Full Director's Roundtable: Angelina Jolie, Guillermo del Toro, Greta Gerwig | Close Up With THR

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(uptempo music)
- Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Galloway,
and welcome to Close-Up with Hollywood Reporter Directors.
I'd like to welcome Angelina Jolie,
Guillermo del Toro, Greta Gerwig, Patty Jenkins,
Joe Wright, and Denis Villeneuve.
You're on a lifeboat.
You happen to have a DVD or Blu-Ray player.
- Oh no! - We're gonna do that?
That's not fair. - Oh no.
- [Stephen] What film are you gonna take with you to watch?
Let's start with you, Guillermo.
- Oh, why? (laughs)
- [Denis] You're the cinephile of the group.
(laughs) - Why?
Emotionally, I will answer something
completely non-prestigious.
Yeah, it's because of what it did when I was a teenager,
The Road Warrior.
(laughs)
It completely destroyed my brain.
- [Stephen] Wow, I thought you were gonna say Frankenstein.
- And, that's the problem.
The other one is I would do that.
I would take James Whale's Frankenstein.
And, it's just The Road Warrior, for me, it's the first time
I noticed how the camera worked and moved
and it was a ballet.
And, I would probably change my mind half way
through the life boat journey.
I would go, "Where is Frankenstein?"
(laughs)
- Have you ever met George Miller?
- I met and I worship George Miller, and I intend,
my sabbatical this year I'm going to do two
two week interviews.
One with Michael Mann and one with George Miller
purely about the craft to publish them in book form
just because I wanna talk with them about
what we never talk about, which is the craft.
Lenses, cameras, why, why push, why not push,
when crane, when dolly, why not?
To talk about the aspects of or painting
that nobody talks about which is vigor of the trays,
amount of paint.
We always discuss movies sort of in
a liturgical way. - If you had one question
to ask George Miller what would it be?
- To whom?
- If you had one question to ask George Miller
what would it be?
- Do you like me?
(laughs)
- [Stephen] You're so insecure.
(laughs)
- Dad? (laughs)
(laughs)
- What's your lifeboat film?
- Oh god, you're going to jump to me next.
I'm like sitting here listening to him the whole time
and I'm like, "Oh my god, so many movies
"go through my head."
'Cause there's the, I have all my--
- Only one. - One.
- I Know Where I'm Going, Powell and Pressburger.
Like, I just love that movie and also like, there's the
design of it fascinates me because it's like so romantic
but you never notice that it was really
becoming that romantic.
- It was so romantic, Powell and Pressburger, so romantic.
- And so good, and timeless. - What did it teach you
that you then brought to your work?
- The pocket of emotion of romance because I love
romantic films and I love romantic things.
- What do you mean by the pocket of emotion?
- It's the space where you get it and it's sincere
and it's real and you just keep it from hitting the ground.
It's almost the electricity of what love is, to me, is it's
when fear is mixed with desire and it's (vocalizing).
And so, there was something so incredible about
that moment, you never saw it coming and all of a sudden
you were (vocalizes) these two people are just sitting there
and you're like (gasps) those people are meant
to be together, oh my god.
And then, the storm and, you know, anyway.
- They do it in other films, too, they do that.
- Oh yeah, and they're so incredible.
- Masterful. - Such incredible filmmakers.
- Is love in real life ever what it is in films?
- I think so. - Yes.
- But, I think too often-- - Good answer.
- Well anyway, I have theories about love
but the fear and desire being equaled is the thing
and I think film allows that to happen,
but that's what it is in real life, too.
Although, we always wanna shut it down.
And, your desire is always to get, no, upper hand
and then as soon as you do it's not so much love anymore.
- I love that answer.
- So, I think it's like film allows people to feel
comfortable extending it longer.
- But, just to talk about romance, I'm not choosing
this on my boat, but Brief Encounters that David Lean movie
when they're talking and she has that moment where
she looks at him, he's describing something and she
looks at him and she says, "You looked like
"a little boy just then."
And then, he looks at her and it's like too late,
they're already in love and it's too late.
And, it's like that moment of like they both realized
what had happened and they both knew that
the other one knew it.
And then, they have to go and it's like all of sudden
you're like oh no, you and I, now you're already in love.
Anyway-- - And your boat,
what is your boat?
- [Greta] Singing in the Rain.
- Aw. - That's a nice one.
- I mean, if you're on a boat--
- Don't doubt yourself, it's
a really good one. - If you're on a boat.
- Do you find that you're trying to imitate the best
in another work or that your job is to react against it?
'Cause there is that theory that great artists
actually have another artist that they react against.
- Against. - Against.
- Mm, but why just one?
It would be hard to pick just one that
you're reacting against.
- There's a lot.
- But, I think we're always, I think it's the,
I think you're always absolutely
studying and paying homage to the people before you
and then turning it just a little bit yourself.
Like, that's the whole game, to me.
- But, it happens, sorry to interrupt the boat thing,
but has it happened to you that there are other directors
that you start against and you end up realizing
they're your favorite.
And you go, "I love this guy."
- They're all silent, that means you're the only one.
- Yeah, not so much, not so much.
There are filmmakers that I have aspired to be like.
Personally, very personally it's probably a reaction
against my father, as well, his work, who was a puppeteer.
- Freud would have something to say about that.
(laughs)
- Yeah, he was a puppeteer and he made
very beautiful marionette shows.
He founded the first purpose built puppet theater
in London in 1961.
But, one of the burden's of his career was the fact
that everyone saw puppetry as being a kind of
a children's entertainment, and he considered it to be
a fine art.
And so, a lot of it is a kind of reaction against
his perceived failure, as well.
- And react against it meaning what?
- Determination to do better.
- Oh yeah, your Anna Karenina has a little bit of that.
- No, no it's all about puppetry.
It's all about how, you know. - Oh wow.
- It all comes from puppetry, really.
- Would you chose the lifeboat film
with a puppet or without?
- Would I choose what?
- Your lifeboat film with a puppet
or without. - Without, definitely.
- It would be what?
- It would be probably Wings of Desire by
Wim Wenders. - Wow, yeah.
- Which I love because of its humanity.
And, I think on a lifeboat I might need
to be reminded of my love of humanity.
So, I'd take that one.
Maybe even also Brief Encounter, as well.
- Denis? - Yeah, I was saying
I think I'm reacting as when I was a very,
right out of film school I had I would say
the burden of being liked, I made a short film.
I was liked by an older filmmaker at home
which Pierre Perrault who was like he's a master
who was like doing documentaries.
And, in the 60s he was like part of the film movement,
realistic film movement where they were the first one
to have actually taking the camera out of the tripod
and go with real people.
And they had made a fantastic movie called
Pour La Suite Du Monde
on a small island in Quebec where they spent three years
shooting a fisherman there. - Oh yeah.
- And, they made a feature film there that was like,
it's considered almost a masterpiece.
But, for some reason he liked me and he was very sad
that I was going to do fiction instead of documentary.
He was like he didn't, because for him fiction
was like why are your crying when Catherine Deneuve
is crying it's like it's fake, when you can real.
Because, his movies are very (mumbles), very strong.
And so I have all my live I felt like I owe him
a lot because I learned a lot working with him.
But, I always felt that I was the bad son.
(laughs)
The one who went to do fiction instead because
I was attracted to fiction--
- So, would you chose his film to take with you
as a kind of penance?
- That's a good, that's a--
- How deep does your guilt go?
(laughs)
- There is trilogy about that island which are amongst
the most beautiful movies I've seen yeah,
about fishermen and I think, yeah, I might,
that could be the answer, yeah.
Or, to prepare me for to death it would be
2001: a Space Odyssey. (laughs)
It's like my favorite film of all time, I think.
And a one that I discovered through television
when I was young, - Oh wow.
- not allowed to watch it because it was too late
in the night for me.
- Forbidden fruit are always the best.
- And still to this day is one of my movies
I revisit with great joy.
It's a very existential journey.
I think it could be a good one to prepare me
to passage if you're on a lifeboat without hope.
- I don't know, I mean, it's a really interesting
question because it's not like a favorite film.
It's like, if you were at the end of you life
and you had something and this only thing that was--
- It's a horrible question.
- That's the question-- - Sorry.
- It's more the film that prepares you for death
or prepares you for or helps you through solitude.
- I would till choose The Road Warrior.
(laughs)
- Which is actually a bit of a survivalist.
- Oh yeah.
- Like, it's so it's interesting.
So, I really, I don't know if I'd want to be watching
movies on your lifeboat.
I think it'd be important to not go crazy.
- That might be a possibility.
- I mean, you know I love Sidney Lumet.
So, I love The Hill and I love The Hill because
I love seeing, and maybe it would help on
the lifeboat to see something just about how
you manage through surviving against all odds.
I love Milos Forman as we were talking about
I love Amadeus, I love Cuckoo's Nest.
I love the idea of Cuckoo's Nest might just
make me feel full of a certain level of humanity
but also maybe I'd be feeling like I'm going
a bit crazy on my life raft and I wanna like
connect to something that feels alive.
But, my real answer is I think I don't know.
It's hard with, film does take out of yourself
and I sometimes am somebody that can't listen
to music 'cause I get too influenced by it.
- I am the same. - Are you?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Like, I can't, I actually have none.
People think I don't like music but if I hear
certain music I'll get dark or I'll get light
or I'll start to or I'll start to feel--
- You mean emotionally?
- Emotionally, so I don't, I tend to not regularly
watch film because--
- You don't, huh?
- I get very swayed by things. It effects me, so.
- Does the actual process of directing effect you, too?
- Yes. - I mean, you did
a very heavy emotional drama in Cambodia.
How did that impact you personally?
- Well, very much and I think like for everybody here
and for those of us who acted and spend less time
on a film when you direct it's gonna be years of your life.
And, I think you're always gonna be doing it well
if you need to do it and you need to do it well.
In Cambodia this is a subject matter that has been
debated, this history is not known internationally.
It's not know and it's something that has made me
upset when I was in country.
I've seen how it effects the people.
And, I have a son who deserves to know his history.
And, I want him to know what his birth parents went through.
And, I want this country to speak, but did I feel
I had the right to be the one doing that?
It was hard every day to know if I was good enough
or the right person to do it.
But, I did feel so honored to be welcomed into another
culture and allowed to witness and bear witness and
encourage and share and really put forward their history
as this is what it will be.
And, this is what many of the young people,
70% of Cambodians are under 30.
So, this is how they're gonna know their history.
(speaking foreign language)
(footsteps)
(explosion)
- What changed in you in the course of making that film?
- We had this day where we were gonna blow up
Mu's children, it was at night and then suddenly
we were gonna have explosions and we were all gonna run
and the kids.
And, I got there with crew and said we've got X
amount of hours with the kids.
We've gotta get that thing up, we hardly have
any of the other, the logistics are impossible.
You'd get the wire up the thing.
And, it blows and it's not big enough,
we gotta do it again.
Where are the kids?
And suddenly, somebody said they can hear
children crying in the jungle.
And, we didn't have enough lights to light up the jungle.
And, there are landmines in the country.
And, I said, "This isn't, gather the children.
"We gotta count the kids."
And we counted the kids and everybody was there.
And then, somebody came up to me and they said,
"We're Buddhist, people died on this land.
"They're hearing crying because it's the spirit
"of the ancestors and you blew a tree."
And so, we stopped production and I got incense and water
and got on my knees with the rest of them
and we took the time to think about the people
who had been there before, what we were doing,
and just stopped everything and then carried on.
And, it went easily and beautifully.
I was there just taking and making and moving and shaping
instead of just understanding really my place in
not just in the country or in a moment as a director
but as a human being in a moment with other
human beings making something.
- I had in the past a similar experience,
but a smaller scale.
However, I did a movie in the Middle East
about the war of Lebanon.
I was just wondering being a foreigner coming there
how did the people, how did they felt about
you making a movie.
- How do they feel about you, first.
- Me, the thing is that what moves is that I felt that
there was a lot of willing to share.
They were happy to share their stories.
They were happy that we were talking about it.
They were very, for them it was a very positive experience
from what I received as a director.
So I felt welcome talking about the story about
other people even if I was like technically a tourist
going there, I mean.
- Have you ever felt not welcome?
- I made a movie once about Montreal, in Montreal,
in my home town about a school massacre.
And, it was one of the first ones
that happened in the history.
And, it was a misogynist, it was a young man, crazy,
that went to a school Polytechnique, and killed only women.
And, that was very horrifying in 1989.
And, I decided to make a movie about that
and people thought I was, because personally I have
things to say about that and a lot, I will say anger
and sadness, and strong emotions.
And, it was a trauma and sometimes trauma I think,
cinema can be very powerful to revisit a trauma
and try to let emotions out of it.
But, I felt resistance from my community
at the beginning, a lot.
I was not very welcome to make that movie at the
beginning, I must say, in my hometown, yeah.
- Were you welcomed by Warner Brothers
when you made Wonder Woman?
You're entering the studio system,
you'd done Independent films.
- I was, I mean my story to get in there
was a long story because I had first talked
to them about it in like 2005.
And then, there were so many different chapters
of why they were and when they weren't going to make it.
And so, it's funny how I feel about these kinds of movies,
these big tent pole movies.
I feel like it's more like dating than it is
like hey, spot my pitch, it's serious.
It's a serious commitment.
You're seriously signing onto the same thing.
So, I had almost done other big movies and had seen
very little disagreements can mean, "Wow, I'm not
"the right director for you wanna do after all."
And so, when I was meeting with them at that point
I was really cautious.
And at first, when I was first was meeting with them
they wanted to do something different.
And, I was ah, it's a shame but I don't think
we are the right match.
You have to do what you have to do
and that's not quite right.
By the time that they came back and they had realized
they wanted to do something which was very similar
to what I'd been saying I wanted to do for a long time
it was a much different conversation because then
they were like, "We really wanna do that now."
And, I was like, "You really wanna do this,
"because we only have this amount of time
"and that's exactly what I would wanna do?"
"Yes," so I was extremely welcome.
Like, I was extremely welcome, I was very supported
because all of that was behind us.
(explosions)
(gunfire)
(explosions)
(grunts) (dramatic music)
(glass clatters)
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
(grunts)
(Wonder Woman theme music) (shouts)
It's the biggest advice I ever give young filmmakers
is like pick the right projects and take it seriously
because you don't wanna end up in a bad marriage.
You don't wanna be like idealistic and say
I can change their minds.
Maybe can't and if you can't then you're on that ride.
So, it was a wonderful experience.
I don't think it's always that way, but because of the fact
there was such clarity about what we were doing going in.
Then, I just did it.
- In 25 years I've had one single bad creator experience.
It was 1997 at Miramax Dimension.
And, never again, I learned a great word was just no.
- Right, yeah. - Which is the same
in every language.
(laughs)
And, the thing that I agree completely with what
you're saying is those small disagreements, if you're
not frontal and immediate it's like adopting a baby tiger.
A year later that baby tiger eats your face.
(laughs) (mumbles)
- I was just raising a flag about this recently
when we were talking about different artists
to sign on together for the next thing.
And, as some little thing came up and one person
said one thing and I was saying something different
and everybody was like, "But, you guys are saying
"the same thing."
And I was like, "No, no, no, no we're not, no we're not.
"Wait, let's get into this right now."
And, we ended up deciding not to work together
this person and I because I was like, "But if you really
"mean that, if you're always gonna wanna go that way
"and I'm always gonna wanna go this way
"let's talk about it right now, because like
"let's not find ourself on a battlefield down the road."
Like, those things are serious, that strategy is like
important, because you're always gonna hit those things
anyway, but yeah those tiny things turn into giant tigers.
Because people mean what they mean, you know.
- Yeah, and down the line when given the opportunity
to duke it out they will duke it out.
Like, it starts super cordial, - Yeah, yeah.
- And then later, it's boom.
- This was over which film?
- It was Mimic, and we started, I mean there was a fantastic
moment in which, for those millions of people that
haven't seen it it's about giant insects, and there was
a moment in which we developed the creature bit by bit over
the course of a year and half, something like that.
I do the first test and I get a phone call saying,
"It looks like a giant bug."
I said, "It is a giant bug."
(laughs)
And, I went, "Oh god, this is going to be interesting,"
and it was.
It's horrible, the myriad of horrible anecdotes
that come from that movie, you know?
But, I learned one thing and it was an epiphany.
I said, I lost this battle, that battle, but I look
at the images and I look at the camera work
and I say those I won completely.
It looks like I wanted it.
The language of camera is the way I wanted it.
And, I learned, okay there is a realm that is seldom
accessed but in analysis and creation which is the visual.
I mean, it's funny we are in an audiovisual medium
and we seldom talk about that.
But, that's why I'm so fixated on content I'm forming
one in the same because I had that horrible epiphany after.
- So, thanks to Miramax.
- No, I learned a lot from, you learn more from
the horror than you learn from the success.
(upbeat music)
- What did you learn when from directing your first film?
- Well, I learned that I could do it.
I mean, I thought I could do it but I think you don't
quite known until you're on the other end of something
like that, that you can do it completely.
You sort of have to take the leap and hope that there's
a parachute attached.
I mean, one part of my experience of being,
of learning how to direct was being on film sets
as an actor.
Also, in particularly early films I made I wrote
them and produced them and held a boom
and held a camera and did everything because
there was nobody to do anything because we had no money.
But, I've been so lucky to be on different sets
with different directors and DPs and all of these
different people who took me under their wing
and explained to me what they were doing,
how they were lighting a scene, where they were
putting the booms, how we were actually getting it.
I always hear about guys whose parents got them
little Super 8 cameras and they started making films.
And, it's not, I mean, I'm sure my parents would have
gotten me them if I'd ask for it.
But, it wasn't something that you gave girls as much.
But, what I did was put on plays with everyone I knew.
And, I would put on plays with my friends.
- This is a very male oriented business.
Did that make it hard to get a very female
centered film off the ground with Lady Bird?
- Yes. - How hard was it
to get off the ground?
- Well, I mean, it's a female centered film
that is not important with a capital I that people
could identify as, "Oh, this is worthy."
- It's Wonder Woman.
- Or, just that it didn't, it's about people's lives
in a quotidian way.
It's not about something so large and I feel like
as a writer and as a director I'm picking up
little tiny pebbles.
- [Lady Bird] I wish that you liked me.
- Of course I love you.
(clicks)
- But, do you like me?
- I want you to be the very best version of yourself
that you can be.
- What if this is the best version?
- When I was taking the script around and because
it's a love story between a mother and a daughter
I remember every man I talked to who was raised
with sisters or who had a daughter said, "I know this.
"That's my wife and my daughter," or "that's my sister
"and my mom."
And guys who didn't, as they said,
"Do women fight like this?"
- Oh wow.
- I was like, well you've never seen this because
why would you know that this is what this relationship is.
That being said I mean I did, once it happened,
I was not asked to change what the script was at all.
I knew that when things came up that were problems
or difficulties or something went awry that that was not
a deviation from the path, that that was the path.
And, I had that, and for me that was very helpful
because it didn't feel like, "Oh God, the whole thing
"is going to fall apart."
It was like, "That is what it's going to be.
"We're going to lose that location and this person
"it won't work and we're gonna have to move this around."
But, in that way I didn't have a moment of like
I had no idea that this was going to happen.
I had a much, I think, more strong sense of
the problems are the road.
- That's a Buddhist saying, is the obstacle is the path.
- And always, the obstacle gives you solutions that you find
are far more interesting - Better.
- And far more crazy. - They're there for a reason.
- How did that happen on Darkest Hour?
- A better example would be the steady came shot
in Atonement which was-- - During the battle.
- Yeah, on Dunkirk beach which was purely a result of
the fact that we only had one day to shoot that scene.
And, with Darkest Hour the film was set in May 1940,
which was the highest May on record,
and we were shooting in December and January.
(laughs)
And so, we had to find a way of kind of expressing
the heat and the claustrophobia.
And so, Bruno Delbonnel and I came up with this
aesthetic lighting wise which was all about
very, very dark shadows and then these extremely
hot spots of light coming through the window.
Which created the atmosphere of heat and also
the claustrophobia and so there were very, very few
exterior shots in the movie.
- You've wanted this your entire adult life.
- No, she's the nursery it's if the public want me.
- It's your own party to whom
you'll have to prove yourself.
- Oh, I'm getting the job only because
the ship is sinking.
It's not a gift, it's revenge.
- Let them see your true qualities, your courage.
- My poor judgment. - Your lack of vanity.
- Yeah, my iron will. - Your sense of humor.
- Ho, ho, ho.
(sighs)
- Now go. - Oh.
- Be. - Be what?
- Be yourself.
- What was the biggest problem you had
to solve on Blade Runner, Denis?
- For me, I would say the toughest thing as a director
is like because technically it's things are you can do it,
you can do everything.
The only thing that I cannot do is to act for the actor.
And, casting is like
massively important, but the first take,
first you know you listen.
And, 99% of the time it's Christmas,
but what happens if it goes wrong?
First scene, that's my biggest nightmare as a director.
- And, did it happen on Blade Runner?
- And it happened that one moment that I said,
"Okay, I was wrong," and I was not able
to bring that artist where it needed to be.
At the end of the day it's okay because
I push, I push, I push, I push, I push,
and I was able to, but that for me is the nightmare.
- Before I directed, I mean, I'd been secretly
taking notes all a long time but then I actually
had real phone conversations with a lot of directors
I know who I've both worked with and just people I know.
And, I got direct advice, but some of it was very specific
like someone told me if you don't like a shot
just start turning off lights because you probably
have too many lights on and it gives you a second
to figure out what you don't like about it,
which I've used.
But somebody told me anyone is replaceable if
they're hurting the movie.
And, you just, if they're hurting it it's
you have to. - And, I agree with you.
Yah, on a big movie like that I learned
that same thing and saw that.
It's a massive organism and you have to be--
- It's so huge.
- You have to be a manager in a whole other level
of you have to identify where the problem is.
- It's not a troupe.
- And deal with because you can't
have, there's not enough-- - And, in your case the
problem was what?
- I mean, I had various little ones, but I had various
little interesting massive group dynamics where I was like
this whole group of people works together great
and now all of a sudden they're all complaining
about each other.
Where's the, oh it's you, it's you, you have a problem.
And, I tried to fix the problem and I couldn't
fix the problem and then I had to get rid of that person.
But, it's the same thing, I was like, I understand
why you're doing it and I feel for you as a person
and all of that.
But, you're a disruptive personality in the midst
of hundreds and hundreds of people who need
to go to work everyday and we just don't have time.
- I think one of the things that is the hardest thing
about being a director that I have is, and a good lesson
at one point for me, there's that moment where you
at least when you're beginning and you really want to,
'cause you do, it's like a family.
And, you want to keep everybody in the family happy.
And, you want everybody in the family to
take care of each other.
You feel very much, especially if you're a producer,
directing, and everything, but really you are the one
who's taking the place of the head of the family
so you better be responsible to everybody,
make sure everybody's okay.
And, I think one of the hardest things is also
your instinct to when you have to push your family, right?
So, whether it's you need that one extra hour
or you know the actress or actor is in so much pain
'cause they don't want to have to keep doing this,
or this person is this, or you're gonna have to push
your crew and you know they'd love to say,
"Come on, just let us go home."
Or not even the length but even just the way you have
to push 'em to say "this is not gonna be easy.
"We're gonna have to do this,"
and they're not gonna like it.
And, I think when I first started I was a little bit
more aware of not wanting to upset, I wanted everybody
to feel like this is the greatest experience
and the greatest days of our life, right?
And then, I realized, you know what, at the end of the day
there can be days that they don't like me because
I'd rather them not like me and not wasted five months
of their life. - Yeah, yeah.
- Because I want them to be proud of the end result.
I know that real leadership is pushing people
to do something that at the end of the day they're happy
they did and they're proud of and they're happy to be
a team and work as a team.
Not to try-- - Yeah, you're not there
to make friends. - You're not there
to make friends and that's a very hard thing.
- Also, to give people a sense of ownership of the film.
- Yeah. - Always, always.
- Like, so that it's not my film it's our film
and that even the caterers have a sense of ownership
and excitement about what they're engaged in.
And, if you then manage to create that
sense of ownership then they're
willing to go that extra. - They wanna work harder.
Yeah, exactly, and then they help you.
- And, what was the worst day for you.
- There's been so many, (laughs)
25 years, it's been 25 years and I've gone through
basically everything movies that are 19.5 or 195 million.
And, I've gone through all-- - How about The Shape of Water
I know you had--
- Shape of Water, I'll tell you
one, everything, everything. - Sandstorms.
- I had a first day that I cannot speak about.
(laughs)
First day, second day worse.
And it went, of 65 days we had 64 really difficult days
and one day was easy.
But, we had a great example, there's a moment where
Michael Shannon parks in front of the cinema,
stops, runs up the stairs.
We do a Texas switch 'cause the staircase was fake
and I have another guy dressed like him on the
other staircase which was separate and I do a Texas switch
and he goes to the door.
And I said, "I got it," and my DP says, like all DPs
always say, "Get another one."
I said, "I got it."
He said, "Well, take two." I go, "okay."
And, we had scouted and there was a great crane
I wanted to do, a techno that a post was in the way
I couldn't do.
I said, "No, let's move to the crane."
He says, "No, get another one."
We go do the second one and this is one of those days,
many things happened that day, this is one of them,
Shannon parks the car, gets out.
The car stays in drive, it's an old car 1962,
so anyway the car continues going.
Michael runs to try to stop the car.
The car drags Michael, - Oh God.
- In the middle of the rain.
Michael lets go, the car hits the first post,
a post destroys it, a shower of sparks,
but also the second post is coming straight
for the video assist.
And, everybody just says, "Run."
Now, I've never run for anything in my life.
(laughs)
I am 53 I have never, I don't know what that is.
And, I go, "I'm gonna die."
And, the car stops on the second and final post
which is anchored to the ground.
And, everybody's in despair and horrified.
Michael is, "Oh, what has happened?"
And I go and say, "Now, I can make my shot."
(laughs)
- 'Cause he got rid of the post.
(laughs)
- So, was that the one good day?
(laughs)
- That day turned good.
There were many, many, the first day was brutal.
- That's crazy. - What was the toughest
day for you on Wonder Woman?
- I think it was, I mean, oh you know what
it pretty much was that it's funny I really believed
in shooting on location.
And so, at the end of the movie there's a farewell
between Diana and Steve Trevor that I insisted upon
shooting on a real air base in the middle of the winter
in the weather because I just know what happens on set.
What happens on set is you end up turning the fan down
because it's messing up sound and then people are standing
and it's just not gonna be the same.
And, it had these incredible, this airbase had these
incredible bunkers for all the planes.
And, shot on film I knew that we would never
quite know what that would look like if we tried
to replicate it digitally in post.
So, it was shooting in the middle of the night
in the cold with Gal Gadot in a Wonder Woman costume.
And, it was such an important performance and it was
exactly what you were talking about where it was like,
and I go through this all the time where I'm sort of like
and there's something almost parental about being
the director sometimes where you're like,
I have to be the one.
I don't wanna be here either, I wanna go home, too.
But, I have to be the one that makes this worl
because this is really important to whole movie
and if we don't do this then all of us will have done
all of this other work and it won't have paid off.
So, I have to be the one, you've got to go
back out there again.
Doing it to actors when they're cold and uncomfortable
is very difficult.
But, it was a hard scene to get and it was freezing cold
and Gal was literally nearly like losing it.
She was like shaking and it was like, we gotta go,
we gotta do it.
(vocalizes) take the coat off and she's standing there
and Chris is tired and I think that was the hardest day
just because I really hated doing it to everybody,
but it just really mattered.
And, I knew if we tried to do pick ups later
it was never going to be the same.
- Denis, on Blade Runner what were you most
pleased about in that film?
- Actors, I'm very proud of the actors,
and more specifically young actresses.
There are four of them that did, I think, a fantastic job.
And Ryan, Ryan was my muse.
- Where were you, Clanton?
Must have been brutal.
- Plan on taking me in, huh,
take a look inside?
- Mister Morton, if taking you in is an option
(thuds)
I would much prefer that to the alternative.
- Something that deeply touched me was Harrison Ford
because I felt that, you cannot fake that excitement
or I felt he was really sincerely happy to be there
with us working at five a.m. in the dark in the water.
I felt his passion alive I felt that
his fire was still there.
And, you know what, Harrison Ford was one of
my childhood heroes and I deeply loved him.
And, there's a saying never meet your heroes, isn't there?
And that was, for me, it just increased my admiration
and my love for him because sincerely he's
a committed artist, engaged.
He was very generous.
So, honestly, that was I would say--
- Among your heroes, filmic heroes, who've you met
who surprised you or was different than you'd expected?
- Can we get back to me?
(laughs)
- You know I can't do that.
- Who was different than I expected?
I don't know, maybe because I grew up in this business
a little bit with my father I early on realized
how average everybody is in this business.
I never, I grew up thinking there's nothing unbelievably
special or unbelievably different about these people
except for sometimes they think they
are unbelievably special.
So, I think it's just whether you're pleasantly surprised
that they are other, just great people.
I mean, I tend to find that when you meet people
like who's a great actor like a Daniel Day Lewis
he's a great person.
And, I don't know if it's a coincidence that
some people who come across a certain way
or make films with a lot of humanity are people
with a lot of humanity.
Then there are really complex artists that maybe
are complex people but they're work's really interesting.
And so, I don't know, I think I just kind of see it all
kind of for what it is.
I'm happy to be able to be a part of it but I also
have a kind of, I just see everybody at this table
as like moms, dads, people, women, men.
And then, what comes out of us is the best it can be.
- Has anybody given you a piece of advice
that you carry with you in filmmaking?
- Shoot the wide shot first.
(laughs)
I can forget to do that as well and then I just
shoot myself into a corner.
Oh, I should have just done the wide shot.
- Do you storyboard?
- Yeah, I do love story boarding.
- Because you're so visual and your shots are amazing.
- One other thing that surprised me when I meet
like great actors is that they want direction.
And, I'm always surprised. - Yeah, they do.
- 'Cause like Gary Oldman for me was a hero,
like Harrison Ford was to you when I was growing up.
And, I thought, "Well, I'll just have Gary will be
"on set and he'll do his thing and I'll just arrange
"everything around him."
And actually to discover that someone
like Gary wants direction.
- What was the fundamental direction you gave him?
- Energy, pace, the rhythm of his character.
I talk a lot about rhythm when I'm directing.
I find that film is most similar to music
than any other art form.
And so, I'm always talking about rhythm and almost
conducting a scene so that they know
where the rise is and where the fall off is and so on.
It's almost, yeah, it's almost like conducting
rather than going, talking about back stories
and stuff like that which I think is
fairly useless. - Did you talk a lot
about Churchill himself?
- No, we talked about this character who, for my mind,
was entirely fictional.
I wasn't really ever interested in the icon of Churchill.
And, one of the problems with making British period films
is that they're generally about posh people.
I don't identify-- - Well, Churchill's posh.
- He's very posh, but so I tried to just find
the humanity in them.
I'm not keen on method actors.
I'm a bit of a method director in the sense that
I have to feel their emotions and I have to identify
very, very closely with the character
and see the world as they see the world.
And so really, those characters are always
an expression of myself.
In fact, every character is an expression of myself
because that's how I come to understand them
and then I can love them because without understanding
you can't love.
And so, I try to kind of figure out how,
looking for the similarities, finding out how
Churchill and I are the same.
(laughs)
Which is ridiculous, ridiculous but I mean, for me
the film is about doubt, right?
It's about self-doubt and its about which is,
I just had an experience of extreme self-doubt.
- When was that?
- I made a film called Pan and it lost about 100 million
and it was universally slated by the critics.
And, I thought, I don't understand this world anymore
and I don't know if I want to be a part of it.
- But, you take it that deep.
- Yeah, yeah of course. - You do take it that deep.
I mean, people think that you move on and if you're
worth anything you don't move on.
You go into a deep
dark place and mourn. - Because our filmmaking
is an expression of our soul.
I mean, it's who we are at the most fundamental.
It's the closest thing to my essence there is really.
Because I'm not very good at expressing that
in other ways.
I'm not very good at talking to people.
I'm not very good at dinner parties.
That's where I allow myself to be revealed.
- Well, you must have things that you, like with critics,
who didn't like and it almost made you, if you sure
you loved it.
There's the noise of the crowd and then there's
the singular voice and is there that too,
have you had that? - When has it, for instance,
made you feel stronger about your convictions?
- I had that on a film I did By The Sea
which I don't think is a perfect film, by any means,
but I had moment when I put it forward, even when
we were making it people were saying,
"well people aren't gonna understand this," or
"this isn't gonna be taken this way," or
"this is more like this thing and that's not gonna be
"what people want, or they're not gonna."
But, I think I needed after Unbroken to
just be an artist.
It was like a talk with myself like don't lose
your sense of, you gotta do your best and do
what you feel and don't become safe, don't become
safe from this.
If you become safe from this you're never
gonna do anything worth anything, you know?
And, find some kind of, find your resolve in this moment
and don't and turn it into, I don't know.
- Patty, have you ever had a moment where you
lost your resolve, felt like leaving the business?
- All the time, I mean, no I really don't but I always
am like I find, it's funny because it's interesting.
I never decided to be a director.
It was never like, "I wanna be a director."
It's all the trappings of being, I have to be a director
to do what I want to do which is I was at painting school
and my first love with music.
And, I was always listening to music and then
it finally came together when I took
an experimental film course.
And, I was like, "That's it."
I couldn't get enough emotion into painting.
And, I didn't want to play music, but that was my thing.
And then finally, I was like, "Whoa, I love it."
So, I had to become a director to do it.
I'd never like looked at the job.
And so, I've definitely had many moments where
I was like, (groans) like you could just
restore antiques or something.
Like, are you sure you wanna?
And, I'm always surprised at it at every step.
But, I mean it was a period of time not long
right before I made Wonder Woman that the bottom
had fallen out of the indie film market completely.
So, the films that I had ready to go nobody
wanted to make.
They didn't even wanna read them.
And, it was IPs and I meeting on IPs.
And then, it was, and there was a period of time there
that I was like, (groans) "I just wanna leave Hollywood."
Like I don't know that I'm gonna, it's ironic that
I turned around and then made Wonder Woman.
But, at the moment I was like this might not be for me.
Maybe I need to move to Europe or something because
I don't know how to fit myself into this and I can't,
they don't wanna see my film and like
they don't even wanna read.
And so yeah, I definitely had a pretty dark moment
right before I made Wonder Woman where I was like
I'm having, where, why, I can't find the fit.
(upbeat music)
- [Stephen] If you left film what would you do?
- I wouldn't leave film, first of all, because
I love, I like truly love it so much and it just
gets better all the time.
The more I'm like, (vocalizes) like that,
like finally like now I know how to, oh now I can,
it just gets better the more facile your skills get
and the more you can try new things in different ways
it gets better.
But, I'd be a psychologist.
- [Joe] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 'Cause it's my interest in art and film
is greatly fueled on the other side by my curiosity
about people which is why I'm interested
in telling their stories whether it be about
why you would become that serial killer
or what it would feel like to have tremendous power.
- Greta, what about you what would you do if you left film?
- Oh, well my first love was actually theater
more than anything else, the theater and dance.
And, I didn't know movies were made by people.
I thought they were handed down from gods.
I mean, I genuinely, I knew, I knew people must have
made them but I didn't know who they were.
And, it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized
that oh these are made by people.
And, part of it was I started watching films that
weren't products, they had personality behind them.
And, I hadn't really seen quite that.
Like, in New York there's a Film Forum, an Anthology
Film Archives, a Museum of Moving Image and I started
to see these very particular strange movies
that I wasn't totally sure what to make of.
But, they felt like-- - Like what?
- I remember the first time I saw Tropical Malady
the Apichatpong film-- - Weerasethakul, yeah.
- Yeah, and I thought it made me angry because
it's a bifurcated structure and I'd never seen
anything like it.
And, I was like, "What is this?
"It's clear to me that it's clear to him but
"I can't figure it out."
And, I went back again, and again and I had
the same experience with we were talking about
Claire Denis' film Beau Travail, I sort of
couldn't, but I suddenly saw it as art as made by people.
But yeah, theater and I also think, I mean,
I remember reading about so why are there so many
more computer programmers that are men than women?
There's nothing, originally computer programmers
were women because nobody thought it was very prestigious.
And then later, it became more men and part of it was
in the 70s and 80s all the computers were marketed
towards young men like, "Get your son this computer."
And then, they would learn how to program so that
by the time they got into college they already
had this basis.
And so, when women would be in programming classes and
they'd come from the math department or whatever they would
be like way behind because they hadn't had the tools.
- And, sometimes you spoke of psychology,
what is, do you think, the most crucial quality
that a director has to have?
- [Joe] He has to think in film.
- Yes. - Yeah.
- I just said he has to think it film, that's interesting.
A director has to think in film.
And, I think that's rare.
I don't thnk a lot of people do, but it's not about
thinking visually or thinking dramatically.
It's literally about seeing the world as film,
as an audio visual time based experience.
- Ultimately fearless, I think.
I think the same thing is not be afraid of
because sometimes the most brilliant things are
the things that are closest to being ridiculous.
And then, if you don't know when you have to not give in
and you have to pursue it.
When people talk about vision, which I think is
a very strange word, that ayahuasca may provoke
but not this industry.
You just know that you're gonna have to fight
for that second ending.
- It's funny, I was gonna say responsible vision.
'Cause I think you do have to have like,
I see how this film could work out, but it has to have,
you have to have some responsibility to like
the realities of filmmaking and how that's gonna work
and bravery and knowing that you're being brave
and giving it enough room to have life.
So, I think, but a plan, I think you do have to have a plan
because I was amazed, the most interesting thing
in doing such a huge movie is that there really are,
there's a huge insurance policy on you
and it's like you cannot ride a bike because if you
fall off that bike.
And, I had a couple moments there where I was like,
"Oh my god, I'm the only person who understands
"how 17,000 pieces that just happened in a row
"are gonna fit back together again."
And, it's like you have to, you have to have
that ability at some point to be like,
"Oh, I remember on the day we dropped that line"
because then I said, "Oh, that's fine I'll do it
"by doing that shot over there."
I don't know that I told anybody that.
I know that in the edit room, "Oh, but you know what
"we're gonna do it this other way."
Anyway, it would be fine somebody else would come in
and take over the movie.
But, it's like.
- You're talking about practical and artistic
responsibilities. - See it, having
a vision and keeping it whole.
- And now, I wanna talk about a different responsibility
Kazan, many years ago, wrote a pamphlet about
what a director needed.
He need to know architecture. He needed to know art.
He needed to know literature, this, this, that.
And, I showed it to a friend of mine who is blacklisted
and he said the only thing Kazan doesn't say
is he needs to know ethics.
Society, at the moment, especially today
we're dealing with all sorts of ethical issues
particularly about harassment.
What is the director's responsibility ethically?
- You just have to be a good human being.
You can demand anything you want professionally.
I think that you can be irrational professionally
and say when we're executing this operation
you need to do what you do or you're not part of the team.
You can be that hard.
For example, when firing someone, which I've done many times
I insist on doing it myself.
I want you to know the studio's not forcing me.
I want you to know a producer didn't, I'm doing it.
The same goes for ethics.
If you tolerate something on your set from whoever it is,
it can be a star, it can be a super producer,
and you see it and you allow it, you're more than
a father figure.
If you direct properly you're are somebody--
- As a man I would say exactly the word that would
come to my mind is father.
I mean, you are responsible for the people around you.
You are supposedly the one who is directing them
and trying to create a safe environment,
and a creative environment.
And, as man it's the thing that can always my men
the way I behave with it is as a father.
- And you don't back, I mean, I've had
very imposing executives, or studio heads,
stars, imposing physically and in terms of
their stature in the business.
And, what you would normally back down in a traffic accident
you don't back down in a movie set.
You go at it and you go at it--
- You're talking about ethics, not just what
you want artistically.
- No, no what you want artistically then the conversation
is if you don't have anything to say that is crucial to you
and that you think some people may walk out healed
in some way or awoken in some way or aware in some way
then it shouldn't be, and it doesn't matter if
its a piece of fiction, it's a genre or not,
however it's viewed you're saying it because
you do think that film needs to exist.
So, ethically, overtly you don't have to respond
to the pulsations of the moment but I think that
all of use at this table, all the movies that were made
were made specifically for now for one or a different
reasons because we feel that they were needed now.
I feel the urgent political human need that you
can see the order and see the beauty and the
divine in the other as opposed to fear an the hatred
and it was urgent.
I mean, this movie was so personal to me,
doing The Shape of Water, that sometimes there are
two scenes I cannot discuss without weeping.
(majestic music)
(hisses)
(dramatic music) (vocalizes)
- [Stephen] Why is that movie
so important to you personally?
- It was a moment like Joe, a moment in which
I honestly said, "Is there a sense in doing this?"
And I think that it's a medium that is not
discussed in the way I remember discussing it
when I was learning it in terms of it's the one
generator of mythological images we have.
Because, long art TV is fantastic but it does not
generate those images that have the heft and the weight
and the authority that the cinema generates.
I'm the biggest fan of The Sopranos or Deadwood,
or you name and characters and arc as close
to literature as you can get.
But, I cannot quote more than two images.
I can define the composition, exact lensing
and position of images of Kubrick, of Ophuls,
of Visconti time and time again.
And, I think we need to discuss film formally
because of that.
And, it came to that crossroads and I really, as a man
of a certain heft and age, I said, "Okay, I've done nine
"movies that in some way or another rephrased my childhood.
"I wanna do one where I talk like an adult
"and about things that are urgent for me.
"And, if it doesn't work, honestly, I'm gonna read more
"and take long walks on the beach."
- Some of those people have to do unpleasant things
to get a performance.
Is that acceptable?
- It depends what kind because there are very clear lines.
To push an actor to do work that they're capable of, yes.
To inflict trauma, absolutely not, absolutely not.
And, I've had this argument with other people before
where it's like, I'm not here to bring trauma
into people's life.
And so, I feel that's very ethically, they didn't
sign on to be traumatized.
So, my job as a director is to conjure the best
out of other people within what they have already
to work with and maybe new scenarios like cold.
Or like, yeah, maybe I am pushing them in towards cold
and things like that.
But, I've always thought that that was not for me.
I've heard about those things about lying to people
or really tricking people or messing with them
and I'm like, that's not cool for me.
There's a line in the sand of where I'm willing to go
to bring beautiful things into the world
because of how beautiful can they be?
- Are you willing, however, to inflict harm upon yourself?
- Yes, apparently with great (mumbles).
- Yeah. - A lot.
- I would croak, I would.
- Would or have? Have you harmed yourself?
- I think I have. - How?
- You don't get this big by not harming yourself.
I mean, it is neurosis. You fray your nerves everyday.
They're raw, I mean you fray, which means that
90% of your personal life will be unbalanced.
And, you're always on the edge and the more you do it
the less you'll get this, but you need to,
there are things everyday that you swear you will die for.
- Do you agree, Angelina?
- Well, yes that you can take on a lot.
I think I'm certainly that person.
I never want to, I'll push myself to the ground,
but I'm pretty thoughtful of other people and their limits.
And maybe that's part of leadership, too,
is feeling like I better be able to do it 10 times harder
in order to have a right to ask somebody else.
- I used to think that directors, people who were directors
had a certain personality and that's why they were directors
that they had this sort of relentlessness and they had
this and then I realized that the job makes you that way.
It makes you, if you have that connection and it feels
essential and the thing that you're doing it creates
something that you didn't know that you had
or it was dormant somehow because there's no way to do it
if you don't have that.
I don't know how you do it.
- I think you've got to have that inclination
in the first place.
You've got to be a bit mad, you've got to
be a bit obsessive. - You've got to be a bit mad.
- Yes, for me, I was thinking since you talked about
your bad experience I was, for me doing Blade Runner
was the other way around.
I mean, I do it because I deeply loved the first movie
so much I don't want somebody else to fuck it up.
I wanted to give everything knowing that
I would probably be banned from cinematic community about
everybody is gonna hate me because I dared to do that.
But, there was like a strong call to do it (mumbles)
and I agreed before I was able to do it because
I made peace with the idea that it might be my last film
the doing this.
And, it made sense to me because I loved that story so much
but that to make the peace with the idea that
I'm going to be hated and just do it by pure love of cinema.
And then, that freedom that it's like it was so great
creatively, but it's like the reverse engineered.
Fearing, not fearing making peace with what
could be the worst.
- But, we have a right to fail.
- Yes. - As an artist
you have a right to fail and that's really difficult
within this industry when there's so much money involved.
I think it was Beckett who said that, and it's
much easier in playwriting. - The last like waiting
for Goddard. - Yeah right.
- Fail again, fail better.
- Yeah, exactly and so that is always the thing--
- That unbelievable line.
- That line is always the thing that drives me forward.
And, there's reason why one keeps making films
'cause you're always gonna fail, and it's a practice.
And, that's the important thing is the practice
is the process way more important than the product.
And, in that process the kindness is the most
important thing in talking about the ethical.
Everyone's going through something and as long as
you're just kind as much of the time as possible
and the films are made to generate kindness.
I mean, I think all the films around this table
are, to some extent, about kindness and the aspiration
to create more kindness in the world and that's it.
And so, if you're not kind to the people you work with
then you're just a hypocrite and there's no point
in doing it.
- Last question, very quickly, speed round.
If you had no limit in budget, in time,
in historical moment.
- That would be suicide.
- But you had a camera.
- Limits are what you gives you freedom.
- Yeah. - You cannot be free
on freedom. - Where would you want
to put a camera to record something.
- In the Socratic Dialogs he has these dialogs
with Diotima who was a prostitute in Ancient Greece.
The only people who could read and write who were women
were court whores because they had to be good to talk to
in addition to everything else and wives weren't
allowed to read or write.
I would have loved to have heard what those women
had to say.
- When I made Monster I ended up getting very sucked
into the prison world and so the thing that I was
trying to make those years that I couldn't get
my film made was a movie that took place in prison,
in the California Prison System.
And, I ended up getting very sucked into that world
and like so just for those reasons alone I would put
a camera inside of the worst, highest level
security yard in prison and let people watch.
Because it's such a, I would love for the world
to understand better how people are not what
you think they are.
And, that was thing that was so incredible about
being there was like it's just not scary enough.
You want it to be really scary, but it's not that scary.
It's just human beings stuck,
stuck and scared, and sad, and desperate,
and lonely and pretending to be hard because
that's the only integrity that they have.
And, one out of every thousands of them are actually crazy.
- In the eyes of an angel, which is I guess Wings of Desire,
but I'd continue that experiment.
- It would have changed the fate of the world
if you had followed Jesus with a camera.
(laughs)
- What were those missing years?
- There was like the thing that you say,
"Okay, that's the truth."
- [Patty] That's a good one.
- It's really difficult, I've been honestly really angry
about how much has been seen on film from
chemical attacks in Syria to the Rohingya being displaced
to people do see things inside some prisons
to people seeing people abuse other people
and I see very little movement and very little change,
very little calls to action.
And so, I think we're more aware than ever about
what's going on around the world and bearing witness
to it with cameras and yet people seem more distracted
by kind of silly things they can watch.
And, if they see it they can kind of dismiss it.
So, I don't know, I mean if there's something,
as you said, that could change, if there's something
that could make people feel united, maybe it is
a camera on the moon.
Maybe it is something that takes us out of ourself
and somehow sheds a bigger light on something
that unites us all.
- Guillermo. (sighs)
- There are certain moments of my childhood
too personal to share, I would love to have a look
with more accuracy than memory allows.
And, I would love to see the people that I have made
into a theater with a more kind eye, a more objective eye
on myself in those moments in a more objective eye.
And, they would be, perhaps, the key to solving
the puzzle that I've been trying to solve for 43 years.
- Don't solve it 'cause the films we get.
- That's good, I-- - This is
really extraordinary and you're all lovely, too,
which is nice.
Thank you so much, that's the end of the roundtable.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you.
- Drinks for everyone. - You're so nice.
(upbeat music)
- Ready. - Okay, quiet on set.
- And, I look down the lens.
- Yeah. - Let's do it.
(clicks)
(laughs)
- Hi, I'm Margo Robbie. - Bryan Cranston.
- Robert Pattinson. - John Boyega.
- I'm Sam Rockwell. - Willem Dafoe.
- Emma Stone. - Allion Janney.
- Guillermo del Toro and thank you for watching.
- Thank you. - Thank you for watching.
- Thanks for watching The Hollywood Reporter.
- The Hollywood Reporter. - The Hollywood Reporter.
- On YouTube. - On YouTube.