INT: What about the preparation in terms of what kind of research did you do? Did you look at any of the old Nazi films 'cause they kept such a record of it? Did you end up doing special kind of research in it?

MC: Well Gerry's [Gerald Green] script was very complete and we had decided that it would be a story about a family in a particular time. So I was more interested in the family and their interrelationship and the time would impress itself on this family. I had read a certain amount on the early Nazi years, the what was going on in the early ‘30s [1930s], the middle ‘30s [1930s], 'cause this started in 1937. Thereabouts. And I really felt that I would have to stay with the family story, because that was going to keep an audience rather than a discourse on the NSDAP, the Nazi Party. I said, “I'm not doing a documentary. It's not even a docudrama. It is going to be a drama about people and if you care about the people, you will watch it.” Just as ROOTS was a story about a family, about people and not about the entire enslavement of a population, and the subsequent years of revolt and whatever. So impressed as I was about storytelling, and telling the story had to do more with this family, I really shied away from much of the history. Of course I had the, I had books, loaded with pictures and we went to Mauthausen [Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp], which was the concentration camp outside of Linz [Linz, Austria], and we just did it. [INT: Yeah]

INT: But what about visually. Not when you got into the areas like the photographs we were looking at, as you were preparing. You were preparing the extras for being shot, [MC: Babi Yar] Babi Yar, yeah. What kind of visual preparation did you do to that, or didn't you, you just followed what you thought happened, or what did you look at photographs from those period?

MC: It was fairly, it was well described by Gerry Green [Gerald Green] and when we start talking about relationship with the Writers, I can come back to that. But I, as a former Art Director, I had to find out where I was going to put my camera. Where can I find a series of ravines? And I looked until I found such a place, and this is the angle that I was going to shoot it in, and then we had to get the extras. And we found the extras in a transit camp, people who were exiting the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Romania. They were the only brown-eyed people I could find because all the other extras and most of the people in Austria at that time were all blue-eyed. And I explained to them what the scene was about, and that they would be lines of them and that they would have to come to this place, completely disrobed, and they would be machine-gunned. And while we were shooting this scene, one of the young, very young Cameramen came up to me, in fact, it was a Cameraman that I had worked with in India, Camera Operator. And he said, "Mr. Marvin, you are making this up for the movie, this didn't really happen." And we had with us a gentleman who had a permit for weapons, tight control about all automatic weapons, pistols and the like, and this Herr Graff [PH] was the one who kept all the weapons under lock and key in a special truck. And he looked to me, a military man, and I said, "Herr Graff," in my best German, I says, "Ist das war oder nicht war?” Is it true or not true? And all eyes went right to him, and he thought and he said, "Ja, das ist war." All the kids, the young ones just ran off and crying their hearts out, they didn't believe it, and I didn't say another word. They'd look at the picture, they said, "This was all doctored by American photographers, or British photographers. All doctored, made up, it never happened. Never happened. The piles of bodies in Bergen-Belsen [Bergen-Belsen concentration camp], never happened." You know, and I said, "No, ask the man that was there."

INT: Did you, you talked about the fact that you realized that in order to tell the story well you'd have to do it this passionately, what about the Actors? I mean, you know, you had, you mentioned James Woods, and, of course, you had Meryl Streep and--[MC: Rosemary Harris.] Rosemary Harris. [MC: Fritz Weaver, yeah.] And a lot of young Actors and as we know Actors, because that they're currency is emotion, sometimes they're not in control of that, did you have to prepare the Actors or talk to the Actors, was there anything different that you did in this film because not, or because of you, or because of the Actors given the nature of the material and it was again to emphasize “brand new.”

MC: No one was unaware of what happened. It was brand new in that people didn't talk about it. [INT: No I mean it was brand new that this story was being told.] To being told. It didn't make any difference to them, it was basically a job. I don't think anyone said, "I must do this film, because I must tell this story." And nor was I in that mode. I must do this film and the world has to know. The world will learn what it has to learn in due course, whether I tell it or somebody else tells it. My main concern was when they started to get emotional, they got very slow. So my--going back to my early days when I was learning how to cut film, you want to get a minimum of 50 seconds a page. Or 45 is better. In the 1930's they were doing a 35 seconds a page, the dialogue just went, just flew. The audience is smarter than you think they are, and many over emotional Actors, the good ones know it. The ones who are learning and are over, do not know and they really feel that they have to drive the nail with every bit of gut they have. So it was a matter of keeping pace. In fact, people asked me, "Marvin, how did you ever, how did you direct Meryl Streep,” now you worked with her. And I said, "Well, basically I let her instincts play the way she wanted them to play, and she came to one scene where she was playing as a--" It was a scene with Rosemary Harris, very emotional and it just got to be slower and slower and slower. And in those days, I was smoking, and I had a butt can next to me. And I just kicked the can over, and I said, "Cut! Now who the heck raised, knocking things around on the stage. I don't want anybody making any kind of noise, and Meryl please, I'm sorry this interruption had, but don't every do anything like that again. I mean, it's, we're trying to do some work here, now cut it out." After this moderate tirade I said, "Now, do exactly what you were doing before. Don't change a thing." And the scene instead of being a minute and 14 seconds, was now down to like, 60 seconds, 65 seconds. I mean, pop, pop, pop. That's the only thing I ever did with Meryl. I mean the only time I altered a performance. I did not want to be mundane and say, "Pick up the pace honey." I mean I've been accused of other times of interrupting an Actor who was going on and, you know, boring. You know, I said, "A little more pace." You know, "Put your words closer together."

INT: Have you worked, there are Directors, like Adrian Lyne for example, who will talk to Actors during the take, have you done that?

MC: Yes. Yeah, in fact, it got to the point where on many Actor's close-ups, I will send the Actor away and I will stand off-camera and read the lines. And then I will, if he gives me a line and I say, "No, no. "I would like it a little bit faster and look down at your feet then look back up at me, ready and go." And Rex Harrison was another Actor who really could not remember his lines, so. [INT: What were you working with him on?] No, he was working on, I was working with him on ANASTASIA [ANASTASIA: THE MYSTERY OF ANNA]. And he would, we'll get back to HOLOCAUST in a second, but it was just, again, I would send the Actor home, and then we would sit just with Rex, and I would feed him the incoming line and then he would start speaking the incoming line. I said, "No Rex, that's not your line, that's my line. And you have to say, 'bah, bah, bah. Go.'" And we'd bits and pieces again, the knowledge of how to put film together helped me get through the performance, and--[INT: How did you, like people like Rex Harrison, you work with obviously, when you were working with Meryl [Meryl Streep], she was not yet a star, but you did work, by the time you worked with Rex Harrison, and--] Olivia de Havilland, yeah. [INT: Excuse me?] Olivia de Havilland. [INT: Yeah, that's right, right from the beginning actually you were working with big stars. Did you ever feel not once the production was going, but did you ever feel a little bit, if not intimidated initially, a little inhibited, or you know, that because you were dealing with their reputation as they walked in the door, did that, how did you approach that or was it not an issue for you?] Never an issue. Never an issue. [INT: Because?] Because they were professionals, I deemed myself a professional. We had a certain amount of work to do, and a certain amount of time and we did it.

INT: So you created, your standard procedure was to create an environment, a professional environment on the set, based on the fact that there was a clock and there was a certain amount of work that had to be done during that time?

MC: The fact there's always a clock. And there's always a certain amount to do. I don't have to establish that, that is, that's a given. In fact, I have been stopped by an Assistant Director at one time, Scotty Easton [D. Scott Easton], who was an assistant of mine, and he said, "Marvin, you're beating this scene to death. It is only 5/8 of a page. It should only be less than 40 seconds in the final film. Why don't you finish it now? I've dismissed the other three pages that we're going to do this afternoon and I've brought in the Actors for a one-and-a-half-page scene, two people or whatever, that you can knock off on this set that we happen to have. So let's do that.” So I cherish an assistant like that, because I get, I can, I too can become a victim of my own trap. [INT: Which is?] Which is to get too involved in the material and lose, too involved in the show and not enough in the business. You know, because I will ultimately have to pay for it at the end. You know. [INT: At the time he told you that, you were appreciative of it?] Absolutely, absolutely. I mean 'cause this is what I had been preaching for years, I'd just forgotten. [INT: How far back in, do you remember when that happened?] This was in the ‘80s [1980s]. [INT: So you'd already done a hell of a lot of work.] Yeah, I think it was, might've been something we were doing in New Zealand.

INT: So okay, so I got you off track a little bit about, and you talked about directing Meryl [Meryl Streep], and we talked about the HOLOCAUST, and you've told a couple of good stories, is there anything else, whatever comes to mind anecdotally about the making of that film that you remember, that you think is worth sharing?

MC: One thing has never gotten out of mind, we were filming at Mauthausen [Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp], doing concentration scene, and we were going to film in the actual gas chambers that they had there, and I had one shot where our principle cast, where we had Rosemary Harris and several of the other women were coming in a line dressed in their gray and black striped uniforms, entering the area of the gas chambers, and they had a pergola setup at the time and we recreated that, and there was a quartet, a string quartet playing classical music to mollify them, so I told them that I wanted, I said, "Pick some Schumann [Robert Schumann]." And they started to play, and it was, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles [“Deutschlandlied”]." I said, "Wrong cut, no." I said, "You wanted something German." You know and a lot of attitude, and I said, "You picked something else, give me “Forelle” [“Die Forelle”], the Schubert Trout [Franz Schubert]. Yes they can do that, and they picked it up and they played other music, but it told me that the snake is not dead, it's asleep perhaps or one eye opened, ever vigilant, you know. [INT: That was during the HOLOCAUST.] That was during, while I was shooting the HOLOCAUST, 1977. [INT: And that shoot was approximately how long?] 100 days. [INT: And was that the longest you had filmed so?] At that point, yes, it was 100 days and when we cut it instead of being eight hours it was nine-and-a-half hours, and the network allowed us to go nine-and-a-half hours, it did not insist on cutting anything out, and--[INT: Was that sponsored, did they have commercials in that?] I have no idea. I do not remember. I do not, they may very well have had sponsors, I don't know. [INT: And were you, after the fact, was it, did having, did that experience, how did that, did it change you in any way? Did it inform the rest of your career, did it make you what, if anything?] It was considered a heavy work, just as ROOTS was considered a heavy work. Just as the Ku Klux Klan piece [ATTACK ON TERROR: THE FBI VS. THE KU KLUX KLAN] was considered a heavy work, although most people have forgotten, it's been remade on film several times [MISSISSIPPI BURNING]. But I mean it, you know, I got a, I was originally, way back before all of this happened, it just came to mind, I was doing comedies, I was hired by Disney [Walt Disney Pictures] with Wally Cox and Joe Flynn, the mayor and his bumbling assistant [WALT DISNEY'S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR: THE WACKY ZOO OF MORGAN CITY], and it was, you know, I was doing comedy, and when we finished it, they said, "Boy, we want to work with you forever." And I said, "Oh what a happy life." And, of course, within six months they both had passed away. And I said, “No, somebody doesn't want me to live a happy life.” Whatever.

INT: And so in regard to the HOLOCAUST, it was just another one in a series of serious films, it wasn't, there wasn't anything afterwards that you felt differently about? I mean, you may not have, I just--

MC: Well, it was basically followed by several two-hour movies, which I did for Herb Brodkin [Herbert Brodkin], basically on the east coast. And then I did a pilot called KATE MCSHANE for Paramount [Paramount Pictures], where I met Jack Neuman [E. Jack Neuman], and he asked me to do a script that he had written called INSIDE THE THIRD REICH. And he says, "You've been there, you've done that." I said, "Yes, but this is in the other side.” I mean if one is the vanquished and the other the victors at the moment, or whatever. And I really wanted to do that, because I wanted to see how we could dig into a mind that could oversee this kind of horror, who could make it part of their lexicon. [INT: That's one of my favorites, by the way, but why don't you tell us what that story was about, 'cause I don't think everyone.] Is, basically it's the story of Albert Speer, who was Hitler's [Adolf Hitler] architect, he had, his father was an architect before him, and very early on he became a member of the Nazi party in '36 [1936], and was the designer of, as architect he was the designer of the stage. He designed the Nuremberg rallies and the formations and the choreography. Leni Riefenstahl just photographed it [TRIUMPH DES WILLENS], she did not, she did not orchestrate it. And he, it's the story about how he had grown up in the Nazi rank, in the--became a Reichsfuhrer. And he had been interviewed by Jack a number of times, and he actually, he died the night before he was supposed to have an interview with me or I was supposed to meet him. And it gave an insight into Hitler's inner circle, and how they came about the final solution, the Grossen Wannsee Conference. How business was being done, and what the priorities were. And it touched on things of--such as Hitler having screenings of Busby Berkeley musicals, at his hideout in Bavaria [The Berghof]. And just all their interaction, one of the, Derek, Sir Derek, Derek Jacobi was, played Hitler. And he was absolutely brilliant. [INT: And who played Speer?] Rutger Hauer played Speer. [INT: Right, right. And that was based on you mentioned Jack, who was the Writer?] E. Jack Neuman. [INT: I see, he produced it and wrote.] He produced it and wrote it. [INT: He wrote the, but did he write it off of a book, or?] He wrote it off Speer's memoir and interviews with Speer. [INT: And so the night, the day that you were going to meet him, Speer died?] Speer died, we were going out to meet him, and we were going to go meeting him, we were supposed to meet him in Salzburg [Salzburg, Austria] and Jack had forgotten his passport so we could not go from Germany, from Bava, from Munich [Munich, Germany] to Salzburg [Salzburg, Austria], so we decided we would make the trip on another day. That was over a weekend, and Speer flew to the BBC for an interview, his last interview, at the BBC, and then on his way home, collapsed in the hotel room, or in the hotel lobby. [INT: How old was he do you remember? I mean was he, probably in--?] Old enough. [INT: Old enough, so much of your life has to do with time and place, doesn't it? I mean in regard to, I'm talking about, I'm thinking about how you got jobs and there's so much drama in this.] A lot of it was fortuitous and a lot of it was timing and… [INT: Yeah, but it looks like well anyway, I won't get into that. I was going to say, it looks like someone does have a design even though you didn't.]

INT: So in regard to INSIDE THE THIRD REICH, maybe this is a good place to start talking about your relationship to Writers, 'cause you referenced that one, and you were mentioned, you referenced the--[MC: With Gerry Green [Gerald Green]] With Gerry Green and why don't you talk about how--

MC: Well, going back to the ROOTS where the chief writers were Ernie Kinoy [Ernest Kinoy] and Bill Blinn [William Blinn]. I always tried to get the script as early as possible, and I would always get them on the phone, I mean Producers generally don't like Directors to talk to Writers. At least in those days, that was the case. And I would call them at home, and I'd say, "You know, in this particular scene, you know." One with an idea to production, I said, "You know, I'm in this set, for two hours. I could stay another hour in that set, and do this particular scene, if it were not in this set, but we did it over here. Could you indicate that so we'd have one less company moved during the day." It's like an airline, if a plane isn't flying, we're not making any money, if the camera's on turning, we're not making a picture." And so I got along very well with Ernie and Bill. Then with Gerald Green, we had long conversations before even going over to Europe. And I said, "It may very well be that I'll find certain locations or you'll indicate certain locations, which I cannot find or I can't even find a substitute." He said, "Well, Marvin, after we've talked, and I know how you feel about the piece, feel free to make any change you want. Don't call me. just do it." [INT: This was as far as locations?] As far as locations, he says, "If you want to cut scenes of dialogue, if you want to transpose scenes or cut scenes, do what feels best between you, the Actors, and so on." And so with that kind of portfolio, or privilege, I felt very comfortable with the material.

INT: How indicative of what Neuman [E. Jack Neuman] said--what Green [Gerald Green] said to you was that of your relationship with Writers in the course of your career? How many Writers have been--

MC: Well, it basically set the course. I mean, I tried very hard from that point on to get along very, very well with Writers. [INT: And did you find that a lot of them gave you at least verbal or articulated, liberating you that way?] Yes, because they're best interest to serve by my being able to do the best that I can do with the film. If I feel very uncomfortable with a scene, it probably will not turn out to be a very good scene. [INT: Did you ever have a Writer or did you ever have the luxury of having a Writer on the set and if not on the set, what about having them available even by phone during a shooting or did you not make changes during a shooting?] Oh, I often made changes during the shooting. And I very often did not call the Writer to tell them that I had made the changes, I didn't, these words, or afterwards, I would say, "These words did not fit in this Actor's mouth. It was easier for him to express this another way." So I'd give the Actors an opportunity to rephrase. Particularly, if they're having difficulty with a particular line of dialogue, I'd say, "Well, you know, say it in your own words."

INT: How did you weigh that? I mean, that--this is a very universal point, this is a good moment to discuss this, and that is, how did you weigh the natural tension particularly with American Actors that exist between the text and the Actor? I'm sure you've had the experience where Actors will come in, never, and you've never heard them read the line, and they say, “I can't say this. And this is what I want to change it to.” How did you balance that, what kind of measuring stick did you use to decide on which side of the equation you were going, where you either going to protect the text or you felt that the Actor was justified?

MC: As a matter of intent in the whole body of the scene, if the Actor's words conveyed the same meaning, not that you're going to change an entire line, he may change “where for” to “whereas,” or if, or “I ain't.” If it goes or fits the character, then it is, it seems as though it is germane, and useful. When I read, I very often I would sit and read a script with the Writer, I would take the time to sit down with the Writer, if he's available, and the two of us would read the script together. I did this with Ronnie Harwood [Ronald Harwood]. Ronnie--[INT: On which film now?] I worked with him on EVITA [EVITA PERON], and again on THE STRAUSS DYNASTY. And we're reading the dialogue back and forth, and I said, "I want to change this line, because it doesn't feel right to me, or it feels too British. Let's find a shorter way to do this." And also I'm very careful about page count. I get very nervous when the page is longer than, when a scene is longer than three pages. You know, in which case, I will say, "You know, take this three page scene and turn it into a page and a half." And settle for a two-page scene. With E. Jack [E. Jack Neuman], I had the same problem, or a problem provoked itself, it came, while we were shooting. And it was a scene where Rutger Hauer, Speer's [Albert Speer] talking to his wife, Blythe Danner, and he said, in a two-and-a-half page, or a three page scene, explaining why you had to turn a blind eye to what was happening. And I said, "Jack, this scene is too long. Make, please make it a two page or a page-in-a-half scene." Well, he made it a two pager, page-and-a-half, and I said, "It's preachy, it's a dogmatic, it doesn't ring true to the character." And we kept rescheduling it, and then one day, I found myself on Bavaria Studios’ backlot, where they had a Berlin tram of 1937. And I remembered seeing in a book, a scene from Hamburg where the Marine SS had lined up, or not lined up, taken two people, a short man who wore a sign around his neck that said, “I am a Jew, I slept with a gentile woman.” And then there was a tall girl and she had a sign around her neck and she said, “I am a gentile, I slept with a Jew.” And there were a group of--they had a photographer and a taunting crowd and they were jeering at them and jeering at them and harassing them mercilessly. So I said, "Here's what we'll have. Speer is supposed to meet his wife for lunch. So he's standing on the street corner, the tram comes up. She steps off the tram, peck on the cheek, the tram pulls away, and right across the street we have this scene." The man, the woman, the SS, the photographers and all of this, and jeering and the taunting. And she looks at him, and starts running. She runs down the street, and he runs after her and he catches her. And you hear the jeering in your ear, and he turns her around and he says, "You have to learn to look away." And that was the scene. And Jack said, "That turned out okay." But he was there at the time. [INT: He was? So he came to…] He was on the set. [INT: Was he there every day?] He was there, usually. He would drop by.

INT: How did that feel to have the Writer on the set?

MC: Very comfortable. Very comfortable because, and I would change dialogue without even referring to him, so he would--[INT: Is that right?] Yeah, I mean, we, only once, only once in the Speer [Albert Speer] piece [INSIDE THE THIRD REICH] did I do something that was not written in the script and it was a scene where Speer was being interviewed by a psychiatrist in his cell. And Jack had indicated that the psychiatrist would just be sitting, just taking notes and asking questions. And Speer gave various answers for these things. And it was a little static for me. It seemed at the time, so I think Jack [E. Jack Neuman] may have been right, I probably should've done that. But I had them exchange in a conversation. And to me it became, I could cut on mood changes and the like, I was trying to be expedient or whatever. And I think, he was probably right, it would've been more chilling if this doctor who says, you know, "You know I'm a Jew". And, "Yes, I know that," he says, and he just kept on writing, but I think that would've just been one point and we would've lost on something. The scene opened and ended with a flashback.

INT: You mentioned page count, and you were talking about the length of scenes but are, what was your, what philosophy did you use in regard to the length of a script? Did you like to have the script lean or because you were pushing, you were trying to get Actors to be more classical in terms of talking faster, were you afraid that that would leave you short? Where did you come out on that equation?

MC: Well, for a two-hour… [INT: Which was how many?] In those days, it was 96 minutes. And it's down, down--[INT: To 80.] 80 something, 85 or whatever it is. But in those days it was 96 minutes. I would like a 120-page script. And I would generally like to count 45 seconds to 50 seconds a page. And I would, just it was instinctive in me or it seemed to be instinctive, that if a scene went on. I said, "This scene reads too long. It should be cut." And I would give the Writer the first chance to cut the scene. And very often, I mean, a guy like Ernie Kinoy [Ernest Kinoy] could do it and Bill Blinn [William Blinn], instantly. Those guys were you know, were wonderful, “Why do you want to make it shorter?” And if I answered them properly, they made it shorter. And the answer became, "If I, if you don't cut it, I'll cut it in the cutting room."

INT: When you did 120 pages, which is pretty, that's a lot of pages. Did, what did you end up with, not with the edited film, but did you make cuts during the shooting and where, how many pages do you think you ended up generally losing in the course of the shooting?

MC: I might lose about eight or 10 pages, because, very often I would try to combine two different scenes, to different locations, so that this could flow directly into that, so let us continue it, and truncate the whole thing. And we get both points made, in a relatively short period of time. [INT: Still with a 110 page script, right, and even if you got the Actors down to, let's say 50 seconds, and I don't know what you were all, you can tell me.] No, it wasn't always. [INT: And then you had obviously a lot of camera moves and production shots in these bigger films, so what did your films usually come in at and--] 102, 103. And then we would cut it down to the 98 minutes. So taking four minutes out of the picture wasn't tooth-pulling. [INT: But you were able to have a 110-page script, and come in at a 102 minutes?] Just about, yeah. If memory serves me well. [INT: Right, and so you must've been on the Actors a lot in regard to pacing.] Yeah, I mean, it got to the point where I would say, “Cut,” and I would turn to the Script Supervisor and I'd say, "That was 58 seconds, wasn't it?" And he says, "Did you look at my watch?" And I turned to the Actors, very simply I said, "I'd like that in about 45 seconds please." Oh you know, "We can't just pick it up." I said, going back to HOLOCAUST, there was an Actor, you know him, who was told by the character who played Heidrich, that Poland was going to be invaded. And this Actor said, "You mean, we are going to move troops across a sovereign border?" And I said to the Actor, "I need a little pace here." "No, no, that's the way it has to be done, I have to do it that way." I said, "Okay, do it that way." And he did, and when we came to that line of dialogue, I did a cut of Heydrich [David Warner], and he says, "You mean we're going to move our troops across a sovereign border into Poland?" So the Actors are not the total arbiters of time, and since I really didn't want to argue with him, our arguments were saved for other times, I said, you know, I can, you know, Steve Rotter [Stephen A. Rotter], my Editor in New York, will, he knows what to do. [INT: Great Editor.] And that's how it turned out.

MC: In fact, talking about editing, we, when we were editing HOLOCAUST, we had four Editors. And all of them have great careers now, or had great careers. [INT: Who besides--] Bobby Reitano [Robert M. Reitano] was there. [INT: Was Richie Marx on that?] No. But I was sitting with Bobby Reitano, and I hear all the Moviolas in the other rooms, and I'm listening to a scene and I said, "Whoop, they got the wrong take up." And I went over and I said, "You got the wrong take on this." And they said, "No we don't." And he pulled the script out and he said, "Here it is. Scene four, take five." That's the one, he said, "No, no there was another take." "Well, it's not in the script." I said, "Believe me, go to the outtakes, go back to the lab, there's another take." And sure enough they found take six. And they brought it in; they couldn't, in a different reading. He said, "Marvin, how the hell did you remember it?" I says, "How could I not?" I mean this was, I mean, I'm supposed to know what all the words are and what all the moods are and how they relate, that's my job.