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The Production of "Mqldoror

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The Art of the Soundman

The Making OfTHE CONVERSATIONAn lnterviewWith Francis Ford Coppola

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"'The Conversation'was very ambitious, and I hung in not because it was going right, but because lcouldn'tacceptwithin myself the judgment that ! couldn't succeed in doing it. lt's a funny thing, but I just couldn't let the project go."

BRIAN DEPALMA: How did the ideafor THE COfWERSATION evolve andwhen?FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: The ideaoriginated in a conversation between meand Irving Kirshner. We were talkingabout espionage, and he said that mostpeople thought the safest way not to bebugged was to walk in a crowd, but he hadheard that there were microphones whichwere capable of picking out specific voicesin a crowd. And I thought, Wow, that's agreat motif for a film-and it startedthere, around 1966. I actually startedworking on it around 1967, but it was anon-again, off-again project which I wasjust never able to beat until 1969 when Idid a first draft.BDP: THE CONVERSATION is sucha fantastic idea: being able to hear theEame conversation six or seven times,and each time it takes on a slightlydifferent meaning. It's sort of likeBLOW (JP where you see a photographat different times and read all kinds ofdifferent things into it as the picturegoer on. Is that how you started theidea? That is, was it originally a con-ceptual idea?FCC: I have to say that this project begandifferently from other things I've done,because instead of starting to write it out

30 FI LMMAKE RS NEWSLETTER

by Brian De Palmaof an emotional thing-the emotionalidentity of the people I knew-I started itas sort of a puzzle, which I've never donebefore and which I don't think I'll ever doagain.

In other words, it started as a premise,Isaid, "I think I want to do a film abouteavesdropping and privacy, and I want tomake it about the suv who does it ratherthan about the peo"pl-e it's being done to."Then somewhere along the line I got theidea of using repetition, of exposing newlevels of information not through exposi-tion but by repetition. And not likeRASHOMON where you present it indifferent ways each time-let them be theexact lines but have new meanings in con-text. In other words, as the film goesalong, the audience goes with it becauseyou are constantly giving them the samelines they've already heard, yet as theylearn a little bit more about the situationthey will interpret things differently. Thatwas the original idea.BDP: But you reveal information bythe way you keep going over the tapeand using different directional micro-phones. For instance, the street bandcovers up a whole bunch of lineg andthen you expose them.FCC: That was a cheat from my originalconcept. I found that I had to reveal new

aspects of the conversation to do what Iwanted to do. But originally my conceptwas that it would all be right there at thebeginning. But that, I think, is impossi-ble; I just couldn't do it.BDP: Do you approach your personalfrlms-like YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOWor THE RAIN PEOPLE or THE CON-VERSATION-any different than the wayyou do your bigger commercial films?FCC (after a long pause) I think maybethe smaller budget allows me to feel a lit-tle more relaxed and a little more willingto blow days and make stupid decisions.Usually the stupid decisions are some ofthe best things I do. Although I've gottenso immune to the process that now, evenon GODFATHER II which is costing a lot,I'll do something even though it may becrazy and jeopardize a lot of money.

So I think that, in a sense, the two polesof my so-called career are coming closertogether, and what I hope to do in thefuture is make only personal films-but insuch a way that even my big projects willbe what you would call personal films.BDP: Do you try to make certain kindsof films in order to dbvelop areas ofyour talent on which you think you needwork? After all, THE COIYVERSA-TION is really a very different frlmfrom your others.

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Hat'knrcn (with binoculars) and his associates are amused watching two girls through a one-way mirror.

FCC: Well, I have always liked the ideaof tackling something. Like I did a playand an opera on the basis that every timeyou approach something that's a littletough and that you're a little frightenedof, when you come out of it, even if youdidn't completely beat it, you have stillgrown or changed at least an inch or two.If you do something that's tough justbecause you've never done it or thoughtabout it before, then you have to come outa little different.

I got into THE CONVERSATIONbecause I was reading Hesse and sawBLOW UP at the same time. And I'mvery open about its relevance to THECONVERSATION becauee I think thetwo films are actually very different.What's similar about them is obviouslysimilar, and that's where it ende. But itwas my admiration for the moodg and theway those things happened in that filmwhich made me say, "I want to dosomething like that." Every young direc-tor goes through that. But that'e whatstarted it going. And I was over my headin a sense and I knew it; I wasn't about tomake another STEPPENWOLF. Butthose were the textures that started meoff, so to speak. That's how I got into it.BDP: lVhat's intereeting to me ig thatalthough I had the feeling of a llitch-cock frlm where you begin with a con-ceptual idea rether than a characteridea, it seems that ultimately you endedup doing both at the same time. Ilarry'echaracter ae it evolved throughout thefilm was quite interesting: his Catholicsensibility, his guilt about people beingkilled because of the information hegathered. Was that all there from thebeginnning?FCC: No, I think you're right: thisstarted with a concept and not acharacter. And that was a source of greatdifficultv for me. And one that I found un-oleasanl in that I could never feelirnything for the character. But I think it's

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much easier for me to write characters,either what I can remember from peopleI've known or ones which are basedsomewhat on my own feelings. I could notrelate to Harry; I could not be him. So Ikept trying to enrich him-but startingfrom a total cipher, a kind of HarryHorner from 'Steppenwolf," a middleEuropean who lives alone in a roominghouse. That kind of cliche. Realizing thatI had to flesh the man out and make himreal, I hoped the actor would help me.

Ultimately, though, I drew on mY ownpast, and in the scene where he's in the-oark and tells all that stuff about hisinitairooa and the polio-those are thingsthat actually happened to me. That wasalmost a desperate attempt to give him areal character that I could relate to. Butyou're quite right; it started out as a puz-zle.BDP: That sort of Catholic sensibilityand the guilt he felt for the informationhe conveyed-didn't that actually workagoittst what he did? lVhv doee thiskind of man have tftot kind of job?FCC: Well, I got into that for threereasons: First, it's kind of like MARTY:it's just something in my memory, so im-ages of the Virgin Mary and confessionj[st seem comfortable. Second, there isthe irony of it: being a wiretapper, es-oeciallv before 1968 when it was made il-ieeal, ;vas really a very hypocritical job'After all, he was doing one thing, whichwas really a terrible thing, yet it was allaboveboard-they even held conventions !

But that also seemed very Catholic to me:to do one thing and yet believe another.And third was the image of confession,which may be, I think, the oldest form ofeavesdronoing.

So in a lot oTways I approached the filmdifferently than I ever had before, and Idon't know if I'd do it again. But one thingthat I did say to myself was that I wantedto have every form of surveillance in thismovie. Even'the prostitute. That's confes-

Gene Hackman with the tools ol the pro.fessionalsun,eillance expert: the telephone, the camera,and the tape recorder.

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sion. And I had even more that were cutout. But I wanted this to be an index oflittle surveillance techniques.BDP: Did you consciourly want tostart with that voyeuristic image in thebeginning, with that long zoom shot,and then uee the viewing image at theend? Or was thet an exception youmade?FCC: Right from the beginning I knew Iwanted to shoot the actual conversationwith long lenses to give a sense of sur-veillance. But after a while I decided thatthe long lenses have been used and over-used in films, and it would be sort ofcliche.

But I wanted to find a visual way to givea sense of eavesdropping on Harry's per-sonal life, which is to say that I as thefilmmaker was an eavesdropper. And Idecided not to do it with long lensesbecause I felt that was not only a clichebut also easy and overdonei Then Ithought of doing it with a very staticcamera-which is to say, a camera whichgave the impression that it didn't have anoperator on it-so that the actor wouldwalk out of frame, just as if it were anelectronic camera.BDP: For instance, when he sits downat his table: he steps out of ftame andthen comes back into frame.FCC: But then to that we added the no-tion that if he stepped out of frame longenough, after a certain amount ofsecondsthe camera would pan over to try to findhim, as though it were a delayed reac-tion-a very impersonal kind of coldthing. Normally a camera operator isalways adjusting. But I was trying to givea sense of the invasion of privacy in thisman's room by a static camera. Then theultimate development of that was thepanning camera at the end which wasmeant to be like a supermarket TVcamera.

But I was actually trying to lead up tothat. For instance, in the first scene hecomes home and makes a phone call tothe landlady and while he's on the phonehe takes off his pants. I wanted to do thatbecause I wanted to do something thatpeople do when they're totally alone to becomfortable-but I didn't want to doanything really vulgar because I justdidn't want it in the film. So I did thatother action to give what they call in theActor's Studio a "private moment," andto start the theme of us comfortably peek-ing in on his private life. There were morescenes like that, but they were cut. Onewas a wonderful scene of him alone thatwas cut out because we were afraid thefilm was too slow. But I wish we hadn't. Inthat scene, he's in the kitchen cooking hisdinner with his pants off and there's amuffled noise coming from the apartmentabove and he gets a chair and sticks hishead in the closet and with a broom liftsthe trapdoor to hear better what the peo-ple are arguing about. It's such a ridicu-lous image of this grown-up man who's aprofessional eavesdropper Iistening to theneighbors by the most primitive form.Afterwards, I thought, why did we cut itout?BDP: Did you shoot any more ftlm withthe camera panning over when it frndshe isn't there and then cut shots likethat later?FCC: No. I had thought on the set that

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the device would be too manipulative andself-conscious, so I did it very infrequentlyin order not to appear Iike I was drivingthe idea into the ground. But it turned outthat on film and in the context of the cutthat it was not as noticeable a device as Ihad thought, so I could have done it more.BDP: rilhat about the technical as-pects of THE COIWERSATION: e-quipment, budget, shooting time?FCC: The picture was shot with conven-tional equipment. To shoot the park scenewe had some six camera positions, and wedid some of it with extremely long lenses.We just showed the principals to thecameramen and said, "Try to find themand keep them in focus." And then the ac-tors kept walking around and around andit was literally done as though the situa-tion was as it was. This was shot manytimes-for at least three or four days. Andthen toward the end, just to cover myself,I put sorne cameras down on the groundand did it a little more conventionally.

The picture was budgeted around $1.6million but it went about 3 over and camein at $1.9 million. A lot of that happenedbecause I was late-it was scheduled for40 days but we came in, in 56 days, overtwo weeks late. Essentially I was caughtbetween two worlds in that I wanted tomake the film small and intimate andwith friends, and I think, with the tex-tures of this film, it would have beenpossible. And it was contemporary; it did-n't involve period sets or costumes. Butbecause I did THE GODFATHER, medoing a film with Hackman for a millionplus was only scheduled for 40 days. Andalso, having just made THE GOD-FATHER, I found it very difficult to getanyone, from the unions on down, to alLowme to do it. It just got fatter and fatter.AIso, I wanted to have Dean Tavouleris asart director because he was someone I feltclose to, and yet I couldn't expect him towork for less; he had to be paid a fairamount.BDP: lVhat about the sound?FCC: It was all shot with radio mikes. Wedid it very much the way Harry was sup-posed to be doing it in the story.

It was total chaos. Half our crew was inall those shots. And you can see them!But there were a lot of cameras. It wasreally John Cassavetes time: camerasphotographing cameras.BDP: Did you ure the music to keepthe pacing sort of singular and slow?FCC: I chose a single instrument to givethe notion ofa guy alone, a kind ofloneli-ness and simplicity. Just simple, a littlelonely, and jazz-like. I would think thatHarry's greatest thing was to be a greatjazz soloist and play at some big jazzfestival. That's his secret wish.BDP: But the use of sound in the filmis not naturalistic at all. Everything islouder; you're much more aware of cer-tain noises, and you're consciouslymaking people aware of certain sounds.FCC: We felt that any man who sits for 9hours at a time listening to things wouldbe very conscious of sounds and relate tosound in a different way than a normalperson. That's why I had him hear themurder. There's a scene that was cut outwhere he goes to a friend who's a cop andsays, "I witnessed a murder." And the guysays, "Did you see it?" And he says, "Iheard it." He never saw it, but to Harry

sounds are that alive. That's why we triedto have the track more from his point ofview.BDP: Did this present any specialproblems in mixing the movie?FCC: The film was edited by WalterMurch, who in a way collaborated withme on the film as much as possible-especially since I was working on THEGODFATHER. He was cutting, and a lotof the editorial decisions are his. He alsoconstructed the tracks and mixed it alonein our little Zoetrope studio.BDP: But there were problems in thehighs and lows of sound?FCC: To keep the extremes from thehighest sound to the lowest sound, he hadthe highest sound right at the peak oftheoptical track so that the lowest soundwould be quite a bit different from that.Which means that the whole sound trackis mixed unusually low and when it isprojected, the older theaters have to playit high.BDP: Did this film present a lot ofproblems in the editing because youwere doing repetition all the time and ithad to be handled carefully lest itbecome boring?FCC: One of the big struggles with thefilm was that it r.uos boring. And ratherthan people taking a repeated line andsaying, "Oh, isn't that interesting; now itmeans that," many of them would justkind of tune out and say, "Oh, they'redoing that again." It was a very delicatebalance, and I still don't think thefinished film quite did what I hadoriginally hoped it would do.BDP: r#hen you put a rough cut to-gether, in general what probleme doyou face?FCC: That it doesn't work. Not at all. Iknow Bogdanovich's first cut works; butnone of mine ever have. Except FINI-AN'S RAINBOW, which just sort of felltogether and was more or less it.

Usually, though, my films are raw andshapeless and lack focus and really seemlike a disaster. Only with editing and re-positioning and a real last re-write do theystart to shape up. But it's funny. It's like ahorse I once knew of in a horse race. Inevery race it was always last until, in theIast laps, it made progress-and in thisparticular case, won. My films don'talways win, but they always look muchworse than they end up. And it's theeditorial process that starts it. But it maybe good that it's that way.BDP: Do you admire directors likeHitchcock who construct things sorigidly that the shooting process is justa matter of putting all the piecestogether? Do you wish you had a littlemore of that?FCC: Well, I realized after a while that Ineeded a little more of that to be able toget away with it and get people to sitthrough it. But although I find Hitchcockvery enjoyable, I don't have awe for hiswork because I can see how it's built.What I have awe for is certain filmmakerswho put things on the screen and whenyou look at it you don't know how ithappetred or how on earth anyone couldhave gotten that on film-whetherthrough acting or just beautiful thingshappening. I always feel I know exactlyhow Hitchcock has done something, andthe fact that he doesn't often have terrific

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acting in his movies limits my reactionright there.BDP: But do you admire his cinematiccongtructione?FCC: Yes, I do admire them. But I findthat I prefer something like STRAN-GERS ON A TRAIN or THE WRONGMAN to NORTH BY NORTHWEST andthe more manipulative films. When youhave both the cinematic constructionsand the acting, then you're really awed byit!BDP: Being a writer/director, how doyou approach your material? That is,do you rehearse it a lot go that you getfeedback from your actors to see ifsoenes work?FCC: Yes, I think I'm very receptive tothe actors'intuition. I provide the scenewhich is the basis, then ifthey can departfrom it and make it better, I'll go with it.But if they depart from it and make itworse, then I eo back to what I wrote.BDP: Doee that mean you have arehearsal period when you just startworking it out on the set as you shoot?FCC: The rehearsal time for the last fewfilms has happened on the set, but I'drather have a chance to work in totalrelaxation because I believe that the bestwork-and it may be true of any art-comes out ofrelaxation because you are ina state where you can follow your in-tuitions. If you're tense and frightenedand pressed, you tend to censor your ideasand do more "safe" and usual kinds ofthings. So I think relaxation is very im-portant, and a rehearsal period where youjust have the actors and are not under thepressure of daily production, with thecrew waiting and stuff like that, is whereyou do better. I would hope in the futureto set it up that way.BDP: Do you like directing big sceneswith a lot of extras, or do you find it'ejust a matter of putting embellishmenteon the kind of character scenes thatyou're really intereeted in?FCC: I think I would like directing bigscenes if I was ever really prepared forthem. But I tend to always get caughtwith my pants down for them. You're justdesperate to get through it and make itlook like something; and you don't wantto pile on thoee costly days.

I've never prepared a film well. UsuallyI just barely get the script done and gointo production and it's "well, here itgoes!" But I'm going to do a film-I thinkmy next film-and write it myself andeven do scenes or parts of it in this littletheater that I have and just kind of relaxwith it and put it together very slowly.BDP: Do you look at your past moviesvery much?FCC: No, but I've always said that some-day I'm going to go into a room and lookat them alone. It has to be alone. Uthere'sone other person, you have to look at whatthat person thinks.BDP: In doing that, would you become&w&re of the things that interegt you asa director and the things that bore youas a director?FCC: Sure. At least I think I can tell agfar as themes go. No matter what period,no matter where you are, there's always ashow going on. So I figure that must in-terest me because I'm always stickingshows in. Right now we're shooting in alittle theater, and there's a show going on.

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So these motifs, these recu:ring themes,are your definition in some way.BDP: But you don't rely bn thosethinge much in TIIE CONVERSA-TION.FCC: No, I don't give myself a lot ofbreaks in THE CONVERSATIONbecause there's not a lot in the movie thatI feel viscerally about, except maybetechnology, bugging the room, stuff likethat.BDP: Did you use all live locations?FCC: Yes, if you consider that hisworkshop was just a warehouse but wedressed it to get the effect. We dressed itentirely so that it was a set within an ac-tual location.BDP: Why did you make it ro rrn-rpeeifrc, so much closer to Kaflra thanto, Bay, Gulf & Tl'estern?FCC: I was afraid that the character ofHarry was so essentially boring and non-

exotic that it would be easy to cross overinto a thing where the audience was reallymore interested in the couple and theirstory than in him. And since that wasn'tthe point, I did whatever I could to makeit seem like a citadel of power with almostHenry the VItrth types of relationshipswithout ever giving you a hint that youwere meant to go into that story. I wasfrankly scared that if I was any morespecific then everyone would be irritatedthat I was not making the movie about thecouple.BDP: But why didn't you at leaet makeup a fictitious company name oreomething like that?FCC: Because I felt that anyone who hadbeen in one of those places, who hadstepped into one of those impersonal lob-bies and heard that sound in theelevators, would know exactly what Imeant, so to say it was the Bank ofAmerica or Gulf & Western was un-necessary. I felt that by making it specificI would also somehow be making itsmaller.BDP: But surely you knew that whenthe secret was found out and you dis-covered that it was only a wife killingher husband inetead of something likepreventing an era&ssination or somecataclysmic event that it might disap-point people?FCC: Yes, I was afraid that people wouldthink there was more to it than there real-ly was. And especially when Watergatehappened, I was really frightened thatpeople would expect it to be about spiesand tapes and that sort ofthing and then!e very angry that it wasn't.-But rightfrom the beginning I wanted it to -besomething personal, not political, becausesomehow that is even more terrible to me.BDP: lilhat's really bothering Harry?What's the source of his deepeatwounde? The thing that he's really try-ing to get at when he's tearing up the

TOP: Professional surveillance expert Gene Hackman (left) is distracted by mime Robert Shields as heis followtng a young couple for o millionaire client. BOTTOM: Cindy llilliams has a secret rettdezvouswith Frederic Forrest (right) not knowing they are being trailed by Gene Hackman (behind Cindy).

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room, tearing himself up?FCC: At the end? I was trying-and Ididn't totally suceed-to have an image ofdismantling, but to have a repeated im-age. If you notice carefully (and no onedoes) they're tearing a building down onhis block. Well, they're stripping thisbuilding, and later in the film we see allthe rooms bare, which is to me an eaveE-dropping image-that is, seeing throughthe walls of buildings. At the end Iwanted----of courte with the premise thatthe best wiretapper in the world had beentapped by someone better-the tearingdown of the room to kind of be syn-onymous with a kind of personal tearingdown in order to try to come back more towhat his roots were as a man,BDP: W'hat are his roots? What ie ithe's trying to get at?FCC: I think his roots are roots of guilt.Ever since he was a little kid, everythingthat has happened he has in some waybeen responsible for.BDP: Even when he wae a child?FCC: That's what the thing in the parkwas all about when he talks aboutpunching a man in the stomach who diesa year later. I don't know, but I think thatsomewhere along the way he must havebeen one of those kids who's sort of a weir-do in high school. You know, the kind oftechnical freak who's president of theradio club. He was probably somethinglike that.BDP: You're not technically orientedlike that in any way yourself, are you?FCC: Sure. I always was. When I was akid, I was one of those guys like I was justdescribing. In fact, my nickname was"Science." You know, "Hey, Science,come over here and tell him about induc-tion coils." And I was president of theradio club.

When I was a kid I became attracted tothe theater because it fulfilled the twopoles of my life: one was stories, and theother was science, I was just as much at-tracted to the theater because of itstechnical aspects-light dimmers, sets,etc.BDP: Is there a relation between thatand the fact that Harry is a voyeur?FCC: One part is the desire to be the bestat something, to have an excellence, Butthe other is how I constructed the charac-ter: When I was kid about 13 or 14, Iwasn't much of a hotshot, but there was atremendous sense of power in puttingmicrophones around to hear other people.There was a sense of being important andsuperior because I could tap a phone andno one knew. I even had a plan to putmicrophones in the radiators of all therooms in the house so that I could tune inon what I was going to get for Christmas.And I would think that those kind of peo-ple, the unappreciated school weirdos,might turn into something like a Harry.BDP: But he lives a vicarioue lifethrough other people.FCC: I was trying to imply that with hisobsession with Cindy in the movie. It'ssubtle, but I think it's clear to some peo-ple. He begins to replace Fred in a way bytrying to get a very personal relationshipwith the girl. In the dream sequence in thepark, in a way he has replaced the guy intheir walk. So I was really trying to implya kind of romantic magnetism.

But the idea of the dream Bequence in

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the park actually came out of anothernotion: I love the idea of a film editor whohas cut a film for six months and in put-ting it together piece by piece he hae seenthe leading lady from every aspect andhas fallen in love with her. (I once actuallysaw this happen.) Then one day he gets tomeet her and she says, "Hi, how are you?"And he wants to say, "I know you. I knowthe way you walk and the way you talk." Iloved the idea of just one party knowingthe other so incrediblv well. And I lovedthe idea of the guy following her and say-ing, "Listen, you don't know who I am butI know you and I know your problems andI love you." Which is what he ultimatelywants to say.

And I had written that scene in abus---one of those electric buses in SanFrancisco which are so neat. And Iremember looking out of the window andseeing other electric busee going throughthe fog and it was euch a beautiful, ghoet-Iy image that I decided I wanted a scene ofhim sitting next to her on an electric busand saying, "I know you,"

San Francisco gets very foggy, and Ithought for sure that if we were shootingthis film for 40 days we'd get one foggyday. Well, we never shot that scenebecause we never got the fog. So the lastday, in desperation, we tried to make thefog and we got the scene you see in thepicture. But when we tried to do the busscene we just couldn't so we gave up andquit.

But it's a very surreal park, with itsIevels, and in the 40's many art films werestaged there, so I don't feel that bad aboutit. The important thing was the idea ofhim trying to reach out: The notion of aman who's totally private, who has nevereven told anyone his phone number oranything about himself, running after thiswoman and saying, "I was born in 1939and I weigh 182 lbs. and I do this,and . . ." To give so much information,like overkill, I thought would be pathetic.BDP: And this scene originally cameat the end of the movie?FCC: Yes, but we had such a botch-upwith the fog-the fog was too extremebecause we manufactured it to block outthe blue sky-that we were even going tocut it out totally. But I didn't want to losehim finally voicing something abouthimsel( so then one of the editors cameup with the idea of moving it up earlierand we liked it so we left it there.BDP: lYhy did you make Cindy andDuval so far apart in age?FCC: I guess, again, the notion of KingHenry the VIIIth, the notion of a verypowerful man. He's King Henry and she'sthe young queen and he's one ofthe cour-tiers. It was all meant to be a kind ofpolitical romance, the idea of her sleepingwith the courtier and the consequences ofthe act. So it was the classic older, power-ful, wealthy man and his younger, beau-tiful, possibly unfaithful wife.

I purposely chose a girl with anold/young face for the part because Iwanted the audience to think that al-though she was young there was some-thing troubling her or, in this case,someone oppressing her. But at the endyou see the real twist and realize her faceis showing hardness and ambition.BDP: rilhen you work something outon palrer and then get it up on the

screten and see that it works, have youfound that, making aE many movies agyou have, you c&n pretty preciselypredict how you conceive something,either on psper or in your head, andhow it's going to appear on the 6creen?FCC: I haven't been able to up to now.BDP: But aB you make more films,don't you obviously become more ex-perienced and able to realize yourvisions?FCC: I now feel comfortable, and evenenthusiastic, about starting anotheroriginal screenplay. Because now, afterthis and after what I would call originalsections of both GODFATHERS (sectionsthat did not come from the book), I feelcomfortable about being able to tacklesomething more ambitious. THE CON-VERSATION was very ambitious, and Ihung in not because it was going right, butbecause I couldn't accept within myselfthe judgment that I couldn't succeed indoing it. It's a funny thing, but I justcouldn't let the project go.BDP: What do you consider an &m-bitious risk for a director? Somethinglike 2001, where you try to create awhole universe?FCC: Something like 8Vz or LA DOLCEVIIA where you really launch into anenormous personal vision of things.BDP: Then you're more interested inthe pereonal than the fantastic?FCC: I'm interested in future themes,but I'[ try first of all to latch onto somepowerful emotional undercurrent in peo-ile. Wtrat I liked about LAST TANGOINPARIS was that it seemed to latch ontothe emotional language of this man. Andthis got tapped directly. I believe that theemotional makeup of people is a systemnot unlike the circulatory system or themuscular system. And if you can make afilm that not only lays bare that systembut is itself constructed out of thosethings, it would be an incredible thing towitness and to feel.

Basically I want to write original filmworks-that is, not based on books. Andthat is a frightening prospect, even to mewho has done it several times. But that'smy big challenge; that's the big thing I'mafter. People who think I'm successful arewrong in that I don't feel myself to be mydefinition of successful until I can takesomething, either out of my memory ormy past or my ideas, and make it into areallv effective motion oicture.

THE CONVERSAfION and THERAIN PEOPLE were started almost asdares to myself. Starting and working onit for six months and still it doesn'twork-well, it was a dare to myself tomake it work! But from now on I don'tthink I will do it as a puzzle or a dare. It'slike the difference between seducing awoman just to see ifyou can seduce her, orseducing her because you really want to.And I think that from now on I'm going towrite something because I really want towrite it, rather than proving to myselfthat I can get through an originalscreenplay.

So both THE RAIN PEOPLE and THECONVERSATION were personal tests tosee if I could do it-get through it andmake it work. Now that I feel I can do it,the really exciting test which presentsitself to me is whether I can do areally for-midable original work.

MAY 1974