A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking
Page 48
With so many disappointments and cruelties in Hollywood, Christa immersed herself in her university studies. She dreamed of getting a doctorate, then teaching, writing, making a real contribution. I thought it was great that she was studying for a degree. At the University of California, she'd gotten involved in politics and the women's movement, befriending the antiwar, black power professor Angela Davis. Back in those days in Hollywood, when a woman opened her mouth to voice an opinion, they called her nasty names. I always liked smart women who could speak their minds. Christa started going to meetings at Benjamin Spock's and hung out with Davis and Jane Fonda at Dalton Trumbo's place. Jane was then living with the actor Donald Sutherland and getting vocal in her protest against the Vietnam War.
I'd finished my own Vietnam protest, a terrific yarn called The Rifle. First, I'd written it as a novel. Then I'd adapted the book into a film script. The story was centered on an old Mi rifle, a World War II relic, which passes through the lives of my main characters, a legendary colonel with a death wish, a fourteen-year-old Viet Cong murderer, an insane French nun, and a crazed soldier who steals blood from the wounded. The movie would show the war from the perspective of the "little people" who are most affected by the violence. My dream was to shoot the picture from the viewpoint of the rifle, in continuous ten-minute takes.
I'd been trying to get The Rifle into production for years. Even if my reputation hadn't been tarnished by the Shark and Riata debacles, no Hollywood producer would go near a movie about the Vietnam War, unless you count John Wayne's Green Berets (1968). Wayne wanted to bolster the American war effort by stirring up patriotic sentiment back home, so he bankrolled that blundering movie himself. Americans lost the real-life war because we didn't comprehend Vietnam, its people, or their goals. We pursued our own aims, regardless of realities. So did John Wayne. The Rifle would eventually take its place on my shelf of unproduced projects.
One of Christa's pals from that period was Henry Miller. Although Miller was best known for Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, I thought The Colossus of Maroussi, published in 1941, was his finest writing. Christa met Miller through her friend, the actress Gia Scala, who'd played in The Guns of Navarone (1961). Gia was living up the street from us and brought Henry over for lunch one day. I loved Henry's spirit, exemplified by his famous line: "Don't look for miracles. YOU are the miracle." Henry and Christa wrote to each other often when we were in Europe on Dead Pigeon and Riata. That was how we learned that Gia had been institutionalized and finally committed suicide with an overdose. Holy shit, it was another waste of a beautiful life!
Christa was so concerned about all the madness in Hollywood that she discussed doing a book with Miller about people who'd been undone by a life in the arts. She found a line from the French poet Rene Char, which Miller loved. As I look back, I see it could have been a motto for that difficult period of my life: "Lucidity is the wound closest to the sun."
Making It All
Worthwhile
47
You've got to be philosophic about hard times. People think Hollywood is a heartless and destructive place. I don't believe that crap. Sure, it's a stressful trade, because a lot of talented people are striving for access to limited resources. You just can't let the stress get to you. The studio boys could take a movie away from me, but they couldn't take away my optimism. I was chock-full of ideas, determined to do whatever was needed to support my young wife. Blaming the motion-picture business was useless.
My writing took many forms, be it a treatment, script, novel, or play. Some of my projects developed over many years, as I slogged away at rewrite after rewrite. By the seventies, The Big Red One was over a thousand pages of narrative and dialogue. I'd been working on Balzac for a long time, too. Whether or not you'd ever heard of Honore de Balzac or his grand designs for The Human Comedy, you'd get a kick out of my movie about the great writer. My ball-grabbing opening had young Balzac and his mother in a runaway stagecoach, hurtling along a treacherous road next to a cliff, the future novelist struggling with the reins of the startled horses and finally saving the day. Hell, Balzac was going to be a sexy adventure picture with plenty of action!
Other projects of mine, like The Charge at San Juan Hill, were lighthearted and quick-paced. That yarn came to me by way of an auspicious encounter back in the fifties with a veteran of the Spanish-American War. The man had been the trumpeter who blew the charge in Cuba in July 1898 as a member of Teddy Roosevelt's "Rough Riders." My story of that battle would make a pisscutter of a movie, more exciting than anything Hearst's yellow press had reported at the time.
And talk about whimsical circumstances inspiring a yarn, what about my novel 144 Piccadilly? I'd been invited to Scotland in 1969 by Murray Grigor, head of the Edinburgh Film Festival, for a retrospective of all my films. I came down to London afterward, where the National Film Theater was organizing a similar tribute. Unable to sleep in the Dorchester, I took a long walk late that night along the Strand, strolling through favorite places like Covent Garden, Belgrave and Grosvenor Squares, along Baker and Regent Streets, past Piccadilly Circus. Before dawn, I saw a group of flamboyantly dressed youngsters breaking into a four-story Georgian mansion in Mayfair. They were "liberating" an unoccupied house in order to make it their home. Squatting was trendy in London in those days for activist hippies, striking a blow, albeit a peaceful one, against the establishment.
With my newspaperman's nose, I approached the kids, starting up a conversation. I was obviously sympathetic to their outrageous behavior, so they showed me the fourteenth-century "Forcible Entry Act" in a British law book. It was "an offense to dispossess unlawful occupiers with a strong hand or with a multitude of people." The disheveled squatters invited me to stay on. If I hadn't had prior commitments, a wife, and a flight back to the States the next day, I would have. The English papers and TV news portrayed the kids' benign act like a declaration of war. The situation turned violent when some gang of skinheads tried to move into the mansion, too. The British police felt compelled to use force to reestablish order. The squatters got beaten up for doing something original, and I was damn mad about it.
Inspired by that encounter, I knocked out a fast-paced novel about the counterculture, portraying these revolutionary young people as healthy and admirable. An American film director very much like me participates in an illegal entry in London, then tries to bridge the generational gap by becoming the group's mascot and witness. The fictional "me" does what I was tempted to do but couldn't, abandoning his hotel suite for a mattress on the floor with the flower children. 144 Piccadilly depicts the idealists in a favorable light despite their self-absorption and elixirs. My fictional incarnation roars around London on the backseat of a Hell's Angels motorcycle, falls into the enthusiastic arms of a beautiful squatter, and comes head to head with violent skinheads. I even fantasized about "me" getting high on drugs, something I've never done in real life.
144 Piccadilly was published by Richard Baron, a progressive, eccentric American publisher who brought out, among other titles, Thomas Berger's Little Big Man. The reviews were good, the first time I can remember anyone using my name as an adjective, calling the novel "Ful- lerian," whatever the hell that meant. Critics make me chuckle. I take them with a grain of salt. Every artist has a defense system with critics, but the simplest and most efficient is this: When the critic is complimentary, he or she is brilliant, and when they knock the hell out of your work, he or she is shortsighted and foolish. This simple survival mechanism works for me.
Curiously, Richard Baron never really promoted 144 Piccadilly. When I inquired about it, I was told the publisher had disappeared, rumored to have sailed off on a yacht, never to be heard from again.
To keep our own ship afloat financially, I accepted acting gigs whenever I could fit them into my schedule. Christa encouraged me to get in front of the camera to keep me "in circulation." Since my walk-on in Godard's Pierrot lefou, there had been several offers, but nothing very intrig
uing until Dennis Hopper called one day after his box-office hit Easy Rider (1969). Universal was backing his next picture, The Last Movie (1971), to be shot in Peru, and Dennis wanted me to play the part of a macho film director, a tongue-in-cheek parody of myself. It sounded like fun, and there was some dough in it. Besides, I'd never been to Peru.
They flew me down to Lima and then drove me out to the set-a dense piece of untamed countryside-in a jolting Jeep. Everyone was stoned on the local marijuana. Fortunately, I had just enough cigars to get me through the three-week shot. One of Dennis's pals who was also down there was Michelle Phillips, of the singing group the Mamas and the Papas. She was a sweet young lady and ravishingly beautiful. Michelle and I used to hang out together and had a lot of laughs.
To get from one location to the next, there was a lot of walking to do. Dennis, Michelle, and the rest of their young friends were huffing and puffing after a steep climb up one of those Peruvian hills. They were all amazed that an old fart like me, pushing sixty, could traipse around without even breaking a sweat. I attributed it to smoking cigars, which, unlike their cigarettes and joints, didn't affect the lungs. See, you don't ever inhale a cigar.
The Last Movie was about a film production in Peru's backcountry. In the story, they're shooting a Western while the natives observe the moviemaking process in wonder. The indigenous Indians of the area have never even seen a movie, much less a movie shoot. Much to the Indians' surprise, actors stand up after fake violence. Things start to go very wrong when an actor is really killed in a stunt. The script was a sort of a Pirandello approach to the clash between two cultures, between instinct and reason.' Dennis wanted to show how our sophisticated culture could backfire. The natives, long exploited by whites, try to emulate their masters' behavior, only to find out that it can be deadly.
Back in California, Hopper invited me to see the first cut of the picture. I thought he had let the film get away from the simplicity of the script's central clash of cultures. Dennis was undecided about his ending. Hell, you've got to know your ending before you start shooting a single frame of film. Otherwise, your picture is like a goddamned train without a final destination.
A few years ago, Christa and I saw The Last Movie again, at a Paris art cinema. I thought the picture held up pretty well, though I still looked ridiculous in that Confederate officer's getup. My trip to Peru to be in Dennis's movie was like working in Hollywood in the thirties, like being in an old Tom Mix picture. I'd always treasure the experience.
Another young director I liked working with was Wim Wenders. I'd met this talented filmmaker in the early seventies and quickly developed a great friendship with him. Wim and I used to talk about everything under the sun, especially the yarns we wanted to shoot. One of Wim's longcherished stories was entitled The American Friend' I made a crack about hoping nobody would get assassinated because of it. His title reminded me of Our American Cousin.' Wim asked me if I'd play the role of his mobster when he got the movie financed. I gave him my word I'd do it. The American Friend didn't go into production for another five years. By 1977, I was in Tunisia scouting locations for The Big Red One. Wim found me in Tunis and told me he was going to shoot the movie right away, so I hopped on a plane for Hamburg to join the rest of the cast.
The sonofabitch character I play in The American Friend is a porn-film producer. He's going to get knocked off when the lead shoves him off a moving train. I told Wim I was no athlete, but I could do that fall without a stunt man. After all, in my infantry years, I'd learned how to hit the ground. I suggested he attach a camera to ►ne, in the same way I shot the opening of Naked Kiss, capturing the last things the character sees as he falls to his death. Wim loved my idea, but he just wasn't sadistic enough to let me risk my neck on a stunt like that.
Down in Peru with Dennis Hopper on the set of The Last Movie. It was a kick.
Nicholas Ray and Jean Eustache also had parts in The American Friend. It was Wim's way of showing his admiration of older directors who were mentors for him. I was pleased to renew old ties with Nick Ray, whom I'd known well in the fifties. Back then, Nick was more handsome than any leading actor in Hollywood. He was doing wonderful work like Johnny Guitar (1954) and Bigger Than Life (1956). Nick got tired of Hollywood life, starting to direct in Europe with Bitter Victory (1957). Nick's eye patch made me miss John Ford, my own mentor, who'd passed away in 1973.
By the time we met up again in Hamburg, Nick had come down with the lung cancer that would kill him, in 1979. All the time that had passed since our Hollywood days and all the different roads we'd traveled couldn't diminish the genuine fondness we had for each other. That was why I decided to look Nick up in a New York hospital when I was in town, passing through on my way home from Europe. Wenders had been docu- ►nenting Nick's struggle with cancer, in Lightning Over Water (1980). I asked Nick how he was feeling.
"Fine," he said, almost coughing out his brains.
Wim Wenders and I had a silent bond, difficult to explain, between a guy wbos as taciturn as hint and as loquacious as me.
In 1976, with Nicholas Ray, a helluva director, a lion of a man
Jean Renoir, the French director, had died a couple of days before. Nick asked me if I was going to Renoir's funeral when I got back to LA. I assured him that I would. I'd known the
great man and considered La Grande Illusion (1937), starring jean Cabin, Marcel Dalio, and Erich von Stroheim, one of the masterpieces of all time. Having Marcel Dalio play in China Gate, I felt I'd somehow been able to touch a facet of Renoir's universe. I told Nick about an evening I'd spent with Renoir and his Brazilian wife, Dido. Their home, whose location was a closely guarded secret, had priceless paintings by Jean's father, Pierre August Renoir. Nick wanted to write a eulogy for Renoir's funeral. He asked me to deliver it by hand. I gave him a piece of paper and a pen.
"Go ahead and write it, Nick," I said.
Nick closed his eyes in meditation, then opened them and started scribbling words. I watched in silence, remembering how I'd written my mother's obituary before she passed away and showed it to her. I wanted her okay. Rebecca was a little surprised but pleased with my words about her, always taking my eccentricity in her stride. I think people should read their own obituaries while they still can. It's a healthy exercise in living one's life to the fullest.
Nick gave the piece of paper back to me and closed his eyes. The effort had exhausted him. I read the paragraph he'd written about Renoir and his legacy. I don't remember the exact words. I wish to hell I'd kept a copy somewhere. It was pure poetry, condensed and heartfelt. Few healthy people could have written those lines, much less one who was in such a weakened condition. I carefully folded the paper, put it in my pocket, and said good-bye. It would be the last time I ever saw Nick.
Just before Renoir's funeral, I gave Nick's beautiful message to an officer of the Director's Guild. Among the many tributes of loving admiration, Nicholas Ray's was read aloud at the service. Most of the time, you're so busy plying the movie trade that you forget why the hell you ever got involved in this racket in the first place. Nick's words made us all remember the passion that's the bedrock of great moviemaking.
48
The Unmaking of
a Klansman
n 1973, my friend and sometime agent Bill Shiffrin set up a meeting for me with a smart and convivial television documentary maker named Bill Alexander, a guy who had more big gold chains than I'd ever seen around one man's neck. Alexander had optioned William Bradford Huie's book about the KKK, The Klansman, with Paramount backing the project. We made a deal for me to write an adaptation and direct the movie.
Working hard and fast, I knocked out a fierce script. Holy smoke, I put everything I had into that one! Using Huie's book as a starting point, I dreamed up an angry yarn, completely changing the finale. In the book, the KKK leader miraculously recognizes the horrible crap his organization represents and he gets killed by his own Klan members for his change of heart. It seemed to me too classical to
be believable. An audience would never buy it. So I invented a smart, beautiful, committed female character, patterned on Angela Davis. She goes to the South to get black people out to vote. The Klan leader's son falls in love with her and joins in the struggle against the KKK hatemongers, seeding doubt in one of his father's top lieutenants. The end of my yarn had the Klan leader giving a rabblerousing speech to thousands of men and women dressed in white sheets. They march up a hill carrying torches. Three crosses have been set up. On the first cross, they crucify the KKK lieutenant; on the second, the black woman; and on the third, the leader's own son.
"They're better off this way," says the Klan leader in my closing shot, as the sonofabitch picks up a burning torch and sets fire to the crosses himself.
That was honest. For Chrissakes, those KKK bastards have been spewing racial hatred and white supremacy for a hundred years without a chink in their hard-line thinking. Why would a Hollywood movie portray them any other way?
Bill Alexander and Bill Shiffrin were crazy about my script. We started casting. Lee Marvin accepted the role of the Klan leader. My neighbor and friend John Cassavetes said it was one of the best scripts he'd ever read and that he'd love to be part of it. I chose Cassavetes to play the Klan lieutenant. Then out of the blue, Paramount changed course. The studio had a prior commitment with their Italian partners, who, in turn, had a deal with the English director Terence Young.' Incredibly, Young was brought in to direct The Klansman as a payback for some prior deal. Overnight, I was dropped from the picture. To make matters worse, they hired an old studio hand, who rewrote my screenplay into a styleless melodrama. The studio justified the revision on the grounds that they needed to tone down the violence. Tone down the violence? How can anyone make an honest movie about the KKK without violence? The bastards have been burning churches and lynching people since before the Civil War.