Howard who stories peapo.., p.16
The Best Film You've Never Seen, page 16
You talked a little bit about the visual effects. But is there something that hasn’t aged well?
HERZLINGER: I am a fan of all that is animatronics, of all that is matte painting and all that is tangible. Computer graphics reached their peak when they began in 1993, when the first characters were really fleshed out.
Jurassic Park is the best, will always be the best use of computer-generated imagery, because they didn’t overuse it; it was used to enhance the tangible animatronic creatures. You see the T. rex in front of them, roaring into the windshield of the car. That’s a real T. rex, and they couldn’t get the thing to run, so they used CG, which looked phenomenal and still does to this day.
Now when you see that and you compare that with the nonsense that is gracing the majority of our films today—I’m sorry, but the visual effects in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the CG effects, are terrible.
It is enough of a challenge to get your audience to believe in flickering images of light and picture on that screen, to believe in it and get immersed in it. But when you get them engrossed, you kick them right out by using these effects that are cost-effective. All it does is take your audience right out of the movie.
What would you say to the filmmakers who think that’s an elitist attitude?
HERZLINGER: I will say this: Peter Jackson has become what Spielberg was to the ’80s and the early ’90s. Jackson’s King Kong from 2005 is flawless. That is, he is the only filmmaker today that can make CGI feel tangible, and I hate saying that because Spielberg’s my favorite director.
They’ve been talking for years, the Chiodo brothers, about doing a Killer Klowns 2. I would love to see that.
The Chiodo brothers thought that King Kong was real. Is there anything that you thought similarly as a child?
HERZLINGER: Yes, Niagara Falls. I wanted to see where Superman saved the kid from falling over.
Did you find the spot?
HERZLINGER: I found the spot, I got a picture taken at the spot, and I gotta say, it was actually exhilarating and disappointing at the same time, because yes, I found the spot, but I couldn’t find the hot-dog stand that he flew behind and changed into Clark Kent.
So that was a day that canceled itself out in terms of my pilgrimage, but I will say that the first weekend I moved to L.A. to pursue the dream of being a moviemaker, they were shooting Mighty Joe Young, the remake, in Hollywood; they had a giant inflatable blue replica of the gorilla. They had all the cars already pre-crushed on the street along the side of Hollywood Boulevard, and all the actors were looking up—Charlize Theron, Bill Paxton—were all looking up at this blue balloon.
And all my friends, after watching the filming for about an hour, they were bored, and they went back to the room, and I’m like, “I’m not leaving, are you kidding?” and I ended up getting to meet Ron Underwood and talking to him about movies and how much I love City Slickers and Tremors, and this and that.
That was the first weekend that I was in L.A., and that helped strengthen my bubble that surrounded me when I moved out here. I made a promise to myself—I knew that I had this bubble, and I would never let it get burst. I would let it get poked and prodded and scratched and bruised, but the day that the bubble popped and it wasn’t fun for me anymore and I couldn’t see the joy of the business—that would be the day that I left the business. And it hasn’t, yet.
21
Kevin Smith
A Man for All Seasons
Kevin Smith was one of the first directors to say yes to The Best Film You’ve Never Seen, and his interview ranks among the most enthusiastic—and also longest. In a wandering conversation that inched over the two-hour mark, Smith talked about his Catholic upbringing, his admiration for Sir Thomas More, and his love of the language in A Man for All Seasons.
Smith also spent considerable time defending his choice. After all, I argued, a film that won Best Picture and five other Oscars in 1967 did not belong in a book about overlooked films. But Smith passionately defended his choice and I relented, including his argument in this interview.
Remembering his first viewing of the film, “I was hooked,” Smith says. “I was so roped in, literally leaning over the arm of the couch, knees on the couch, almost in that face-in-hands, resting-on-elbows position, like a ’50s schoolgirl would pine over Ricky Nelson.”
Kevin Smith, selected filmography:
Clerks (1994)
Mallrats (1995)
Chasing Amy (1997)
Dogma (1999)
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
Jersey Girl (2004)
Clerks II (2006)
Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)
Cop Out (2010)
Red State (2011)
A Man for All Seasons
1966
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Starring Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, Susannah York, Corin Redgrave, and Robert Shaw
How would you describe A Man for All Seasons to someone who’s never seen it?
SMITH: It’s the story of Thomas More, who was the lord chancellor of England under Henry VIII and who was a very strict Catholic. Henry kicks off the Reformation, where England switches over from Catholicism, rejecting Rome as the seat of their religious government, to Anglican, where suddenly the Church of England is established, and they disavow Rome and the Pope. [This was also tangled up with Henry’s desire to marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn; the Pope would not annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, thereby blocking his plans. —ed.] And the choice that Thomas has to make is between his king and his soul as he struggles to stay alive in a climate where not going along with the king is tantamount to treason.
You saw this at age thirteen at the insistence of your teacher, right?
SMITH: Sister Theresa told me to watch it, because we were putting on a kind of truncated version of it for the school play that year. So she took [the original play on which the film was based, by Robert Bolt] and just kind of chopped out the narrator, who was the common man in the play, and shaved scenes down.
At thirteen, what was your obsession with it?
SMITH: The language and the concept—just the idea of somebody whose convictions are that strong that he would rather face the grave than switch to another religion—or just sign a piece of paper that really would have meant nothing to anybody else but him and meant nothing to so many other people. But to him, it was all the difference between his relationship with God and a lack thereof. So it definitely captivated me on that level as well, as it was my final year in Catholic school before I headed off to public school. But really, the dialogue was so wonderful. Everyone sounded so fucking smart.
You’ve said that A Man for All Seasons is “porn for somebody who loves language.” How does it differ from regular, missionary-position dialogue in other movies?
SMITH: Because every line of dialogue is a close-up jizz shot to some degree or a really great close-up on double penetration. Everything is so insanely well written, and all the actors pull off the dialogue in the fashion that you feel like it’s just rolling off their tongue. Arguments are countered and logic is splayed out for the viewer to sit there and realize that Thomas had absolutely no choice, as far as he’s concerned. Everyone else in the film offers a counter to his argument that is completely valid. Particularly Margaret, his daughter, is just like, “Say the words of the oath and in your heart think otherwise.”
And More responds with, “What is an oath then but words we say to God?” And, “When a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then—he needn’t hope to find himself again.”
Powerful stuff.
And for the school play, you played the role of Cromwell. How did you do?
SMITH: You know, my performance was pretty good. It was a little hammy. I was the only one who attempted the British accent. Even Sister Theresa was like, “Don’t bother.”
I said, “No, no,” because Leo McKern’s performance in the film was so influential that I was just flat-out parroting his readings. But I might have had a bit more Snidely Whiplash than Leo McKern did; I didn’t have the subtleties of the craft then—or now. The Silent Bob performance is so insanely over-the-top, with the facial gestures and tics and whatnot and the wide eyes—the white Buckwheat, if you will. Now apply that to a role where I actually have to speak, and you pretty much get the picture. That being said, for thirteen it was good but probably a very precocious performance. I did win an acting award.
It’s a pretty heady play for thirteen-year-olds. How did it go over with the other students?
SMITH: It went over really well. Of course, I’m tempted to say it was the best production. In terms of production value, it was OK. But the performance itself I thought was really good.
Michael Belicose, who was in Clerks as the guy to whom Dante says, “Thirty-seven! My girlfriend sucked thirty-seven dicks,” and he goes, “In a row?” That dude played Thomas More. And Sister Theresa cast all the characters, she said, based on what she felt we were capable of and also based on personality. She cast Michael based on his personality, because he was so soft-spoken and such a gentle soul. And I always wondered why the fuck she cast me as a duplicitous headhunter. She swears that it was just because I was hammy.
Fred Zinnemann directed this movie and High Noon, From Here to Eternity, Julia, and Oklahoma! What defines Zinnemann as a director?
SMITH: Zinnemann knew how to stay out of the film. His camera work does not call attention to itself whatsoever. He is content to let the material and the actors do their jobs. Zinnemann, I always felt, was best at just staying out of the way.
But he doesn’t show up on many top ten director lists. Do you think that’s why he’s not better remembered?
SMITH: Probably because he wasn’t the guy who jumped around; there was no flash. He wasn’t part of that Easy Riders, Raging Bulls generation of filmmakers who were knee-deep in the fucking yayo [cocaine] in telling these stories that were so insanely avant-garde. For A Man for All Seasons, he adapted a play.
How do you account, then, for his great success in doing a musical, a Western, and then a period romance?
SMITH: He was a versatile man; he was like what Ang Lee is today. Ang Lee, to me, has always been a very interesting filmmaker, because he jumps from project to project; there’s no through line. You don’t sit there going, “Well, this is the typical Ang Lee picture.” He’ll go from Sense and Sensibility to The Ice Storm. Prior to all that, he’s doing Eat Drink Man Woman, then he jumps to Hulk. Whether movies are good or bad, you can’t pigeonhole him. He’s just a guy who’s really trying to tell as many different stories as he can, and that, to me, is like what Zinnemann was.
Zinnemann said, “I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of conscience. To photograph that conflict expressed in the actions or choices a person makes is very photogenic.” To me, that is such a paradox, because inner conflicts are the toughest to film. How does he accomplish that in a film with so much dialogue?
SMITH: That’s a good question. I don’t know, but he certainly pulled it off, didn’t he? Give him credit actually where credit’s due, but at the same time, the source material was pretty genius.
But yeah, how do you shoot a conscience? I don’t know. He got it, but I would say a lot of the credit goes to Scofield [as More], who has the face and the demeanor of somebody with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Years later, we’d see a brilliant Scofield performance in Quiz Show, where he’s not playing the same character at all, but there was also a guy whose morality and conscience define that character.
And also, intelligence. That was the beauty of More to me too, and it lends to shooting the conscience as well. More was not the strong, silent type— he was a lawyer, and he’s portrayed as such in the play and in the movie. He’s constantly thinking and talking, constantly looking for the angle. He’s a demon with the words. The moments where you can see the internal conflict are represented by when he’s not talking. Here’s a guy who does have an answer for everything, and it’s not even a half-hearted, thrown-out-there answer; it’s a brilliant response, thought of from many angles.
But when he’s not speaking, the courtroom scene, where he deflates, when Richard Rich perjures himself against More, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that matched in a film. It’s wonderful. Particularly against Robert Shaw’s scenery-chewing performance. A great performance, but, man, that dude in that scene—it’s his scene. And he really leaves very little breathing space, but you’re watching Scofield’s performance against Shaw, or watching More against Henry, and seeing that he is at an absolute loss. So I think it’s in the quiet moments that you can find the battle of conscience.
What’s your favorite scene? What made you a fan?
SMITH: It’s that first scene with Henry (Robert Shaw). By that point in the movie, I was hooked. At thirteen, you’re not really like, “All right, it’s a British period piece.” It felt like it was going to be a tough watch. But by that scene, I was so roped in, literally leaning over the arm of the couch, knees on the couch, almost in that face-in-hands, resting-on-elbows position, like a ’50s schoolgirl would pine over Ricky Nelson.
Robert Bolt, a history teacher turned playwright, wrote the play and screenplay. And his past credits included Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia. He went on to do The Mission. He also gets a special thanks credit in your film Dogma. Why?
SMITH: Because I so admired that play and that movie, so I gave him the big shout-out. He’ll always be defined for me as the guy who wrote the best screenplay I’ve ever seen put on film.
But why attached to Dogma in particular?
SMITH: I mean, obviously the parallels with religion. And ours wasn’t nearly the trial of conscience that More had to go through, but Bethany has a bit of it herself.
It’s been debated that A Man for All Seasons is not really a historically accurate portrait of More, that the idea of personal conscience dictating action and belief is very much a twentieth-century ethical worldview. But according to a biographer, More believed that “if parliamentary statute offends against the law of God it is ‘insufficient.’”
SMITH: That is laid out there pretty clearly in the movie. He was largely known as being a very religious man. I think if there was any aspect trumped up for the play and for the movie, it’s his playfulness. He wasn’t really a fun-loving guy, a playful wit in person.
As a thirteen-year-old, did you even understand “divinely ordained conscience”?
SMITH: Yeah, but certainly not under that exact terminology. But again, I was in Catholic school at the time—very easy to understand. Particularly when you’ve got a teacher breaking it down for you. Because Thomas More was Sister Theresa’s favorite saint. So of all the saints that we learned about, boy, she hammered More into us as a role model.
Oliver Stone is also a great fan of this film. After JFK and Nixon, he said that a non-literal-minded movie fan “would tend to view a movie as a first draft, would deepen his perception with reading around it.” But is that skirting the issue? What do you think is a filmmaker’s responsibility to history?
SMITH: Considering the source of the quote, obviously the filmmaker doesn’t feel the need to be historically accurate. And it’s based on a lot of conjecture. JFK is one of my all-time favorite movies as well, one of my top five, right up there with A Man for All Seasons. And you know, that movie was riddled with inaccuracy but presented in such an entertaining, thought-provoking, and authoritative package that I bought it hook, line, and sinker.
It wasn’t until my friend Vincent read the Jim Garrison books after that movie came out that Vincent started debunking left and right: “Well, this didn’t happen, this didn’t happen, this was kind of thrown together …”
But I like the idealized version. I guess that’s the filmmaker’s job, right? To idealize the historical figure and distill their entire life down to these few moments in time that supposedly represent them. When or how could you ever possibly do that? For all we know, More was a wife beater. I hope not, but we don’t have an entire picture. Bolt was working at an even greater loss, because his source material wasn’t even alive.
The more you read about Thomas More, the more complicated he becomes. For example, he had people burned at the stake for heresy when he was chancellor.
SMITH: I’ve gotten into arguments with people, because I see him as something of a role model and a man to be admired, and people will point out very quickly that had he been in America in the early 1700s or 1800s, he would have been burning witches. But I tend not to lean too heavily on that. I tend to chalk it all up to, well, that was a time when everybody was deeply religious.
This book is an attempt to rewrite film history and open people up to new works, but my initial argument with you over choosing this film was: it’s not overlooked, because this movie swept the Oscars in 1967.
SMITH: Right. But nobody remembers that. That was at a time before the Oscars became as fetishized as they are.
It beat out Alfie and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
SMITH: Right. But nobody remembers it, and particularly people in my age group. You know, a lot of people remember On the Waterfront. A lot of people remember classic movies that didn’t win Oscars but are thought of as classics and have high rotations on television, even pre-cable. This was a movie that doesn’t have high rotation on television, because the subject matter’s so rarefied.
Why did you feel so strongly that this had to be your choice? I lost this argument with Richard Linklater, too, because his overlooked movie is Some Came Running, for which Shirley MacLaine was nominated for an Oscar. So slowly, Oscar movies are creeping into this book.
SMITH: I think the fact that it swept the Oscars makes it even more tragic, because you would imagine it would be a movie that would be remembered. But it’s not; it’s a multiple-Oscar-winner that barely anyone ever thinks about or talks about or cites as an influence.
