25:28,484
-I was really unprepared.
-Look at this.
435
00:25:28,568 --> 00:25:31,154
-Oh, my god. What I would do.
-Yeah.
436
00:25:31,237 --> 00:25:36,117
That's one of the most enviable shots.
437
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:37,910
We'll talk about it--
438
00:25:37,994 --> 00:25:43,541
Tell me about you. Matthew Robbins, 1980.
What age? What were you doing?
439
00:25:43,624 --> 00:25:49,714
I was 36 years old, and I'd made a movie,
very much different from this and--
440
00:25:49,797 --> 00:25:52,759
This is a good sequence
to talk about in regard to my--
441
00:25:53,342 --> 00:25:54,427
Staging-
442
00:25:54,510 --> 00:25:59,307
Well, we had all these
full-size dragon parts built.
443
00:25:59,390 --> 00:26:02,226
This is a full-sized tail, of course.
She's falling on it.
444
00:26:02,310 --> 00:26:03,728
-Full-size claws.
-Yeah, yeah.
445
00:26:03,811 --> 00:26:07,023
And when they brought it onto the set,
none of it worked.
446
00:26:07,106 --> 00:26:10,151
I had to improvise all these shots
as if it were a home movie.
447
00:26:10,234 --> 00:26:14,030
It was one of my most desperate days,
is this--
448
00:26:14,113 --> 00:26:16,032
Few days, actually, because,
449
00:26:16,115 --> 00:26:19,744
"We're very sorry, Mr. Robbins,
but the hydraulics don't work."
450
00:26:19,827 --> 00:26:23,122
They had made it in Burbank at Disney--
451
00:26:23,206 --> 00:26:25,291
-This POV is amazing.
-Yeah.
452
00:26:25,374 --> 00:26:28,044
-This is the HALO crane we used.
-This is amazing.
453
00:26:28,961 --> 00:26:30,755
I mean, and this is--
454
00:26:31,464 --> 00:26:36,636
So, yeah, every mechanical giant monster
I've ever worked with,
455
00:26:37,470 --> 00:26:40,973
number one, doesn't work often,
number two--
456
00:26:41,808 --> 00:26:47,063
I joke saying,
"The... monster is very fragile.
457
00:26:47,146 --> 00:26:49,899
Don't hit it.
Have the actors not touch it."
458
00:26:50,566 --> 00:26:52,151
Well, the fire element you mentioned,
459
00:26:52,235 --> 00:26:56,155
that was my baptism of fire, was that day
of shooting that sacrifice scene,
460
00:26:56,239 --> 00:26:59,575
because I was unaware of the fact
that you could have a movie of this size
461
00:26:59,659 --> 00:27:02,662
with crew of a hundred people looking
at you at nine o'clock in the morning
462
00:27:02,745 --> 00:27:04,914
when things don't work
and you've got to tell them what to do
463
00:27:04,997 --> 00:27:06,624
-to make a sequence happen.
-Yes.
464
00:27:06,707 --> 00:27:08,793
Because I had planned a sequence
in which the dragon--
465
00:27:08,876 --> 00:27:11,254
There is no pity.
It's not like, "Poor director."
466
00:27:11,337 --> 00:27:14,715
It's like,
"Let's see him get out of this one."
467
00:27:14,799 --> 00:27:17,093
And I had planned and boarded all,
you know--
468
00:27:17,176 --> 00:27:20,555
I thought, "Well, planning and boarding,
everyone knew what the expectations were,"
469
00:27:20,638 --> 00:27:23,391
-but it didn't make any difference.
-Except the mechanical monster.
470
00:27:23,474 --> 00:27:28,771
I wanted the dragon to be playing with her
like a cat with a mouse, a live mouse.
471
00:27:28,855 --> 00:27:31,607
And it was organized.
And none of that could be achieved.
472
00:27:31,691 --> 00:27:34,652
And yet the sequence
managed to come together.
473
00:27:34,735 --> 00:27:37,196
Well, I think, again, you had done--
474
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,365
-What was it, Corvette Summer?
-Yes.
475
00:27:39,448 --> 00:27:43,161
Corvette Summer, which I saw
in the theaters and all that. Loved it.
476
00:27:43,244 --> 00:27:48,416
But you couldn't have
a more different register as a director
477
00:27:48,499 --> 00:27:50,793
than to go from Corvette Summer to this.
478
00:27:50,877 --> 00:27:51,878
Yeah.
479
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,757
And here comes the nudity, which, frankly,
480
00:27:58,509 --> 00:28:01,554
I had seen as a kid
on Tarzan and His Mate,
481
00:28:01,637 --> 00:28:05,474
one of my favorite
matinee movies as a kid.
482
00:28:05,558 --> 00:28:08,686
But this was--
483
00:28:10,563 --> 00:28:14,942
I think these shifts of tone
are what makes the movie modern
484
00:28:15,026 --> 00:28:16,944
and not feel aged.
485
00:28:17,028 --> 00:28:18,362
Well, we were told later--
486
00:28:18,446 --> 00:28:20,239
I was unaware, but we were told later,
487
00:28:20,323 --> 00:28:23,576
"It was a good thing
you boys were shooting in England,
488
00:28:23,659 --> 00:28:26,579
because if you had been doing this
under the aegis of Disney,
489
00:28:27,496 --> 00:28:31,167
you know, in Burbank,
you never would have been allowed.
490
00:28:31,250 --> 00:28:33,920
They would have seen your dailies
and just absolutely stopped you."
491
00:28:34,003 --> 00:28:35,296
-Make you re-plan it.
-Yeah.
492
00:28:35,379 --> 00:28:38,674
But I think that
the character of Valerian--
493
00:28:38,758 --> 00:28:40,218
Let's talk a little about it.
494
00:28:41,469 --> 00:28:43,846
How you conceived it, how you cast it.
495
00:28:43,930 --> 00:28:48,142
I know she didn't do many more movies or--
496
00:28:48,226 --> 00:28:50,436
She went more to Broadway and theater.
497
00:28:50,519 --> 00:28:56,484
But talk to me about her and casting
and discussing the character with her.
498
00:28:56,567 --> 00:28:58,903
-Well, it was--
-Caitlin Clarke.
499
00:28:58,986 --> 00:29:03,824
Caitlin Clarke had a lot of charisma
and it shows through.
500
00:29:03,908 --> 00:29:07,578
But I wanted somebody
who could be simultaneously androgynous,
501
00:29:07,662 --> 00:29:10,623
convincing as a young teenage male,
502
00:29:10,706 --> 00:29:13,960
and yet,
after the transition and becoming female--
503
00:29:14,043 --> 00:29:18,631
I would say she is the main character,
in a strange way.
504
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,219
Peter MacNicol is the lead character,
505
00:29:23,302 --> 00:29:25,263
but in my viewing of the movie,
506
00:29:25,346 --> 00:29:30,476
she is the lead character
because she really goes through the most--
507
00:29:31,269 --> 00:29:34,563
-She has more agency, in a way.
-Well, she's angry.
508
00:29:34,647 --> 00:29:37,650
-She's angry.
-Yeah, but the way, like, every--
509
00:29:37,733 --> 00:29:41,404
He follows and solves this and that
together with her,
510
00:29:41,487 --> 00:29:43,698
but she provokes the changes.
511
00:29:43,781 --> 00:29:47,785
She knows the lottery is rigged,
512
00:29:47,868 --> 00:29:49,870
and we'll talk about that later.
513
00:29:49,954 --> 00:29:52,290
So, she-- How did you find her?
514
00:29:53,708 --> 00:29:58,170
We were casting in California
and also in New York.
515
00:29:58,254 --> 00:30:02,717
I think we found her in New York.
A casting agent in New York found her.
516
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:03,968
And she came in and--
517
00:30:04,051 --> 00:30:06,887
Well, it was a very traditional situation
where they come in and read.
518
00:30:06,971 --> 00:30:12,351
And she just had a lot of...
standing, a lot of authority.
519
00:30:12,435 --> 00:30:17,064
There's no better way to put it
without being cliché.
520
00:30:17,148 --> 00:30:19,275
She was original.
521
00:30:21,694 --> 00:30:26,490
And in terms of directing her...
522
00:30:28,909 --> 00:30:32,747
did you guys prepare the biography of her?
523
00:30:32,830 --> 00:30:34,957
I didn't do that.
I know you like to do your films--
524
00:30:35,041 --> 00:30:37,543
I hadn't really thought about--
I was only acquainted with it
525
00:30:37,626 --> 00:30:40,129
when I started seeing
how you would do that on your films
526
00:30:40,212 --> 00:30:42,923
and provide the actors with backstories.
527
00:30:43,007 --> 00:30:46,052
No, I would talk about,
you know, in terms of the story,
528
00:30:46,135 --> 00:30:48,471
what must have happened,
but in conversation.
529
00:30:48,554 --> 00:30:50,014
I didn't write biographies.
530
00:30:50,097 --> 00:30:53,517
But I think it was important
to make them aware and conscious
531
00:30:53,601 --> 00:30:56,812
of the dilemma each of them
would find themselves in.
532
00:30:56,896 --> 00:31:00,775
It was easy to do because I felt that
we'd built this story on the characters.
533
00:31:00,858 --> 00:31:04,320
That was the foundation of this movie,
were the characters.
534
00:31:04,403 --> 00:31:07,239
And so, in the case of Caitlin Clarke,
535
00:31:07,323 --> 00:31:11,911
to live your life as a boy,
with awareness that it is a cheat,
536
00:31:11,994 --> 00:31:17,666
that you are avoiding the fate
of other young women in that village,
537
00:31:17,750 --> 00:31:21,045
is a source of compromise
and guilt and rage.
538
00:31:21,128 --> 00:31:23,547
But one of the things that is great
about the character
539
00:31:23,631 --> 00:31:28,094
is that it actually facilitates
her having the agency
540
00:31:28,177 --> 00:31:31,722
that she so clearly deserves and relishes.
541
00:31:31,806 --> 00:31:35,393
And I think this character--
542
00:31:35,476 --> 00:31:40,147
The story of The Lottery-- The lottery is
such a powerful concept, obviously.
543
00:31:42,066 --> 00:31:47,196
It not only has echoes of recruitment,
544
00:31:47,279 --> 00:31:49,573
you know, and war--
545
00:31:49,657 --> 00:31:52,118
Hal and I, we're of an age
when there was a lottery.
546
00:31:52,201 --> 00:31:53,369
I mean, the drafting.
547
00:31:53,452 --> 00:31:54,662
And when--
548
00:31:54,745 --> 00:32:00,334
The Vietnam War had been raging,
and I was in my 20s, at film school.
549
00:32:00,418 --> 00:32:05,464
And up until the time you turn 26,
your number could be drawn.
550
00:32:05,548 --> 00:32:08,467
Now, it wasn't a number,
but your birthday could be drawn.
551
00:32:08,551 --> 00:32:11,846
And my birthday came up.
Number six or something.
552
00:32:11,929 --> 00:32:14,014
I was going to be drafted.
553
00:32:14,098 --> 00:32:17,935
But during the time
while waiting for the notice, I turned 26,
554
00:32:19,145 --> 00:32:20,312
and so I was not drafted.
555
00:32:20,396 --> 00:32:24,400
But I think a lot of us were very--
556
00:32:25,317 --> 00:32:30,322
But it was a clear feeling
that the draft was-- it felt rigged.
557
00:32:30,406 --> 00:32:33,284
-It felt like, you know--
-Privileged, sure.
558
00:32:33,367 --> 00:32:38,956
There were very few blue-blooded kids
that got recruited.
559
00:32:39,039 --> 00:32:41,125
That was the feeling, I think. And--
560
00:32:41,208 --> 00:32:43,210
Or you could have bone spurs.
561
00:32:43,294 --> 00:32:44,712
Yeah. Yes.
562
00:32:45,671 --> 00:32:47,298
Medically certified.
563
00:32:47,381 --> 00:32:52,887
But I think all those aspects seep
into this.
564
00:32:52,970 --> 00:32:58,392
I know what you're talking about
in terms of 1980.
565
00:32:58,476 --> 00:33:00,478
But 1980, also,
566
00:33:00,561 --> 00:33:06,275
in terms of the lottery affecting women
and the lottery being about--
567
00:33:06,358 --> 00:33:09,695
It's not about sacrificing a male virgin.
568
00:33:09,778 --> 00:33:12,573
It's about sacrificing a female virgin.
569
00:33:12,656 --> 00:33:17,495
And the structure of power
is clearly, A, inept,
570
00:33:18,370 --> 00:33:19,955
and, B, male.
571
00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:23,667
And these are elements that you say,
"Well, it was not"--
572
00:33:23,751 --> 00:33:25,711
But it was, in a way.
573
00:33:25,794 --> 00:33:29,757
I mean, you had Gloria Steinem,
574
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:31,342
you had all the--
575
00:33:31,425 --> 00:33:35,054
The theory of how this system was rigged
and all that,
576
00:33:35,137 --> 00:33:40,768
and how it's supported by,
ultimately, violence.
577
00:33:40,851 --> 00:33:44,688
There is a great--
And the church and the religion.
578
00:33:44,772 --> 00:33:46,857
There's a great story by Lord Dunsany--
579
00:33:46,941 --> 00:33:50,110
I think it's called
The Stone and the Swami-
580
00:33:50,194 --> 00:33:54,949
and it's about the foundation
of weapons and religion
581
00:33:55,032 --> 00:33:59,370
by two distinct primitive men.
582
00:33:59,453 --> 00:34:01,205
And I think this has that--
583
00:34:02,331 --> 00:34:05,918
This has that very, very strong
584
00:34:07,461 --> 00:34:10,881
primal rigging of those powers.
585
00:34:11,382 --> 00:34:13,342
When you choose the actors for that,
586
00:34:14,510 --> 00:34:18,389
all the actors that enact the structure,
how did you go about it?
587
00:34:18,472 --> 00:34:21,058
How did you cast them?
And tell us a little about that.
588
00:34:21,141 --> 00:34:23,227
Well, I have to say again,
589
00:34:23,310 --> 00:34:29,233
the issues that are much clearer today
were not all that clear to me,
590
00:34:29,316 --> 00:34:31,860
and I don't think to Hal Barwood either.
591
00:34:31,944 --> 00:34:33,654
We were inventing something
592
00:34:33,737 --> 00:34:36,490
that seemed to have
its own demands, logically.
593
00:34:36,574 --> 00:34:38,117
-And emotionally--
-Can I say something?
594
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:39,493
They were clear to me
595
00:34:39,577 --> 00:34:42,454
when I saw it for the first time
in a theater.
596
00:34:42,538 --> 00:34:43,872
-Really?
-Yeah.
597
00:34:43,956 --> 00:34:46,375
I mean, it was so inspiring.
598
00:34:47,001 --> 00:34:50,170
I think this movie inspired
a lot of what I do.
599
00:34:50,254 --> 00:34:51,297
I mean, it's...
600
00:34:52,298 --> 00:34:55,926
And the juxtaposition of those things
that led to Pan's Labyrinth
601
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:59,221
is because of movies like this
602
00:35:00,931 --> 00:35:04,184
or Time Bandits
or things that actually said,
603
00:35:04,268 --> 00:35:07,646
"Fantasy has something to say
about the real world."
604
00:35:07,730 --> 00:35:09,773
Well, no, that's the whole point.
605
00:35:09,857 --> 00:35:11,817
That goes right back
to what we were saying earlier,
606
00:35:11,900 --> 00:35:16,071
which is that if you create
a sufficiently gritty and real world
607
00:35:16,155 --> 00:35:18,324
that you can believe in and subscribe in,
608
00:35:18,407 --> 00:35:20,618
then you have a lot of emotional power
609
00:35:20,701 --> 00:35:23,996
when that one fantastic element
begins to ripple through it
610
00:35:24,079 --> 00:35:26,040
and you put yourself
in the position of these people.
611
00:35:26,123 --> 00:35:29,001
What would you do if these circumstances
were as real as something you see?
612
00:35:29,084 --> 00:35:31,879
That's a beautiful way of putting it:
It ripples through it.
613
00:35:31,962 --> 00:35:34,006
I find that--
614
00:35:34,965 --> 00:35:37,843
I have a rule that said, basically,
615
00:35:37,926 --> 00:35:40,638
"if everything is possible,
nothing is interesting."
616
00:35:41,430 --> 00:35:43,015
Right? You have to--
617
00:35:43,098 --> 00:35:45,851
Well, we did it on Mimic
with the cockroaches.
618
00:35:46,894 --> 00:35:50,147
What a completely bizarre idea
619
00:35:50,230 --> 00:35:53,692
that these creatures that imitate--
620
00:35:53,776 --> 00:35:56,654
In our original draft, they were beetles.
Bark beetles.
621
00:35:56,737 --> 00:35:58,989
And then I remember that horrible meeting.
622
00:35:59,073 --> 00:36:02,034
Before I start going into that
and it's another commentary.
623
00:36:02,117 --> 00:36:06,497
But, no, what I'm talking about is
the fact that it was a very gritty world--
624
00:36:06,580 --> 00:36:09,166
-Except for the giant insects.
-Yeah. With that one element.
625
00:36:09,249 --> 00:36:10,626
-And what would you do?
-Yeah.
626
00:36:10,709 --> 00:36:14,672
Because, for me,
it is as simple as a chemical formula.
627
00:36:14,755 --> 00:36:16,340
When you put a pure element,
628
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,301
it will change
the complete configuration of everything.
629
00:36:19,385 --> 00:36:20,886
I think that has a fascination.
630
00:36:20,969 --> 00:36:22,930
I think people are absolutely
fascinated by that
631
00:36:23,013 --> 00:36:25,766
because it's that same longing to know,
632
00:36:25,849 --> 00:36:28,185
is there something beyond
or something unreal,
633
00:36:28,268 --> 00:36:31,563
or something lurking on the other side,
the fantastical elements.
634
00:36:31,647 --> 00:36:37,861
And you're talking about a creature that,
number one, exists across all cultures.
635
00:36:37,945 --> 00:36:39,530
Right? The dragon.
636
00:36:39,613 --> 00:36:43,659
And this is as good a moment as any other
637
00:36:43,742 --> 00:36:46,453
to talk about Vermithrax Pejorative.
638
00:36:46,537 --> 00:36:50,249
-Yeah.
-Dragons exist across cultures.
639
00:36:50,332 --> 00:36:54,044
The theory is that it's an amalgam
of all predators
640
00:36:54,128 --> 00:36:56,463
that were dangerous for the primitive men,
641
00:36:56,547 --> 00:37:00,551
meaning flying predatory birds,
642
00:37:00,634 --> 00:37:03,345
reptiles, lions, so on and so forth.
643
00:37:03,429 --> 00:37:07,433
So this monster is universal.
644
00:37:07,516 --> 00:37:11,395
But it also speaks of something beautiful,
645
00:37:12,730 --> 00:37:15,315
primal, powerful,
646
00:37:15,399 --> 00:37:17,609
and in your case, peripatetic,
647
00:37:17,693 --> 00:37:19,820
which is something very interesting
you do at the end.
648
00:37:20,446 --> 00:37:25,325
But tell me,
the approach to designing it is so unique,
649
00:37:25,409 --> 00:37:27,077
I would say revolutionary--
650
00:37:27,161 --> 00:37:31,290
And here I'm gonna go on record
and say this is the best-designed dragon
651
00:37:31,373 --> 00:37:32,833
in the history of film.
652
00:37:32,916 --> 00:37:34,084
Period.
653
00:37:34,168 --> 00:37:36,420
Anything else derivates from this
654
00:37:36,503 --> 00:37:41,633
or there has been very little,
if any, improvements to it.
655
00:37:41,717 --> 00:37:42,760
So here you go.
656
00:37:42,843 --> 00:37:46,388
Now Matthew Robbins needs to approach
the design of the dragon.
657
00:37:46,472 --> 00:37:48,348
You know Phil Tippett is gonna animate it.
658
00:37:49,516 --> 00:37:51,101
How do you approach the design?
659
00:37:51,185 --> 00:37:52,561
Well...
660
00:37:53,187 --> 00:37:56,690
I was very involved
with the design of the dragon
661
00:37:56,774 --> 00:38:01,069
because I worked very closely
with an artist named David Bunnett.
662
00:38:01,153 --> 00:38:03,405
-David Bunnett.
-David Bunnett. I knew him.
663
00:38:03,489 --> 00:38:09,495
And he and I discussed what we wanted
out of this dragon in detail,
664
00:38:09,578 --> 00:38:11,955
and he created the look of this dragon.
665
00:38:12,039 --> 00:38:13,332
What was his background?
666
00:38:13,415 --> 00:38:17,127
He was a--
He lived in Marin County, not far from me.
667
00:38:17,211 --> 00:38:19,171
He was not involved in film at all.
668
00:38:19,922 --> 00:38:23,008
We approached him--
Hal and I approached him--
669
00:38:23,091 --> 00:38:25,594
To do some illustrations
to accompany the screenplay.
670
00:38:25,677 --> 00:38:29,932
We wrote the screenplay on our own
and we had to go and sell it.
671
00:38:30,015 --> 00:38:33,602
And we thought it would be useful to have
paintings to accompany the screenplay,
672
00:38:33,685 --> 00:38:36,814
to show the movie executives
what we had in mind.
673
00:38:36,897 --> 00:38:41,026
And I happened to know a man
who lived near me in Northern California,
674
00:38:41,109 --> 00:38:43,278
who was a very talented illustrator--
designer.
675
00:38:43,362 --> 00:38:44,947
He designed typography too.
676
00:38:45,030 --> 00:38:47,407
He designed the typography
of the logo of this movie,
677
00:38:47,491 --> 00:38:48,534
Dragonslayer
-Wow.
678
00:38:48,617 --> 00:38:51,161
-Which is also very influential.
-Incredible, yeah.
679
00:38:51,245 --> 00:38:53,622
And so he designed--
680
00:38:53,705 --> 00:38:57,417
-It has all the Celtic knot motif.
-Yeah, that's all him.
681
00:38:57,501 --> 00:39:00,295
And he and I and Hal agreed
682
00:39:00,379 --> 00:39:06,927
that the dragon should not have
little tyrannosaurus foreclaws.
683
00:39:07,010 --> 00:39:09,429
It should have rear legs and wings.
684
00:39:09,513 --> 00:39:10,597
And it should--
685
00:39:10,681 --> 00:39:12,641
And the kind of movement
that it would generate--
686
00:39:12,724 --> 00:39:15,602
-Like a bat.
-Yes. Yes, exactly, like a bat.
687
00:39:15,686 --> 00:39:18,313
And I've never--
688
00:39:18,397 --> 00:39:20,023
I've seen, over the years,
689
00:39:20,107 --> 00:39:23,443
dragons that walk around like dinosaurs
with four legs and the wings attached.
690
00:39:24,486 --> 00:39:27,948
They just look clumsy, absurd
and not scary.
691
00:39:28,532 --> 00:39:31,702
The other thing I should say about
David Bunnett and the design of the dragon
692
00:39:31,785 --> 00:39:33,537
is that I used to tease David,
693
00:39:33,620 --> 00:39:36,665
because I always found there
to be a faint resemblance
694
00:39:36,748 --> 00:39:37,916
of the dragon with David.
695
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,085
-He was a very good-looking man...
-Like a self-portrait.
696
00:39:40,168 --> 00:39:42,212
...but there was an element
of self-portraiture
697
00:39:42,296 --> 00:39:44,339
in the design of that dragon.
698
00:39:44,423 --> 00:39:48,093
And I will have to find a photograph
of him and show it to you
699
00:39:48,176 --> 00:39:49,469
so you can appreciate that.
700
00:39:49,553 --> 00:39:52,806
I think I saw one in San Francisco,
and I would agree with you.
701
00:39:52,890 --> 00:39:55,350
Now, those designs--
702
00:39:57,060 --> 00:40:01,273
You said based on a bat
because there was a--
703
00:40:01,356 --> 00:40:06,570
It's very impressive
when you see a bat walk on its wings...
704
00:40:06,653 --> 00:40:08,530
-Yeah.
-...using them as front legs.
705
00:40:08,614 --> 00:40:12,242
But was him, as a designer--
706
00:40:12,326 --> 00:40:16,496
Was he basing also in nature?
Was he basing it on--
707
00:40:16,580 --> 00:40:19,583
'Cause the lizard proportions
of the face are perfectly--
708
00:40:20,208 --> 00:40:22,461
Biologically accurate, in a way.
709
00:40:22,544 --> 00:40:24,755
I don't know
if he was referencing anything.
710
00:40:24,838 --> 00:40:26,673
He would come back to me
with his drawings,
711
00:40:26,757 --> 00:40:30,969
so I don't know if he was researching
or just working off instinct.
712
00:40:31,595 --> 00:40:36,350
But the area of the brow,
and the set of the eyes under that brow,
713
00:40:37,100 --> 00:40:40,437
is one of the reasons the character
of the dragon is so scary.
714
00:40:40,938 --> 00:40:44,149
And the fact that you could
imagine it being in pain,
715
00:40:44,232 --> 00:40:48,320
which is an element
of the personality of the creature.
716
00:40:48,403 --> 00:40:53,617
And here I want to point out something
that I think is interesting,
717
00:40:53,700 --> 00:40:58,288
is the sculpture of the giant head
718
00:40:58,372 --> 00:41:02,167
is different than the sculpture
of the Tippett dragon,
719
00:41:03,085 --> 00:41:05,796
the Tippett dragon being
far more sophisticated.
720
00:41:06,755 --> 00:41:09,633
So this is what I want to talk
with you about.
721
00:41:10,258 --> 00:41:12,844
Then you go to Phil Tippett
who sculpts the dragon.
722
00:41:12,928 --> 00:41:14,012
-Yes.
-Correct?
723
00:41:14,096 --> 00:41:17,975
And hence-- I mean, Phil Tippett,
let's talk about him for a second.
724
00:41:18,558 --> 00:41:22,896
One of the great geniuses
of stop-motion in the history of film.
725
00:41:23,689 --> 00:41:26,858
One of the top three,
if not of the top two, for me.
726
00:41:29,027 --> 00:41:32,447
A staggering empathy with monsters.
727
00:41:32,990 --> 00:41:38,328
And here comes a second layer of creation,
a second layer of authorship,
728
00:41:38,954 --> 00:41:40,622
which is the sculpting of this thing.
729
00:41:40,706 --> 00:41:41,957
Tell me a little about that.
730
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:46,211
Well, I was unaware of the needs
of a stop-motion puppeteer,
731
00:41:46,294 --> 00:41:52,134
and he gave me a hurried lesson
in the things he was going to need to do.
732
00:41:52,217 --> 00:41:54,761
But he did refine that design and--
733
00:41:54,845 --> 00:41:59,933
But the question that you're getting to,
which was the baby dragons.
734
00:42:00,017 --> 00:42:02,769
-Yeah.
-He was very concerned about that.
735
00:42:02,853 --> 00:42:05,397
Because I wanted baby dragons--
736
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:07,149
-Very difficult.
-Very, very difficult.
737
00:42:07,232 --> 00:42:11,236
Because as soon as you begin
to miniaturize almost any creature,
738
00:42:11,319 --> 00:42:12,612
you're going to get into cute.
739
00:42:12,696 --> 00:42:15,741
-A cartoon.
-A cartoon. Big eyes and--
740
00:42:15,824 --> 00:42:19,286
And yet, he had his needs
as a stop-motion puppeteer.
741
00:42:19,369 --> 00:42:20,370
He was very concerned,
742
00:42:20,454 --> 00:42:22,706
which is why we went
in a completely different direction.
743
00:42:22,789 --> 00:42:25,042
Ken Ralston took over the baby dragons
744
00:42:25,125 --> 00:42:27,669
that are going to appear
later in the story.
745
00:42:27,753 --> 00:42:31,298
But yes, Phil-- I was--
746
00:42:31,381 --> 00:42:36,219
When I met Phil, I was unaware of the fact
that he had this huge bandwidth
747
00:42:36,303 --> 00:42:39,222
with regard to monsters and the--
748
00:42:40,223 --> 00:42:44,936
Also, a knowledge of movement,
credible movement.
749
00:42:46,813 --> 00:42:50,400
And I think it drove him crazy
that he was given limitations,
750
00:42:50,484 --> 00:42:52,736
without any legs
to animate in a traditional way,
751
00:42:52,819 --> 00:42:55,363
and to force this thing
to walk on its wings.
752
00:42:55,864 --> 00:42:57,991
And yet it turned out to be a really--
753
00:42:58,075 --> 00:43:00,535
-I think, a very fertile challenge...
-Yes.
754
00:43:00,619 --> 00:43:02,954
...for him to work with that.
755
00:43:03,038 --> 00:43:07,793
And I get asked about the dragon
quite a bit.
756
00:43:07,876 --> 00:43:10,504
A lot of people have made the point
that you're making,
757
00:43:10,587 --> 00:43:13,173
which is that
it has influenced dragon design
758
00:43:13,256 --> 00:43:14,966
in films in the decades that followed.
759
00:43:15,050 --> 00:43:16,051
-Yes.
-Yeah.
760
00:43:16,134 --> 00:43:21,473
And it's funny because, obviously,
you guys being aware of Tolkien,
761
00:43:22,140 --> 00:43:26,603
his death and his majesty
762
00:43:26,686 --> 00:43:30,774
remind me a lot of the Smaug character
in The Hobbit.
763
00:43:30,857 --> 00:43:34,611
But I think what this is--
764
00:43:35,112 --> 00:43:41,535
And this is where Phil is,
in my opinion, unique.
765
00:43:42,702 --> 00:43:45,956
He is capable of giving an animal,
or a creature,
766
00:43:46,039 --> 00:43:50,877
or a robot, character quirks.
767
00:43:50,961 --> 00:43:52,963
But at the same time he--
768
00:43:53,588 --> 00:43:58,635
And I can think of his Tauntauns
running across the snow, or this.
769
00:43:58,718 --> 00:44:03,223
He also has an incredibly unique,
770
00:44:03,306 --> 00:44:09,771
almost otherworldly
knack for making it a real animal.
771
00:44:10,355 --> 00:44:16,027
It has a character, it has a tragedy,
it has a gentility, or it has a ferocity,
772
00:44:16,111 --> 00:44:18,530
but it also is identifiably--
773
00:44:18,613 --> 00:44:23,201
Yeah, if I saw a dragon in nature,
that's how he'd move.
774
00:44:23,285 --> 00:44:26,872
When you talked to Phil, did you say,
"This is what I want," or...
775
00:44:26,955 --> 00:44:27,956
Oh, yes.
776
00:44:28,039 --> 00:44:30,292
And how much of a dialogue did you have?
777
00:44:30,375 --> 00:44:31,668
Quite a bit. Quite a bit.
778
00:44:31,751 --> 00:44:33,378
I was at ILM for--
779
00:44:34,045 --> 00:44:36,882
ILM was in Marin, where I live.
780
00:44:37,716 --> 00:44:39,801
So once we finished shooting in England,
we were back,
781
00:44:39,885 --> 00:44:43,013
and ILM was hard at work on the various--
782
00:44:43,597 --> 00:44:45,265
There were many, many needs.
783
00:44:45,348 --> 00:44:47,267
Dennis Muren and Ken Ralston
784
00:44:47,350 --> 00:44:49,769
and Phil Tippett were
the effects supervisors on the film,
785
00:44:51,354 --> 00:44:54,733
who went on to become
legendary figures in their own right.
786
00:44:54,816 --> 00:44:56,943
-Of course.
-I worked very closely with all of them
787
00:44:57,027 --> 00:44:59,029
because we had not only storyboarded,
788
00:44:59,112 --> 00:45:02,282
but I got to talk to them
while they were setting up
789
00:45:02,365 --> 00:45:03,491
and getting ready to--
790
00:45:03,575 --> 00:45:07,412
And they were able to show me
rehearsing things.
791
00:45:07,495 --> 00:45:11,249
So I had a very, very close collaboration
with them.
792
00:45:11,333 --> 00:45:15,337
But I-- Again, this was a new world to me.
793
00:45:15,420 --> 00:45:18,340
The level of effects work
I have been witness to,
794
00:45:18,423 --> 00:45:20,008
what George had done at ILM,
795
00:45:20,091 --> 00:45:23,970
and had been aware
of the advances that were being made.
796
00:45:24,054 --> 00:45:26,973
But I had no idea
what was going to be offered to me
797
00:45:27,057 --> 00:45:29,559
in terms of bringing the dragon to life.
798
00:45:29,643 --> 00:45:33,355
And I was absolutely thrilled,
time after time,
799
00:45:33,438 --> 00:45:37,400
with the animation
that all three of them provided.
800
00:45:37,984 --> 00:45:40,862
And when you talk about George--
801
00:45:41,738 --> 00:45:45,742
I mean, there's sort of obliquely,
802
00:45:45,825 --> 00:45:51,164
very lateral connections
I have in my mind with George,
803
00:45:51,248 --> 00:45:52,707
and two of my favorite--
804
00:45:53,792 --> 00:45:56,294
I'm very-- People say,
"You must love fantasy."
805
00:45:56,378 --> 00:45:59,965
I really-- I'm a horror guy.
806
00:46:00,048 --> 00:46:02,217
I have a little bit of a hard time
with science fiction
807
00:46:02,300 --> 00:46:05,929
that is not dystopic or humanistic.
808
00:46:06,012 --> 00:46:08,598
I am not a hardware guy, and in fantasy--
809
00:46:08,682 --> 00:46:14,854
I like when fantasy has humanity
and a darkness only.
810
00:46:15,355 --> 00:46:19,025
Or things like classical fairy tales
or The Hobbit...
811
00:46:21,236 --> 00:46:27,117
as a joyous, beautiful,
very close to fairy-tale narrative.
812
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:30,787
When you approach fantasy and George--
813
00:46:31,788 --> 00:46:34,499
A lot of people say,
"Star Wars is sci-fi."
814
00:46:34,582 --> 00:46:37,919
Star Wars is fantasy disguised as sci-fi.
815
00:46:38,003 --> 00:46:42,507
It has princes, princesses,
wizards, castles, blah, blah, blah.
816
00:46:42,590 --> 00:46:47,470
And I also see George
with this movie, as a supporter,
817
00:46:47,554 --> 00:46:48,847
and we'll talk about that.
818
00:46:48,930 --> 00:46:51,349
And the other one is, strangely,
Return to Oz,
819
00:46:52,142 --> 00:46:54,978
not only because Walter is involved--
And the movie--
820
00:46:55,061 --> 00:46:56,479
-Walter Murch.
-Walter Murch is involved.
821
00:46:56,563 --> 00:46:58,356
And the movie is amazing.
822
00:46:58,440 --> 00:46:59,899
But the darkness of it.
823
00:46:59,983 --> 00:47:03,820
And talking to George,
did you talk a lot about--
824
00:47:03,903 --> 00:47:07,490
I know he supported this movie a lot
in post and in release.
825
00:47:08,033 --> 00:47:10,201
But tell me,
did you discuss it with George?
826
00:47:12,287 --> 00:47:15,165
Was there a connection because of ILM?
Tell me a little about it.
827
00:47:15,248 --> 00:47:19,044
The interaction with George was mostly
about what was happening at ILM,
828
00:47:19,127 --> 00:47:21,963
and the fact that we were challenging ILM
in a whole new realm,
829
00:47:22,047 --> 00:47:24,257
as we already discussed.
830
00:47:25,467 --> 00:47:29,262
And the fact that
we were shooting in England,
831
00:47:29,346 --> 00:47:33,016
that we were in some ways reprising
something he had already done...
832
00:47:33,099 --> 00:47:35,477
-Yes.
-...in terms of just moviemaking.
833
00:47:35,977 --> 00:47:40,690
But I think that with Return to Oz
and Dragonslayer
834
00:47:40,774 --> 00:47:42,567
and what was happening at ILM--
835
00:47:42,650 --> 00:47:44,194
I've been watching a--
836
00:47:44,277 --> 00:47:48,281
Larry Kasdan made a documentary about ILM,
which is on the Disney Channel now,
837
00:47:48,365 --> 00:47:50,367
which is very interesting in that regard
838
00:47:50,450 --> 00:47:53,536
because something was arriving,
in terms of technology,
839
00:47:53,620 --> 00:47:56,247
that was opening up
floodgates of imagination.
840
00:47:56,331 --> 00:48:00,794
And even if I was not fully aware of it,
I wanted to exploit what was there.
841
00:48:00,877 --> 00:48:01,878
-I was not--
-Yeah.
842
00:48:01,961 --> 00:48:04,130
I look back on it now and realize
843
00:48:04,214 --> 00:48:09,969
that the influence of what George
had built was very powerful on this movie.
844
00:48:10,053 --> 00:48:13,640
We were doing things that really--
845
00:48:14,224 --> 00:48:17,852
We had a producer, a veteran producer,
assigned to us by Paramount.
846
00:48:17,936 --> 00:48:19,604
-Howard Koch. A lovely man.
-Yeah.
847
00:48:19,687 --> 00:48:20,814
He had been president of--
848
00:48:20,897 --> 00:48:23,358
We're doing this conversation
here at Paramount.
849
00:48:23,441 --> 00:48:24,692
Legendary.
850
00:48:24,776 --> 00:48:26,194
He was president of this studio,
851
00:48:26,277 --> 00:48:28,488
also president
of the Motion Picture Academy.
852
00:48:28,571 --> 00:48:31,825
-And he had never--
-His son is also a great producer, yeah.
853
00:48:31,908 --> 00:48:32,909
Yeah. Hawk.
854
00:48:32,992 --> 00:48:35,995
And that was one of the--
855
00:48:36,079 --> 00:48:39,582
I became aware during the show
that we were breaking ground.
856
00:48:39,666 --> 00:48:41,960
It was a bit of naivety, in a way.
857
00:48:42,043 --> 00:48:44,003
So there was something
instinctive going on
858
00:48:44,087 --> 00:48:47,549
with regard to the possibilities
of the material, the dramatic material,
859
00:48:47,632 --> 00:48:50,260
but also with regard to the fact
that you're gonna be executing
860
00:48:50,343 --> 00:48:53,680
at a level unknown
in the history of movie technique here.
861
00:48:53,763 --> 00:48:56,391
But you told me once
862
00:48:56,474 --> 00:49:00,437
that when you showed George
one of your cuts,
863
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:02,772
he said,
"This movie is going to be enormous."
864
00:49:02,856 --> 00:49:03,940
He did, yes.
865
00:49:04,023 --> 00:49:06,693
-And there was a kinship.
-Yes.
866
00:49:06,776 --> 00:49:11,698
I mean, I think George has a view
that is really--
867
00:49:12,866 --> 00:49:13,950
I wouldn't say pessimistic,
868
00:49:14,033 --> 00:49:19,038
but very aware of the darkness
of the undercurrents of fantasy.
869
00:49:19,122 --> 00:49:22,375
-And he connected with this very strongly.
-He did, he did.
870
00:49:22,459 --> 00:49:23,793
But...
871
00:49:24,794 --> 00:49:28,798
Again, I think he was very proud
of the fact that his company was emerging.
872
00:49:28,882 --> 00:49:31,968
It expanded its territory.
873
00:49:32,051 --> 00:49:33,636
And look at what they delivered.
874
00:49:33,720 --> 00:49:34,804
I think that's--
875
00:49:34,888 --> 00:49:38,308
When he began to understand
that pride of ownership for a creation,
876
00:49:38,391 --> 00:49:40,518
-it was--
-Yes.
877
00:49:40,602 --> 00:49:43,855
We got an Academy Award nomination
for the effects that ILM did on this,
878
00:49:43,938 --> 00:49:45,607
and this is the very early days of ILM.
879
00:49:45,690 --> 00:49:49,736
That year I think
there were only two nominations,
880
00:49:49,819 --> 00:49:53,114
-Raiders and this.
-Raiders of the Lost Ark, right?
881
00:49:53,781 --> 00:49:56,910
And you lost to Raiders that year.
882
00:49:56,993 --> 00:49:59,621
But, I think that, yes, you're right.
883
00:49:59,704 --> 00:50:04,959
This is at the eclosion,
the big bang of ILM,
884
00:50:05,043 --> 00:50:10,340
and this is a large part, proving that
they could be used in that manner.
885
00:50:10,423 --> 00:50:11,424
Now we come back.
886
00:50:11,508 --> 00:50:13,968
This is such a touching element because--
887
00:50:15,220 --> 00:50:20,183
I mean, very much like the generations
in the '60s and '70s
888
00:50:20,266 --> 00:50:25,230
that really thought youth--
thought, "We will fix this."
889
00:50:25,313 --> 00:50:28,900
This character of the princess,
to me, has that.
890
00:50:29,484 --> 00:50:30,818
It has that commitment.
891
00:50:30,902 --> 00:50:33,488
She says, "I will right this wrong."
892
00:50:33,571 --> 00:50:36,157
And there is an undercurrent of pessimism
893
00:50:36,241 --> 00:50:39,118
and brutality in the movie
that says, "No."
894
00:50:39,619 --> 00:50:46,334
And it's embodied by one of the most
shocking images in fantasy movies, ever,
895
00:50:46,417 --> 00:50:49,462
which is the baby dragons
eating the princess.
896
00:50:49,546 --> 00:50:51,756
I mean, please, Matthew.
897
00:50:51,839 --> 00:50:53,424
I know, but I--
898
00:50:53,508 --> 00:50:55,552
I've heard about it.
People ask me about it.
899
00:50:55,635 --> 00:51:00,139
And I feel almost helpless
when asked to analyze it
900
00:51:00,223 --> 00:51:03,184
-because again, I--
-You don't have to, but you created it.
901
00:51:03,268 --> 00:51:06,271
I created it, and was working with Hal
just off instinct.
902
00:51:06,354 --> 00:51:08,856
It seemed to be what was necessary,
you know,
903
00:51:08,940 --> 00:51:11,609
if you're going to make this real
and sufficiently horrifying.
904
00:51:11,693 --> 00:51:15,780
Not to exploit,
905
00:51:16,906 --> 00:51:19,325
-you know, and shock the audiences...
-No, no.
906
00:51:19,409 --> 00:51:21,744
...but to deal with
what would be the reality
907
00:51:21,828 --> 00:51:24,455
of putting people
in this horrible position.
908
00:51:24,998 --> 00:51:25,999
But there is--
909
00:51:26,082 --> 00:51:28,710
I mean, we will get to that,
and there will be that image,
910
00:51:28,793 --> 00:51:30,420
but there is--
911
00:51:30,503 --> 00:51:32,589
Directing is decision-making, right?
912
00:51:32,672 --> 00:51:34,799
It's-- We have--
913
00:51:34,882 --> 00:51:37,802
Just like there are
a limited number of notes,
914
00:51:37,885 --> 00:51:44,392
and they can go from a jingle
on a Corn Flakes commercial to a symphony,
915
00:51:44,475 --> 00:51:45,602
and they're the same notes,
916
00:51:45,685 --> 00:51:49,480
the decisions of a filmmaker
are a few dozen decisions.
917
00:51:49,564 --> 00:51:55,069
And you decide to show the princess
gleefully being masticated
918
00:51:56,321 --> 00:51:57,739
by the baby dragons.
919
00:51:57,822 --> 00:51:59,741
And there is-- And knowing you
920
00:51:59,824 --> 00:52:05,288
and knowing the partnership you had
with Hal is very significant.
921
00:52:05,371 --> 00:52:08,207
-Yeah.
-And you were not yin and yang,
922
00:52:08,291 --> 00:52:11,210
but you complemented each other
923
00:52:11,294 --> 00:52:17,216
in that you executed that image
you conjured on the page
924
00:52:17,300 --> 00:52:18,551
in that manner.
925
00:52:18,635 --> 00:52:19,969
And this is--
926
00:52:20,053 --> 00:52:22,180
When the dragon attacks here,
927
00:52:22,263 --> 00:52:26,309
I'm so reminded of
Smaug attacking Lake-town in The Hobbit.
928
00:52:26,392 --> 00:52:29,020
It has the same apocalyptic feel.
929
00:52:29,103 --> 00:52:32,565
Well, we were very influenced by that.
There's no question. That's not a secret.
930
00:52:32,649 --> 00:52:33,650
Yeah.
931
00:52:34,609 --> 00:52:36,361
But I also like--
932
00:52:37,111 --> 00:52:42,367
I like the idea that you had
this partnership that lasted long,
933
00:52:42,450 --> 00:52:44,118
and significantly so.
934
00:52:44,994 --> 00:52:46,663
Tell me a little bit about Hal.
935
00:52:46,746 --> 00:52:52,210
Hal? Well, Hal was somebody
I'd met at film school.
936
00:52:52,293 --> 00:52:54,754
He was a star of the animation department.
937
00:52:54,837 --> 00:52:59,801
He was a designer
and director of his own animated films.
938
00:52:59,884 --> 00:53:06,557
But the two of us were working
at the same small film company,
939
00:53:06,641 --> 00:53:09,143
Graphic Films,
and fell into conversation and--
940
00:53:09,227 --> 00:53:11,521
-What was that company? Tell me.
-Graphic Films.
941
00:53:11,604 --> 00:53:13,189
Which did what?
942
00:53:13,272 --> 00:53:17,360
They made educational
and industrial films.
943
00:53:17,443 --> 00:53:20,029
And Doug Trumbull
started his career there.
944
00:53:20,113 --> 00:53:22,240
And most significantly,
945
00:53:22,323 --> 00:53:26,828
for followers of Graphic Films
and footnotes to movie history,
946
00:53:26,911 --> 00:53:29,455
Ralph McQuarrie worked for them.
947
00:53:29,539 --> 00:53:34,669
They were doing films for Boeing,
I think it was, in Seattle.
948
00:53:34,752 --> 00:53:36,629
I remember this company
was very significant
949
00:53:36,713 --> 00:53:42,427
in sort of the x-axis of ILM effects,
blah, blah, blah.
950
00:53:42,510 --> 00:53:46,139
And Hal and I spent
so much time talking about movies,
951
00:53:46,222 --> 00:53:48,349
we decided
to start writing movies together,
952
00:53:48,433 --> 00:53:49,934
and we put ourselves through--
953
00:53:50,727 --> 00:53:52,603
So you talked about it and...
954
00:53:52,687 --> 00:53:56,774
And we wrote many movies
which were maybe, mercifully, unproduced,
955
00:53:56,858 --> 00:53:59,110
but we taught ourselves
what movie writing was.
956
00:53:59,193 --> 00:54:03,364
And the sixth screenplay we wrote together
was Sugarland Express,
957
00:54:03,448 --> 00:54:06,993
which Steven Spielberg
went on to make early in his career.
958
00:54:07,076 --> 00:54:13,166
And we began having
a literary partnership here in Hollywood,
959
00:54:13,249 --> 00:54:16,335
even though we lived up north
in Northern California.
960
00:54:16,419 --> 00:54:19,797
This is Ian McDiarmid,
who, of course, went on to notoriety.
961
00:54:19,881 --> 00:54:22,049
-The emperor. Yes.
-Yes.
962
00:54:23,176 --> 00:54:26,262
But he serves a similar function here.
963
00:54:26,345 --> 00:54:30,683
-Yes, the ego.
-The false, egomaniacal leader.
964
00:54:31,976 --> 00:54:34,270
Full of himself, certainly.
965
00:54:34,353 --> 00:54:36,689
Okay, so Hal and you--
966
00:54:37,899 --> 00:54:43,029
What-- If you remember,
this screenplay was, what, number 20th,
967
00:54:43,112 --> 00:54:45,448
-or well into it?
-No. Well into it.
968
00:54:45,531 --> 00:54:48,326
But it must have been,
maybe, screenplay number ten.
969
00:54:48,409 --> 00:54:51,954
Yeah. And I think--
970
00:54:52,038 --> 00:54:56,709
How would you define Hal,
in opposition or in composition with you?
971
00:54:59,545 --> 00:55:03,382
Highly knowledgeable. Very well-read.
972
00:55:03,466 --> 00:55:06,844
Blessed with a frightening
photographic memory.
973
00:55:06,928 --> 00:55:09,806
Absolutely able
to retrieve facts and dates.
974
00:55:09,889 --> 00:55:14,852
And also a good tennis player.
975
00:55:14,936 --> 00:55:19,440
Also, very much like me, very reluctant
to do things in the morning.
976
00:55:19,524 --> 00:55:22,568
You know, so a lot of time wasting,
977
00:55:22,652 --> 00:55:26,614
a lot of playing with
and building of kites, playing of darts,
978
00:55:26,697 --> 00:55:30,284
until a post-lunch panic
that we hadn't gotten down to work
979
00:55:30,368 --> 00:55:32,662
and then getting very, very involved.
980
00:55:32,745 --> 00:55:36,374
And also, very talented with regard to,
as we were talking about earlier,
981
00:55:36,457 --> 00:55:37,875
-the structure of the movie.
-Yes.
982
00:55:37,959 --> 00:55:41,838
It was his idea to,
not only lay out the movie on the cards,
983
00:55:41,921 --> 00:55:44,966
but to put the cards in certain colors
984
00:55:45,049 --> 00:55:47,552
to make sure when you stood back
across the room
985
00:55:47,635 --> 00:55:49,554
and look at the color of those cards,
986
00:55:49,637 --> 00:55:51,222
-the flow of the story.
-Yes.
987
00:55:51,305 --> 00:55:56,394
And we would have blue cards for action
and pink cards for love scenes,
988
00:55:56,477 --> 00:55:59,564
and look at the distribution
of those things
989
00:55:59,647 --> 00:56:02,733
and you have a sense of the tempo
of the movie.
990
00:56:02,817 --> 00:56:04,235
And you can move it around.
991
00:56:04,318 --> 00:56:05,820
And you must.
992
00:56:06,571 --> 00:56:08,614
The last thing you want to do
is to get involved
993
00:56:08,698 --> 00:56:11,158
and fall in love with the pages
and the dialogue that you write,
994
00:56:11,242 --> 00:56:15,413
finally finding that you have to
throw it away because it's too slow.
995
00:56:16,372 --> 00:56:18,666
Sorry to disturb you, but come on, man.
996
00:56:18,749 --> 00:56:20,334
Oh, my God.
997
00:56:20,418 --> 00:56:23,254
I mean, it's just perfect.
998
00:56:23,838 --> 00:56:27,258
I mean, I tell you, the staging--
999
00:56:27,341 --> 00:56:30,595
Your staging is great, but this--
Oh, my God.
1000
00:56:31,637 --> 00:56:33,222
That's a live shot, yeah.
1001
00:56:33,306 --> 00:56:36,017
It's so beautiful, the giant crane head.
1002
00:56:37,643 --> 00:56:41,772
I mean, for those that don't know
and we should tell--
1003
00:56:41,856 --> 00:56:44,775
And this aerial. Here it comes.
There you go.
1004
00:56:44,859 --> 00:56:49,030
That's the first frontal,
and you make him into a shish kebab.
1005
00:56:50,072 --> 00:56:53,743
Which is, again,
a decision you made to bring grittiness.
1006
00:56:55,244 --> 00:56:58,956
Just to clarify us, just for a moment,
1007
00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:01,500
Matthew and I have written--
Oh, look at this.
1008
00:57:01,584 --> 00:57:03,336
Oh, dear God.
1009
00:57:03,419 --> 00:57:06,380
We have written, how many,
about ten screenplays?
1010
00:57:06,464 --> 00:57:07,715
Yeah, ten screenplays.
1011
00:57:07,798 --> 00:57:11,135
And so we've gone through the process.
1012
00:57:11,636 --> 00:57:14,013
We've gone through the process
of the cards, and this and that,
1013
00:57:14,096 --> 00:57:17,642
and I think one of the things
I like the most about this movie
1014
00:57:17,725 --> 00:57:19,435
is the way it's structured.
1015
00:57:20,686 --> 00:57:21,812
Because--
1016
00:57:21,896 --> 00:57:25,483
And here is what I love,
and I call it paradoxical.
1017
00:57:25,566 --> 00:57:26,817
Look at that image.
1018
00:57:27,610 --> 00:57:29,779
-That's Ken Ralston.
-Oh, my God.
1019
00:57:31,322 --> 00:57:33,950
-The beauty of analogue effects.
-Yeah.
1020
00:57:34,033 --> 00:57:35,451
The beauty of analogue effects,
1021
00:57:35,534 --> 00:57:39,038
combined, wisely,
with certain elements that are electronic,
1022
00:57:39,121 --> 00:57:43,250
like repeatable moves,
the Go-Motion thing.
1023
00:57:43,334 --> 00:57:45,378
We'll talk about that in a second.
1024
00:57:45,461 --> 00:57:49,382
But what I love about this movie
is that at the same time,
1025
00:57:50,508 --> 00:57:51,968
it says,
1026
00:57:53,386 --> 00:57:56,222
"Maybe the world is both magical
and terrible at the same time."
1027
00:57:56,305 --> 00:57:58,557
-That's the DNA of the movie.
-At the same time.
1028
00:57:58,641 --> 00:57:59,892
Yeah. That's--
1029
00:57:59,976 --> 00:58:03,646
And because nobody controls the magic.
1030
00:58:03,729 --> 00:58:07,608
It's kind of, A, a cheap trick,
and, B, miraculous.
1031
00:58:07,692 --> 00:58:09,902
It is both things at the same time.
1032
00:58:09,986 --> 00:58:13,280
And you end up, very pointedly,
with an image
1033
00:58:13,364 --> 00:58:15,741
of the possibility of magic and all that.
1034
00:58:15,825 --> 00:58:21,539
And it's structured
in a way that is discursive.
1035
00:58:21,622 --> 00:58:27,336
It makes its point, it expands upon it
and ultimately closes the argument.
1036
00:58:28,212 --> 00:58:31,799
When you started this screenplay...
1037
00:58:34,385 --> 00:58:36,887
-you wrote it as a spec, correct?
-Yes.
1038
00:58:36,971 --> 00:58:39,682
So you had no hopes of it being made?
1039
00:58:40,349 --> 00:58:43,185
-Did you know it was gonna be sold?
-No. No.
1040
00:58:43,269 --> 00:58:46,022
Or it's an exercise? Tell me about that.
1041
00:58:46,939 --> 00:58:51,402
Again, we were still, I guess,
in the early stages of a writing career.
1042
00:58:51,485 --> 00:58:55,865
A spec, by the way,
is a screenplay you write especially--
1043
00:58:56,699 --> 00:58:58,534
-Not on commission.
-Nobody commissioned it.
1044
00:58:58,617 --> 00:59:00,369
No, we just wrote it
because we got excited
1045
00:59:00,453 --> 00:59:04,457
about the potential of the material,
potential of executing it through ILM
1046
00:59:04,540 --> 00:59:07,460
and our enthusiasm for the Tolkien world.
1047
00:59:07,543 --> 00:59:10,546
We immersed ourselves
in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
1048
00:59:11,088 --> 00:59:13,966
And so you get-- It's like a--
It's still true today,
1049
00:59:14,050 --> 00:59:16,552
when you come up with an idea for a movie,
you have to really examine it.
1050
00:59:16,635 --> 00:59:20,056
Is there enough there to keep
what we could call the long breadth,
1051
00:59:20,139 --> 00:59:21,265
a two-hour story?
1052
00:59:21,348 --> 00:59:25,311
Is there enough? And this was screaming,
"Yes. Yes, yes, yes."
1053
00:59:25,394 --> 00:59:27,563
And we just couldn't really not write it.
1054
00:59:27,646 --> 00:59:32,777
So it was an instinct
just to go in this direction.
1055
00:59:32,860 --> 00:59:34,737
And it was written out of enthusiasm.
1056
00:59:34,820 --> 00:59:37,114
The reality of selling it--
1057
00:59:39,575 --> 00:59:43,245
We were too young to have confronted
the fact that we could be turned down.
1058
00:59:43,329 --> 00:59:45,956
There were various studios
that were not interested.
1059
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:47,083
-Immediately.
-Immediately.
1060
00:59:47,166 --> 00:59:49,418
But it turned out, in this instance,
1061
00:59:49,502 --> 00:59:52,963
that the two studios,
both Paramount and Disney,
1062
00:59:53,047 --> 00:59:56,092
had attempted to capitalize
on the phenomena
1063
00:59:56,175 --> 00:59:59,637
-of the Dungeons & Dragons fad...
-Yes.
1064
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:02,723
...that was reaching a climax.
1065
01:00:02,807 --> 01:00:06,477
And they had both had screenplays written
1066
01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:10,523
and they were dissatisfied
with whatever had been produced for them.
1067
01:00:10,606 --> 01:00:12,608
And here comes this thing
over their desks.
1068
01:00:12,691 --> 01:00:14,944
It was simultaneous submissions.
1069
01:00:15,027 --> 01:00:18,322
And they discovered that they were both
interested in our material.
1070
01:00:18,405 --> 01:00:22,952
And Jeff Berg at ICM was our agent,
1071
01:00:23,035 --> 01:00:25,579
and he called and said,
"We have interest from both studios
1072
01:00:25,663 --> 01:00:27,498
and they would like to discuss
a collaboration."
1073
01:00:27,581 --> 01:00:30,126
-It was very unusual for-- Yeah.
-Very unusual.
1074
01:00:30,209 --> 01:00:35,089
Now, you have this part,
"the forging of the weapon"...
1075
01:00:35,172 --> 01:00:36,423
-Yes. Yes.
-...quote, unquote,
1076
01:00:36,507 --> 01:00:39,510
which is elemental in the sagas.
1077
01:00:39,593 --> 01:00:40,845
In every saga.
1078
01:00:40,928 --> 01:00:44,598
Not only are we talking about Tolkien,
but the Nordic sagas.
1079
01:00:45,099 --> 01:00:50,896
Whether it's a sword or a blade
that will be named
1080
01:00:50,980 --> 01:00:53,649
and that is unique in the world.
1081
01:00:53,732 --> 01:00:56,902
No other metal is like it,
and so on and so forth.
1082
01:00:56,986 --> 01:01:02,158
Did you and Hal, or Hal or you,
read the sagas?
1083
01:01:03,075 --> 01:01:06,245
We were both aware, absolutely.
The Arthurian sagas, absolutely.
1084
01:01:06,328 --> 01:01:11,542
Not only that, the Nordic sagas
like the Nibelungs, and this and that.
1085
01:01:11,625 --> 01:01:15,296
Well, awareness, yes.
I can't say that I've read any--
1086
01:01:15,379 --> 01:01:16,672
But probably Hal did.
1087
01:01:16,755 --> 01:01:18,090
I wouldn't be surprised.
1088
01:01:19,842 --> 01:01:20,843
'Cause this is--
1089
01:01:20,926 --> 01:01:23,470
And then in juxtaposition, you have this.
1090
01:01:23,554 --> 01:01:27,683
My fascination with the lottery is that,
1091
01:01:27,766 --> 01:01:32,813
like every other ritual that is rigged,
it has great ceremony.
1092
01:01:32,897 --> 01:01:34,982
-Right, formality.
-Formality,
1093
01:01:35,065 --> 01:01:38,569
and basically is
well-orchestrated bullshit.
1094
01:01:39,069 --> 01:01:42,573
Which all of politics
are well-orchestrated bullshit
1095
01:01:42,656 --> 01:01:45,492
and lies that we have agreed upon,
1096
01:01:45,576 --> 01:01:50,247
but there is no reason to be,
there is no rhyme,
1097
01:01:50,331 --> 01:01:52,541
but we pretend and we follow that.
1098
01:01:52,625 --> 01:01:54,251
It reminds me--
1099
01:01:55,044 --> 01:01:58,839
There's also a religious vibe to it
as well.
1100
01:01:58,923 --> 01:02:00,841
There's almost a priestly function
1101
01:02:00,925 --> 01:02:02,343
-that's going on here.
-Yes.
1102
01:02:02,426 --> 01:02:05,471
And the ceremonial aspect
1103
01:02:05,554 --> 01:02:07,973
and the implication,
the way this is staged
1104
01:02:08,057 --> 01:02:11,894
and the way he does it--
coming up here in a moment--
1105
01:02:11,977 --> 01:02:15,564
Is as if a priest is, you know--
1106
01:02:15,648 --> 01:02:19,193
Communion or all these aspects are--
1107
01:02:19,276 --> 01:02:21,487
-The seal, the chain.
-Yes, exactly.
1108
01:02:21,570 --> 01:02:23,197
-Right, heavy.
-Yeah, it has a--
1109
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:24,907
The opening of the envelope.
1110
01:02:25,866 --> 01:02:27,534
"And the loser is..."
1111
01:02:27,618 --> 01:02:29,828
Also, they participate.
They tell him to stir the tiles.
1112
01:02:29,912 --> 01:02:32,456
They've all done this.
This is part of their life as a community.
1113
01:02:32,539 --> 01:02:33,999
-They've subscribed to it.
-I wonder,
1114
01:02:34,083 --> 01:02:37,544
and I'm sure this sounds
almost pejoratively
1115
01:02:37,628 --> 01:02:41,006
but, you know, obviously when--
1116
01:02:42,299 --> 01:02:45,886
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
comes to mind.
1117
01:02:46,595 --> 01:02:49,723
-I was very much aware of that, of course.
-Yeah.
1118
01:02:49,807 --> 01:02:52,268
And the fact that--
1119
01:02:53,310 --> 01:02:56,897
I mean, this is a crucial moment
for the princess.
1120
01:02:56,981 --> 01:03:01,485
And again, to me,
it's a very moving character.
1121
01:03:02,069 --> 01:03:03,237
A very dignified character.
1122
01:03:03,320 --> 01:03:05,072
There's a lot of things going on
in this scene, too,
1123
01:03:05,155 --> 01:03:07,908
because Valerian becomes aware
of the princess
1124
01:03:07,992 --> 01:03:10,744
as a charismatic character
in her own right,
1125
01:03:10,828 --> 01:03:16,792
and that there might be a fascination
for the Peter MacNicol character for her,
1126
01:03:16,875 --> 01:03:19,670
so that's a subtext
in the middle of all this drama.
1127
01:03:19,753 --> 01:03:22,881
Yes. And the casting of the king
is perfect.
1128
01:03:22,965 --> 01:03:24,925
-He's a wonderful actor.
-He's a wonderful actor,
1129
01:03:25,009 --> 01:03:27,344
-and he has all that...
-Peter Eyre, yeah.
1130
01:03:28,304 --> 01:03:30,764
...blue blood, stiff upper lip.
1131
01:03:32,224 --> 01:03:38,063
I mean, he's remote, arrogant,
aloof, powerful, all of that.
1132
01:03:38,147 --> 01:03:40,190
Yeah, this is a beautiful moment.
1133
01:03:40,274 --> 01:03:42,609
Again, I want to talk about your staging,
Matthew.
1134
01:03:43,193 --> 01:03:44,194
There's a lot--
1135
01:03:44,278 --> 01:03:49,658
Obviously, you came up
in the same generation
1136
01:03:49,742 --> 01:03:51,410
as Steven Spielberg and George,
1137
01:03:51,493 --> 01:03:57,499
and there is a classical beauty
to your staging.
1138
01:03:59,084 --> 01:04:00,502
Tell me a little bit about--
1139
01:04:00,586 --> 01:04:06,008
When I was studying at USC Cinema
and I was,
1140
01:04:06,091 --> 01:04:10,512
like a lot of the young film students
at that time, fascinated with shots.
1141
01:04:11,263 --> 01:04:15,434
Shots, composition,
long lenses and graphics.
1142
01:04:15,517 --> 01:04:17,394
-Yes.
-The idea of staging,
1143
01:04:17,478 --> 01:04:18,979
I had hardly been aware of it.
1144
01:04:19,563 --> 01:04:21,023
I didn't understand it.
1145
01:04:21,106 --> 01:04:23,734
And it was when I was--
1146
01:04:24,610 --> 01:04:25,986
I was in--
1147
01:04:26,070 --> 01:04:29,782
The American Film Institute
put me in an apprenticeship
1148
01:04:29,865 --> 01:04:32,326
-with the director Irvin Kershner...
-Yes.
1149
01:04:32,409 --> 01:04:36,246
...who later, of course, went on to
great fame with The Empire Strikes Back.
1150
01:04:36,330 --> 01:04:40,793
But I was an intern with him on a movie
he made in New York called Loving.
1151
01:04:41,377 --> 01:04:42,378
Tremendous movie.
1152
01:04:42,461 --> 01:04:46,673
And he said to me, "Come with me.
We're gonna go look at locations."
1153
01:04:46,757 --> 01:04:49,802
And he would lay out the scenes
where the camera would be,
1154
01:04:49,885 --> 01:04:51,720
and he said, "Okay, walk here
and the camera's going"--
1155
01:04:51,804 --> 01:04:53,764
And I learned from him.
1156
01:04:54,473 --> 01:04:57,101
He was also a tough intellect.
1157
01:04:57,184 --> 01:04:59,978
Oh, God, he was very, very demanding.
1158
01:05:00,854 --> 01:05:04,400
Almost a Talmudic rabbinical presence
about him, you know,
1159
01:05:04,483 --> 01:05:07,069
and very much my mentor.
1160
01:05:07,152 --> 01:05:10,280
And so I'm very, very happy to hear
that you were impressed by the staging,
1161
01:05:10,364 --> 01:05:12,241
because anything
that I learned about staging--
1162
01:05:12,324 --> 01:05:15,369
This is still early in my career--
I had learned from him.
1163
01:05:15,452 --> 01:05:16,995
As to how to move the camera.
1164
01:05:17,079 --> 01:05:21,041
The camera is participating in the action.
1165
01:05:21,542 --> 01:05:24,211
And I really was--
1166
01:05:25,129 --> 01:05:27,923
He was entirely responsible
for opening that door to me,
1167
01:05:28,006 --> 01:05:30,008
as to the storytelling potential
of staging.
1168
01:05:31,510 --> 01:05:33,720
Now the cinematography in this movie--
1169
01:05:33,804 --> 01:05:38,517
I really think this movie
is incredibly influential.
1170
01:05:39,518 --> 01:05:44,440
It has resonated, not only
with the decade or two after it was done,
1171
01:05:44,523 --> 01:05:45,899
but well beyond that.
1172
01:05:46,859 --> 01:05:48,610
It was influential for me, for sure.
1173
01:05:49,611 --> 01:05:55,742
It was influential far beyond the idea
of the design of the dragon and all that
1174
01:05:55,826 --> 01:05:57,244
and the modernity of it.
1175
01:05:57,327 --> 01:05:59,121
The cinematography.
1176
01:05:59,204 --> 01:06:02,291
Talk to me about this
particular collaboration.
1177
01:06:02,374 --> 01:06:05,711
Derek Vanlint, he had made Alien,
1178
01:06:05,794 --> 01:06:08,505
which was a hugely influential
and important film.
1179
01:06:08,589 --> 01:06:12,676
A groundbreaking film, in many ways,
for a generation of English talent.
1180
01:06:13,510 --> 01:06:17,473
Ridley Scott, who is still going strong,
was very much the exemplar of that.
1181
01:06:17,556 --> 01:06:21,268
Derek Vanlint was interested
in this material and with working with me.
1182
01:06:21,351 --> 01:06:22,519
We got along very well.
1183
01:06:22,603 --> 01:06:24,980
He was very, very hard-driving.
1184
01:06:25,063 --> 01:06:27,608
Very, very demanding character.
1185
01:06:27,691 --> 01:06:31,111
-We had a good--
-Demanding on you or the rest?
1186
01:06:31,945 --> 01:06:33,530
-Well, sometimes with me.
-Yeah.
1187
01:06:33,614 --> 01:06:37,201
-How old were you? You said 36.
-But he was more experienced than I was.
1188
01:06:37,284 --> 01:06:38,619
He had shot for years.
1189
01:06:38,702 --> 01:06:42,039
And he--
1190
01:06:42,122 --> 01:06:46,126
Again, this was an education for me
as to what I could ask and where I--
1191
01:06:46,210 --> 01:06:49,796
You know, if he invested in a setup,
1192
01:06:50,547 --> 01:06:54,593
you can't just simply change something
without the consequences coming to you.
1193
01:06:54,676 --> 01:06:56,470
-Yes.
-You know, you asked for this,
1194
01:06:56,553 --> 01:06:57,930
now this is what you're gonna get.
1195
01:06:58,013 --> 01:07:00,599
So I learned a lot from him
in that regard.
1196
01:07:00,682 --> 01:07:03,560
Also, I learned about the use
of more than one camera.
1197
01:07:03,644 --> 01:07:07,397
This was a movie that we had to have
more than one camera.
1198
01:07:07,481 --> 01:07:10,609
-How long was the shoot?
-I've forgotten how many days it was.
1199
01:07:10,692 --> 01:07:13,695
-Was it short?
-No, no, it was quite a long schedule,
1200
01:07:13,779 --> 01:07:15,155
and it was very difficult.
1201
01:07:15,239 --> 01:07:17,032
We shot at Pinewood Studios,
1202
01:07:17,115 --> 01:07:19,159
but then we were on location
in Northern Wales
1203
01:07:19,243 --> 01:07:21,453
and we went to the Isle of Skye
at the end.
1204
01:07:21,537 --> 01:07:24,998
Now, you were saying earlier on,
1205
01:07:25,082 --> 01:07:28,919
we were shooting
and ILM was hard at work. Yes.
1206
01:07:29,002 --> 01:07:33,757
The norm back then--
and that was the way Star Wars was shot--
1207
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:37,928
George shot all the live-action portion
and then came back
1208
01:07:38,428 --> 01:07:41,390
and then they shot miniatures
and so forth.
1209
01:07:41,473 --> 01:07:46,228
And in your case,
you come back to Phil Tippett at ILM,
1210
01:07:46,311 --> 01:07:49,106
and you come back with a world
that they can see.
1211
01:07:49,189 --> 01:07:52,067
They can see the world,
they can see the way you lit it,
1212
01:07:52,150 --> 01:07:53,485
the way you delivered-—
1213
01:07:53,569 --> 01:07:55,571
They came over. They were in--
1214
01:07:55,654 --> 01:07:57,698
They came over for the-- I don't know,
1215
01:07:57,781 --> 01:08:03,787
you'd have to ask Dennis and Ken
and Phil how long--
1216
01:08:03,870 --> 01:08:07,291
I think Phil was there the longest.
Phil was, you know--
1217
01:08:07,374 --> 01:08:10,502
And so they were very aware
of what was being generated.
1218
01:08:10,586 --> 01:08:14,381
I thought they, as I recall,
expressed a lot of enthusiasm
1219
01:08:15,090 --> 01:08:19,344
for the world
that Derek Vanlint was lighting
1220
01:08:19,428 --> 01:08:21,763
and that Elliot Scott had designed.
1221
01:08:21,847 --> 01:08:25,142
This was really very, very exciting stuff
for them.
1222
01:08:25,225 --> 01:08:29,104
They had been on the Star Wars set,
1223
01:08:29,187 --> 01:08:31,773
and this is such another opportunity.
1224
01:08:31,857 --> 01:08:35,152
I think it was a very rich experience
for them.
1225
01:08:35,235 --> 01:08:39,906
And you already shot the dragon puppet.
1226
01:08:39,990 --> 01:08:44,453
-Now there's the full-scale.
-The full-scale. Absolutely.
1227
01:08:45,412 --> 01:08:48,999
Didn't you shoot the princess
and the baby dragons later?
1228
01:08:49,082 --> 01:08:50,083
No.
1229
01:08:50,167 --> 01:08:52,461
-It was in the body of the shoot?
-Yes.
1230
01:08:52,544 --> 01:08:58,050
So all those decisions have been made,
and now you have parceled and boarded...
1231
01:09:00,636 --> 01:09:02,137
-the main sequences.
-Yes.
1232
01:09:02,220 --> 01:09:04,556
-And Phil knew--
-Yeah.
1233
01:09:04,640 --> 01:09:08,268
Like, we are way deep into the movie now
1234
01:09:08,352 --> 01:09:11,229
and there's been
only a handful of shots by Phil.
1235
01:09:11,855 --> 01:09:13,732
The flying dragon and so forth.
1236
01:09:13,815 --> 01:09:14,983
That's Ken.
1237
01:09:15,067 --> 01:09:17,736
-That's Ken, the animation, all that?
-Yeah.
1238
01:09:17,819 --> 01:09:19,613
All the flying dragon is Ken Ralston.
1239
01:09:19,696 --> 01:09:22,282
-And all the walking dragon is Phil?
-Yeah.
1240
01:09:22,908 --> 01:09:27,621
I think that's interesting,
because you do feel--
1241
01:09:29,081 --> 01:09:30,874
the dynamic is different.
1242
01:09:31,625 --> 01:09:35,003
Like, there is a beauty and an elegance
to the flying dragon
1243
01:09:35,587 --> 01:09:41,093
that is probably necessary
for the more effort-ridden and--
1244
01:09:41,760 --> 01:09:44,680
It's almost like
the dragon on land feels older.
1245
01:09:45,263 --> 01:09:46,682
-Well--
-You know what I'm saying?
1246
01:09:46,765 --> 01:09:49,226
It's being compelled to inhabit a--
1247
01:09:49,309 --> 01:09:51,561
You know, it's like a bat.
1248
01:09:51,645 --> 01:09:53,897
You know, it's just a--
1249
01:09:53,980 --> 01:09:57,651
It's a deliberate, intentionally,
difficult situation,
1250
01:09:57,734 --> 01:10:00,696
and yet it survives underground
and it's got to accommodate that.
1251
01:10:00,779 --> 01:10:04,199
So when it's flying,
it's got all that grace,
1252
01:10:04,282 --> 01:10:06,118
-but when it's underground--
-That's it.
1253
01:10:06,201 --> 01:10:09,538
And I think that that's what is very wise.
1254
01:10:09,621 --> 01:10:11,373
-Did you think about it?
-Yes.
1255
01:10:11,456 --> 01:10:13,583
That Ken would deliver a different--
1256
01:10:13,667 --> 01:10:18,547
Well, Ken, of course, was eager
to have the dragon fly with the wings,
1257
01:10:18,630 --> 01:10:20,048
that we're going to animate them.
1258
01:10:20,132 --> 01:10:23,760
And I felt that whenever he was
being asked to do that, it was laboring,
1259
01:10:23,844 --> 01:10:25,011
and I didn't like it.
1260
01:10:25,721 --> 01:10:29,766
I felt that the grace
of the eagle-like swooping
1261
01:10:29,850 --> 01:10:31,601
with a minimum of wing movement,
1262
01:10:31,685 --> 01:10:34,521
and the power that was inherent in that.
1263
01:10:34,604 --> 01:10:39,818
And I was constantly asking him
to back off on the action of the wings,
1264
01:10:39,901 --> 01:10:41,194
keep them to a minimum.
1265
01:10:41,278 --> 01:10:45,490
Show us the effortlessness with which this
thing can come out of the skies, gliding.
1266
01:10:45,574 --> 01:10:46,992
-It's like gliding.
-Yeah.
1267
01:10:47,075 --> 01:10:51,913
And that makes it almost supernatural.
1268
01:10:51,997 --> 01:10:53,206
-Here we go.
-Yeah.
1269
01:10:55,751 --> 01:10:57,878
Well, it will be coming soon.
1270
01:10:58,503 --> 01:11:02,257
I think that
that was a beautiful decision,
1271
01:11:02,799 --> 01:11:06,011
and when you work with--
1272
01:11:06,094 --> 01:11:11,975
'Cause Ken had it mounted
on a repeatable movement arm, right?
1273
01:11:12,058 --> 01:11:13,685
-Yes. Yes.
-Yeah.
1274
01:11:15,854 --> 01:11:17,564
Trying to think back technically.
1275
01:11:17,647 --> 01:11:21,026
It's 40 years ago, I'm trying to remember.
1276
01:11:21,109 --> 01:11:25,739
I think it synchronized
with a motion-controlled camera. I think.
1277
01:11:26,990 --> 01:11:30,535
I mean, it's been a while
since I cracked open my Cinefex.
1278
01:11:30,619 --> 01:11:33,747
I'm still in touch with him. I could
actually get him to find out the answer,
1279
01:11:33,830 --> 01:11:35,373
but it's too late for today.
1280
01:11:35,457 --> 01:11:37,626
I mean, I remember the way--
1281
01:11:37,709 --> 01:11:42,047
My Cinefex issue
on Dragonslayer is stained
1282
01:11:42,130 --> 01:11:45,592
with clay and oils from my sculpting,
1283
01:11:45,675 --> 01:11:48,887
and I would open my Cinefex
on my sculpting stand,
1284
01:11:48,970 --> 01:11:51,765
and just sculpt something different,
1285
01:11:51,848 --> 01:11:54,184
but I was very inspired by this, and--
1286
01:11:54,935 --> 01:11:57,562
-Look at this. Look at this beautiful--
-Yeah, North Wales.
1287
01:11:57,646 --> 01:12:02,776
Was there any painter that inspired you
in the research of this?
1288
01:12:02,859 --> 01:12:04,194
Any fine painter?
1289
01:12:04,778 --> 01:12:08,114
Well, the Pre-Raphaelites, in a way,
'cause of the costuming and the--
1290
01:12:08,698 --> 01:12:10,659
-Like Rossetti and so forth.
-Yes.
1291
01:12:11,827 --> 01:12:15,038
And were you-- Being in London,
1292
01:12:15,121 --> 01:12:17,791
-did you go to the Tate gallery?
-Oh, yes.
1293
01:12:17,874 --> 01:12:18,875
-Oh, yeah?
-Yes.
1294
01:12:18,959 --> 01:12:22,087
So, because there is a graphic--
1295
01:12:22,170 --> 01:12:24,589
-I mean, I'm always-- The DNA.
-The DNA.
1296
01:12:24,673 --> 01:12:27,300
I'm always reminded,
and I'm sure this is accidental,
1297
01:12:27,384 --> 01:12:32,347
but I'm always reminded of Arthur Rackham
when I look at this movie.
1298
01:12:32,430 --> 01:12:36,810
And the landscapes,
the golden age of Victorian--
1299
01:12:36,893 --> 01:12:39,271
-Hal and I were big fans of Rackham.
-Rackham.
1300
01:12:39,354 --> 01:12:40,480
-Absolutely.
-Yeah.
1301
01:12:40,564 --> 01:12:41,940
You can feel the Rackham--
1302
01:12:42,023 --> 01:12:45,652
And again, this DNA extends all the way
to Pan's Labyrinth,
1303
01:12:45,735 --> 01:12:49,322
which is very Rackham-esque
in a strange way.
1304
01:12:49,406 --> 01:12:54,327
I tried to make the faun feel like
an Arthur Rackham creature, and so forth.
1305
01:12:55,078 --> 01:12:57,205
But you can feel it in your compositions,
1306
01:12:57,289 --> 01:12:59,541
and it's at the same time modern
1307
01:12:59,624 --> 01:13:03,920
and at the same time,
it honors all this tradition.
1308
01:13:04,004 --> 01:13:08,592
When you were shooting,
did you start on the location
1309
01:13:08,675 --> 01:13:11,678
or did you start on set, on studio?
1310
01:13:12,387 --> 01:13:16,141
We started on location.
1311
01:13:16,224 --> 01:13:22,522
We started in Wales at the castle,
1312
01:13:23,189 --> 01:13:24,983
-Ulrich's castle...
-Uh-huh.
1313
01:13:26,067 --> 01:13:29,404
...which is an existing castle
that Elliot Scott then dressed,
1314
01:13:29,487 --> 01:13:33,867
and he made a courtyard
and he made the gates, and he made it--
1315
01:13:33,950 --> 01:13:36,745
-And he then--
-He built around it.
1316
01:13:36,828 --> 01:13:39,497
He built around it,
and then for the interiors,
1317
01:13:39,581 --> 01:13:43,585
he used this implied space
of that actual castle
1318
01:13:43,668 --> 01:13:48,381
to design the conjuring room
and the other interior spaces
1319
01:13:48,465 --> 01:13:50,508
so that it had
that instinctive credibility.
1320
01:13:50,592 --> 01:13:55,597
It's very much-- I appreciated it,
Guillermo, after the fact.
1321
01:13:55,680 --> 01:13:59,225
-I know.
-It was so early in my career.
1322
01:13:59,309 --> 01:14:01,269
Things were being given to me that I--
1323
01:14:01,353 --> 01:14:03,813
It turned out
they were gifts from the gods.
1324
01:14:03,897 --> 01:14:06,066
-You don't realize it when you're young.
-No, no.
1325
01:14:06,149 --> 01:14:09,736
I was too young and, you know, too excited
1326
01:14:09,819 --> 01:14:14,658
and also too naive, in a way,
to understand what was--
1327
01:14:14,741 --> 01:14:18,954
Well, and the reason I'm going to that--
and this is important for me--
1328
01:14:20,288 --> 01:14:22,248
For anyone listening to the commentary,
1329
01:14:22,332 --> 01:14:26,711
and we say every directorial thing
is a decision
1330
01:14:26,795 --> 01:14:28,755
and is a sum of decisions.
1331
01:14:28,838 --> 01:14:32,467
And you never decide linearly.
1332
01:14:32,550 --> 01:14:36,554
You started on the exteriors,
you defined--
1333
01:14:37,222 --> 01:14:39,474
You started on location, right?
1334
01:14:39,557 --> 01:14:42,769
And then you shoot all the location
and then you have to--
1335
01:14:42,852 --> 01:14:46,439
You already furnished half the house,
1336
01:14:46,523 --> 01:14:50,568
and now you have to furnish
the rest of the house on the set,
1337
01:14:50,652 --> 01:14:54,739
and then you have to furnish what's left
with the F/X unit.
1338
01:14:54,823 --> 01:14:58,702
Well, I was, after the fact,
1339
01:14:58,785 --> 01:15:02,455
made aware of the fact that Elliot Scott--
without telling me,
1340
01:15:02,539 --> 01:15:07,168
he had organized a vast department
of designers to assist him.
1341
01:15:07,252 --> 01:15:10,005
He would create the designs,
but things were going on.
1342
01:15:10,088 --> 01:15:13,925
The carving of the wooden elements,
the posts and that.
1343
01:15:14,009 --> 01:15:15,010
-Astounding.
-Right, right.
1344
01:15:15,093 --> 01:15:18,096
It's absolutely
down to the smallest detail.
1345
01:15:18,722 --> 01:15:22,100
The use of parchment,
the design of the torches.
1346
01:15:22,183 --> 01:15:25,854
It was all under his aegis,
and he was very, very modest.
1347
01:15:25,937 --> 01:15:27,022
Very--
1348
01:15:27,897 --> 01:15:30,233
It just happened like magic.
1349
01:15:30,316 --> 01:15:32,777
I know we went past it very rapidly,
1350
01:15:32,861 --> 01:15:38,366
but I'm always blown away
by the smallest props in this movie.
1351
01:15:38,450 --> 01:15:42,078
One of the props
that I'm the most taken with,
1352
01:15:42,162 --> 01:15:44,164
and you have to rewind or go back,
1353
01:15:44,247 --> 01:15:47,667
is the spoon that picks up the ashes.
1354
01:15:48,251 --> 01:15:50,045
It's absolutely--
1355
01:15:50,128 --> 01:15:52,505
I mean, you know me. I'm an obsessive.
1356
01:15:52,589 --> 01:15:56,384
Prop and wardrobe and set design,
that obsesses me.
1357
01:15:56,468 --> 01:15:58,803
I go, "That is the real spoon."
1358
01:15:58,887 --> 01:16:01,723
Now, what I was trying to say, Matthew,
1359
01:16:02,724 --> 01:16:06,227
this is your second movie?
1360
01:16:06,311 --> 01:16:07,353
-Yeah.
-Yeah.
1361
01:16:07,437 --> 01:16:12,275
So here we are and it's a movie
that is incredibly difficult to shoot.
1362
01:16:12,984 --> 01:16:16,863
If you told me,
"I'm doing my 12th movie next,"
1363
01:16:16,946 --> 01:16:20,700
then I would say,
"It's a difficult movie."
1364
01:16:20,784 --> 01:16:24,871
I would be really afraid of tackling this
1365
01:16:24,954 --> 01:16:28,875
and you were very unexperienced,
1366
01:16:28,958 --> 01:16:31,836
and yet all these
decisions fit into place,
1367
01:16:31,920 --> 01:16:34,172
as well as thematic and all that.
1368
01:16:34,255 --> 01:16:38,593
I think this is a remarkable second movie.
1369
01:16:38,676 --> 01:16:40,470
Well, thanks. Good to hear that.
1370
01:16:40,553 --> 01:16:45,683
What I was mostly obsessed with
was bringing the characters to life.
1371
01:16:45,767 --> 01:16:49,270
I had discovered on Corvette Summer
the joys of working with good actors.
1372
01:16:50,438 --> 01:16:51,898
Annie Potts.
1373
01:16:51,981 --> 01:16:54,859
-Annie Potts and Mark Hamill. Yes.
-You discovered her basically.
1374
01:16:54,943 --> 01:16:58,863
And Mark Hamill, the two of them
were such great collaborators with me.
1375
01:16:58,947 --> 01:17:01,699
And it was opening a door
in that regard, too,
1376
01:17:01,783 --> 01:17:05,995
about what a movie director is doing,
that element of collaboration.
1377
01:17:06,496 --> 01:17:11,251
And so I was focused on that, and I think,
almost like Mickey Mouse,
1378
01:17:11,334 --> 01:17:14,879
blissfully unaware
of the enormity of the undertaking.
1379
01:17:14,963 --> 01:17:17,257
And there were only a few days when I--
1380
01:17:17,340 --> 01:17:20,552
Like when the hydraulics didn't work
on that full-scale set--
1381
01:17:20,635 --> 01:17:24,764
When I began to fear for what might result
1382
01:17:24,848 --> 01:17:29,269
if I couldn't keep control
of this machine that was galloping along.
1383
01:17:29,352 --> 01:17:31,354
-Was your worst day, or...
-Absolutely.
1384
01:17:31,437 --> 01:17:32,856
That was your worst day?
1385
01:17:32,939 --> 01:17:34,440
In all the movies that I've made,
1386
01:17:34,524 --> 01:17:37,777
that stands out
as the single greatest nightmare.
1387
01:17:38,611 --> 01:17:44,200
I had never imagined a movie of this scale
with everybody equipped with the boards
1388
01:17:44,284 --> 01:17:50,123
and the stuff having been built at Disney
and sent by a 747 over to England,
1389
01:17:50,206 --> 01:17:51,749
that it wouldn't work.
1390
01:17:51,833 --> 01:17:57,505
And that, "We're very sorry.
What would you like to do, sir?
1391
01:17:57,589 --> 01:17:59,674
-Mr. Robbins, it doesn't work."
-Yeah, yeah.
1392
01:17:59,757 --> 01:18:01,843
And so the idea of improvising
1393
01:18:01,926 --> 01:18:04,095
as if we were shooting with an iPhone
and your friends--
1394
01:18:04,179 --> 01:18:05,847
See, that was a great reveal.
1395
01:18:05,930 --> 01:18:09,601
-That was a great reveal.
-I was obsessed with reveals, Guillermo.
1396
01:18:09,684 --> 01:18:13,062
That is important
because that's part of your staging.
1397
01:18:13,146 --> 01:18:15,982
Yes, that's very much on my mind.
1398
01:18:16,065 --> 01:18:19,360
In fact, the camera operator began
to tease me about it on this movie.
1399
01:18:19,444 --> 01:18:22,155
He said, "All right,
but where's the reveal, Matthew?"
1400
01:18:22,697 --> 01:18:25,783
Well, there's a great shot earlier on.
1401
01:18:25,867 --> 01:18:30,914
There's a great shot when Peter MacNicol
throws the dagger, right?
1402
01:18:31,247 --> 01:18:35,418
And Ulrich picks it up
and the camera goes down
1403
01:18:35,501 --> 01:18:38,880
and it becomes a vignette of the hands...
1404
01:18:38,963 --> 01:18:40,924
-Yes.
-.. .transferring the knife.
1405
01:18:41,007 --> 01:18:45,136
I think your camerawork
is really incredibly wise.
1406
01:18:45,220 --> 01:18:47,972
It's spatially compelling.
1407
01:18:49,140 --> 01:18:51,643
I always say the choices are very few.
1408
01:18:51,726 --> 01:18:54,354
The camera goes to the actors.
The actors go to the camera.
1409
01:18:54,437 --> 01:18:55,521
Here we go.
1410
01:18:56,272 --> 01:18:58,650
There's Matthew Robbins
doing a Disney film.
1411
01:19:02,528 --> 01:19:05,782
Again, I know this sounds--
1412
01:19:07,116 --> 01:19:10,662
They came out-- The design
you ended up doing is fantastic.
1413
01:19:10,745 --> 01:19:12,622
-Yeah, yeah.
-They are like pugs.
1414
01:19:12,705 --> 01:19:15,875
When Ken and Phil
came to me with this design,
1415
01:19:15,959 --> 01:19:20,463
Ken said to me, "I am not cute.
I am not cute."
1416
01:19:20,546 --> 01:19:22,257
I still remember him saying that.
1417
01:19:24,676 --> 01:19:30,515
And this is, coming very soon,
1418
01:19:30,598 --> 01:19:33,643
one of the best moments.
1419
01:19:33,726 --> 01:19:37,105
The worst moment you had was that day,
1420
01:19:37,188 --> 01:19:41,234
and one of the best moments
you have is the moment
1421
01:19:41,317 --> 01:19:46,364
the giant, ungainly brutal crane head
of the dragon
1422
01:19:47,824 --> 01:19:50,910
-nuzzles the bodies of the dragons.
-Yeah.
1423
01:19:50,994 --> 01:19:55,915
That is such a nice performance
for a mechanical head.
1424
01:19:55,999 --> 01:19:57,208
That's actually--
1425
01:19:59,627 --> 01:20:02,505
Chris Walas was in charge of that.
1426
01:20:02,588 --> 01:20:04,549
We had three scales of this dragon,
1427
01:20:04,632 --> 01:20:06,175
full-scale, which we talked about,
1428
01:20:06,259 --> 01:20:08,678
and then this sort of moderate scale,
1429
01:20:08,761 --> 01:20:13,599
and he wore the dragon on his arm
1430
01:20:14,225 --> 01:20:16,519
like Burr Tillstrom...
1431
01:20:16,602 --> 01:20:19,897
-Yeah, yeah.
-...with Kukla, Fran and Ollie.
1432
01:20:19,981 --> 01:20:21,357
I used to laugh about that.
1433
01:20:21,441 --> 01:20:23,943
That's what gives it the subtlety,
I would say.
1434
01:20:24,027 --> 01:20:26,904
That's one of the joys
of non-digital effects right there,
1435
01:20:26,988 --> 01:20:28,406
what you're talking about.
1436
01:20:29,490 --> 01:20:32,243
-And Chris is American?
-Yes.
1437
01:20:32,327 --> 01:20:33,786
So he came with you?
1438
01:20:33,870 --> 01:20:34,871
No.
1439
01:20:35,455 --> 01:20:38,916
He was in California.
1440
01:20:55,683 --> 01:20:57,560
These are great physical effects.
1441
01:20:57,643 --> 01:21:01,189
This was a big discovery
when they tested this.
1442
01:21:01,272 --> 01:21:03,816
It was ready for me to see
only a day or two before we shot it.
1443
01:21:03,900 --> 01:21:06,694
It was a very, very difficult set
to construct
1444
01:21:06,778 --> 01:21:10,114
with all the elements that had to operate,
and they tested it.
1445
01:21:10,198 --> 01:21:12,450
-And you see the spirals of flame here.
-Yes.
1446
01:21:12,533 --> 01:21:17,622
This was not-- We did not know
that was going to happen, but we loved it.
1447
01:21:17,705 --> 01:21:18,748
Of course it was--
1448
01:21:18,831 --> 01:21:21,584
We had fire marshals on the set.
It was quite challenging.
1449
01:21:21,667 --> 01:21:23,044
And that is the thing.
1450
01:21:24,879 --> 01:21:28,549
When people talk about visionaries
and vision and this and that,
1451
01:21:28,633 --> 01:21:32,136
and I say, "Yeah, there may be vision,
1452
01:21:32,220 --> 01:21:34,764
but you mostly want to make your day."
1453
01:21:34,847 --> 01:21:37,475
And this is the thing. You're building--
1454
01:21:38,059 --> 01:21:39,644
This is an incredibly complex set.
1455
01:21:39,727 --> 01:21:43,773
There are two things you have to approach
very, very carefully on film,
1456
01:21:43,856 --> 01:21:48,403
because they are both
very, very dangerous: water and fire.
1457
01:21:48,486 --> 01:21:50,196
-Right?
-Right.
1458
01:21:50,279 --> 01:21:54,242
-This set comprises everything.
-But we don't have children.
1459
01:21:54,325 --> 01:21:55,701
No.
1460
01:21:55,785 --> 01:21:57,662
And then you break down--
1461
01:21:58,538 --> 01:22:01,541
The moment he receives
the impact of the flames
1462
01:22:02,125 --> 01:22:05,128
-with the shield...
-Yeah.
1463
01:22:05,211 --> 01:22:08,840
-...is a miniature figure of him.
-Yes. Yes.
1464
01:22:08,923 --> 01:22:12,552
-And you're really sending fire at him.
-Yes, absolutely.
1465
01:22:12,635 --> 01:22:16,347
When you broke it down like this,
when you broke those decisions down--
1466
01:22:17,557 --> 01:22:19,100
You broke it down--
1467
01:22:19,183 --> 01:22:20,268
Look at this.
1468
01:22:20,351 --> 01:22:23,229
Again, a reveal. A Matthew Robbins reveal.
1469
01:22:23,312 --> 01:22:24,564
And here comes another one.
1470
01:22:24,647 --> 01:22:31,154
I love the Maleficent,
very Disneyesque horns on the design,
1471
01:22:31,237 --> 01:22:35,199
because you understand,
in opposition to the church element,
1472
01:22:35,825 --> 01:22:37,910
that they could see him as the devil.
1473
01:22:38,828 --> 01:22:41,205
-But he is a natural force.
-We should talk about
1474
01:22:41,289 --> 01:22:43,291
-the sound design too.
-Yeah, yeah.
1475
01:22:43,374 --> 01:22:47,170
But again, when you break this down,
you broke it down on a table-board
1476
01:22:47,253 --> 01:22:50,047
with Ken and Phil
and the physical effects.
1477
01:22:50,131 --> 01:22:53,426
And here in this scene,
the water coming off the full-scale head
1478
01:22:53,509 --> 01:22:55,678
is one of the reasons
that it sold so well.
1479
01:22:56,262 --> 01:23:00,016
And this triumphant pose
was very much on my mind.
1480
01:23:00,766 --> 01:23:02,310
-Look at that. Oh, my God.
-Yeah.
1481
01:23:02,393 --> 01:23:04,770
And look this way
he stretches the wings. It's just--
1482
01:23:04,854 --> 01:23:07,023
-Yeah, to push the fire forward.
-Yeah, yeah.
1483
01:23:07,773 --> 01:23:09,859
And then look at the eyes.
The yellow eyes.
1484
01:23:09,942 --> 01:23:12,195
-Yeah, that is the full-scale head.
-Yeah.
1485
01:23:12,945 --> 01:23:14,697
And here we have the puppet.
1486
01:23:14,780 --> 01:23:16,782
So let's talk about the sound design.
1487
01:23:16,866 --> 01:23:22,079
First of all, who designed it?
And talk to me about the process.
1488
01:23:22,163 --> 01:23:23,998
We had a team of sound designers.
1489
01:23:24,081 --> 01:23:26,334
Doug Hemphill and Dale Strumpell.
1490
01:23:27,710 --> 01:23:31,339
This was in Northern California
in the great era
1491
01:23:31,422 --> 01:23:34,967
of Walter Murch's influence
on the whole field of sound design.
1492
01:23:35,051 --> 01:23:36,761
Some of these very, very important--
1493
01:23:36,844 --> 01:23:38,596
Walter, who's a very good friend of yours?
1494
01:23:38,679 --> 01:23:40,723
Oh, yes, my college roommate
at Johns Hopkins
1495
01:23:40,806 --> 01:23:42,725
and best man at my wedding.
1496
01:23:42,808 --> 01:23:47,730
And who designed, obviously,
very famously,
1497
01:23:47,813 --> 01:23:50,191
American Graffiti and Apocalypse Now,
1498
01:23:50,274 --> 01:23:51,817
-and so on and so forth.
-Yes.
1499
01:23:51,901 --> 01:23:55,029
And he mixed this picture.
He was the mixer on it.
1500
01:23:55,696 --> 01:24:00,243
But this team...
1501
01:24:02,286 --> 01:24:03,788
at Skywalker Ranch--
1502
01:24:04,997 --> 01:24:07,375
-I'm sorry, but we have to watch this.
-Oh, my God.
1503
01:24:08,125 --> 01:24:09,710
-The use--
-Oh, my lord.
1504
01:24:09,794 --> 01:24:13,256
-And the--
-I mean, you have no idea, Matthew,
1505
01:24:13,339 --> 01:24:16,717
what this does to little Guillermo.
1506
01:24:18,094 --> 01:24:20,137
This is a magical moment.
1507
01:24:20,221 --> 01:24:23,766
This set, which looks so enormous,
was surprisingly small.
1508
01:24:24,642 --> 01:24:28,437
But it was just very cleverly designed.
You could go anywhere and have a new--
1509
01:24:28,521 --> 01:24:30,523
-It has great perspectives.
-Yeah.
1510
01:24:31,315 --> 01:24:33,985
-Okay, let's keep this--
-Oh, yeah, this is that moment.
1511
01:24:34,527 --> 01:24:37,029
-And the nostril. See the nostril?
-Yeah.
1512
01:24:37,113 --> 01:24:39,156
So this is not the giant crane head?
1513
01:24:39,240 --> 01:24:42,034
No, this is Chris Walas.
1514
01:24:42,118 --> 01:24:44,120
-The Chris Walas hand.
-Right.
1515
01:24:44,203 --> 01:24:45,538
Great.
1516
01:24:46,581 --> 01:24:49,417
And I believe that's true of this one
as well.
1517
01:24:49,500 --> 01:24:50,626
Wow.
1518
01:24:54,213 --> 01:24:56,924
All right, let's continue talking
about the sound design.
1519
01:24:57,008 --> 01:24:59,594
So, the voice of the dragon.
1520
01:24:59,677 --> 01:25:01,971
That was a combination of elements.
1521
01:25:02,805 --> 01:25:04,265
In all honesty, all these years later,
1522
01:25:04,348 --> 01:25:07,435
I don't remember how many elements
they used, what animals they were,
1523
01:25:07,518 --> 01:25:09,478
but you know, of course,
that it's more than one.
1524
01:25:09,562 --> 01:25:12,106
This was a very, very tricky shot
1525
01:25:12,189 --> 01:25:15,151
to tilt up to find him up there,
to combine--
1526
01:25:15,234 --> 01:25:19,488
There's a lot of technology going on here.
The blinking of his eye and the bringing--
1527
01:25:19,572 --> 01:25:23,409
And then he's gonna jump on, of course,
a full-scale piece.
1528
01:25:23,492 --> 01:25:25,328
This is the actual--
1529
01:25:26,579 --> 01:25:31,626
-The crane, or no?
-No, it's the full-scale dragon.
1530
01:25:31,709 --> 01:25:33,628
And we're shooting
over his shoulder on it.
1531
01:25:34,337 --> 01:25:37,590
You know, they had to really prepare
to make this happen. Right there.
1532
01:25:38,841 --> 01:25:42,428
And this lance that he's using,
that lance was very influential.
1533
01:25:42,511 --> 01:25:43,971
It's appeared in a lot of other movies.
1534
01:25:44,055 --> 01:25:45,931
I keep seeing
other designers have ripped it off.
1535
01:25:46,015 --> 01:25:49,352
-Yes.
-And this is one of Phil's master shots.
1536
01:25:49,435 --> 01:25:51,646
That's a miniature of--
1537
01:25:51,729 --> 01:25:55,066
And one of the ones
that uses the blur beautifully.
1538
01:25:55,149 --> 01:25:56,150
Yes.
1539
01:25:56,233 --> 01:25:59,153
And there's a Peter MacNicol
stop-motion puppet there.
1540
01:25:59,236 --> 01:26:00,404
-Yes.
-Yeah.
1541
01:26:00,488 --> 01:26:02,615
And this is-- Here we are.
1542
01:26:03,366 --> 01:26:06,869
This is one of my favorite moments,
and, for me, one of the great moments.
1543
01:26:06,952 --> 01:26:10,081
Something very important happens here,
which is the weapon fails.
1544
01:26:10,164 --> 01:26:11,248
Yeah.
1545
01:26:12,583 --> 01:26:16,754
You know, dramatically, you really
want to make it as difficult as possible.
1546
01:26:16,837 --> 01:26:19,799
-And the fact that it gets stuck.
-Yeah.
1547
01:26:20,591 --> 01:26:23,552
And it's suffering right here.
Look at this. Yeah.
1548
01:26:25,096 --> 01:26:26,263
Oh, my God.
1549
01:26:27,014 --> 01:26:31,894
Well, I think we're approaching
the turning point.
1550
01:26:31,977 --> 01:26:32,978
Look at that.
1551
01:26:33,562 --> 01:26:35,690
-Snake.
-Yeah.
1552
01:26:35,773 --> 01:26:36,816
Oh, my God.
1553
01:26:37,983 --> 01:26:41,821
I'm sorry, I'm absolutely in awe, Matthew.
1554
01:26:43,155 --> 01:26:45,449
I saw the movie again last night.
1555
01:26:48,661 --> 01:26:53,165
I'm gonna ask you, one of the things--
and it may be pure accident--
1556
01:26:53,249 --> 01:26:56,127
That I admired, in terms of visual design,
1557
01:26:56,210 --> 01:27:01,882
the flinty rocks on that mountain--
which is on location--
1558
01:27:01,966 --> 01:27:05,886
The flinty rocks
remind me of the scales of the dragon.
1559
01:27:06,679 --> 01:27:08,222
-Was this--
-No.
1560
01:27:08,305 --> 01:27:10,891
-No? It was purely accidental.
-Purely accidental.
1561
01:27:10,975 --> 01:27:12,768
Happy, you know, serendipitous.
1562
01:27:13,686 --> 01:27:17,898
But I think there is something,
1563
01:27:17,982 --> 01:27:21,736
as we enter the last quarter of the movie,
1564
01:27:21,819 --> 01:27:23,863
-or the final act...
-Yeah.
1565
01:27:23,946 --> 01:27:26,449
...I think there's something
really primal again.
1566
01:27:26,532 --> 01:27:29,702
And you go back to the landscapes,
1567
01:27:30,619 --> 01:27:34,915
and you go back to, I think,
1568
01:27:34,999 --> 01:27:37,793
the way Peter tracked his character.
1569
01:27:39,211 --> 01:27:41,714
He starts acting like an adult.
1570
01:27:41,797 --> 01:27:45,968
Well, yeah,
he's gone through a baptism of fire.
1571
01:27:46,844 --> 01:27:48,929
That's very much part of what happens.
1572
01:27:49,013 --> 01:27:51,390
-He's a very different character here.
-Yeah.
1573
01:27:51,474 --> 01:27:56,228
You know, the character who puts on
the sorcerer's hat and the robes
1574
01:27:56,312 --> 01:28:01,317
and tries the spells and is, you know,
showing off in front of royalty
1575
01:28:01,400 --> 01:28:02,651
with his parlor tricks.
1576
01:28:03,527 --> 01:28:05,571
Now here he is. He's lucky to be alive.
1577
01:28:05,654 --> 01:28:07,823
He was playing with--
1578
01:28:08,407 --> 01:28:09,992
He had no idea of the stakes.
1579
01:28:10,075 --> 01:28:13,579
And there's something
really existentially powerful
1580
01:28:13,662 --> 01:28:15,164
towards the end of the movie,
1581
01:28:15,247 --> 01:28:19,752
in which he realizes his legend,
his glory, his achievements,
1582
01:28:19,835 --> 01:28:22,087
are all fading in front of his eyes.
1583
01:28:22,171 --> 01:28:25,925
Somebody is taking them,
and he almost walks away
1584
01:28:26,008 --> 01:28:29,637
like the Man with No Name into the sunset.
1585
01:28:29,720 --> 01:28:33,933
And knowing that magic exists,
1586
01:28:34,016 --> 01:28:38,979
but it exists in the world of man,
which is a highly imperfect world.
1587
01:28:39,063 --> 01:28:43,734
So I think the film is about--
1588
01:28:43,818 --> 01:28:46,821
You see that? The reprise of the amulet.
1589
01:28:46,904 --> 01:28:48,447
-The amulet of the-- Yes.
-Yeah.
1590
01:28:49,657 --> 01:28:54,912
So the film, it's called Dragonslayer,
which is fantastic...
1591
01:28:57,456 --> 01:29:00,417
because it's a title
that the king will appropriate.
1592
01:29:00,501 --> 01:29:02,044
-Yes. Yes.
-Right?
1593
01:29:02,127 --> 01:29:08,300
But it really also invokes
this high-flying fantasy,
1594
01:29:08,384 --> 01:29:12,555
and yet it's permeated by how difficult--
1595
01:29:12,638 --> 01:29:15,599
When we were writing the screenplay
and we were coming to--
1596
01:29:15,683 --> 01:29:18,602
-Was it always called Dragonslayer?
-It always called Dragonslayer,
1597
01:29:18,686 --> 01:29:22,439
but the idea that the king
would appropriate that title at the end,
1598
01:29:22,523 --> 01:29:25,359
Hal and I,
I think we were leaping around the room
1599
01:29:25,442 --> 01:29:28,654
when we came up with that idea,
that he would appropriate it for him.
1600
01:29:28,737 --> 01:29:30,573
We were just like kids with a toy.
1601
01:29:30,656 --> 01:29:32,074
It was like, "Oh, my God"--
1602
01:29:32,157 --> 01:29:34,076
I've been in that room with you, yeah.
1603
01:29:34,159 --> 01:29:35,244
We have.
1604
01:29:35,327 --> 01:29:38,455
But that was
one of the great, great thrills.
1605
01:29:38,539 --> 01:29:41,417
When you have fertile material,
again, with compelling characters,
1606
01:29:41,500 --> 01:29:43,460
and you put them
in an impossible situation,
1607
01:29:43,544 --> 01:29:46,922
when things begin to bubble up
that you had not anticipated,
1608
01:29:47,006 --> 01:29:49,925
that's one of the great joys
of movie writing.
1609
01:29:50,509 --> 01:29:51,510
Yeah.
1610
01:29:52,094 --> 01:29:56,807
And the discovery after the fact that you
can reprise the look of the rocks with--
1611
01:29:57,308 --> 01:30:01,020
But the reason I'm saying this--
the reason I'm saying this to you is,
1612
01:30:01,687 --> 01:30:03,647
in a strange way for me--
1613
01:30:04,607 --> 01:30:07,443
And again,
I'm going to Pan's only briefly,
1614
01:30:07,526 --> 01:30:11,280
because the idea for me on Pan's was,
1615
01:30:11,363 --> 01:30:15,868
once you find out
that the faun did all those tests for her,
1616
01:30:15,951 --> 01:30:17,036
that was the labyrinth.
1617
01:30:17,119 --> 01:30:19,580
The labyrinth of her coming to a decision.
1618
01:30:19,663 --> 01:30:24,585
And here, you leave this entire movie
up to now and a little later,
1619
01:30:24,668 --> 01:30:29,256
and you think, "Dragonslayer
Great title because it's him," right?
1620
01:30:29,340 --> 01:30:31,759
And then when the king appropriates it,
1621
01:30:31,842 --> 01:30:34,887
-it gains a whole other--
-Political dimension.
1622
01:30:34,970 --> 01:30:36,221
-Political dimension.
-Right.
1623
01:30:36,305 --> 01:30:42,436
And as an audience,
you have a huge aha moment, you know.
1624
01:30:42,519 --> 01:30:46,357
And you realize
how this movie is operating
1625
01:30:46,440 --> 01:30:50,402
at much more complex levels, you know?
1626
01:30:51,695 --> 01:30:55,449
-Now here, this is again the set--
-Yeah.
1627
01:30:55,532 --> 01:30:58,118
Which one's the biggest set in the film?
1628
01:30:58,202 --> 01:30:59,870
This set. This set.
1629
01:30:59,954 --> 01:31:03,248
This is the so-called Bond stage
at Pinewood,
1630
01:31:03,832 --> 01:31:06,543
the largest sound stage in Europe.
1631
01:31:08,212 --> 01:31:12,091
It was built 270 degrees in every--
1632
01:31:12,174 --> 01:31:14,218
We could almost shoot in every direction.
1633
01:31:14,301 --> 01:31:18,430
-Every direction?
-Yeah, with backings and rock facings.
1634
01:31:19,640 --> 01:31:23,143
We haven't talked about the landslide
from earlier in the movie.
1635
01:31:23,227 --> 01:31:25,354
It was an ILM miniature
that was shot in California,
1636
01:31:25,437 --> 01:31:27,731
but it was modeled
on the terrain of North Wales,
1637
01:31:27,815 --> 01:31:30,234
which was photographed
when they were there.
1638
01:31:30,317 --> 01:31:31,902
That is a very complicated sequence.
1639
01:31:31,986 --> 01:31:33,237
-Yeah, it is.
-Yeah.
1640
01:31:33,320 --> 01:31:37,157
If you fellas want to listen
and go back to that.
1641
01:31:37,866 --> 01:31:42,204
So you shot the pre-landslide landscape.
1642
01:31:42,287 --> 01:31:44,206
Yes, on the sound stage.
1643
01:31:44,289 --> 01:31:45,374
-On the sound stage.
-Yes.
1644
01:31:45,457 --> 01:31:48,419
But we had to shoot a blue screen
of them looking up, you know,
1645
01:31:48,502 --> 01:31:51,797
in anticipation of that whole cliff face
coming down.
1646
01:31:51,880 --> 01:31:55,384
That was-- And we shot it with
a high-speed camera because it had to be--
1647
01:31:55,467 --> 01:31:58,387
-As you know-- Exactly.
-Feel heavy. Uh-huh.
1648
01:31:58,470 --> 01:32:01,098
And we were shooting
at something like 270 frames a second.
1649
01:32:01,181 --> 01:32:04,852
-Wow.
-Camera was just burning through the film.
1650
01:32:04,935 --> 01:32:07,396
-And you only have one take.
-Yes, of course.
1651
01:32:07,479 --> 01:32:13,986
And when you shot that,
was it middle of the shoot?
1652
01:32:14,069 --> 01:32:17,948
No, that was in postproduction
after we came back to California.
1653
01:32:18,032 --> 01:32:19,491
So you shot--
1654
01:32:20,784 --> 01:32:23,078
You shot the miniature?
1655
01:32:23,162 --> 01:32:24,288
-Yes.
-Yes.
1656
01:32:24,830 --> 01:32:29,126
But the shot of the actual location
was middle of the shoot?
1657
01:32:30,544 --> 01:32:33,797
What you're thinking of,
when he's at the lair of the dragon,
1658
01:32:34,381 --> 01:32:36,341
that was on the Bond stage.
1659
01:32:36,967 --> 01:32:38,427
-Completely?
-That's interior.
1660
01:32:38,510 --> 01:32:39,511
-Wow.
-Yeah.
1661
01:32:39,595 --> 01:32:42,222
That is unimaginable.
1662
01:32:42,306 --> 01:32:47,436
And the running and diving for cover
1663
01:32:48,020 --> 01:32:49,438
was on that Bond stage.
1664
01:32:49,521 --> 01:32:52,441
They made crevices where they could
actually conceal themselves.
1665
01:32:52,524 --> 01:32:55,861
So you could basically run
from one of the chambers to another?
1666
01:32:56,653 --> 01:32:58,072
It was enormous.
1667
01:32:58,864 --> 01:33:00,699
I don't know, it was a couple acres.
1668
01:33:00,783 --> 01:33:03,827
I don't remember the size,
but it was very, very big.
1669
01:33:07,039 --> 01:33:10,167
This movie is so dear to you.
1670
01:33:10,709 --> 01:33:13,087
What did you keep of the movie?
1671
01:33:13,170 --> 01:33:15,589
What mementos do you still have?
1672
01:33:15,672 --> 01:33:16,757
You mean literally?
1673
01:33:16,840 --> 01:33:19,301
Yeah, literally. Props. Puppets.
1674
01:33:20,177 --> 01:33:25,015
A lot of it was shipped back to ILM,
and they said, "What do we do with it?"
1675
01:33:25,099 --> 01:33:27,267
I said, "I don't know,
let's put it in storage somewhere."
1676
01:33:27,351 --> 01:33:29,311
It wound up, a lot of it, in my garage,
1677
01:33:30,104 --> 01:33:33,357
where it was forgotten
until very recently.
1678
01:33:35,067 --> 01:33:38,445
My son-in-law helped me open a crate
that we found in the garage,
1679
01:33:38,529 --> 01:33:40,572
and it had a lot of these--
1680
01:33:40,656 --> 01:33:44,284
It had this amulet in it.
It had the baby dragons.
1681
01:33:44,368 --> 01:33:46,495
-Oh, my lord. Decomposing.
-Yeah.
1682
01:33:46,578 --> 01:33:49,540
They are. Yeah, they're pretty moth-eaten.
1683
01:33:49,623 --> 01:33:51,375
Look at Ralph's face here. This is--
1684
01:33:51,458 --> 01:33:53,335
And here again, I wanna--
1685
01:33:53,418 --> 01:33:56,547
I mean, obviously this is very connected
1686
01:33:56,630 --> 01:33:59,842
to the resurrection of Gandalf, in a way,
1687
01:33:59,925 --> 01:34:02,469
-on the Tolkien mythology...
-Yes.
1688
01:34:02,553 --> 01:34:04,054
...where he comes back,
1689
01:34:04,138 --> 01:34:07,933
now in the white unearthly robes
and all that.
1690
01:34:08,433 --> 01:34:14,148
But I think that what is great about this
is how Sir Ralph diffuses it.
1691
01:34:15,149 --> 01:34:18,861
You know, he's not ceremonial.
1692
01:34:18,944 --> 01:34:20,487
No, no. And he loved that.
1693
01:34:20,571 --> 01:34:21,655
-Yeah.
-He told me that.
1694
01:34:21,738 --> 01:34:24,533
That's one of the things that
intrigued him when he read the screenplay,
1695
01:34:24,616 --> 01:34:30,664
when he found those notes,
of the quotidian talking about Balisarius,
1696
01:34:30,747 --> 01:34:32,833
who could turn lead into--
"I could never do that."
1697
01:34:32,916 --> 01:34:34,960
There's sort of a workaday--
1698
01:34:36,086 --> 01:34:38,130
Someone in the sorcery business.
1699
01:34:38,213 --> 01:34:40,674
-There's something blue collar about it.
-Yeah.
1700
01:34:40,757 --> 01:34:44,803
But those are also decisions
that were very intriguing.
1701
01:34:45,304 --> 01:34:49,266
The language
that we associate with period,
1702
01:34:49,349 --> 01:34:52,895
the "Thy, thou,"
and all the ceremonial language,
1703
01:34:52,978 --> 01:34:57,441
is reserved for authority and ritual
1704
01:34:57,524 --> 01:35:00,777
and for representational things.
1705
01:35:00,861 --> 01:35:02,237
Look at this.
1706
01:35:02,321 --> 01:35:03,447
Again, Ken Ralston.
1707
01:35:03,530 --> 01:35:05,532
Well, I was never-- I have to tell you,
1708
01:35:06,366 --> 01:35:09,703
my nature of personality or style,
I just--
1709
01:35:09,786 --> 01:35:14,875
Very resistant to the implied pomposity
of sorcery and all the rest.
1710
01:35:14,958 --> 01:35:15,959
And I would never--
1711
01:35:16,043 --> 01:35:20,130
The tone just never would've occurred
to me to take it seriously as that.
1712
01:35:20,214 --> 01:35:22,925
I would take it seriously in terms
of what it is capable of doing--
1713
01:35:23,008 --> 01:35:24,218
Look at that. Oh, my God.
1714
01:35:24,301 --> 01:35:25,677
-Is that Phil?
-No, that's Ken.
1715
01:35:25,761 --> 01:35:27,554
That's Ken again? Oh, my lord.
1716
01:35:27,638 --> 01:35:31,475
So the flying and that pose is so--
1717
01:35:31,558 --> 01:35:35,270
It's a very difficult puppet to pose,
I must say.
1718
01:35:35,354 --> 01:35:39,900
And that's a real find by Ken.
This sort of crowning--
1719
01:35:41,235 --> 01:35:43,946
This is a nice moment here.
This is very gracefully done.
1720
01:35:47,449 --> 01:35:49,409
This is a very complicated sequence.
1721
01:35:49,493 --> 01:35:51,620
I remember reading about it and--
1722
01:35:53,163 --> 01:35:56,625
This is complicated, obviously,
from the technical aspects of it,
1723
01:35:56,708 --> 01:35:58,627
but it's also, Matthew,
1724
01:35:58,710 --> 01:36:03,173
a really complicated sequence
for a director to time, because--
1725
01:36:03,799 --> 01:36:06,468
Well, we haven't talked about--
The editor is Tony Lawson,
1726
01:36:07,469 --> 01:36:10,931
who was, again-- he was about my age,
1727
01:36:11,014 --> 01:36:13,308
but he had done many more films
than I had,
1728
01:36:13,392 --> 01:36:16,353
and he was very, very talented.
1729
01:36:16,937 --> 01:36:20,148
He wasn't intimidated at all
by the size of this thing,
1730
01:36:20,232 --> 01:36:22,859
and he was unafraid to cut into things
that had taken--
1731
01:36:22,943 --> 01:36:25,946
Very-- You know, that fact of,
"Well, we worked so hard on that."
1732
01:36:26,029 --> 01:36:28,490
"Well, it doesn't matter
because look at this."
1733
01:36:28,573 --> 01:36:30,492
That was one of the--
1734
01:36:30,575 --> 01:36:32,995
He was one of the sources
of my understanding
1735
01:36:33,078 --> 01:36:36,415
of the way a movie is rewritten
in the editing room.
1736
01:36:36,498 --> 01:36:40,294
Yes, of course. It's where
it's first written, really. Yeah.
1737
01:36:40,377 --> 01:36:43,755
And so I came to appreciate, again,
1738
01:36:43,839 --> 01:36:46,717
without knowing,
I just got along with him right away.
1739
01:36:46,800 --> 01:36:49,136
He's just very, very warm
1740
01:36:49,219 --> 01:36:52,848
and someone with whom I was happy to spend
all those hours in the editing room.
1741
01:36:52,931 --> 01:36:56,560
But completely unafraid of the fact
that there was this vast edifice
1742
01:36:57,561 --> 01:36:59,187
that was being dumped on his lap.
1743
01:36:59,271 --> 01:37:02,149
And he would just treat it
like any other shot...
1744
01:37:02,232 --> 01:37:04,818
-Yeah.
-.. .no matter where the origins.
1745
01:37:05,444 --> 01:37:09,823
It didn't matter to him.
And he was brutal in that way.
1746
01:37:09,906 --> 01:37:12,326
But let's talk about
why this is difficult,
1747
01:37:13,076 --> 01:37:16,705
because we're discussing it and we say
obviously technically it's difficult,
1748
01:37:16,788 --> 01:37:23,253
but this is an almost archetypical scene
that comes in every movie in which,
1749
01:37:23,337 --> 01:37:25,213
quote, unquote, "the plan goes wrong."
1750
01:37:25,297 --> 01:37:26,298
Yeah.
1751
01:37:26,381 --> 01:37:30,969
And you have to crosscut
two or three vectors of action
1752
01:37:31,053 --> 01:37:36,350
at the same time and time them
almost like a heist, you know?
1753
01:37:36,433 --> 01:37:38,977
Things have to happen in the right order.
1754
01:37:40,020 --> 01:37:44,066
Things have to go wrong in the right order
at the right time...
1755
01:37:46,485 --> 01:37:48,487
to make it work symphonically.
1756
01:37:48,570 --> 01:37:52,574
And that requires a lot of work.
1757
01:37:52,657 --> 01:37:54,451
You say you and Hal--
1758
01:37:54,534 --> 01:37:56,995
Sixth screenplay,
you wrote Sugarland Express,
1759
01:37:57,079 --> 01:37:59,706
so you had that under your belts here,
right?
1760
01:37:59,790 --> 01:38:02,000
-Well, what I--
-But it was shot?
1761
01:38:02,084 --> 01:38:04,836
This was storyboarded
because you couldn't work with ILM
1762
01:38:04,920 --> 01:38:08,382
without laying out everything in advance,
so we had an idea of shots like this.
1763
01:38:08,465 --> 01:38:11,551
They were all very planned,
but what interested me,
1764
01:38:11,635 --> 01:38:15,097
what kept me going
and what I was interested mostly,
1765
01:38:15,180 --> 01:38:17,307
in the design of the sequence,
1766
01:38:17,808 --> 01:38:20,894
is to keep the character
interactions alive so that we--
1767
01:38:21,770 --> 01:38:25,315
Each character is operating with respect
1768
01:38:25,399 --> 01:38:27,776
to their own emotional needs
at this moment.
1769
01:38:27,859 --> 01:38:30,195
He knows the stakes, the sorcerer.
1770
01:38:30,278 --> 01:38:32,030
This is the final confrontation,
1771
01:38:32,114 --> 01:38:35,826
and yet here he is
back to being the apprentice.
1772
01:38:35,909 --> 01:38:39,496
He's in service to the old man again,
and he's been told what to do,
1773
01:38:39,579 --> 01:38:43,041
but the crisis comes
as he knows by doing it,
1774
01:38:43,125 --> 01:38:48,130
something irremediable and terrible
is going to happen.
1775
01:38:48,213 --> 01:38:49,297
That's--
1776
01:38:49,381 --> 01:38:55,387
The trick when working on
an effects movie like this is
1777
01:38:55,470 --> 01:38:57,514
to remember what you're about.
1778
01:38:57,597 --> 01:38:59,099
You're not about the technique.
1779
01:38:59,182 --> 01:39:01,726
-It sounds like a cliché.
-No, no, it isn't.
1780
01:39:01,810 --> 01:39:04,938
But you're about the characters
and what's going to happen.
1781
01:39:05,021 --> 01:39:07,816
That's where
the emotional attachment comes.
1782
01:39:07,899 --> 01:39:11,903
And if you can keep that alive
and if you concentrate on it--
1783
01:39:11,987 --> 01:39:14,489
-This is, in that regard, a great moment.
-Yeah.
1784
01:39:14,573 --> 01:39:17,909
And there is a great moment
upcoming very close
1785
01:39:17,993 --> 01:39:22,080
in which he has to decide
to destroy the amulet.
1786
01:39:22,164 --> 01:39:23,874
That is basically like destroying
1787
01:39:23,957 --> 01:39:27,711
-the most precious thing, you know?
-Yeah. Yeah.
1788
01:39:28,462 --> 01:39:33,300
Something that is cherished by characters,
that contains all the magic.
1789
01:39:33,383 --> 01:39:37,220
So in order to destroy the dragon,
he has to do that.
1790
01:39:37,304 --> 01:39:40,223
And to your credit, Matthew,
1791
01:39:40,307 --> 01:39:43,477
to your credit,
the first time I saw the movie,
1792
01:39:43,560 --> 01:39:44,895
I didn't know if he would.
1793
01:39:45,395 --> 01:39:46,980
I was really--
1794
01:39:47,063 --> 01:39:50,817
And this is why I think this is
such a great, complicated sequence.
1795
01:39:50,901 --> 01:39:52,777
Look, see, she has her own agenda.
"Do it."
1796
01:39:52,861 --> 01:39:53,862
-She's--
-Yeah.
1797
01:39:53,945 --> 01:39:55,822
She doesn't understand his reluctance.
1798
01:39:55,906 --> 01:39:58,575
That's why I say
she's the main character in that way.
1799
01:39:58,658 --> 01:40:00,827
-She's--
-Well, she's got the balls.
1800
01:40:00,911 --> 01:40:01,995
Yeah.
1801
01:40:02,078 --> 01:40:04,539
She has to tell him what to do.
1802
01:40:04,623 --> 01:40:07,959
And that ambivalence of him
being a young man and not a--
1803
01:40:08,043 --> 01:40:10,086
There's another-- Where things go wrong.
1804
01:40:10,170 --> 01:40:12,672
It looks like there's a victory here,
but no.
1805
01:40:12,756 --> 01:40:13,757
- Yeah.
-No.
1806
01:40:13,840 --> 01:40:16,092
-That falling pose-- Very hard to do.
-Yeah.
1807
01:40:17,427 --> 01:40:19,095
And here, things start going wrong.
1808
01:40:19,179 --> 01:40:20,430
He is injured.
1809
01:40:21,223 --> 01:40:24,518
For all his magic, he can bleed.
1810
01:40:25,101 --> 01:40:26,102
He can bleed.
1811
01:40:26,186 --> 01:40:30,023
So when you start breaking
this scene into its elements,
1812
01:40:30,106 --> 01:40:32,234
this is a fantastic moment of...
1813
01:40:32,317 --> 01:40:34,361
-Yeah, that's Ralph.
-.. .disorientation.
1814
01:40:34,444 --> 01:40:37,531
-Yes.
-He is an older man.
1815
01:40:43,286 --> 01:40:47,207
I must say, this is,
in terms of your staging,
1816
01:40:47,290 --> 01:40:50,126
in terms of your tempo,
1817
01:40:50,835 --> 01:40:53,296
this is rightfully the...
1818
01:40:55,882 --> 01:40:57,217
-The climax.
-Climax.
1819
01:40:57,300 --> 01:40:59,928
And their interplay,
1820
01:41:01,137 --> 01:41:04,933
fabulously,
they become a single character, you know?
1821
01:41:05,517 --> 01:41:08,144
They fuse into a single character,
1822
01:41:08,687 --> 01:41:12,315
and I think that's really,
really hard to do.
1823
01:41:13,817 --> 01:41:16,111
-It's another reveal.
-Yes.
1824
01:41:16,194 --> 01:41:18,572
This was shot in Hawaii,
these cloud plates.
1825
01:41:18,655 --> 01:41:19,656
-Really?
-Yeah.
1826
01:41:20,240 --> 01:41:23,952
We had a terrible time getting the skies.
1827
01:41:25,912 --> 01:41:29,082
When Ralph Richardson
saw the movie completed,
1828
01:41:29,165 --> 01:41:31,751
were you there to see his reaction?
1829
01:41:32,335 --> 01:41:35,130
No. I was there for the ADR.
1830
01:41:35,213 --> 01:41:41,052
I never had any direct communication
from him
1831
01:41:41,136 --> 01:41:45,181
about how he felt about the final product,
but we had a great relationship,
1832
01:41:45,265 --> 01:41:48,768
because when I went back
to do his ADR in London,
1833
01:41:48,852 --> 01:41:49,853
it was one of--
1834
01:41:49,936 --> 01:41:53,565
The happiest parts of the movie
was the days we spent together afterwards.
1835
01:41:53,648 --> 01:41:56,401
So I think he was very happy
with our collaboration.
1836
01:41:56,484 --> 01:41:58,862
I'm not even sure
that he even saw the film.
1837
01:41:58,945 --> 01:42:00,530
-I wouldn't be surprised.
-Yeah.
1838
01:42:01,364 --> 01:42:02,949
That triple cut,
1839
01:42:03,033 --> 01:42:05,994
the triple cut when he grabs him,
1840
01:42:06,911 --> 01:42:09,581
Ralph Richardson, the creature
and the claw,
1841
01:42:09,664 --> 01:42:11,416
beautiful, beautiful cutting.
1842
01:42:12,250 --> 01:42:14,461
I mean, as the years have gone by
1843
01:42:14,544 --> 01:42:19,090
and I have appropriately aged
and gained weight,
1844
01:42:20,050 --> 01:42:21,551
but also experience,
1845
01:42:22,385 --> 01:42:24,012
I admire the movie.
1846
01:42:25,138 --> 01:42:27,432
I was in awe when I was a kid,
1847
01:42:27,515 --> 01:42:32,604
but I admire it as an adult
professional filmmaker, somewhat.
1848
01:42:33,605 --> 01:42:35,690
-It's splendid.
-Thank you.
1849
01:42:35,774 --> 01:42:38,526
And I think that all the effects
that ILM did,
1850
01:42:38,610 --> 01:42:43,948
the sort of reentry trail of the dragon,
1851
01:42:45,116 --> 01:42:49,954
the timing of the physical effects
with the animation
1852
01:42:50,038 --> 01:42:53,333
and the stop-motion, is just phenomenal.
1853
01:42:53,416 --> 01:42:55,460
And I-- There's lessons.
1854
01:42:56,086 --> 01:42:59,673
There's so many lessons
to be learned from this movie, Matthew,
1855
01:42:59,756 --> 01:43:05,679
about how going purely CGI,
1856
01:43:05,762 --> 01:43:09,766
or purely digital, or purely effects,
is not the way to go.
1857
01:43:10,642 --> 01:43:11,643
You know?
1858
01:43:12,560 --> 01:43:15,772
After this movie, you became,
amongst many other things,
1859
01:43:15,855 --> 01:43:19,317
a very successful commercial director,
1860
01:43:19,401 --> 01:43:22,278
and you handled very complicated ones.
1861
01:43:22,862 --> 01:43:24,698
I think this prepared you for that.
1862
01:43:24,781 --> 01:43:26,157
Well, sure.
1863
01:43:26,241 --> 01:43:29,953
In those days,
ILM was coming into its own,
1864
01:43:30,036 --> 01:43:34,040
and ILM became a touchstone
1865
01:43:34,124 --> 01:43:36,918
for people in the commercials industry.
1866
01:43:37,001 --> 01:43:39,212
They wanted to take advantage
of what it had to offer.
1867
01:43:39,295 --> 01:43:40,672
And so ILM had--
1868
01:43:40,755 --> 01:43:43,508
Everyone there had come to know me
because of this,
1869
01:43:43,591 --> 01:43:45,885
and they asked me
to become one of their directors.
1870
01:43:45,969 --> 01:43:50,473
And I learned, again,
a lot by directing commercials.
1871
01:43:51,015 --> 01:43:52,809
You go from one to the other and you--
1872
01:43:52,892 --> 01:43:55,729
And that's my daughter
in the middle of the frame.
1873
01:43:56,771 --> 01:43:59,315
-Sonya Robbins.
-Yes, I can recognize her.
1874
01:43:59,399 --> 01:44:01,943
You know, and I'll tell you for me,
1875
01:44:02,026 --> 01:44:06,030
this scene gave me another one of the--
1876
01:44:06,614 --> 01:44:10,243
This and the facehugger in Alien--
1877
01:44:12,036 --> 01:44:14,038
I love these shoes, by the way.
1878
01:44:15,373 --> 01:44:19,627
Perfectly, perfectly suited
for the moment of glory.
1879
01:44:19,711 --> 01:44:21,379
But what I love is--
1880
01:44:22,172 --> 01:44:27,260
I always say one of the great things you
can do for a creature is give it a corpse.
1881
01:44:27,969 --> 01:44:33,808
Because if it's dead
in a forensically accurate way,
1882
01:44:33,892 --> 01:44:35,435
that means it was alive.
1883
01:44:35,518 --> 01:44:40,440
And the way you go at the dragon is,
forensically, quite accurate.
1884
01:44:41,191 --> 01:44:43,568
This was a complete separate construction...
1885
01:44:43,651 --> 01:44:45,945
-Yes, yes.
-...from the crane and the dragon.
1886
01:44:46,029 --> 01:44:50,366
So this was a life-sized dragon sculpture.
1887
01:44:50,450 --> 01:44:53,119
-Yeah.
-That you then--
1888
01:44:53,203 --> 01:44:55,079
-That we then--
-Barbecued.
1889
01:44:55,997 --> 01:44:59,292
They went to a slaughterhouse
and they brought back all the body parts.
1890
01:45:00,210 --> 01:45:03,004
And this is in the Isle of Skye.
1891
01:45:03,963 --> 01:45:10,178
And this is where I think
that it's an almost noirish Western.
1892
01:45:11,346 --> 01:45:13,223
Walking away from all that glory,
1893
01:45:13,306 --> 01:45:18,603
and yet the horse at the end
is a touch of magic.
1894
01:45:20,605 --> 01:45:23,483
-Oh, Matthew, what a film.
-Yeah.
1895
01:45:29,948 --> 01:45:34,536
I think this is one of the great
fantasy films of all times, Matthew.
1896
01:45:35,245 --> 01:45:36,955
And again,
1897
01:45:37,038 --> 01:45:43,336
the repercussions of it
are not calculable, in many ways.
1898
01:45:43,419 --> 01:45:45,380
Well, I have to say, I'm very--
1899
01:45:45,463 --> 01:45:49,092
It's been remarkable to see it again
under these circumstances,
1900
01:45:49,175 --> 01:45:53,054
and to have so many mixed-up memories,
because it was not easy for me.
1901
01:45:53,137 --> 01:45:56,641
Again, the sources are sort of me.
1902
01:45:57,392 --> 01:46:00,687
There's the logo that he designed,
David Bunnett.
1903
01:46:00,770 --> 01:46:02,480
-Yeah.
-But, you know, it's--
1904
01:46:02,564 --> 01:46:05,316
In a way, I was the apprentice.
1905
01:46:06,109 --> 01:46:10,405
-Not aware of what I was walking into.
-Yes.
1906
01:46:10,488 --> 01:46:13,283
You know, that Peter MacNicol
offers himself up here.
1907
01:46:13,992 --> 01:46:17,453
Having directed a single movie,
"Well, of course I can do this."
1908
01:46:17,537 --> 01:46:18,872
Right, right.
1909
01:46:19,956 --> 01:46:25,044
But somehow, we managed to pull it off.
1910
01:46:25,628 --> 01:46:29,674
And over the years,
I've learned that it is a--
1911
01:46:29,757 --> 01:46:33,845
For people who are interested in fantasy,
it is a beloved film.
1912
01:46:34,679 --> 01:46:41,185
It is, and I thank you,
and now you guys own a beautiful transfer.
1913
01:46:41,269 --> 01:46:44,606
-Yes
-A HD, 4K,
1914
01:46:44,689 --> 01:46:49,569
masterful archival version of this movie
1915
01:46:49,652 --> 01:46:52,697
which influenced many, many people.
1916
01:46:52,780 --> 01:46:56,492
And I for one, want to thank you, Matthew,
for making it.
1917
01:46:56,576 --> 01:47:00,163
Well, I thank you
for heaping all this praise on it.
1918
01:47:00,246 --> 01:47:03,166
And I thank you for being
such a good friend to me over the years.
1919
01:47:03,249 --> 01:47:04,918
-Yes.
-I think when we first met,
1920
01:47:05,001 --> 01:47:07,462
this was the very first thing
you wanted to talk about.
1921
01:47:07,545 --> 01:47:11,466
I actually understand now,
so many years later, why and in detail...
1922
01:47:11,549 --> 01:47:16,137
-Yes.
-...why it played such a role in your life.
1923
01:47:16,220 --> 01:47:18,097
So I feel very flattered by that too.
1924
01:47:18,181 --> 01:47:20,183
Well, we bid you adieu.
1925
01:47:20,266 --> 01:47:23,186
-Adieu. Thank you, everybody.
-Hasta luego, my friends.