INT: When you come to the table, that you have an idea of your wish-list of what you want to do with the script. [MR: Right.] And in this case?
MR: Well, in this case, I had the screenplay that was afraid of baseball, and I said, “If we do, this has to be all about baseball. This has to have the nine innings of the big game. We can't collapse too much of the season; everything has to happen on the field, because this has to be a movie for people who love baseball.” And as I look at the screenplay now, for years and years and years since it's been made, and, of course, I've seen the film many times, I notice that there are differences in the screenplay. Things that never got changed, things we changed on the set. But essentially, everything got changed before we came to the set, all the important things. [INT: And how would you work with the Writer to get the Writer to understand, or even particularly in this case with that whole new ending if you will, what's the process of working with a Writer, and obviously every Writer's different, but to use this Writer as an example, were you're able to get the best of that Writer to change the material?] Well, remember I said that you hold this [script] like Diogenes [Diogenes of Sinope, Greek philosopher], a lantern of truth up, I guess. And it's the documentary background; it's the thing that you said you liked about my movies. And it's, would this really happen? And if this wouldn't really happen, how would it happen? And is there an interesting way of making the leap from how it would really happen to how we can have it happen, so that it's dramatically interesting. This does not, one would think, take a rocket scientist to follow as a process, as a good rule to making good movies scripts. But unfortunately, we've had so many years of arbitrary character decisions, done solely for the purposes of what makes a hot scene, a good scene, a "pow" scene, you know, to borrow Batman terminology, that it takes a while to get people back to what should it really be? What would it really be? How would the parents really behave? And finally, somewhere along the way, somebody says, “Well, you could do it this way, but wouldn't it be boring?” And that's when I say, “No, no. That's my job. Your job is to make it real. My job is to keep it from being boring.” “Will it be funny?” “My job, again. I'll make it funny; you make it real.” Again, what is real? And I've done a lot of movies that stretch the limits of reality and credibility, but essentially, I'm using that test all the time, and when I'm not doing the real thing, I better have a good reason why I’m not.

INT: Now, one of the issues about "real," I mean, I'm thinking about characters. For example, there's a sort of a villain other coach in THE BAD NEWS BEARS, if I remember correctly. [MR: The late Vic Morrow, yeah.] Right. And the question becomes, that character, does that character end up being real as a character because there are people who are irritating, who are mean spirited, who are driven, who are, you know, abrasive or whatever, and that's what you're trying to get the Writer to do rather than make, let's say, a situation that is phony?
MR: What happens is that the ball is hit by the batter, ineffectively, and it falls at Vic Morrow's son's feet; he's the pitcher, the kid from THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, Brandon Cruz. [INT: Right.] And Brandon picks up the ball and doesn't field it. It would be easy to get this out and he chooses not to, and he just stares at his father, holding the ball and throwing it up and down. And his father goes a little berserk, because obviously not only has this kid, you know, violated every good rule of little league, but he's deliberately humiliated his father. Because everyone in the stands knows that this relationship is going on; it is a public humiliation for Vic Morrow. And it was that addition to the screenplay that I think made it work. But because before it was played out that way, he was just angry that the kid wouldn't follow an order, and it was more than that. Now that I see it, you see, I forgot, I had look back and look at it again. It was the fact of the public humiliation. And again and again, that becomes a deciding point in several of these movies, and I suspect in real life when you make that distinction. It isn't enough to be humiliated; it isn't enough to feel the pain of a rejection, or a pain of having your nose rubbed in it. If it's done publicly, which happens a lot in the field of sport, then you have to do something, you have to react in a big way, that might not be real, except for the fact that everybody in the audience feels your public humiliation. [INT: Now, something like this scene evolving, is it for you, are you becoming the characters as a Director, as you're working this scene? Now again, we're saying that this scene got written before you shot, so this is something that really did, using a specific scene, this is something that you worked with the Writer to get to a place that you could then stage it as you would when you were the Director.] Exactly. Based on that principle of public humiliation. [INT: So this is something that you're saying to the Writer, saying, “Let's make this a public humiliation?” Again, I'm pushing to sort of see what the dialogue is.] Yes. Well, the dialogue with the Writer is the one that I just had with you. [INT: Wow.] Which is, it isn't enough to have him wrong, and it isn't enough to have him even publicly wrong, he has to be publicly humiliated for him to get to the point where he would slap his kid and walk out of the biggest thing in his life, which is this game. [INT: So you're talking to some degree about real people in a real situation.] Right. [INT: This is the dialogue you're having.] And we're also talking about whose point of view it is, because this movie is from a kid's point of view. We don't have a kid narrator, it's not like the old children's books, like Dr. Doolittle, that began with Tommy Stubbins, or whatever his name was, narrating the book. But nevertheless, there is an implied children's viewpoint. It is not Buttermaker, the coach's viewpoint. And clearly not any of the adults' viewpoint; therefore, it must be the kids. [INT: Is this one of the issues that also becomes a major issue for you as a Director looking at a script, whose story is this?] Absolutely. You have to define the point of view that the movie is coming from. [INT: And will sometimes you be turned on to a script that you even want to make, that still doesn't have the point of view yet?] I think they have to have a point of view. Now, I haven't thought about this in terms of my films. Let me think about it. [INT: Well, think about it. I mean The Can--] THE CANDIDATE, the point of view, while it tends to be oblique and that of the electorate, I think is of Peter Boyle. I think the point of view is the political shark; it's not Redford [Robert Redford], because he doesn't see what's coming. [INT: You know what's interesting, as I was looking at it the other day, there's a shot of Peter Boyle watching him blow the end of the Jarmon debate. And it was fascinating because it's with Allen Garfield, but Allen enters in the shot and leaves the shot, but Peter's [Peter Boyle] right there and I thought, at that moment, he really is the, if you will, cynical anchor of this movie.] Absolutely. Oh it's his point of view. And he predicts the ending; he predicts you lose, and that it won't ultimately change the course of events.

INT: Now in that [THE CANDIDATE] script, which has more of a documentary feel than does, let’s say, many of your other pictures, but let's say, just THE BAD NEWS BEARS that we're just talking about, what was the evolution of the script here, as a Director for you? Can you remember the dialogues that you were having with the Writer?
MR: Sure. Actually, the dialogues were chronicled in this biography that the Robert Redford biographer is going to hopefully finish someday. I gave him an interview five years ago, right after I moved here, so who knows when that biography will be finished. But he was very interested in the script writing process and I would refer, because my memory was obviously five years fresher, anybody to that book. [INT: Okay.] Because I have a feeling he was really cued into the process. I will simply say what I said when the DGA was good enough to run the film in a retrospective series not long ago, that the essence for me was to get my political experience from the John Tunney campaign, gelling with Jeremy Larner's experience from the Eugene McCarthy campaign, gelling with Redford's couple of political forays in the east; I forget the name of the candidate, but Lindsay [John Lindsay] was one, and I forget the other candidate. But the point was we were, again, bringing truth to bear. And indeed, the Leacock [Richard Leacock]/Pennebaker [D.A. Pennebaker] documentaries, one of which was PRIMARY, we steal from, in the movie. We absolutely steal shots, steal sequences from a movie about George McGovern--not George--Barry Goldwater's campaign. And the roast beef scene, comes straight from that documentary. [INT: So in working with the Writer, then, the three of you were sharing experiences that you had; there was a script initially, was there not?] No, there was no script. [INT: Oh, I didn't know that.] Oh, there wasn't even a script when we started shooting. It was truly make it up as you go along. Now, the one that wins an Oscar, in which you see in printed form like this [references bound copy of screenplay], was actually taken from the finished film. But the fact is, that we began with a lot of index cards; we had a lot of what ifs; and we had a lot of scenes that ultimately got cut out. Now, the finished script is about 120 pages, but I would swear that if you printed up the script we actually did, you'd find that there's about 150 pages, because I know that that first cut that we had was over two and half hours long. [INT: Wow.] And the pace of the movie was not ever slow or likely to be soporific; the pace of the movie was always fast. [INT: Now, this is interesting in a sense that, as you said, this was a movie that you made that was not a scripted movie.] Correct. This was done like a documentary, and that was part of the difficulty in getting the financing. And this was not, it was a major studio movie in the sense that we existed because we had a star. [INT: Right.] And because the star was at the right price, was a reasonable gamble for a studio. It was not a studio picture because a political movie was never a reasonable gamble for a studio, something that has proved true again and again and again. There's so much going on in real life, how could we compete with… It's too insane, I mean, this thing that's going on right now, I have to say this because we're speaking for the archives, but between Gore [Al Gore] and Bush [George W. Bush]. And you tell me that last night Cheney [Dick Cheney] had a heart attack, I mean, that's bad drama. If you said to me, “Would that happen in your script?” I'd say, “No way!” Nor would there be, end up with after millions and millions of people had voted, would you end up with a gap of 900 votes and be discussing dimpled chads. This is finally where satire, you see, meets reality, and where I will constantly say, “Has it ever happened?” Now, of course, that we have had dimpled chads and we have had this incredibly close election, the next time somebody does a political satire, it will have to be informed by that. You know, there's always an assumption in THE CANDIDATE that there will be a clear cut winner and loser, no one has ever said, you know, do you have this… I mean it happened throughout the elections this year. You had this election in Washington, where maybe the woman has won the senator's job and maybe she hasn't. What's the latest? It changes every day. [INT: Actually, last night she was winning.] She was winning again, you see. Now this has never happened before, and so you have to be careful with this, you know, we're going to put the test of reality up to it.

MR: I stopped reading reviews about 1977. But before then, I was actually clipping them out and saving them, and these were the 10 best lists for 1972. [INT: Right.] And you'll see Charles Champlin, the LA Times, number two after CABARET. Or actually, it's alphabetical, so that's a bit of a cheat. But, John Simon were up there as number three, and he's a tough cookie.

INT: Now, did there inevitably become a script? [Referring to THE CANDIDATE]
MR: Well, there was a script, and it won the Academy Award [Oscar]. And this is--here are all the Oscar winners [Ritchie references to picture in scrapbook], and there I am, getting a haircut on the set--god I look young, but then again so does Bob Redford [Robert Redford]. And his youth is forever enshrined in the movie, and mine's not. There's no justice. [INT: You mean you didn't get yourself in one shot?] Well, I am actually. I'm in the, directing, in the booth. This was not a Hitchcock [Alfred Hitchcock] homage, this was just that somebody had to be in the booth calling the shots, and I had a live card and I could do it, so I could direct the debate and we could film the film crew and the live crew at the same time.

INT: I mean obviously each picture needs its own thing, but is there a preference in terms of your experience just having done a movie that essentially was about an idea, and then you guys evolved it versus a movie that we've got every line, we've got every scene, it's all here, all we have to do is just make sure that we do justice to what we've already agreed on the script?
MR: Well, every movie that I've done has had a degree of improvisation. It's just inevitable in the work process, the Actors like it that way. Frequently we depart from the script, but we come back to it. The thing about THE CANDIDATE and again, it's a lengthy, lengthy discussion that's probably best researched by reading the book about Redford [Robert Redford], if it ever comes out, is that it was a three-way process, where we would send Jeremy Larner off to his room to write each night, and each night new pages would come back in the next morning, driving the hair singing red, on the back of the Actor's necks, because no one liked to work this way; this was working in television, to have this. But we would get new ideas every day, and there was a presumption that if nobody was really quite prepared as to what we were doing that day, we would have a greater level of reality. And Redford loved to work in a kind of accidental style of filmmaking, which I like too. Which is to say, I would set up a scene, but I would not tell him everything that was going to take place in the scene. I would not tell him if a phone was going to ring, and I'd just say, “If a phone rings, you can either answer it or not answer it; it's your choice. Or you can be frustrated by it.” And you'll see that happen in a scene, and I said, and at one point I said, “You may have people walking through this scene that you aren't prepared for, to be in this scene.” And I said, “Do what you would really do as an Actor.” That’s to say as a character, as a senator candidate. Senatorial candidate and not as an Actor. It’s an important distinction. [INT: Have you been able to use that style? I know I'm jumping around here, but I'm curious, have--] Sure, I use it all the time. [INT: Got it.] You set something up, I even used it recently in some television pilots I did. But unfortunately, when you work in most television, where there is such a strong Producer hand, they're offended that time is being wasted with something that is perceived as being experimental, because it wasn't done in rehearsal, it wasn't done for the network. It just, you know, they don't want to be surprised.

INT: Now have you had problems, let's go back to script issues. When you've had an issue with a Writer, where a Writer has said, “I don't like this, this is a bad idea,” or whatever, how have you gone--
MR: I haven't had the experience of Writers saying, "This is a bad idea." Maybe it's because I don't come in and say, "I want you to change this to this. If he's got a red hat I want him to have a black hat." I come in and say, "Why would he have, why have you given him this red hat?" And I listen to the answer. And I keep saying, "And what is the truth? Where did you get that from? What is the idea based on? What do you want the audience to get from it? Do you think there's another way that the audience could get that, to be fresher that we haven't seen?" Whatever the, the dia--you start a dialogue. You don't just say, “This is bad, change it to this, because that's a sure way to get the most cooperative, decent, mother loving Writer to get mad at you. You know? I would get mad. [INT: You've said something that's interesting; there are two aspects that you said. On the one hand, what is the truth that this would happen to this character? On the other hand, what is it that you want the audience to get?] Right. Well that can be a tension, and you have to find a balance between the two. Because obviously if we went around just telling the truth, it would be fairly boring. Maybe not, but what we have to find, we have to say, we're examining this because it may not ring as true as some of the alternatives. Now, what do we want to achieve from this scene? That's more complicated and there's no rule of thumb there. That's why I can't really speak to it except in the particulars. We talked about what we wanted to achieve in the scene with Vic Morrow, going berserk at his public humiliation. [INT: There was once someone who said that, I'm curious when you read a script or that, if the scene doesn't advance, either both the character and the plot, or at least one or the other of those, then what's the scene doing there? And you interesting enough said there's no formula at all.] I don't think there's a formula. I think that the essence of the kind of films I like to make are ones in which you may not know what the scene is doing there ever, but if the scene is entertaining--and I use entertainment in it's broadest sense--and it's not a violation of anything that comes before or after, maybe it's the best scene in the picture. And I think this is particularly true in pictures like DOWNHILL RACER, Where we are as really, more pure documentary than any of the other films. And a good example is the scene where Redford [Robert Redford] admires himself in the mirror, while he's washing up. What's it doing there? Well, it just shows that he's an egotistical kind of guy. How does it advance the plot? Not at all. Does it make us like him more? No. Does it make us like him less? I don't think so. It's just who he is. And we've never seen that before, we have never seen the star of a picture, look in a mirror and admire himself. It's a little scary because we do it all the time. [INT: Now, how did that particular scene evolve?] I have no idea where that scene came from. [INT: Wasn't in the script?] I'm sure it wasn't in the script; I'm sure that that script, like THE CANDIDATE, came out of such flux and make it up as we go along. I mean, again, Redford hired me because he liked the documentary style that I had brought to some TV stuff. He wanted to do as documentary a film as Paramount [Paramount Pictures] would allow him. He encouraged all the ideas that I had, because we were clearly going to shoot a lot of film, and that which didn't work. He was bold enough and secure enough about himself as a movie star, that he didn't worry about being offensive to the audience. And he hasn't done that kind of a scene since.