Saw this courtesy of TMC. In 1971-73 I edited a film quarterly magazine entitled 'Cinema' and was always in search of new material. Not to toot my own horn (but here I go--toot, toot!) we published the first work on Joseph Lewis and Oscar Mischaux, put Performance on the cover, published Lindsay Anderson's work on John Ford, ran the first translated interviews with Mizoguchi, Ichikawa and Ozu, ran a booklet-size piece of Peter Guber's predictions about the "cartridge revolution," ran…
The peculiar nature of the Vietnam War has had its effect on films. Past war propaganda films (pro and con) were like the wars: straight, "us vs. them," goal-oriented cine-journalism with hard-hitting MARCH OF TIME style narration. But Vietnam defies traditional documentary technique: it's anachronistically conventional in a nuclear age, it's without front lines, clear purpose or definite enemy, and is transmitted primarily through television. I have yet to see an effective pro-Vietnam War documentary, because the Armed Forces' WHY…
Before I sat down to write TAXI DRIVER, I reread Sartre's Nausea, because I saw the script as an attempt to take the European existential hero, that is, the man from The Stranger, Notes from the Underground, Nausea, PICKPOCKET (1959), LE FEU FOLLET (1963), and A MAN ESCAPED (1956), and put him in an American context. In so doing, you find that he becomes more ignorant, ignorant of the nature of his problem. Travis's problem is the same as the…
September 1985. Springsteen and I had dinner at Mirabelle on the Strip to discuss "Born in the USA," a script I'd offered him which he turned down (decided not to get into movies) but subsequently used as a song title. He told me I could use the song or he'd write me another one. I choose the latter and he wrote "Light of Day." Jullianne Phillips had asked me to bring Bruce to a West Hollywood location where she'd planned…
HARDCORE. In 1978 Eric Kroll did special photography on the film Hardcore. He used the occasion to shoot some erotic photos not from the film. Now, 45 yeas later, here it is.
THE CANYONS. A new DVD release brought my mind back. Thirteen years ago The Canyons was considered an affront to motion picture proprietary but at the time I just thought it was a cool thing to do. Looking back now, I see it as intirguing social marker of the period. And it's kinda fun. What more can one ask?
"Dying of the Light," a film I wrote and directed, was taken away from me after the submission of the Director’s Cut (June 2014). Grindstone Pictures and the producers wanted a generic Nick Cage video-on-demand film, while my editorial instincts were pointing toward something more interesting. Grindstone recut, scored, and mixed the film without my input. Subsequently, actors Nicholas Cage and Anton Yeltsin, executive producer Nic Refn and I distanced ourselves from the film. Because we were threatened with lawsuits if we…