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Hello, this is Paul Schrader.

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This film, Cat People,
was made right after American Gigolo.

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It was offered to me.

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Universal was doing remakes
of a number of their classics,

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they had also done The Thing.

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I thought it'd be interesting
to make a film that I didn't write -

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this was written by Alan Ormsby -

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and that was a genre film.

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It didn't quite turn out that way.

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It ended up being as personal,
or more personal,

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than any of the films I've done.

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The original script
had a very conventional ending

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and the final film has

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one of the more bizarre endings in films.

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The most important name
on the credits, for me,

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is a man named Nando Scarfiotti
who was a very dear friend,

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who I had brought over from Italy
to do American Gigolo.

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He wasn't yet in the union,

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that's why he's called
a visual consultant.

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He had worked for Bertolucci

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on The Conformist
and Last Tango In Paris

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and went on to get an Oscar
for The Last Emperor.

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He was

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very, very influential

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on this film.

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He had the power to walk on the set

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and stop shooting and consult

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if he didn't think it was going right.

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This whole credit sequence was his idea.

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I suppose the next most important name
would be John Bailey.

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I've done five films with John.

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This is one of the films
that I call a beauty film,

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as opposed to some films I've done
that are a little more

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harder edged.

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This is before digital

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so you're looking at matte paintings

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and the magic of Albert Whitlock.

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This was one of Whitlock's last big jobs

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before he retired and the world changed

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and you no longer used paintings.

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This idea here of the cat myth

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came up subsequent
to the original script.

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As you pan up here you will be
panning into a Whitlock drawing.

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One regret I had
about the release of the film

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is I wished I had changed
the title of the film.

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The Jacques Tourneur film, Cat People,

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which this ostensibly was a remake of
but not much of a remake,

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if I had just changed the title

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I think those people would not have
beaten me up with the comparison.

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There isn't much of a comparison
between the two films

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other than the title and the premise that

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people change form.

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Lycanthropy.

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Here's the first of our many cats.

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We used a whole variety
of animals on this.

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Some real leopards,
some mountain lions dyed black.

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This is a mountain lion dyed black.

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We used a Chinese leopard
that we had dyed black.

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Each animal's good for a different task.

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Here again is a Whitlock painting.

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This is all done on sound stage
at Universal.

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This upcoming device,

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which is used later on,

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where you bleed through the faces -

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today you could probably
line it up digitally,

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at that time you took a clip of film

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and put it inside the camera
so that the two eyes would line up.

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So when the live actress
and the film actress,

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when their faces totally lined up,
then you could shoot.

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That way you could dissolve
between faces

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and have one face turn into another.

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So when the cameraman
is looking at this young actress here...

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he is seeing Nastassia's face
in the airport at the same time

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and then the eyes line up.

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Like that.

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Now, this was...

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Nastassia...

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I believe this was her

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third film in English.

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She had done Tess
and One From The Heart.

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She was the first choice for this.

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Not only because of her
extraordinary beauty

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but also

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there's an un-Americanness
about her features and her body,

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which gave it an exotic appeal.

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This is at the old New Orleans airport.

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I liked Malcolm for this role

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simply because it's a very arch-role,
it's sort of preposterous.

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Even though he doesn't have
that classic Shakespearean training,

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he had done a lot of stage work
in Britain,

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and those Brits are very good at

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giving those phoney-baloney speeches.

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The Alec Guinnesses
and Anthony Hopkins

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have made quite a good living
being hired to distinguish...

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to give distinguished readings
of strange exposition.

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This is Ruby Dee.

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We just cut from the Esplanade
in New Orleans

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to the stage in Universal.

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This is a two-tiered set.

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Alan's script was set in New Orleans

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and I thought New Orleans was good

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because it is the least American
of American cities

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in that it has flown under
five different flags

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and has the most polyglot population,
in history, of any city.

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And also, of course,

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there is the Caribbean
and the voodoo traditions.

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Now, this again is a Scarfiotti set.

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He was the only production designer
who did this,

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or the only one who got away with it.

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He would make a set

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and no one was allowed to see it
until it was finished.

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You saw the drawings
and the models, of course.

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When it was ready he'd take you over

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and he'd show you all the angles

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that the set had been designed
to be seen from

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and the priority of the angles
from which to see the set.

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So that first shot

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from the living area into the dining area,

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it was the first thing
that Nando showed me.

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He said, "This is the primary angle
for the establishing."

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Nastassia

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was quite extraordinary at this time.

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John Bailey, the cinematographer, and I
would talk from time to time.

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He said to me, "It's impossible
to make this girl look bad."

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The kind of actress that you could
turn off the lights

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and she would light the scene herself.

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Her skin just glowed.

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You're often asked which you like best,
writing or directing.

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They're very different talents
and very different pleasures.

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One is very lonely
but you have control as a writer.

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You don't have as much control
as a director

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cos you're at the mercy of the budget
and the actors

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but it's communal, and that's fun too.

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I think the best answer

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is the one that Truffaut gave
when they asked him that question.

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He said, "When I'm writing
I like directing best,

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"when I'm directing I like editing best

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"and when I'm editing I like writing best."

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We had to build this cat myth.

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I don't know how valuable it was.

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This closet, for example,

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this is something that
Mr Scarfiotti agonised over

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in the placement of all the colour.

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The colour scheme is...

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The two colours
that we kept returning to

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were a kind of a salmon
and a kind of lime.

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I don't know quite why
those colours became strong.

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Backstage, looking onto a painted...

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There's Beatrice.

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It's probably a good time
to talk about

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the music.

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I'd done American Gigolo
with Giorgio Moroder

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and this is Giorgio again.

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It's all that Munich-derived synth sound.

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Now, this is one of the earlier uses
of Steadicam.

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It was just becoming commonplace
at that time.

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The shot that is coming up...

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was done in reverse motion

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for a reason that you will see.

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Also, the way this corridor looks,

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the reason I'm stopping here
is purely for Mr Scarfiotti.

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Now, this shot is in reverse motion.

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He had to walk backwards to the door.

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Because otherwise he could not do this.

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The shot actually begins on her face

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and ends up with him
backing out of the door.

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You need a reverse-motion camera

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otherwise it'll be second generation
and you'll see grain

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and the audience will know
that you are doing a special effect.

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The wonderful streets of New Orleans

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with corners like Erato and Annunciation.

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That...

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that was a location exterior

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and now it is a studio interior.

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I don't know why I let this guy
smoke a cigar. That was a mistake.

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The idea was to do a horror film,

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a sort of erotic horror film.

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I think in the end
it became more erotic than horror,

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as this scene starts to show.

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The premise was, of course,

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that the cat people...

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would change from human to cat form

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because of sexual arousal

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and then when they killed
they would go back to human form.

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This is a little confusing
and the roles kept shifting.

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This location had to be very secure.

187
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This is literally a steel box

188
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because we're gonna have
a cat running around in here.

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This was not a mountain lion,

190
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this was a cat that will come...

191
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That is not a cat, that is just a prop.

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The cat that will come
was a Chinese leopard

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and he was going to be put down
because he was crazy.

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So we bought him,

195
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or Ron Oxley,
who headed up the animal team,

196
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they bought him and dyed him black.

197
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Later, when...

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00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:31,716
when he goes crazy
and rampages the room,

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he went right into the bars
and you can see that.

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He split his skull - that's coming up -

201
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and subsequently was put down.

202
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Now we enter

203
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our well-meaning protagonist

204
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who is gonna get caught,
go over his head.

205
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This is Scott Paulin
in one of his earlier roles.

206
00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:12,310
He's gone on
and done a lot of work since.

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00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:20,074
This was tricky to do because you have

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a video which has been done previously.

209
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:28,793
You have one set on this floor,

210
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you have another set which is upstairs

211
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which has to be entirely secure
because the cat is there,

212
00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:40,791
and then you have the exterior
that you're shooting in New Orleans.

213
00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:43,832
So it has to be storyboarded
in some way

214
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:46,235
to keep this involved.

215
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:48,271
This is the...

216
00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:56,118
This is, I believe,
the Chinese leopard.

217
00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:00,597
No, that's the panther because
he had to come out from under the bed.

218
00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:03,234
When he goes crazy,
that's the Chinese leopard.

219
00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:05,794
The way they made him go crazy

220
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is they put air tubes
along the baseboard of the room

221
00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:11,791
and they would shoot compressed air.

222
00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:15,753
These tubes would spin
and made a very high-pitched sound

223
00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:19,395
and that sound would
drive these animals crazy.

224
00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:24,434
That's how they would aggravate them
and made them active.

225
00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:29,838
The tendency of a big cat
in a situation like this

226
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is to go catatonic,

227
00:18:32,120 --> 00:18:35,192
just get in a corner and hide.

228
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That won't do, so you need some device
to aggravate them.

229
00:18:41,360 --> 00:18:43,590
It's the whistling sound that does it.

230
00:18:51,840 --> 00:18:56,038
The nice thing about
working with animals

231
00:18:56,080 --> 00:19:00,517
is that you don't have to worry about
talking to their agents

232
00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:02,790
or getting them out of their trailer.

233
00:19:02,840 --> 00:19:07,595
When they wanna work, they work,
when they don't, they don't.

234
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:12,353
This is not New Orleans,

235
00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:16,188
looking over John's shoulder,
this is again the stage.

236
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We had to have control over that cat.

237
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:30,391
This is the Chinese leopard
and this was a crazy animal.

238
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:36,669
He could not be trained
or instructed in any way.

239
00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:40,156
The earlier ones
were mountain lions dyed black

240
00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:43,272
cos they could go from place to place.

241
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:48,553
But mountain lions don't have
the same face and don't have...

242
00:19:48,600 --> 00:19:50,192
That's...

243
00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:57,880
That's a mountain lion and now
we're back with the Chinese leopard,

244
00:19:57,920 --> 00:19:59,956
who goes really crazy.

245
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:04,428
This'll be the one right here...

246
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:07,278
that rammed himself.

247
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:21,708
She says "Paul"
and then Paul drops down.

248
00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:27,633
Here you're watching
the big cat go catatonic.

249
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:46,599
One of the things that happened
in the making of this film was

250
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:50,633
I got seduced by a number of factors.

251
00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:55,393
One, of course,
was the lure of New Orleans.

252
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:59,748
Another was the lure of
this girl here, Nastassia.

253
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:05,750
And the other was
this whole kind of Jungian eroticism,

254
00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:09,390
this kind of notion of

255
00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:17,273
these primal creatures
that exist in our genetic memory

256
00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:22,909
that we used to fear

257
00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:27,351
and they still live on in our dreams.

258
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:35,233
Now, the reason
there's such a variety of leopards,

259
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:43,438
of cats in the film, is that the leopard
is both arboreal and nocturnal.

260
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:45,471
It lives at night in the trees.

261
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:49,513
So it's very hard to work with
and almost impossible to train.

262
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:52,358
So you use a mountain lion

263
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:56,188
which is a day animal
and not an arboreal animal

264
00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:58,231
and they can be trained.

265
00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:01,795
So that's why you have
sometimes mountain lions

266
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:04,229
and sometimes leopards.

267
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:16,951
St Charles here normally is...

268
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:19,992
I don't think it's ever been this empty.

269
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:23,510
This is normally a mass of tourists.

270
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:27,595
I loved the idea of making it
absolutely empty

271
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,029
and wetting it down -

272
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:35,029
again going back to
the European feel of the film

273
00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:37,548
and of Nastassia.

274
00:22:41,120 --> 00:22:45,079
Marilyn here is a little tribute to Nando.

275
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:59,077
This is sort of part of
the gay iconography.

276
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:06,311
This was an old movie theatre
which had become a gospel church.

277
00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:08,351
We didn't actually...

278
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:10,755
We lit that exterior in that wonderful way

279
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:15,271
but this interior pre-existed,
Nando found this,

280
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:17,311
this is a location.

281
00:23:17,360 --> 00:23:21,148
We didn't paint this ourselves,
we left it the way it was.

282
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,670
But the only way to see it
was from up on high.

283
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:29,032
At eye level
it wasn't a very interesting place.

284
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:34,232
Even though I did shoot from eye level,
I didn't use those angles.

285
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:40,031
Here's the Black Pope,
he was a disc jockey then

286
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:42,071
who I fell in love with.

287
00:23:42,120 --> 00:23:46,511
He talked over all these songs
all the time.

288
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:50,394
I would listen to the Black Pope
on radio all day long.

289
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:52,749
She says, "Wear it out, Pope."

290
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:56,998
He was a famous disc jockey
in New Orleans at that time.

291
00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:09,954
This woman was an extra, the taxi driver.

292
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,675
She came in with those two glasses,
and looked terrific.

293
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:17,190
When those things happen
you just have to use them.

294
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:20,471
We are in New Orleans now,

295
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,239
at one of the entrances -

296
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:27,159
the older side entrance,
which we made into the main entrance.

297
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:33,594
We will move from New Orleans
to the backlot at Universal shortly,

298
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:37,952
as we go up into a matte painting.

299
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,919
So the bottom is in New Orleans,

300
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:50,273
the top is a painting of a set in California.

301
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:53,232
Now we are back
in California on that set.

302
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:57,716
We built this whole zoo
on the backlot.

303
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:03,949
It was up for a number of years
as part of the Universal tour.

304
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,075
We used the New Orleans Zoo,

305
00:25:13,120 --> 00:25:18,319
but you have to have
such total control of the environment,

306
00:25:18,360 --> 00:25:23,434
that, in the end, you had to build a zoo,

307
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:25,948
or buy out a zoo.

308
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,116
It's cheaper to build one.

309
00:25:34,360 --> 00:25:37,796
I love this shot,
it's the "ages of man" shot.

310
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:42,868
It starts looking at Miss Kinski,

311
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:47,835
and then drops down to the top tier here,

312
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,793
where the secretaries work,

313
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:57,472
and then below the secretaries
at the next level of evolution,

314
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:02,399
are the primates,

315
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:06,353
and then finally down to the leopards.

316
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:08,834
And then our character enters back in.

317
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:13,431
Of course, it's quite wild
and thoroughly implausible

318
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:16,358
to have secretaries
working above animals,

319
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:20,393
but that's the fun of movies
and the fun of building,

320
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:24,991
you can build your own zoo where
secretaries work on top of animals.

321
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,598
This is an early role
for John Larroquette,

322
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,871
before he became a TV star.

323
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:50,635
And Annette,
in her very all-American way,

324
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,673
is an ideal counterpart to Nastassia.

325
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:09,109
These lions, Nando designed these

326
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:12,311
and I've seen these in other films

327
00:27:12,360 --> 00:27:15,670
because the moulds
ended up at Universal,

328
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,952
so occasionally I would see them
again in other films.

329
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:26,358
He's quoting here from La Vita Nuova,

330
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:30,473
some poems by Dante about Beatrice,

331
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:38,393
going back to that
sub-theme of Dante and Beatrice,

332
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,911
which runs through
the eroticism of the film.

333
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:53,037
Again, we're able to use

334
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:55,719
the full size of the set,

335
00:27:55,760 --> 00:28:01,471
with a crane, and go all the way up
from the first to the third floor.

336
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,118
I've always liked John Heard,

337
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,833
he struck me as an all-American actor.

338
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,470
I particularly liked him
in a film called Head Over Heels

339
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,318
where he was madly in love with this girl,

340
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,954
and again, struck me as the kind of

341
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:31,680
very intelligent American nice guy
who would be

342
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:37,352
the ideal pawn in such an exotic game.

343
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:47,595
My particular church
did not allow theatre attendance

344
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:53,272
so I never really went to movies
in any serious way until I was in college.

345
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:57,393
That was the time of
the European cinema of the '60s.

346
00:28:57,440 --> 00:28:59,954
That was the cinema I first encountered,

347
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,878
the cinema I fell in love with,

348
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:06,754
and just like one never forgets
one's real-life first love,

349
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:10,475
one never forgets one's art-life first love.

350
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:14,229
So, many of the things
I've done subsequently

351
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:19,035
have circled around those sort of films
that I fell in love with.

352
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:25,269
Not around Westerns
or musicals or horror films

353
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:31,077
but around that kind of intellectual
cinema of Europe in the '60s.

354
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:44,471
We wanted a shot of Paul
listening to the two of them talk,

355
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,239
so we put that little part of the set back

356
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,590
and did that crane shot, down into Paul.

357
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,271
I think

358
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:24,628
coming up is one of the most beautiful

359
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,029
singles on Nastassia.

360
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,231
I don't know whether it was the light

361
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,955
or the day or whatever it was but...

362
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,712
This shot right here, if I remember right.

363
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:53,355
The story has been told and repeated

364
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:59,839
but I did get involved with Nastassia
in the shooting of this,

365
00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:02,440
which complicated my life enormously.

366
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:09,599
Maybe that's about all
we need to say about that subject.

367
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:27,270
This was the first film
I directed that I didn't write.

368
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,596
I had just figured out how to direct,

369
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,996
the first two films -
Blue Collar and Hardcore -

370
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:38,349
I was just trying to survive.

371
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:43,349
By the time I did Gigolo I got a notion of
what it meant to think visually.

372
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:50,639
And a lot of that was being
influenced by Mr Scarfiotti

373
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:54,673
and I sort of went to school
at his visual school.

374
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,951
I like this shot here, you start inside,

375
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:01,950
back, and dolly down the street -

376
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:04,992
look at these big oysters
Nando put in there -

377
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,998
there's a jump cut there
as we pass the dark

378
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:11,669
and then we come back in.

379
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:19,757
I guess that really speaks to
the point which I'm making,

380
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:25,113
which is that I saw this as
a real chance to think visually.

381
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:28,557
Because I hadn't written it

382
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:33,515
and wasn't supposedly invested
in the story or the theme

383
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:35,596
and because it was a genre film,

384
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:41,078
I could just see it as
colour, shape and design.

385
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:44,637
The great influence on me

386
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,911
and a number of directors
at this time was Bertolucci.

387
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,191
And, of his films, it was Conformist,

388
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,437
in this film there are shots
stolen from that film,

389
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:58,029
I went through a period
where almost every film I made

390
00:32:58,080 --> 00:32:59,911
had shots from Conformist -

391
00:32:59,960 --> 00:33:04,476
shots in Gigolo, in this film, in Mishima.

392
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,431
Bertolucci was very influential

393
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:14,793
in that he combined
the Godardian wilfulness of the camera

394
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,071
with Antonioni's sense of design.

395
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:27,318
You can track the movement
of American film into high design

396
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:33,071
from that group of filmmakers
who are influenced by Bernardo.

397
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:41,989
Now, in scene after scene,

398
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:44,349
shot after shot,

399
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:50,350
the concern, more than normal,

400
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:55,394
was, just constantly,
colour and texture and composition.

401
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:59,718
Obviously, every filmmaker
thinks about these things

402
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:03,799
but in certain films

403
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:08,595
you feel it is so important
that it starts to drive

404
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:12,269
your shooting,
your lighting, your editing.

405
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,676
Now we're back in New Orleans.
This is the real zoo,

406
00:34:15,720 --> 00:34:20,316
we didn't bring
any elephants into the backlot.

407
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,876
That is out there in the zoo,

408
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:29,196
and this is still New Orleans.

409
00:34:30,240 --> 00:34:33,277
Now we're on the backlot again.

410
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:39,953
Ed Begley had been
in two previous films I did,

411
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,037
Blue Collar and Hardcore.

412
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:48,639
And he'll get his shortly.

413
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,037
This shot, as you can imagine,

414
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,310
was done many times

415
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:10,480
to try to get each one of these
animals to act on cue.

416
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:14,399
To get the wolf to come out
when you're passing,

417
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:16,192
to get the chimp to go,

418
00:35:16,240 --> 00:35:19,949
to get the cheetah to look at you.

419
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:23,515
The human here was relatively easy.

420
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:34,956
This is on location in New Orleans.

421
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,355
This was not a gift shop,

422
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:41,518
we commandeered a building
and made it into a gift shop.

423
00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:45,678
This is a tricky shot
because you're inside,

424
00:35:45,720 --> 00:35:48,188
you go outside, you come back inside,

425
00:35:48,240 --> 00:35:51,949
and right there, on his back,

426
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:58,348
you'll see what cinematographers
will recognise - an iris shift -

427
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,392
because of the change from light to dark.

428
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:34,117
This is back at that zoo set,

429
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,598
this shot, just to show
how you go back and forth,

430
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:43,279
is Ed feeding the big cats
in New Orleans,

431
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,993
this is actually how they lived there.

432
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:53,549
But when you go back this way,
you're shooting on stage.

433
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:01,157
We shot this little soap opera,
you always do this,

434
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:05,113
it's easier to shoot your own
than buy them.

435
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:08,116
This is a very famous chimp.

436
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:12,631
Whatever movies you saw
around the late '70s and early '80s,

437
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:14,671
this was the chimp you saw.

438
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:36,073
Given the obsession with uniforms -

439
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:40,113
earlier it was all the
Japanese outfits on the schoolkids,

440
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:45,188
now it's the Boy Scouts -

441
00:37:45,240 --> 00:37:48,596
Scarfiotti, the way it worked was,

442
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,438
he was in control of
the whole visual team,

443
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:55,189
so that wardrobe came through
the production designer.

444
00:37:55,240 --> 00:37:58,789
Make-up came through
the production designer.

445
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:01,513
A lot of set design and colour

446
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:06,588
and a lot of what John Bailey did
came through the production designer.

447
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:12,395
That's the European system

448
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,352
and if you have
a very strong visual talent,

449
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:17,595
you can work that way.

450
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:19,790
Usually, it doesn't work that way

451
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,276
because everybody has
their own little fiefdom.

452
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:27,836
Wardrobe wants to be directly
responsible to the director,

453
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:32,556
they don't want to have to go
through a production designer.

454
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,189
This is a bar in the Quarter.

455
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:43,116
I love this shot,

456
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:45,594
both these girls are so beautiful,

457
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:49,076
and their beauties are
of a completely different type.

458
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:52,510
Different colouring, different clothes,

459
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,836
different facial histories.

460
00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:05,030
There's a little homage coming up.

461
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:09,358
In the Jacques Tourneur film

462
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:16,988
there's a scene
where a woman speaks to Irena,

463
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:21,833
so I decided to drop a little shot in here

464
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:27,079
that reflected back
to the earlier Cat People.

465
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:31,352
But also, it's in keeping with
a number of shots in this film,

466
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,871
which are there simply to be mysterious,
which really don't make sense.

467
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:40,550
Like that weird kid sitting on the bus
or like Marilyn Monroe.

468
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,270
Here you go into the mirror
for this homage shot.

469
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,911
And play a little sax.

470
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:58,228
What's nice about these little...

471
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,671
This is what I call a blindside POV.

472
00:40:02,720 --> 00:40:06,952
It's a retreating shot,
the POV of someone who is exiting

473
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,560
but not looking at the subject.

474
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:14,196
So it's what they would see
if they had eyes in the back of their head.

475
00:40:14,240 --> 00:40:18,279
I started using blindside POVs
in American Gigolo

476
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:22,393
and I've been using them
in every film since.

477
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,472
Going back to these
mysterious little shots.

478
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,910
They're kind of nice,
you put them in here and there,

479
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,635
people think that they
mean something but they don't.

480
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:39,992
All they do is increase
the exotic environment.

481
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,788
This is a Whitlock matte painting.

482
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:48,513
The bottom is the set,
the top is a painting.

483
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:58,271
Again, here, you know,

484
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:03,792
you're always thinking of
how to make it feel more exotic

485
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:05,717
and how can I use the colours

486
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:09,548
so you start using the fan and so forth.

487
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:16,557
We ended up with In The Jungle,

488
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:22,118
we started out with What's New,
Pussycat? But couldn't get the rights.

489
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,394
That's a real leopard.

490
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:36,118
Not the crazy Chinese leopard,
it's a different one.

491
00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:48,870
You can see the slant of its head,
leopards are different to mountain lions,

492
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,673
their heads are fuller, more slanted.

493
00:41:51,720 --> 00:41:54,280
And, of course, they're scarier.

494
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:11,632
This is the real leopard,
this was very tricky.

495
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:14,797
We're back here, we're very protected...

496
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:18,997
very worried about Ed getting too close,

497
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,555
because the leopard
is not a trainable animal.

498
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:30,075
Again, the baseboard of this cage
is full of those whistles,

499
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:34,398
which are causing this leopard
to behave in this manner.

500
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:08,832
Obviously, this was a show
that was pretty heavy on special effects.

501
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,394
Here's the triumphant real leopard.

502
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:19,470
A kind of little surreal, magical shot.

503
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:28,917
In the pre-digital era you were stuck,
in many cases,

504
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:34,796
trying to do things in real time

505
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:37,798
and you couldn't go back
and clean them up.

506
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:42,436
Here is a very Scarfiotti detail.

507
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:45,631
This is a set he built.

508
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:52,233
Underneath that tarp
is a priceless, old, vintage MG,

509
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,030
which we never see.

510
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:57,435
That kind of thing tickled him -

511
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,950
put a beautiful MG under there
but let's never look at it.

512
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:05,596
Here's a shot coming up
from Conformist.

513
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,915
It's where you go on a Dutch

514
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:15,878
and you use the opening of a gate
to skew you back to the horizontal.

515
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:20,789
In Conformist, that angle is used
at Trintignant's mother's house.

516
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:26,996
When he goes there and opens the gate

517
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:30,032
it goes from the skew to the horizontal.

518
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:35,714
John and I didn't fool around
too much with gels here.

519
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:41,357
I mean in this film, but in this case
we decided to have a little fun

520
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:44,392
and break out the lime gels.

521
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:52,958
Those shadows on the walls
are simply pieces of tape

522
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:59,109
put up to create an interesting effect.

523
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,997
And the green is purely fun.

524
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:08,430
There's no real reason
why that should be green.

525
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:32,393
Scarfiotti went out
and did a number of films.

526
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:42,309
He died, I believe, about '94 or '95.

527
00:45:45,240 --> 00:45:49,392
A very influential man.

528
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:55,514
I love this shot here -
leaving her in the mirror.

529
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:06,390
When we start tracking them around,
this is hand-held.

530
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:10,917
This right here.

531
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:16,114
We're hand-holding,
rather than on a dolly or Steadicam,

532
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:23,794
in order to try to catch the cadence,
the POV of the stalker.

533
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:02,438
This is where the brother
is coming on to the sister,

534
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:10,433
trying to convince her
that they share this cat heritage.

535
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:17,510
One thing they do share
is the ability to act in reverse motion

536
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:23,396
which will happen shortly,
as she flies out of the window.

537
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:29,313
I like this dialogue.
This was in Alan's original script.

538
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:38,640
The biggest change between
the original script

539
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:41,399
and the final version was the ending.

540
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:54,754
Now he's gonna jump up
in reverse motion and take off.

541
00:47:56,880 --> 00:48:03,638
In the original script
there was a dark old house

542
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:06,672
which would be this house.

543
00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:15,118
It burned to the ground
and the monster was destroyed.

544
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:24,468
I changed the ending so that
instead of killing the monster,

545
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:27,557
the protagonist made love
to the monster.

546
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:32,275
Which, of course,
is a rather radical change.

547
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:42,188
Ronnie here is the gaffer.

548
00:49:10,240 --> 00:49:15,189
This actor is Frankie Faison,
who is quite a wonderful actor.

549
00:49:15,240 --> 00:49:20,553
I don't know quite why,
I've liked his work ever since,

550
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:26,072
but when I was editing the film,
I wasn't happy with his voice.

551
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:31,752
So I brought in another actor, Albert Hall,
who had been in Apocalypse Now.

552
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:35,156
So this is Albert Hall's voice
and Frankie Faison's body.

553
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:38,317
I don't know whether
it made a difference

554
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:41,432
but at the time it seemed
like a good idea.

555
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:53,916
This, again, is Scarfiotti's notion

556
00:49:53,960 --> 00:50:00,035
with the angels in the sand
and the sculpture of the wood slats.

557
00:50:11,240 --> 00:50:15,995
Looking at a scene like this,

558
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:22,513
it seems obvious to say
but many people don't realise this,

559
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:28,112
the use of the khaki
and the red and the brown

560
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:32,199
was very calculated
and decided beforehand.

561
00:50:32,240 --> 00:50:38,998
It was decided to have the two of them
in red, in that set, at that time.

562
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:49,436
Whenever an actor pulls out a cigarette,

563
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:55,555
you can assume that a lighting trick
is gonna come up, and here it is.

564
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:06,152
Many is the film where
one or two cigarettes

565
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,078
can fill up an amphitheatre with smoke.

566
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:23,594
Here you have
this European notion of the police

567
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:36,314
with this Wehrmacht black leather
trench coat as a police coat.

568
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:40,838
Here is another
receding point of view.

569
00:51:56,160 --> 00:52:01,678
When we were in New Orleans,
we shot there about three weeks.

570
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:04,915
We shot back in the studio
for six weeks,

571
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:08,953
then we went back to News Orleans
and shot another week.

572
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:18,148
Here's the car we never get to see.

573
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:32,668
I love the location aspect of this film.

574
00:52:32,720 --> 00:52:35,917
Maybe that's because
it was New Orleans

575
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:44,959
and because it was
a crazy time in my life

576
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:50,269
and in Hollywood at that time.

577
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:52,436
It was the end of the drug days.

578
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:57,075
While I was editing this movie,
Belushi died.

579
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:01,477
I mark John's death

580
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:06,594
with the end of the era
of permissive drug use in Hollywood.

581
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:10,633
In the years before that,
there had been this notion

582
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:18,189
that cocaine was not addictive
and that it was very much up front.

583
00:53:18,240 --> 00:53:20,151
The first cocaine I ever took

584
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:24,637
was given to me by my
production manager on Blue Collar.

585
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:29,549
This was the end of
that four or five years

586
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:33,878
where drug use was deemed
permissible in Hollywood.

587
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:40,155
It affected this film, as it did
many other films at this time.

588
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:47,754
In a case like this, you can see
all the design priorities -

589
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:51,713
that bed, the blanket, the painting.

590
00:53:55,280 --> 00:54:01,753
Here's a little homage
to the film I wanted to do and did next,

591
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:05,793
which was the life of Yukio Mishima.

592
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:34,115
This is one of those cases
where you have a driving shot

593
00:54:34,160 --> 00:54:39,632
and you tell the actors to loosen it up.

594
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,036
It's always better if they can
come up with something.

595
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:47,915
Because it doesn't feel scripted.
That wasn't scripted.

596
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:53,396
Now we're out in Slidell,

597
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:57,479
which is probably full
of condominiums by now.

598
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:09,115
We found this little building
in the bayou and painted it red

599
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:11,993
so that we could do this shot.

600
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:28,709
This was a particularly difficult location.

601
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:34,312
Very mosquito-infested,
particularly when shooting at night.

602
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:41,389
The crew was warned
to be completely covered up.

603
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:48,351
A couple of the electricians
thought they wouldn't have to do that

604
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:51,198
and one of them ended up in hospital.

605
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:20,115
There's the story of Paul
and Irena running,

606
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:22,549
which is the cat story.

607
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:27,913
Then there's this love story

608
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:33,030
with the all-American zookeeper

609
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:38,556
falling in love
with this mesmerising creature.

610
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:40,830
Anyone familiar with New Orleans

611
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:46,000
knows that the cemetery plots
are above ground

612
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,077
because New Orleans is below sea level,

613
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:54,877
therefore they cannot bury bodies
below the ground.

614
00:56:54,920 --> 00:57:00,199
So you have these wonderful
and unique types of cemeteries.

615
00:57:00,240 --> 00:57:02,708
Here, you have a mysterious shot.

616
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:08,312
A little back-pan into two bricks
which has no meaning,

617
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:13,559
other than to try to signify something.

618
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:30,673
Here we are at night,
out in the Slidell bayou.

619
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:34,076
This gorgeous light for Nastassia.

620
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:41,037
This was the night mosquitoes
did so much damage to our crew.

621
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:45,756
It's one of those cases
where you're trying to look outside

622
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:51,272
because your crew is suffering so much
out in the mosquito-ridden bayou

623
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:53,629
that you want the audience to know

624
00:57:53,680 --> 00:57:58,276
that you're not in the studio,
that you're actually on location.

625
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:10,030
The plot point here is that she's a virgin

626
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:20,636
and at some point, her sexual life
will bring her to being a cat again.

627
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:52,959
A little macabre humour
with our theme here,

628
00:58:53,000 --> 00:59:03,240
which is the flaccid cat trying to get it up

629
00:59:03,280 --> 00:59:05,157
but she helps him out.

630
00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:11,673
Both Malcolm and Nastassia
kept cats around

631
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:15,474
before we were shooting
and when we were shooting

632
00:59:15,520 --> 00:59:20,958
and tried to use cat mannerisms

633
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:26,472
in their steps and in their walk.

634
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:34,311
Actually, what's in some way
interesting about this film

635
00:59:38,720 --> 00:59:43,271
is back then,
which is 20 years ago, in 1981,

636
00:59:45,920 --> 00:59:51,313
this film was not considered
completely outrageous

637
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:53,510
in terms of its sexuality.

638
00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:55,551
This was an R.

639
00:59:57,400 --> 01:00:02,997
I don't know quite why but
we've recently had a sort of puritanical

640
01:00:05,960 --> 01:00:10,112
swing in the last ten years,
which I think is ending again now,

641
01:00:12,080 --> 01:00:15,436
which made films like this look

642
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:19,993
racier than they seemed at the time.

643
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:32,718
The little boom point of view coming up.

644
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:35,751
I don't know really

645
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:41,190
what these shots...
how effective they are.

646
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:43,629
I know they take a lot of time to do

647
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:46,638
and they seemed
very important at the time.

648
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:53,992
Now, this is magic hour on the bayou.

649
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:58,795
And we were gonna shoot this
upcoming scene on the bayou

650
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:07,628
but once we got there
and saw the density of the bug life,

651
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:13,789
we realised that it would not be possible
for Nastassia to be naked out there.

652
01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:19,552
So when she exits this shot

653
01:01:20,760 --> 01:01:23,991
she will exit Louisiana

654
01:01:24,040 --> 01:01:26,998
because there's no way
we could have shot it.

655
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:30,271
In fact, I'm surprised
we even got this much done

656
01:01:30,320 --> 01:01:36,077
because everyone around her was
covered head to toe for the mosquitoes.

657
01:01:37,120 --> 01:01:42,114
So where we are now
is in the botanical garden

658
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:44,151
in Los Angeles.

659
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:52,031
At that time, I wanted to do
a kind of a cat vision,

660
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:57,359
whereby she saw the animals
differently than how they were.

661
01:01:58,160 --> 01:02:00,799
Today you'd do it all digital.

662
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:05,118
A man named Robert Blalack came up
with a technique we finally used.

663
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:09,754
One thing that Scarfiotti said
when he first saw the film

664
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:14,669
was one of the things he liked a lot
about Nastassia's body

665
01:02:14,720 --> 01:02:19,669
was that it didn't look like an American
body, it looked like a European body.

666
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:22,830
And I think that's true.

667
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:30,560
In this upcoming sequence

668
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:36,993
what we did was we dyed the rabbit,

669
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:40,157
I think a kind of orange colour,

670
01:02:40,200 --> 01:02:42,509
and the snake,

671
01:02:42,560 --> 01:02:49,272
so we were able then to manipulate
the colour in the printing process.

672
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:53,916
Today it's a common technique -
all done digitally.

673
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:58,476
The whole image can be black and white
and the snake any colour you want.

674
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:02,718
But back then you had to dye
the animals certain colours

675
01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:06,799
that would react to
different printing in different ways.

676
01:03:26,760 --> 01:03:29,274
Actually, the man who did this...

677
01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:35,199
The original idea
came from a movie called Wolfen,

678
01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:37,435
where you had a wolf vision,

679
01:03:37,480 --> 01:03:42,793
and this was meant to be
the parallel thing - the cat vision.

680
01:03:54,680 --> 01:03:58,275
I want to talk at some point
about Moroder,

681
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:05,428
who I first used in
American Gigolo because,

682
01:04:05,480 --> 01:04:08,552
just like I used Armani,
it seemed to be...

683
01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:12,354
I wanted to make Los Angeles
look like a new place

684
01:04:12,400 --> 01:04:15,915
and so I used that music out of Munich -

685
01:04:18,240 --> 01:04:20,196
the Man Machine music,

686
01:04:20,240 --> 01:04:23,357
and then the clothes out of Milan
as a new axis.

687
01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:38,312
So here's Malcolm...

688
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:42,751
The stuff on his body

689
01:04:42,800 --> 01:04:45,997
is meant to be a kind of

690
01:04:46,040 --> 01:04:51,273
placenta-like remains
of when he was a leopard.

691
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:22,197
This was Malcolm's idea,
which was very nice,

692
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:25,949
to gobble the placenta and eat it

693
01:05:26,000 --> 01:05:29,515
and then have a vanity moment
and look in the mirror.

694
01:05:39,080 --> 01:05:43,995
But the stuff didn't actually
taste very good as you could just see.

695
01:06:09,440 --> 01:06:13,592
I guess here, as throughout the film,

696
01:06:13,640 --> 01:06:18,270
my interests
were not so much on the gore itself

697
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:22,598
as in some kind of tension

698
01:06:22,640 --> 01:06:26,758
and then just the little flash of gore.

699
01:06:27,800 --> 01:06:30,951
So the sound of the phone,

700
01:06:31,000 --> 01:06:35,755
to me, was more interesting
than the body itself.

701
01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:50,950
Again, all these visual references

702
01:06:52,200 --> 01:06:55,272
to classical antiquity
and the animal kingdom

703
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:59,074
and griffins and lions and stuff,

704
01:07:00,520 --> 01:07:03,273
which the film is replete in.

705
01:07:08,320 --> 01:07:15,271
Here is a scene which is going to
play with our two colours,

706
01:07:16,960 --> 01:07:22,512
where you have a salmon
and a lime light that are interacting.

707
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:32,914
This was one of the scenes that
we came back to New Orleans to shoot.

708
01:07:35,200 --> 01:07:38,476
I'm not quite sure why.

709
01:07:38,520 --> 01:07:41,080
I guess we must have
cut out some things

710
01:07:41,120 --> 01:07:45,318
and felt that we needed this scene
to replace what we'd cut out.

711
01:07:47,400 --> 01:07:51,393
Yep, this is it right here - this exposition.

712
01:07:51,440 --> 01:07:53,908
When we were putting the film together

713
01:07:53,960 --> 01:07:58,351
we felt it needed this kind of a speech
so we went back and shot it.

714
01:08:23,160 --> 01:08:28,439
I like this notion of laying the action
way on the edge of the frame.

715
01:08:29,000 --> 01:08:36,634
Unfortunately, the way most movies
end up on video and television,

716
01:08:38,960 --> 01:08:42,191
they make readjustments
and they pan and scan.

717
01:09:13,640 --> 01:09:18,350
These extras hated this, too.
God, there was... Very buggy out here.

718
01:09:19,960 --> 01:09:26,229
This is from Conformist, from a scene
in the woods at the end of Conformist.

719
01:09:26,280 --> 01:09:29,556
We burnt this all out, it was not this way.

720
01:09:29,600 --> 01:09:33,149
So we burnt it out
and then put smoke pots in there

721
01:09:33,200 --> 01:09:35,270
and then had these poor fellows

722
01:09:35,320 --> 01:09:41,270
in these huge, heavy, hot,
black rubber outfits

723
01:09:41,320 --> 01:09:43,550
walking through here.

724
01:09:43,600 --> 01:09:47,434
When you think about,
it makes no sense whatsoever.

725
01:09:47,480 --> 01:09:49,630
It's strictly a visual conceit.

726
01:10:28,680 --> 01:10:32,593
So our poor protagonist here, Oliver,

727
01:10:34,440 --> 01:10:38,956
is falling into the clutches
of his Beatrice complex.

728
01:11:00,040 --> 01:11:03,430
You can see Malcolm out there
waiting to come in.

729
01:11:03,480 --> 01:11:05,710
I just noticed that.

730
01:11:11,000 --> 01:11:13,992
Here's Nastassia in her cat mode.

731
01:11:26,360 --> 01:11:30,148
That painting on the wall was selected...

732
01:11:30,200 --> 01:11:35,877
Actually, we had it done. Two creatures
being pulled apart from one body.

733
01:11:46,080 --> 01:11:49,197
This line,
"We can live together as mates",

734
01:11:49,240 --> 01:11:55,349
humoured Malcolm no end
because of the British connotation.

735
01:11:56,480 --> 01:11:59,756
I heard that line every day
for a couple of weeks.

736
01:12:28,120 --> 01:12:32,193
This was a little something
that Malcolm came up with, too.

737
01:12:32,240 --> 01:12:35,516
This was nice, a little kitty-kitty thing.

738
01:12:40,360 --> 01:12:42,351
You know, you...

739
01:12:44,040 --> 01:12:48,750
Rather quickly in directing films
you learn to trust actors

740
01:12:48,800 --> 01:12:51,473
or you learn which actors you can trust,

741
01:12:51,520 --> 01:12:55,638
which ones have the instincts

742
01:12:55,680 --> 01:13:00,674
and which ones will take you
to an interesting place

743
01:13:00,720 --> 01:13:03,757
if you give them the licence to do so.

744
01:13:20,840 --> 01:13:27,234
I think in many ways the secret of
designing a set is what you don't do.

745
01:13:31,040 --> 01:13:34,953
Most of what people think of
as production design

746
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:39,437
is really just interior decoration,

747
01:13:39,480 --> 01:13:45,157
which is just hanging stuff on walls,
junking rooms up.

748
01:13:46,880 --> 01:13:51,271
It takes more courage to take a picture
off the wall than put one on

749
01:13:51,320 --> 01:13:54,153
and that's what
the good designers know.

750
01:14:12,160 --> 01:14:16,392
Here's one of the unfortunate things
about the pre-digital era.

751
01:14:19,080 --> 01:14:22,311
No matter how well
you did it at that time,

752
01:14:22,360 --> 01:14:25,511
it still, you know, looks like

753
01:14:27,080 --> 01:14:32,871
an appliance,
an artificial hand that is busting open.

754
01:14:33,840 --> 01:14:38,516
Today, digitally, you can take a real hand
and make that actually happen

755
01:14:38,560 --> 01:14:40,994
and it would be much more realistic.

756
01:14:43,840 --> 01:14:46,035
Even though Cat People
started out as a horror film,

757
01:14:47,360 --> 01:14:53,754
it ended up becoming more and more
of a kind of perverse erotic love story.

758
01:14:55,680 --> 01:14:58,478
And the horror elements remained

759
01:14:58,520 --> 01:15:03,674
but I think the reason why it wasn't
as commercially successful in the US

760
01:15:03,720 --> 01:15:08,316
was that it really didn't have
its heart in the horror genre.

761
01:15:08,360 --> 01:15:10,191
It had its heart elsewhere.

762
01:15:10,240 --> 01:15:13,994
It had its heart in
the perverse-romantic genre.

763
01:15:14,760 --> 01:15:18,719
The film performed very well in Europe

764
01:15:18,760 --> 01:15:21,035
and I don't know quite why that is.

765
01:15:21,080 --> 01:15:24,277
Maybe it's because
those genre distinctions

766
01:15:24,320 --> 01:15:27,278
were not as well drawn at that time.

767
01:15:30,520 --> 01:15:35,435
There's gonna be a shot
coming up - this shot here -

768
01:15:35,480 --> 01:15:39,792
where Malcolm comes through
the shadows as a human being

769
01:15:39,840 --> 01:15:41,956
and comes out as a cat.

770
01:15:44,200 --> 01:15:47,715
So back there - that's Malcolm -

771
01:15:48,640 --> 01:15:52,394
and then on the other side
of that shadow

772
01:15:52,440 --> 01:15:54,749
is a black mountain lion.

773
01:15:55,840 --> 01:16:01,039
And in the passage in between
Malcolm and the mountain lion,

774
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:06,710
we rotoscoped the yellow eyes in
so that the eyes would be continuous

775
01:16:06,760 --> 01:16:10,230
from Malcolm's eyes
to the mountain lion's eyes.

776
01:16:39,400 --> 01:16:43,029
I'm not much on storyboards,
never have been,

777
01:16:43,080 --> 01:16:46,629
this was storyboarded
more than would be normal

778
01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:50,468
because you had layers
of special effects.

779
01:16:50,520 --> 01:16:54,115
You had appliances,
you had visual effects

780
01:16:54,160 --> 01:16:56,799
and then you had animal effects.

781
01:16:57,600 --> 01:17:01,309
So you had to have a clear idea
of what you were going to do.

782
01:17:02,720 --> 01:17:06,838
Here we are back in
Albert Whitlock's painting - the top part.

783
01:17:18,040 --> 01:17:23,160
This is obviously a real leopard.

784
01:17:23,200 --> 01:17:26,192
In fact, I believe this is our...

785
01:17:29,320 --> 01:17:34,030
Maybe it's our friend the Chinese
leopard before he split his head open

786
01:17:34,080 --> 01:17:36,230
but anyway, it's a real leopard.

787
01:17:36,280 --> 01:17:42,469
And he is drugged up.

788
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:47,230
Unfortunately, of course, if he was
actually dead, there would be rigor

789
01:17:47,280 --> 01:17:50,829
but then he wouldn't
look like a leopard

790
01:17:50,880 --> 01:17:53,553
so it's constantly a trade-off.

791
01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:57,275
This was a scene
that I was a little disappointed in

792
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:03,755
primarily because I didn't think
we really had the technology

793
01:18:03,800 --> 01:18:06,553
to do it the way
it should have been done.

794
01:18:09,600 --> 01:18:12,876
With today's technology, you would...

795
01:18:12,920 --> 01:18:17,277
you could do the scene
in a more interesting way.

796
01:18:17,320 --> 01:18:22,713
But the autopsy on the leopard
never felt right

797
01:18:22,760 --> 01:18:26,878
because we were faking too much of it.

798
01:18:26,920 --> 01:18:31,755
Between the real leopard
and the fake leopard.

799
01:18:35,240 --> 01:18:40,268
And also it's sort of
based on a device

800
01:18:40,320 --> 01:18:43,915
that was a little hokey.

801
01:18:43,960 --> 01:18:45,791
It was...

802
01:18:45,840 --> 01:18:48,115
It's hokey now and it was hokey then -

803
01:18:48,160 --> 01:18:52,836
the idea of the hand
coming out of the leopard.

804
01:18:54,320 --> 01:18:57,869
I think the idea for the scene
was a good idea

805
01:18:57,920 --> 01:19:02,755
but we didn't have the time or
the technology to do it absolutely right.

806
01:19:50,480 --> 01:19:54,075
Yeah, I think of all the stuff in the film,

807
01:19:54,120 --> 01:20:00,514
that's, you know,
a really kind of wince moment for me

808
01:20:00,560 --> 01:20:02,915
because I think the film in general

809
01:20:02,960 --> 01:20:11,550
moved above and beyond
the superficial tricks of the horror trade

810
01:20:11,600 --> 01:20:16,913
and then you have a scene like that
which is clearly very gimmicky.

811
01:20:19,960 --> 01:20:23,350
Here is a scene
where I just love the colours.

812
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:29,233
And the use of that red scarf,

813
01:20:29,280 --> 01:20:31,874
just quite extraordinary to me.

814
01:20:40,880 --> 01:20:43,917
So here is our cat girl

815
01:20:45,080 --> 01:20:47,958
in her first cage.

816
01:20:49,560 --> 01:20:55,476
We made it a visual choice
not to put her behind glass

817
01:20:55,520 --> 01:20:58,557
or put her...

818
01:20:58,600 --> 01:21:04,232
Normally, this kind of wire fence
would never exist in a prison.

819
01:21:05,080 --> 01:21:08,072
But when you live in the...

820
01:21:08,120 --> 01:21:11,829
The power of making movies
is you have that visual world

821
01:21:11,880 --> 01:21:15,953
and people watch a scene like this
and very few of them think,

822
01:21:16,000 --> 01:21:23,156
"Gee, why do they have a wire fence
in a visiting room?"

823
01:21:33,160 --> 01:21:39,395
So the use of the wire fence
is thematic rather than literal.

824
01:21:39,440 --> 01:21:42,193
Again, here we're having fun with colour.

825
01:21:44,680 --> 01:21:49,356
And the kids are watching
the little cat commercial there.

826
01:22:06,920 --> 01:22:13,393
So all the little bits of humour
and black humour,

827
01:22:13,440 --> 01:22:17,877
sometimes I don't know whether
you do them for yourself

828
01:22:17,920 --> 01:22:19,911
or for the audience.

829
01:22:21,240 --> 01:22:24,038
A lot of times,
people just don't get them

830
01:22:24,080 --> 01:22:26,594
but they're fun to do and you get them.

831
01:22:31,280 --> 01:22:35,398
Now, what she is looking at here

832
01:22:35,440 --> 01:22:38,034
is a projected screen,

833
01:22:39,560 --> 01:22:43,269
which is reflected against that window,
and here we...

834
01:22:43,320 --> 01:22:45,117
This is reverse motion -

835
01:22:45,160 --> 01:22:49,199
she's moving her head back into
a synchronised frame,

836
01:22:49,240 --> 01:22:51,196
just like at the beginning -

837
01:22:51,240 --> 01:22:55,711
and she will now transform
into herself at the airport.

838
01:22:58,280 --> 01:23:01,909
And this was meant to be

839
01:23:03,800 --> 01:23:07,759
the dream life of the cat people

840
01:23:07,800 --> 01:23:13,477
and her realisation of who she is.

841
01:23:13,520 --> 01:23:17,672
And this is the New Orleans airport
where she first came in

842
01:23:17,720 --> 01:23:19,915
and then she goes through the doorway

843
01:23:19,960 --> 01:23:26,115
into the stage set
that we used for the prologue.

844
01:23:29,760 --> 01:23:34,470
And we had to dye all this sand orange

845
01:23:34,520 --> 01:23:38,991
and it turned out to be
some kind of pollutant

846
01:23:39,040 --> 01:23:41,998
and we had to shut down for a while

847
01:23:42,040 --> 01:23:45,635
because people
were getting upset about it and sick.

848
01:24:05,920 --> 01:24:07,990
This is...

849
01:24:09,280 --> 01:24:13,239
Malcolm is riding on the dolly,
that's why he doesn't move

850
01:24:13,280 --> 01:24:16,670
and she's walking behind
against a huge fan.

851
01:24:17,560 --> 01:24:23,317
What we had in mind here
was that she sees her mother,

852
01:24:23,360 --> 01:24:27,399
based on a famous
surreal leopard painting.

853
01:24:27,440 --> 01:24:31,831
We actually shot that but it didn't
work out, it looked too hokey.

854
01:24:31,880 --> 01:24:35,429
These poor leopards are dying now,
it is hot up there.

855
01:24:35,480 --> 01:24:39,553
It is very hot
and they're all tethered to that damn tree

856
01:24:39,600 --> 01:24:44,196
by wires to leashes around their necks.

857
01:24:44,240 --> 01:24:49,439
In fact, during one shot
a leopard actually fell off the tree

858
01:24:49,480 --> 01:24:51,869
and was swinging from the tree

859
01:24:51,920 --> 01:24:54,559
and the animal handlers had to rush over

860
01:24:54,600 --> 01:24:58,036
and rescue him
and get him back up on the tree.

861
01:24:58,960 --> 01:25:03,431
But I love this Jungian kind of imagery

862
01:25:03,480 --> 01:25:08,713
of the tree of life
being the tree of leopards.

863
01:25:09,760 --> 01:25:14,834
This is a real leopard, that's why
Malcolm's not getting too close,

864
01:25:14,880 --> 01:25:20,955
and there may be an outtake
somewhere else on the DVD,

865
01:25:21,480 --> 01:25:25,712
but that had been
that surreal leopard painting

866
01:25:25,760 --> 01:25:30,311
in which Nastassia's mother
was actually playing her real mother.

867
01:25:36,760 --> 01:25:39,479
Here's what they call a sc�ne � faire,

868
01:25:39,520 --> 01:25:42,478
which is some sort of obligatory scene.

869
01:25:42,520 --> 01:25:44,715
There's always a scene...

870
01:25:44,760 --> 01:25:48,753
Here again is a mysterious figure,
which means nothing.

871
01:25:49,520 --> 01:25:51,954
Or everything.

872
01:25:52,000 --> 01:25:54,560
An obligatory scene in a movie like this

873
01:25:54,600 --> 01:25:57,990
where the girl gets chased
by the mysterious object

874
01:25:58,040 --> 01:26:02,272
and the mysterious object
is then revealed to be a harmless object,

875
01:26:02,320 --> 01:26:04,311
in this case the dog.

876
01:26:07,880 --> 01:26:10,474
We're in Audubon Park
in New Orleans for this.

877
01:26:19,800 --> 01:26:22,758
Again, references to antiquity.

878
01:26:38,120 --> 01:26:40,111
This shot right here

879
01:26:41,360 --> 01:26:44,079
comes from the original Cat People,

880
01:26:44,120 --> 01:26:49,274
where there is a similar
sort of shock effect

881
01:26:49,320 --> 01:26:54,110
of the noise of a streetcar,
meant to scare you.

882
01:26:54,160 --> 01:26:59,553
And the following scene in the pool
was also in the original.

883
01:27:00,800 --> 01:27:06,557
This is Berry Berenson, Marisa's sister,
the wife of Tony Perkins at that time.

884
01:27:30,640 --> 01:27:34,713
I probably saw the original

885
01:27:36,520 --> 01:27:40,593
I don't know, three or four times
and then went on from there.

886
01:27:43,760 --> 01:27:47,036
The script was sort of
based on the original film

887
01:27:47,080 --> 01:27:49,640
but kept getting further away from it.

888
01:27:49,680 --> 01:27:53,832
And the more interesting stuff we did,
the further we got from it

889
01:27:53,880 --> 01:27:57,759
until we got into different
thematic areas altogether.

890
01:28:00,920 --> 01:28:03,673
This is a swimming pool up in Pasadena.

891
01:28:06,920 --> 01:28:08,990
We're using a hothead,

892
01:28:09,040 --> 01:28:12,953
which had just started
to be used at that time.

893
01:28:13,000 --> 01:28:16,515
A hothead is a camera
without an operator on it -

894
01:28:16,560 --> 01:28:19,393
a remote camera,
which everyone uses now

895
01:28:19,440 --> 01:28:21,954
but they'd just started at that time.

896
01:28:22,760 --> 01:28:24,990
You couldn't use an operator here,

897
01:28:25,040 --> 01:28:29,113
as the camera's actually over the water
and it'd be too heavy.

898
01:28:30,320 --> 01:28:33,517
This, if I remember,
is a shot from the original

899
01:28:33,560 --> 01:28:37,030
where you have the shadows
against the walls.

900
01:28:40,400 --> 01:28:44,632
And the hothead's gonna come down.

901
01:28:47,760 --> 01:28:51,719
I think in the original
they actually had a cat shadow,

902
01:28:51,760 --> 01:28:53,830
we just have sort of a growl.

903
01:28:59,720 --> 01:29:04,111
But obviously, we made every attempt to

904
01:29:07,720 --> 01:29:12,111
use as many
erotic components as we could.

905
01:29:28,080 --> 01:29:33,518
Irena here, after having
had her vision on the train,

906
01:29:33,560 --> 01:29:38,475
has come back and now
is no longer the conflicted young girl

907
01:29:38,520 --> 01:29:41,637
but is the cat person.

908
01:29:59,120 --> 01:30:02,237
The film is now
coming into its final stretch -

909
01:30:02,280 --> 01:30:07,434
this odd darkroom in a bedroom, which
doesn't make a lot of practical sense,

910
01:30:07,480 --> 01:30:09,710
it makes wonderful visual sense.

911
01:30:09,760 --> 01:30:13,753
We didn't really
preview this film much.

912
01:30:15,240 --> 01:30:19,028
Back then, not every film was previewed.

913
01:30:19,080 --> 01:30:22,038
In fact, most films weren't previewed.

914
01:30:22,080 --> 01:30:27,393
And I had made this change
at the ending -

915
01:30:27,440 --> 01:30:29,829
rather than kill the beast,

916
01:30:29,880 --> 01:30:34,431
to make love to it
and then put it in a shrine.

917
01:30:36,680 --> 01:30:39,877
I remember the day it opened
at the Avco cinema

918
01:30:39,920 --> 01:30:42,514
on Wiltshire Boulevard in Westwood,

919
01:30:42,560 --> 01:30:48,430
Jerry Bruckheimer and the producer
and I went to the first screening,

920
01:30:48,480 --> 01:30:50,391
we sat in the back

921
01:30:50,440 --> 01:30:53,876
and there were
a couple of teenage girls in front of us

922
01:30:53,920 --> 01:30:56,718
and when it came to the bondage scene,

923
01:30:57,440 --> 01:31:02,753
when Oliver is tying up
the naked Irena to the bed

924
01:31:02,800 --> 01:31:07,555
so that he can screw her back
into being a leopard

925
01:31:07,600 --> 01:31:12,116
and David Bowie is singing
this primitive, religious kind of music,

926
01:31:12,160 --> 01:31:15,277
one girl turned
and put her hand over her mouth

927
01:31:15,320 --> 01:31:17,311
and said, "Oh, my God,"

928
01:31:17,360 --> 01:31:21,876
and I turned to Jerry and said,
"I think maybe we went too far."

929
01:31:21,920 --> 01:31:24,070
I love the fact that we went too far

930
01:31:24,120 --> 01:31:26,315
and in fact, if we'd previewed it,

931
01:31:26,360 --> 01:31:29,750
they probably would have made us
change the ending.

932
01:31:34,400 --> 01:31:38,712
Here, Irena arrives

933
01:31:38,760 --> 01:31:45,950
at his garage/apartment/darkroom.

934
01:32:05,760 --> 01:32:10,675
Again, a Scarfiotti-composed,
Bailey-composed shot.

935
01:32:12,480 --> 01:32:19,397
This is why this room
was designed in the way it was,

936
01:32:19,440 --> 01:32:23,672
so that you could do
these very nice trailing shots

937
01:32:23,720 --> 01:32:25,756
through these wood railings.

938
01:32:35,280 --> 01:32:38,829
Again, so much of this for me...

939
01:32:40,600 --> 01:32:43,910
the love of the textures -

940
01:32:43,960 --> 01:32:47,794
the painted brick, the wood,
the plaster, the human skin -

941
01:32:47,840 --> 01:32:49,990
all laid upon each other.

942
01:32:52,000 --> 01:32:59,156
For me, this film's great pleasures
are all in the visual aesthetics.

943
01:33:07,480 --> 01:33:14,158
So there's a kind of
Mission style chapel affectation here

944
01:33:16,120 --> 01:33:21,194
between these railings
and these church-like windows

945
01:33:22,600 --> 01:33:25,637
and, you know, building up to

946
01:33:26,880 --> 01:33:30,031
the moment of erotic transformation.

947
01:33:47,800 --> 01:33:50,917
The Burman brothers,
who did this transformation,

948
01:33:50,960 --> 01:33:55,158
they had been doing
transformations like this

949
01:33:55,200 --> 01:33:57,430
that had been in a number of films.

950
01:33:58,080 --> 01:34:01,436
In this predigital time
where we were doing this,

951
01:34:01,480 --> 01:34:05,951
we had to break down
her transformation

952
01:34:06,000 --> 01:34:08,833
into many steps and stages

953
01:34:08,880 --> 01:34:12,509
and you do it all bit by bit
and piece by piece.

954
01:34:15,320 --> 01:34:19,518
So there's the spine device
and the breast device

955
01:34:19,560 --> 01:34:21,357
and the finger device.

956
01:34:21,400 --> 01:34:24,551
I like this use of shadow here,
it's very nice.

957
01:34:34,560 --> 01:34:39,190
So here, you play a little bit with

958
01:34:40,480 --> 01:34:44,109
when is it going to happen?

959
01:34:46,560 --> 01:34:49,154
You try and let the audience think

960
01:34:49,200 --> 01:34:53,671
it's going to happen
before it actually does.

961
01:35:08,400 --> 01:35:13,269
Nastassia was relatively comfortable
at the time with the nudity.

962
01:35:13,320 --> 01:35:14,673
You have to be...

963
01:35:16,520 --> 01:35:21,310
There's a whole drill
and you have to be very protective

964
01:35:21,360 --> 01:35:27,196
but coming from the European tradition,

965
01:35:27,240 --> 01:35:31,870
she didn't have as much difficulty
as some Americans do.

966
01:35:31,920 --> 01:35:35,037
Of course, this was before
the world of the internet

967
01:35:35,080 --> 01:35:39,119
where so many actresses today
know that whatever they do in a film

968
01:35:39,160 --> 01:35:41,799
immediately pops up on the internet.

969
01:35:46,240 --> 01:35:54,875
Irena realises now that
she has been deflowered.

970
01:35:58,880 --> 01:36:01,269
This is particularly erotic for me,

971
01:36:01,320 --> 01:36:05,996
primarily because this is
such an androgynous looking shot,

972
01:36:06,040 --> 01:36:09,919
her hair in this scene looks so boyish.

973
01:36:19,320 --> 01:36:23,711
I think this was one
of the little snippets

974
01:36:23,760 --> 01:36:27,912
there was some talk of
people trying to get me to take out,

975
01:36:30,480 --> 01:36:34,632
but I was fond of it
for the reason I mentioned,

976
01:36:34,680 --> 01:36:36,910
the androgyny of it was really cool.

977
01:37:06,680 --> 01:37:11,435
So the upcoming transformation,

978
01:37:11,480 --> 01:37:16,474
which is triggered by the fly,

979
01:37:19,240 --> 01:37:22,676
is all done in individual pieces

980
01:37:22,720 --> 01:37:28,590
until, finally, you cut to a real leopard

981
01:37:28,640 --> 01:37:32,428
bursting through a sort of placenta.

982
01:37:33,800 --> 01:37:37,998
Again, a scene like this today

983
01:37:38,040 --> 01:37:41,316
is more interesting
historically than dramatically

984
01:37:41,360 --> 01:37:43,555
because we do this stuff

985
01:37:43,600 --> 01:37:47,673
so much more effectively
and seamlessly today.

986
01:37:52,080 --> 01:37:54,992
Today you could morph her whole face

987
01:37:55,040 --> 01:37:58,430
and you wouldn't
have to do it cut by cut.

988
01:38:06,680 --> 01:38:11,674
Stuff like this is no fun for an actress,

989
01:38:11,720 --> 01:38:15,952
this stuff is not pleasant to wear.

990
01:38:16,000 --> 01:38:20,039
That's an isolated piece,
that's not actually her,

991
01:38:20,080 --> 01:38:22,753
but it's no fun to put all this stuff on.

992
01:38:27,840 --> 01:38:31,071
That's a leopard. Right on top of John,

993
01:38:31,120 --> 01:38:35,238
this right here, is a mountain lion
that John is wrestling with.

994
01:38:40,160 --> 01:38:42,754
And that's a mountain lion.

995
01:38:42,800 --> 01:38:45,109
After a while, watching the film,

996
01:38:45,160 --> 01:38:50,393
you can spot the difference between
the mountain lions and the real leopards.

997
01:38:50,440 --> 01:38:53,671
The mountain lions
could be in contact with humans,

998
01:38:53,720 --> 01:38:55,711
and could be walking around,

999
01:38:55,760 --> 01:39:02,359
the real leopards had to be always
in a confined, secure environment.

1000
01:39:04,520 --> 01:39:08,433
That's something I like,
that little backward move.

1001
01:39:11,840 --> 01:39:14,798
It's just a little bit of fun.

1002
01:39:14,840 --> 01:39:18,355
In this film I was always trying to do that,

1003
01:39:18,400 --> 01:39:23,520
odd little moves, move backward
when people think you move forward,

1004
01:39:23,560 --> 01:39:25,869
and vice versa.

1005
01:39:45,000 --> 01:39:48,356
Now we're out in New Orleans,

1006
01:39:49,400 --> 01:39:53,871
shot this for two nights.

1007
01:39:55,920 --> 01:39:59,310
Helicopters and everything.

1008
01:40:12,200 --> 01:40:15,476
There was a point fairly early on

1009
01:40:15,520 --> 01:40:21,038
where there was some thought given to
using animatronic animals,

1010
01:40:21,080 --> 01:40:23,116
we did some exploration of that.

1011
01:40:23,160 --> 01:40:27,472
You have an animatronic hand
and a tail - you build those -

1012
01:40:27,520 --> 01:40:32,913
but for the most part
we used the real animals.

1013
01:40:32,960 --> 01:40:35,428
This is a mountain lion,

1014
01:40:35,480 --> 01:40:40,076
he's trapped here, this is on location.

1015
01:40:40,120 --> 01:40:42,350
It's very risky doing this

1016
01:40:42,400 --> 01:40:45,756
because the helicopter
was spooking him like crazy.

1017
01:40:51,760 --> 01:40:56,629
You can assume that in any scene
where you do not see the cat,

1018
01:40:56,680 --> 01:40:58,352
the cat is nowhere around.

1019
01:40:58,400 --> 01:41:01,039
These animals burn out very quickly

1020
01:41:01,080 --> 01:41:04,675
and you only use them
when you actually look at them.

1021
01:41:26,920 --> 01:41:29,388
At this point,

1022
01:41:29,440 --> 01:41:34,150
the great departure
from the original script,

1023
01:41:34,200 --> 01:41:37,510
the original idea, all starts.

1024
01:41:38,760 --> 01:41:42,309
Because what convention would dictate

1025
01:41:43,480 --> 01:41:48,634
is that he would go to kill the monster.

1026
01:41:48,680 --> 01:41:52,798
But, in fact, he's not
going to do that at all.

1027
01:41:54,360 --> 01:41:58,273
This shot here is from
American Friend by Wim Wenders,

1028
01:41:58,320 --> 01:42:00,754
where you're up on top, you drop down

1029
01:42:00,800 --> 01:42:03,633
just as the character turns his head.

1030
01:42:44,040 --> 01:42:48,352
This we still shot in Slidell

1031
01:42:48,400 --> 01:42:51,119
but once he gets inside,

1032
01:42:51,160 --> 01:42:54,994
because of the nature of
the shot I wanted,

1033
01:42:55,040 --> 01:42:57,349
we did that on location.

1034
01:42:57,400 --> 01:43:00,790
I wanted to do

1035
01:43:02,040 --> 01:43:07,558
a shot where you went
continuously from Oliver,

1036
01:43:08,480 --> 01:43:11,836
taking him down across the bed to Irena.

1037
01:43:30,400 --> 01:43:36,236
After the film was
all done and completed,

1038
01:43:36,280 --> 01:43:38,475
Nastassia had second thoughts

1039
01:43:38,520 --> 01:43:43,310
about the large amount
of nudity in the film,

1040
01:43:44,120 --> 01:43:48,636
and she went to Ned Tanen at Universal

1041
01:43:48,680 --> 01:43:52,912
and asked that it be cut out.

1042
01:43:55,600 --> 01:43:58,068
Part of this was the fact that

1043
01:43:58,120 --> 01:44:00,839
she and I were on
the outs at that time and she

1044
01:44:03,880 --> 01:44:06,030
was not happy with me, either.

1045
01:44:06,080 --> 01:44:09,356
But I met with Ned and he said,

1046
01:44:09,400 --> 01:44:12,517
"Was there anything
deceptive about it?"

1047
01:44:12,560 --> 01:44:16,189
I said, "No, it was exactly
what we all talked about.

1048
01:44:16,240 --> 01:44:17,878
"Nobody was tricked,

1049
01:44:17,920 --> 01:44:22,357
"told one thing
and used a different way."

1050
01:44:22,400 --> 01:44:24,789
He said, "In that case,

1051
01:44:24,840 --> 01:44:28,389
"this is the film we made,
we'll leave it the way it is,

1052
01:44:28,440 --> 01:44:31,830
"if she doesn't want to do publicity,
then she won't."

1053
01:44:31,880 --> 01:44:33,871
That's sort of what happened.

1054
01:44:35,560 --> 01:44:38,358
I love that shot in the window.

1055
01:44:38,400 --> 01:44:42,473
I love these shots
where the framing changes,

1056
01:44:42,520 --> 01:44:45,159
the camera either moves
from room to room

1057
01:44:45,200 --> 01:44:48,715
or the characters do
and you have blank spaces.

1058
01:45:05,440 --> 01:45:10,798
Right here starts to become
the "Oh, my God" section,

1059
01:45:10,840 --> 01:45:17,552
where you enter some kind of
perverse religious ritual.

1060
01:45:46,000 --> 01:45:48,434
I don't think this film
would get an R today,

1061
01:45:48,480 --> 01:45:53,508
they are more strict about nudity today
than they were back then.

1062
01:45:55,000 --> 01:45:58,072
But it'll change again, it always does.

1063
01:45:59,720 --> 01:46:04,669
There's a shot coming up

1064
01:46:04,720 --> 01:46:09,032
where you've got a remote camera
and you're on John,

1065
01:46:09,080 --> 01:46:12,755
he takes off his shirt and
you go across his back

1066
01:46:12,800 --> 01:46:15,234
and spin around 180 degrees

1067
01:46:15,280 --> 01:46:18,033
and reveal him on top of her.

1068
01:46:18,720 --> 01:46:22,030
We used a hothead for this
and this was the first time...

1069
01:46:24,120 --> 01:46:28,989
Hotheads at that time
had only been used for car commercials.

1070
01:46:29,040 --> 01:46:31,235
The guys who run the camera,

1071
01:46:31,280 --> 01:46:35,478
it was the first time they had done
a film scene with their camera,

1072
01:46:35,520 --> 01:46:39,798
and their first nude scene
and they thought it was all very cool.

1073
01:46:39,840 --> 01:46:41,671
It's this shot right here.

1074
01:46:42,920 --> 01:46:45,992
So you can see it all continuously.

1075
01:47:06,200 --> 01:47:09,272
I have to admit I love this,

1076
01:47:09,320 --> 01:47:13,711
it's a little sick
but I thought it was really cool.

1077
01:47:24,320 --> 01:47:27,869
This is sort of the epilogue,

1078
01:47:28,920 --> 01:47:32,037
the nuns bring us to the shrine.

1079
01:48:06,000 --> 01:48:12,109
So Oliver leaves his token girlfriend.

1080
01:48:12,160 --> 01:48:17,473
Here you have an odd effect
where his shirt sort of glows.

1081
01:48:17,520 --> 01:48:19,317
It wasn't intentional,

1082
01:48:19,360 --> 01:48:22,750
it's a reflective inside the cameras,

1083
01:48:22,800 --> 01:48:24,358
technically a mistake,

1084
01:48:24,400 --> 01:48:28,552
but it looked so cool that we kept it.

1085
01:48:38,960 --> 01:48:44,034
This is back to a real leopard again.

1086
01:48:54,560 --> 01:48:56,596
That's the trainer's hand,

1087
01:48:56,640 --> 01:49:00,679
the trainer had second thoughts
about doing that as well.

1088
01:49:19,600 --> 01:49:21,989
This song by David Bowie,

1089
01:49:22,040 --> 01:49:26,511
which Giorgio and I did
in Switzerland with David...

1090
01:49:26,560 --> 01:49:29,279
I really love this idea
of having the leopard

1091
01:49:29,320 --> 01:49:31,880
speak to you at the end of the movie.

1092
01:49:31,920 --> 01:49:35,435
It's the happy ending for me,

1093
01:49:35,480 --> 01:49:42,875
as he and his Beatrice
share these shrine moments.

1094
01:49:42,920 --> 01:49:45,673
And then you hear the leopard's voice...

1095
01:50:01,640 --> 01:50:09,149
David went back after the film
and did a dance mix.

1096
01:50:09,200 --> 01:50:13,432
This was Paul Schrader
talking about Cat People,

1097
01:50:13,480 --> 01:50:16,074
a film from 1981,

1098
01:50:16,120 --> 01:50:21,274
about love and Eros and animals.