INT: Research, which is an interesting issue. Clearly you like it. [WF: Well, that's why I say, “Filmmaking is an adventure, and an education.”] All right, basketball. Let's talk a little bit since, the research of, when you made BLUE CHIPS did it shift your understanding of basketball? And specifically--Let's ask that first.

WF: Well, it got me deeper into the foundations of the game and stuff, and I had thought about early basketball films, or earlier films that had been made about basketball, and I found them all wanting when it came to the basketball sequences. I think HOOSIERS is a great, great film, wonderful film. And it's about much more than basketball, but the basketball sequences themselves were not impressive to me. I knew that they were making a lot of shots, of guys shooting and playing, and they were able through editing to cover up the fact that a lot of these guys were mostly Actors, and not that good basketball players. Although let me say again, I think the film HOOSIERS is wonderful. [INT: It's a great film.] But, so I thought well, what I'm going to try to do, is cast basketball players, who I can get to act, rather than cast Actors, who will never look right doing a jump shot, or a hook, or anything else. And so I went around and cast the best basketball players in the country, who were young enough to appear to be college men. Shaquille O'Neal had just graduated from LSU [Louisiana State University], he hadn't started his pro career. Anfernee Hardaway [Penny Hardaway]. I got some of the greatest coaches in the game in the film. Pete Newell, Rick Pitino, Bobby Knight [Bob Knight], and some of the greatest players of that day. And I went to--I had this notion that I could shoot this film at almost any gym in Indiana, a high school gym, and fill the seats without paying the extras. By bringing these players and coaches in, and that turned out to be true. We went to a little town in Indiana, that had a 6,000-seat high school gym, and we filled it for three nights and shot actual games And I just set up certain things that I needed to happen, but these players were playing basketball. They weren't just, here's a shot of you doing this. [INT: Did you use multiple cameras for that?] Yeah. [INT: Got it.]

INT: And talk about Nick Nolte and casting that [for BLUE CHIPS], and also playing the part, 'cause this is a real guy, is it not? [WF: What?] The part that Nick Nolte plays--[WF: Well, he's based on Bobby Knight [Bob Knight], but Bobby Knight's in the film too, as an opposing coach.] In terms of the work that you did with Nick, was he your first choice, just in terms of--?

WF: Yes, always. The fellow who wrote the script, Ron Shelton, whose a good Director in his own right, he had directed WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP which he also wrote, and he directed TIN CUP and a number of other--he did the film about Ty Cobb with Tommy Lee Jones [COBB], and had written some very good scripts and Ron always--I said, "Ron, who do you see in this part?" "Nick Nolte." And that's how I felt as well, and we sent the script to Nick and he said "Ah. I'd love to work with you, but I don't want to do this." Ron and I went to his house, and said "Look Nick, we're not going to leave here until you say ‘yes.’ We're gonna stay here, we're gonna sleep here at your house and camp out and work on you every day until you say ‘yes.’" And he was going through a divorce at that time, was very tough, had a young son, and we just kept beating him down and beating him down and then there were certain script changes that he wanted, which we made, almost 100% and I don't know how happy Ron was ultimately about these changes, but I felt, and I guess Ron did too, that the important thing was to get Nick into the film. And then I took--when Nick finally agreed, we just broke him down. When we finally agreed, but I--one of the things I said to him-- [INT: Let me ask you, when you just broke him down. You went over, you did this, and we really want you, we're not leaving, obviously you left. Would you then keep calling? Would you meet?] We'd go back to house. Drive over there, he lives out at the beach. [INT: Unannounced or announced? I'm actually curious.] Sometimes unannounced. "Is Nolte there?" "No, he's not." "Bullshit! Open the fucking gate, we know he's inside, the son of a bitch, we're gonna sit at the gate." And finally, he'd come out in his bathrobe. "All right, come on in." And go in and talk some more, and I said to him, "Here's how I'm gonna do this. You're not going to play a coach, you're going to be a coach. I'm going to take you to Indiana," where Bob Knight was coaching, "and we're gonna go there for three weeks. And you're gonna be, every day at practice, of the Indiana basketball team," which was then the national champions. "And you're going to meet the players, you're going to meet Bobby Knight, we're going to have dinner with him every single night. You can ask him anything you want, and then there's going to be some inter-squad games, and you're gonna coach one of the games in front of the Indiana--[INT: Crowds.]--kids," and that took place. He went for that, I mean, this was the kind of preparation that no Actor gets. I said, "In three weeks, or a month, or maybe it's gonna take longer, I'm going to make you a coach. And everything you say on the floor to that team, is something that you will have learned what to say, in that role, 'cause you're a quick study. And I don't know if you'll ever really be able to coach a basketball team, but you're gonna fool a lot of people." And to the extent when someone says to someone they see in a bar, "Aren't you a doctor?" And the guy says "No, but I play one on TV." They're gonna say that to you, "Aren't you a basketball coach?" And that's what happened, and I had one of the greatest living minds of pro and college basketball, who we hired to be with Nick at all times, and plays the role of his assistant coach, a guy named Pete Newell. [INT: Oh sure.] And Pete Newell is considered one of the resident geniuses of basketball. He coached the Cal [University of California, Berkeley] team to a national title back in the '50s [1950s] and then from then on he ran this thing called the Big Man's Camp [Big Man Camp]. [INT: Right]

INT: Did the--I'm not going to remember who played it, but the boy who threw the three points, in the game [in BLUE CHIPS]. In the story, there's this one kid who threw three points and--[WF: Anfernee Hardaway [Penny Hardaway] probably.] Now he's--[WF: He's what?] This is an African American--[WF: Yeah. Penny Hardaway.] Got it. [WF: He was All-American when we got him, just graduated from Memphis State [University of Memphis].] Had he ever acted before? [WF: No, none of them had.] You have a major scene, where he's confronted by Nolte [Nick Nolte], in his college room, and Nolte reads him the riot act and he’s--face, in the way he, it's a private moment, 'cause Nolte's gone out of the room. It's a wonderful, wonderful piece of acting. [WF: All these people are good, and--] But that's, I mean, that's getting to an emotional depth; that's getting to feeling of responsibility, and guilt and whatever came up. The other guys, Shaq [Shaquille O’Neal] is wonderful in the piece, but you're not asking him to do too much. This was really an Actor's moment, and I'm curious if you remember, or was this just a guy open that way?

WF: Well, since I've never had a lesson in directing, and I've directed a number of films, I think maybe 15 or 16, something like that at this point in time, maybe it's more, I don't think so, and I've never had a lesson in either the camera or sound or directing, I have an inherent belief that where there's a will there's a way. And that if you meet someone, and talk to them, and you see them in a certain way or know that this is what they do, I believe that I can find a way to provoke it into performance. For example, a lot has to do with appearance, and stuff too. I mean, I'm not gonna get Danny DeVito to play a guy who dunks in a pro basketball game unless it's a comedy. But if it's not a comedy, if it's supposed to be real, physical appearance has a great deal to do with it. Take all of the great performances, and substitute my good friend Danny DeVito. Lawrence Olivier in HENRY V, okay, Marlon Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT. They're just some people who are not physically right to do that. But, so the physical aspect of an Actor is often very important, or how they, let's say, appear to me. I know, for example, that if I wanted to cast you as let's say, a professor at a university, for example. Or the owner of a restaurant, I'm just making things up, that I could get you to do it, believably, you know? A lot would depend on the social conditions of the situation, but physical appearance goes a long way. You could also play a laid-back detective, there's a lot of things that you could play because you have a physical appearance. You might not be able to play “Popeye” Doyle in THE FRENCH CONNECTION, but you might be able to play Kinderman [from THE EXORCIST]. As well as Lee J. Cobb? Doubtful, but good enough, for TV, as they say? Possibly. And myself as well.

WF: You know, Michael Mann originally asked me to play Hannibal Lecter, in his production of, what was called, MANHUNTER. But it was the first version of RED DRAGON. And I said, he's a friend, and I said, "Is that how you see me?" He said, "Yes. You are Lecter!" He said, "You understand evil, but you don't look evil, but, you know, you look laid back and you look soft, but you understand evil and that's Lecter." [INT: When you heard this, how did you respond?] Well, at first I took it seriously, enough to think I just don't have the chops. I had read “Red Dragon,” thought it phenomenal, and there was only one or two scenes with Lecter in that movie. It was played not by Anthony Hopkins ultimately, but by Brian Cox, who was great. But that's--Michael Mann was serious. He saw me as Lecter, and I didn't see myself pulling it off. Now, the only thing I've ever done on film was in Robert Towne's movie, WITHOUT LIMITS. Which is about Steve Prefontaine, the track star, for whom the Nike shoes were invented. And Bob made a very interesting film and he said to me, he's a friend, and he said, "I know you've directed a lot of live TV." "Yeah." He said, "I got a scene at the Olympics, where I want to start in the control booth, and I've got all this film of Prefontaine, and it's all cut together from the live telecast of that particular Olympic--could you go into the control room set, and improvise it? You know, based on seeing the film and knowing what the cuts were actually going to be.” "Sure." So I did that, and that's the opening of that movie called PRE [WITHOUT LIMITS], where I played someone who I knew and understood and that I had actually done in a profession I had done. [INT: I was actually curious also about the issue of him seeing the "evil in you or the dark side in you.”] I think he sees that in my films. [INT: Okay, that’s what I’m saying. All right.] We've never had anything approximated that kind of evil.

INT: By the way, have you been on other Director's sets?

WF: Oh, very rarely. I was on the set of SECONDS, that John Frankenheimer directed, with Rock Hudson. [INT: Terrific film.] And I was on the set of a HITCHCOCK HOUR [THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR], that a Director called James Goldstone had directed. I'm trying to think of what else. Oh, I was on Coppola's [Francis Ford Coppola] set of THE GODFATHER II [THE GODFATHER PART II and then THE COTTON CLUB. [INT: Did you learn anything as you saw it?] No. [INT: Not a thing? Did you see different styles though? Just in terms of, like Coppola, for example? Did you say, “I don't do that…” or were you able to observe what he was doing?] Being on a movie set and not being involved is one of the most boring places in the world to be. It's hurry up and wait, things take forever, you do not get a sense of the ebb and flow of the film, the way the crew does or the cast or especially the Director. It's like watching hair grow, or paint dry, you know? [INT: Yeah.] It's not an exciting place to be, because what it is most akin to, to an outsider, I'm talking about even an outsider who's in the profession, it's like knitting. Watching someone knit, 'cause you make one shot at a time, just as in knitting, you make one stitch at a time. Watching someone stitch is the closest thing I can think of to watching a film being made. All right, cameras over here, you say the lines to him, he's off camera, 20 takes, 15 takes, all seems the same to an outsider. All right, let's move on. An hour-and-a-half or two hours later you've moved over there to get the other side. Meanwhile, there's nothing to do on the set; the Actors go into their dressing rooms, you know, and lay out or make phone calls. [INT: Interesting enough, but you're still on your feet, and you're still working.] Yeah, I never sit down, except, now that I'm older--[INT: In between shots? Where are you?] Talking to somebody about the next shot, or the one after that, or I'm in the Actor's dressing room, talking about upcoming work. Always related to trying to prepare, subtly prepare ahead.

INT: Let's talk about camera. You've worked with some great Cameramen. You didn't study it.

WF: I had one lesson, in the camera. When I was an Assistant Director in television, which is called the Floor Manager, you're the guy who is on the set telling the Actors what to do on a headset with the Director, whose up in a control room. And the Director will say to you, get this Actor or get this person to move to their left two feet. "Would you move to your left, two feet please, Jeremy," or whatever. And we used to do a lot of live commercials, and at one point--I may ask you to pan over, so wake up, Chad [camera operator]--At one point there was a shot of two cans of bug spray or something, we were doing a live commercial, and the Director was a man called Barry McKinley, who was a tough talking, sort of a wise guy, a great mentor, a great guy to work for as an Assistant. And he had to make a shot, a live shot of these two bottles of bug spray. Give me one of your waters, Jeremy, it's a better demonstration. And he said, "All right kid, set up those bottles." Tells me over the headphones. And I set them up like this, and the camera's over there, where Chad's camera is, and he says, "I told you to set those bottles up." And so I go like this. And he said, "You dumb asshole!" I went like this, he said, "Make a picture out of it!" I didn't know what the hell he meant. He took off his headset, came all the way down two flights of stairs into the control room and he did this. He put one in front of the other, like that so there was a perspective. And that's the only lesson I've ever had in composition. And it's a good one, you know? This is making a picture out of it, and this is not. You know? Or even this. But, perspective. Since the medium of film is totally flat, but gives you the illusion of depth, you have to accentuate that. The screen is height and width, that's all. There's nothing behind it. But you have to suggest that there's a lot of space behind it, and space between two Actors, and space between the Actor and the horizon line, and that's the only lesson I've ever had in photography. Other than years later as the years go by, looking at the great paintings and the photographs of people like Cartier-Bresson [Henri Cartier-Bresson] and Baltermants [Dmitri Baltermants] and others too numerous to name that you learn from, by just looking at their work. As I said earlier, the way to learn how to make a film is to watch the films of others that inspire you.

INT: Now how do you choose a Cameraman?

WF: Well, instinct. I chose Owen Roizman instinctively. When I went back to New York to do THE FRENCH CONNECTION, I had made a couple of films in New York. I had made THE BOYS IN THE BAND and THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S. And I basically felt that the Director's of Photography [Cinematographer; DP] back there were old school guys, and I wanted to do this induced-documentary style. And a friend of mine back then was a man named Dick Di Bona, who ran General Camera, where everybody who filmed in New York rented their camera equipment, from Dick. And Dick and I became really good friends over the years, and I said "Dick, I'm looking for someone fresh. Someone who's not hung up in the old ways." He said, "I got just the guy for you, he's never done a feature, but he's done some very good commercial work and some documentaries and stuff.” And he said, “You want me to send you his reel?" And I said, "No, I'd like to meet him though." And so Dick used to make Italian food, pasta and salad and garlic bread, in his rental house up there, [INT: Really?] on the west side of New York. And I went there and Dick made lunch for this young man, Owen Roizman and me, and we started talking and I was talking to him about how I saw the film. He said, "That sounds great. I love it, I'd love to do that." And I looked in his eyes, and I believed him. And I said, "Okay, that's the way we're gonna do it, but if you don't do it that way, I'm gonna fire you." If suddenly I see a battery of lights, you know, what I had told him was, when we're outdoors I don't want any lights, there's enough light outdoors, except at night. But then it should all be source light. We're going into real places, real bars, real police stations. We're not gonna build any sets. So I just want bounce light, giving a nice, natural light. Where you bounce the lights off the ceiling and they create an ambiance in the room instead of careful George Hurrell-type back-lighting or side-lighting. Or John Alton, the great Cinematographer who wrote “Painting With Light.” I said, “I just want this to look real. Not painted with light.” And so he's great, and we did it that way. Now, when it came to THE EXORCIST, I wanted to go just the other way, and that was a little more difficult for Owen and me, 'cause I was used to shooting documentary style, as was he, but I never saw his reel. I have no idea what he shot before that, but I met him, like meeting an Actor, Roy Scheider, and instinctively, this is the guy I want. [INT: Now, it's interesting, because you now are going into a very different kind of film, and often times people will say, “Okay,” just with an Actor, “you were really good for this film, but you're not going to be right for this film.”] Oh they don't know shit when they say that, you know? [INT: Cinematographer? The point is, is there a moment when you say, fabulous, you know, you had that kind of feel, but I'm, you know, going for a different feel, and in this case you both were going for a different feel. Is it because you felt you had really related well to each other and done a really good, that you wanted to continue with him?] Yeah. Sure. [INT: 'Cause you know, some people have their "company" of people that they like to work with.] Well, he and I had a shorthand, that transferred from THE FRENCH CONNECTION which was shot one way, to THE EXORCIST which was shot a completely different way. There's a guy I've worked with recently, Caleb Deschanel, who's one of the great Cinematographers, he did THE RIGHT STUFF. He did the Mel Gibson movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST and he and I worked on THE HUNTED together. It was a great experience. I'd work with him again, he can do anything. He can do a documentary look, or he can make it look like '40s [1940s] Hollywood.

INT: Now, in your communication with a Cinematographer, let's say with Caleb [Caleb Deschanel] recently, what, in pre-production, what are you doing with him?

WF: We often will look at photographs or paintings. Live or in a book, and very often, I've used Rembrandt lighting as a citation, and I'll always go through, let's say, certain painting, most recently Rembrandt and Vermeer [Johannes Vermeer], and talk about how those paintings are lit. Or even photographs, usually by Cartier-Bresson [Henri Cartier-Bresson]. And as that relationship with the Cameraman grows, we start giving each other picture books and painting books to look at, because those guys have done it all. Anything you're gonna light, has been done; It's been done by the masters. If you look at an exterior of Vermeer's, say the “View of Delft,” you can't light an exterior any better than he painted it, that's it. Or a portrait? You want a portrait look? Rembrandt. That's it. It begins and ends there, and that's your immediate reference point. Now you can vary that, if you're so foolish, or you can just copy it. You see, Rembrandt, I'm not sure how I look, I know there's a light coming from here and a little soft fill from up there, which is very similar, and some back-light, you know, not enough to bounce off into the lens or something, but it's not harshly backlit, but I'm sort of in a limbo here where's there's a suggestion of these chairs. But as I'm looking at you, and you're not meant to be lit, 'cause you're off-camera, you have accidentally, what's befallen you is a kind of pure Rembrandt light, which is one hot source that's my front light, it's your back and side light. Nothing over here but a little bit of fill, so that as I look at you, the left side of your face is dark but I can read the detail. The right side of your face is lit very softly and nicely; that's Rembrandt lighting. The background is dark, it's pitch black, there's no attempt to see anything behind you, it's a black drape in fact. [INT: Now, are you communicating this kind of language to Caleb? When you're saying, here's our scenes; I mean, you've got major exterior scenes, you've got scenes in the snow, you've got interior scenes, what's your discussion as you're going through this?] Often it's a reference to one of these paintings or photographs, where all you have to do is say, “Rembrandt here,” but like if it's out in the snow, it's going to be something else, so you then have to discuss the practicality of what time of day you're going to shoot, where the sun is. Let's shoot when the sun's over here, instead of over here for front light. Come up, oh it's a beautiful grey day, with no shadows, we can shoot all day. You know, from here, there, anywhere, and it's all gonna match. So we'll have very practical discussions about actual daylight, real light and how to use it, when to go out to shoot this scene, for the maximum effect of the light that we want, or if it's an interior that we have to create the light, then I'll usually say, “Rembrandt,” or I'll say, "Let's put him entirely in the dark. Let's not even have his backside light, you know? Let's have enough fill so that we can barely read him and then maybe from the lens, a little pinpoint spotlight just for his eyes, just to bring his eyes out." And that's how we'll talk about lighting a scene.

INT: Here you've got the scene now, and you've talked about lighting the scene to some degree, now where are you going to put the camera? There are some Directors, as you well know who really say, “Okay, I need this coverage, get it for me,” and there are other Director's who are very, very specific about each shot and knowing exactly where they want their camera, and then there's the dialogue in between, where have you been, where are you?

WF: Oh, well, over the years, you know, I used to look through the lens and I would set up every shot, when I started. Move two inches to the left, move an inch forward. Now, I'll just go like this. Let's say, I want to make a shot of you, and now the audience here can't see you, but you're sitting in a chair, you're relaxed, your legs are crossed. I'll go like this to the Cameraman, and I'll make a mark, an invisible line with my other hand, showing where I want to cut the shot off. Then I'll say, “Okay, let's go in here,” or sometimes I'll go like this, and I won't even specify the lens or where--sometimes it's on a monitor and I can see it, but I know what the camera's getting. I know the size that he's getting. I don't have to look through the lens, it's just bullshit now to look through the lens. [INT: But in terms of actually choosing these shots. Is that more you?] Yeah, I always--yeah, but like when I work with someone like Caleb [Caleb Deschanel], he'll say, "Hey, what about over here?" and often it's a great idea, and I'll do it. You know, because again, respect and he knows what he's doing and I try to create an atmosphere where he too can think and contribute, 'cause we're on the same page. I've been in situations with camera DPs [Director of Photography; Cinematographer] that were not on the same page, and the relationship has ended. And so I know I have a very tough reputation with camera people. [INT: Because?] Because I've been in situations where we weren't on the same page. I'll say, this or Rembrandt and out comes an overexposed shot, or an underexposed shot. [INT: Got it.] And there's some time, and if it happens more than once, than you and the DP are not on the same page, as a Director. And then you either go along with it, as I once did on a film called THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S, where the Director of Photography [Andrew Laszlo] and I were not on the same page at all, in fact, I felt he was mostly working against me. Was my second film, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to go along with it, and I hate the way the picture looks, but I didn't have the juice to do anything about it then. So we were at constant loggerheads and he had more experience than I did, but, you know, I don't really care for the look of that film or damn near anything else he's done.

INT: So for you, have you actually had to let go of a Cinematographer? [WF: A number of times.] And are you able to do it early enough so that--
WF: Well, hopefully yeah. [INT: Got it.] Absolutely. I did on RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. I went through two Cinematographers. [INT: Wow.] Until, I got to Bill Fraker [William A. Fraker]. [INT: Who you knew, and had worked with.] Yes, and who was great. [INT: Now were you shooting, in terms of that, because of obviously a schedule, were you shooting more exteriors initially?] Yeah. [INT: So that it was during that kind of work that you saw where you were in trouble?] Well then I kept going with this guy and even moved to another country, and then it became like, just too ragged. Some of the stuff was okay, none of it was great, some of it was underexposed or overexposed. Whereas I will discuss how much I want to see of, let's say, an Actor's face or whether I want it in the dark or not, and you discuss all that, sometimes it comes back and it ain't that. And then a DP [Director of Photography; Cinematographer] who's faking it, will say, "No, no, we'll just print it down, it'll be okay. We'll print it down, it's printed too hot, it's the lab's fault!" And okay, print it down. You look at it, it's printed down, it's all dark. It's just underexposed and there's nothing you can do, I've had that. Now with digital photography, high-definition cameras, there's less and less of that. The camera, the DP, the Director and the Operator, they see on a monitor exactly what's being photographed. Exactly. And they can tune it. [INT: When you move the camera--] What? [INT: When you move the camera…] Yeah? [INT: What's determining that for you?] The Actor moves, often. Sometimes I will move slowly and imperceptibly into an Actor if they have a long dialogue scene. [INT: You did that, I remember in THE EXORCIST, I remember when I saw this, and being so sort of impressed, because it's a scene between Lee J. Cobb and Ellen Burstyn and you chose to zoom in on I think both of them.] Both of them. [INT: And it's amazingly effective.] Matched slow zooms, and that was to draw the audience closer to them, imperceptibly. But my general rule of thumb is to try and stage a scene where the Actors can move, and follow them. Not have movement of the camera, unless it's following an Actor's movement, or an army's movement or four or five people coming down the block or whatever, or getting out of a car and taking them into an office building, or whatever it may be, I believe that the best way for the camera to move is to follow an Actor, and not even to lead the Actor, you know? But to follow the Actor so that--occasionally, when I have not paid attention to my own rules, and I'll start a shot preceding an Actor coming into a room, I always say, this happened to me recently, I always say, "Oh shit, I should know better than that, and I still don't." But, you know, I've led him into the room, which destroys the whole reality foundation that I'm trying to build up. So basically, I like to follow people as they go into a place, and then I might shift around and get in front of them. But the only time I'll use a move-in to an Actor, is if it's a long monologue where they can't be moving around. It would destroy the mood of the scene, they should just be sitting there. I mean, I don't know if this interview would be any better if you and I were walking around this building, probably not. [INT: No, I don't think so.] Probably not. So we're in a very controlled environment here, in a very small room in a very large building. You've got an enormous building here on Sunset Strip, or Boulevard, and we're in a tiny little corner of it. Why? Well, because you can control the mood. You and Chad can control the mood, by setting lights, and if you're following us around the lobby, which is vast and enormous, you couldn't control the mood, and we might get out of frame of the camera and it's a burden on the process, rather than just--I guess, the idea here is to hear me talk and you ask questions. That's easily done this way.

INT: But if you’ve got--I've noticed that every now and then you'll have a scene that, in fact, the Writers clearly set at a table, and you will find a way to get the sergeant up and out and around in something so that it gets, and I assume that this is just an instinct, of this is a motion picture, this is not--

WF: It's a motion picture, you've given the answer yourself. Motion picture, not still picture. On the other hand, you look at a frame, any frame, by Cartier-Bresson [Henri Cartier-Bresson], and it's as evocative as some people's whole films, their whole movies. That's the genius, to capture that moment...