Seaman Quint Interviews CURTIS HANSON about, well all things Curtis Hanson... + Tonight's GOLDEN GLOBES!!! PART 1!!!
Published at: Jan. 21, 2001, 2:08 a.m. CST by staff
Hey there all you tobacco and anti-tobacco fans, Harry here with a public service announcement about Quint and his interview with Curtis Hanson.... Director of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL and WONDER BOYS, among many others. It might depress you to no end to realize that Curtis Hanson decided to talk almost exclusively about film, his career and experiences making movies... and seemed to not even give a speck of thought to the question of his favorite Dirty Joke. You know, often times folks laugh about this question or use it to rain down criticism upon our trusty seaman Quint.... Well, your favorite Dirty Joke is instrumental in doing two things with your subject. One, it instantly reveals the inner ID of the person trying to come up with the joke.... Two it loosens their guard and gets them into more of a chat/informal feeling, thereby loosening the bonds of the ME: JOURNALIST, YOU: MISERABLE SOUL... But in not answering that question... are we also not revealing quite a bit more about the interviewee? Think about it! No, seriously... think about it! Does Curtis not have a single favorite dirty joke? Nothing that he tells in the secret corner of the FORMOSA CAFE? Hmmmm.... I wonder, boy do I wonder. Enough with the melancholy, onto the jolly...
Ahoy there, squirts! 'Tis I, the forever crusty seaman, Quint, here once
more, this time with a little scar-sharin' with writer/director and Golden
Globe nominee Curtis Hanson. You might remember Curtis as the director of
The River Wild with Meryl Streep, Bad Influence with James Spader and Rob
Lowe, Bedroom Window with Steve Guttenburg (HARRY NOTE: If you fucking remember BEDROOM WINDOW with Steve Friggin Guttenburg please go to MR SHOWBIZ now!), Losin' It with Tom Cruise or
more recently as the cowriter and director of LA Confidential. Curtis' last
film, Wonder Boys, is up for a few Golden Globes. So, everybody out there
think good thoughts about Curtis, Michael Douglas and Wonder Boys tomorrow!
One side note: Those familiar with my interviews know about my favorite
question, involving a vulgarity issuing forth from the interviewee in some
way shape or form. As is evident at the end of the interview, Curtis
couldn't come up with a joke and promised to send it to me via phone line
or email box. Alas, it has not gotten to me. I mean, it's not like the guy
has to prepare for any big awards cerimony where his film is likely to
gather some gold or anything. I promise that if I get his joke in the next
few days, I'll zip it right up to Harry who'll smack it on this sucka.
I also wanna add quickly that the damn shark has been at it again and
somehow got seawater in my computer, so it's out of service for a bit. I'm
currently having to slum off other people with internet access, so if you
email me give me a few days to get back to ya'.
So, for those Curtis Hanson fans out there, or those just discovering his
talent, here's the interview that covers just about every flick he's ever
done. Enjoy!
QUINT: WE READY?
CURTIS HANSON: I think I'm ready.
Q: I THINK I'M READY, TOO. LET'S DO THIS, THEN.
CH: You will edit this, I presume.
Q: YEAH, A LITTLE PROBABLY.
CH: OK, good.
Q: YOUR FIRST FILM WAS A HORROR MOVIE CALLED SWEET KILL. HOW DID THAT COME
ABOUT?
CH: (Pause) How much detail do you want, Quint? (laughs)
Q: I'LL TAKE HOWEVER MUCH YOU WANNA GIVE ME.
CH: OK. Well, it really wasn't my first film. Actually, my first screen
credit was the Dunwich Horror which I co-wrote. Part of what was good about
that experience was I was able to go on location while they were shooting
the movie and write scenes that would literally be shot the next day.
So, I learned a lot. I also met the executive producer of the movie who was
Roger Corman. We had some conversations about me writing and directing
because that's what I wanted to do. He was starting a little distribution
company called New World and he said he'd be interested in cofinancing and
distributing a picture if it was a motorcycle movie, a movie about women in
prison or nurses... candy striped nurses.
I went, "Isn't there anything else?" 'Cause motorcycles... that genre had
been going strong for quite a while. The others gave lots of opportunities
for bare breasts or what's often called a "Hard R." I said, "Isn't there
anything else?" and he said, "Well... A modern horror movie." That appealed
to me as having more possibilities, so I wrote very quickly a script about
an emotionally confused young woman who kills guys.
Roger read it and his response was, "I liked it, but it was a little too
different having a woman be the killer." So, I then basically rewrote it
and made the killer male and then we proceeded into this production with
Tab Hunter playing the part.
Q: I'VE TRIED TO FIND THIS FILM, LOOKED EVERYWHERE WITH LITTLE SUCCESS.
CH: You won't find it under that tile because... I mean, it actually was a
very unhappy experience. It was one of many that I had on early pictures I
did. The picture got retitled and became The Arousers. It was recut to some
degree and more bare breasts were put into it. It was the first time I
learned the lesson that I had the opportunity to learn multiple times after
that which is: If you're going to risk being wrong, it's better to be wrong
with your own mistakes than with somebody else's.
Unfortunately, to follow through with that you have to have some power. It
literally wasn't until Bad Influence that I was able to actually finish the
picture the way that I wanted to.
Q: WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT OF YOUR EARLY FILMS, YOU COWROTE ONE OF MY
ABSOLUTE FAVORITE UNKNOWN FILMS, WHITE DOG.
CH: Yes.
Q: YOU DID THAT WITH SAM FULLER. I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO SEE IT AT A SAM
FULLER RETROSPECT HELD AT THE UT CAMPUS BY THE LOCAL FILM SOCIETY. I SAW 5
OR 6 SAM FULLER FILMS THERE INCLUDING WHITE DOG.
CH: Great! How long ago was this?
Q: ABOUT 3 OR 4 YEARS AGO. IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY THEY WERE GOING TO BRING
HIM OUT FOR THE LAST FILM, BUT HE COULDN'T MAKE IT DUE TO ILL HEALTH AND HE
DIED SHORTLY THEREAFTER.
CH: Yes.
Q: SO, HOW DID YOU TEAM UP WITH SAM FULLER TO DO WHITE DOG?
CH: Well, again that's one that potentially there's a very long answer to.
I didn't go to film school. What I did was I started... In fact instead of
going to college, I started writing about movies and taking pictures of the
people that made them. I wrote something about Sam Fuller that he liked. I
then met him and we really hit it off. This was when I was 19. Over the
years we just became friends. He was just a very generous friend and a kind
of mentor in a way, if you will.
Then I stared developing my own filmmaking career and as coincidence would
have it I was sort of developing this two pronged career. On the one hand,
I was trying to direct. On the other hand, I was writing more successfully
on bigger projects.
One of these projects I was hired to do was an adaptation of Romain Gary's
novella, White Dog. At the time I was writing it Roman Polanski was going
to direct it. Then he got into his legal problems and a lot of things
happened, but basically the script sat on the shelf for several years at
Paramount.
Now, I had talked to Sammy about it at the time I was writing it because he
knew Romain Gary and was interested in the story. We had just kind of
chatted about it. Then about 5 years later they took it off the shelf and
contacted me to see if I would be interested in rewriting it. They wouldn't
let me direct it, though. I tried to get it and direct. When that failed
rather than rewrite it for somebody else, I said "Well, why don't you get
Sam Fuller to direct this?"
There was a strike, oddly enough it was kinda like right now, there was a
strike looming and they were in a hurry to make some pictures. Sam, I knew,
was not only available, but eager for work. They hired him and then they
hired me to work with Sam and write a new script. We needed to write it in
3 weeks because of this potential strike.
So, I ended up in the dream position of collaborating with this guy whose
work I had so admired over my entire movie going life who was also a friend
of mine. The thing that was unique about it was it was actually the only
time Sam ever cowrote anything with anybody. And of course the goal was to
produce the script that Sam wanted for his movie because, naturally, this
was now a Sam Fuller movie. We used some of the structural elements from my
original script, but basically we started over again.
It was a great
experience professionally and personally.
The unfortunate thing about it is, as you know, the picture came under this
cloud of controversy which was totally absurd. It was based on remarks made
by people who had never even seen the movie. The picture literally became
sort of too hot to handle and Paramount... they didn't release it, they
shelved it. Then it was sold to network television and again people made
some controversy about it and it was pulled from that showing. Yet, it was
released around the world to really tremendous reviews and in the last few
years has surfaced intermittently in the United States.
It's tragic. The thing that's so sad about it is it turned out to be the
last movie Sam made in Hollywood. Sam fuller, and I say this as somebody,
not just a friend of Sam's, but also somewhat of a knowledgeable film fan.
I don't think there's any filmmaker who over the course of his career dealt
with the racial texture of the United States in as inventive and
thought-provoking of a way as Sam Fuller did.
Literally, when you start thinking about that aspect of it and go through
his movies one after the other, he deals with the ethnic mosaic that is our
country. For him to be tarred with a completely absurd charge of racism was
not only unfair, but it was ridiculous. The whole point of White Dog is
that racism's something that is taught. Of course, the dog is a metaphor,
that it can even be taught to man's best friend.
So, on the one hand it was a high point of my career, but emotionally it
was really disappointing what happened to the movie and to Sam after the
fact.
You know, the amazing thing, I have to say one last personal thing about
Sam, the amazing thing about it is as disappointed as he was with that and
other career setbacks that he had during the length of time I knew him, he
never betrayed anger. Disappointment yes, but no bitterness. That was one
of the inspiring things about Sammy that no matter how many hardships he
faced he would just go back out to his office and his Royal Upright
Typewriter and just keep on working on his scripts.
Q: YOU DIRECTED A FILM EARLY ON IN YOUR CAREER CALLED LOSIN' IT, WHICH WAS
ONE OF TOM CRUISE'S FIRST FILMS.
CH: Yes. Again, not a happy experience. A picture I'm proud of the work we
all did, but it was again taken away, retitled, re-edited and music was
stuck in I didn't like.
You know, Bad Influence was the first movie where I did do what I wanted
with the music all the way through and then LA Confidential and Wonder Boys
were the two other ones.
Music, I think, is a very important part of the
filmmaking process and it's really frustrating when songs are jammed in for
the wrong reasons and scores are put in, again, not in the most effective
way, which gets back to that lesson I told you I learned early on. Better
to make your own mistakes then the mistakes of other people 'cause you end
up living with them a lot longer than they do.
Q: YOU MENTIONED BAD INFLUENCE. I JUST RECENTLY WATCHED THE FILM AND IT
KICKS SOME ASS. I NOTICED IT WAS ONE OF DAVID KOEPP'S FIRST SCREENPLAYS.
CH: Yes.
Q: HOW DID YOU END UP WORKING WITH HIM ON THAT?
CH: What happened on that was first off, David was a big fan of a picture I
had written called The Silent Partner. When he wrote Bad Influence, which
actually had elements in it that were kind of inspired by The Silent
Partner, I think this is something David would be the first to say himself,
the people who financed the movie were going, "Who should we get to direct
this?" As it happened, one of them was a big fan of The Bedroom Window and
said, "Well, what about that guy?" and David went, "That's a great idea!"
So, David and I got together. Bad Influence is a movie that I'm very proud
of, actually. It was the first movie where I was pretty much, within the
confines of budget and obvious considerations like that, I was pretty much
able to follow through with this all the way to the end including the
choice of music, right down to the end. Coincidentally it was the first
movie that I worked on with the music supervisor Carol Fenclon who also did
Wonder Boys.
You know, we really tried to use the music to illustrate one of the themes
of the movie which was the Rob Lowe character is introducing the James
Spader character not only to the other side of the city in which he lives,
which is a city that is multiethnic and so forth and has international or
world music, but also to the dark side of himself. So, we tried to get
music that would help illustrate that as well as production locations and
extras and so forth and so on.
Q: WHEN I WAS CALLED ABOUT DOING THIS INTERVIEW, I SAID, "OH CRAP! I BETTER
DO SOME RESEARCH!" AND I RENTED 4 OR 5 OF YOUR MOVIES THAT I HADN'T SEEN
AND OF THEM BAD INFLUENCE WAS THE ONE I WATCHED TWICE.
CH: Oh, good. It's a favorite of mine. You know, it comes down to a number
of things. Working with actors, you know, character work and working with
actors are two of the things I enjoy most about directing and a great part
of that is casting. So, I'm really proud, for instance, that Losin' It had
Tom's first starring role and also Shelly Long before Night Shift and
Cheers. With Bad Influence I'm really proud of the work that Spader and
Lowe did.
It was unfortunate for Rob Lowe that his whole video scandal
happened the week of rehearsals because Rob's performance and movie
suffered from everything being all about that ridiculous video thing that
he was stupid enough to get involved with. But I'm really proud of his work
in the movie and I'm very happy for Rob that he's outlasted it. By just
kind of laying low and making some good choices he's outlasted that.
Q: YOU LOVE WORKING WITH ACTORS, HUH? WELL... I READ THAT YOU TRIED TO KILL
MERYL STREEP ON THE SET OF RIVER WILD!
CH: Hardly. (laughs). Hardly. No, Meryl was absolutely fabulous in that
movie and what lead to the story you're talking about... when we were
filming a scene, she got thrown in the rapids.
Naturally, that was an
extremely scary moment., the last thing you want to see happen to anybody,
especially your star. But, to Meryl's tremendous credit, she took on that
part of a woman who was really defined by her physicality and threw herself
into it with complete dedication that one expects from her reputation in
terms of other kinds of roles. She really learned to handle the oars and
became very sufficient and was able to do almost all of her own rowing.
Naturally, the heavy duty stunts you had a stunt double, but Meryl did a
tremendous amount of rowing in that picture. In many ways, in all the
movies I've done, the two actors who from the beginning of the movie to the
end of the movie were my complete partners were Meryl and Michael Douglas.
Without Meryl's enthusiasm and dedication for what we were trying to
accomplish that movie never could have been made because it was all real.
It was not a movie where it was done with putting actors faces on other
people's bodies and stuff like that. It was real.
Q: AND I THINK THAT SHOWS THROUGH ON THE ACTUAL FILM. YOU GET A WHOLE
DIFFERENT LEVEL OF INVOLVEMENT WHEN YOU CAN SEE THE ACTORS ACTUALLY IN
THERE DOING IT.
CH: That was what attracted us both to the story. It was an opportunity to
tell a story that was reality based with a woman at the center of it with
her skills and personal problems as well. You know, the media tended to
look on it... they labelled it as Meryl trying to be Bruce Willis or Arnold
Schwarzenegger which wasn't what we were after at all.
The gratifying thing is when I do publicity on movies, especially
internationally, The River Wild and Meryl's performance are some of the
things I get asked about the most. Meryl showed another side of herself in
that performance. People really responded to it.