INT: Talk about Assistant Directors and your experience with...

RY: Well, my first Assistant Director was Mike Hausman [Michael Hausman]. And he was great. Before--[INT: What do you require? What do you want an Assistant Director to do for you?] Well, I want--I mean, now, I'm more sophisticated in that I've made a bunch of films and some of them are not so difficult from an Assistant Director's point of view. In other words, in terms of the background. The most important thing... Well, I guess you'd have to say the most important thing is the personality and methodology of the Assistant Director in terms of running the set. Of him, he's aware of my, the way I like to go about things, that I want to stage things first. That I don't want... I understand the pressure of trying to figure out what the first shot’s gonna be. And so we may have a discussion and I might say, "Look, this is what I think it's gonna be, so you can start getting ready. People can be lighting, or everybody doesn't have to sit around while we're doing this first thing, but let's not get caught in some kind of a box." I'm sure you've been in the same place lots and lots of times. And so I'm--but I want to see a complete rehearsal first, so I can see what really is gonna happen, and everybody can see it and then while that rehearsal is happening, I'll walk around and I'll say, with the DP [Director of Photography], I'll say, "Look, these are the cutting points. This is what I want. This is where I want the camera." And then he'll take over. And I want the Assistant Director to be really aware of all of this and understand where we're going for the day and support me in terms of telling me, "Bob, you know, this is taking too long," or this or that or--

INT: Will you say that, after having looked at the rehearsal, will you say, "I think there are gonna be seven set-ups or 10 set-ups--?"

RY: I will say, yeah. I will say that. I will say that. And sometimes it can be very complicated. On EXTREMITIES, and because of the lighting, too, which was really complicated and Curtis [Curtis Clark] is just brilliant at this. Farrah [Farrah Fawcett]--I had somebody come in the room--the rapist. And my concept was that as he made a move, she would maybe make a counter-move. Or she'd be still, but then he'd come closer. And I wanted to express that with the camera so that the, you know, at first you see him, he's at a different distance. I wanted to--I mean not that I didn't go to a closer shot at first, but I essentially made it so that the audience understood where they were from the size of the people so that when you're in her space, psychological space, you're real close and you understand. But then she might turn around and he might be, all of a sudden, come closer, and then you're startled because the images come closer. In other words, I use all of that. So I shot each person separately. There's no two shots. I mean no--I never did a master. I just do Farrah, and I did this guy. And he moves around and she makes a move. And he moves around and she makes a move. So it had to be cut but it had, because of the lighting, I had to--it was very complicated. So I had to divide the whole thing and do all of the stuff in one direction and all the stuff in the other direction. And thank god I am a Cameraman because I could keep--I can keep this in my head, you know? But I don't essentially do storyboards or anything like that unless I feel like it's just to let people see where they're gonna do things for lighting and--stuff like that.

INT: Now an AD [Assistant Director] is often involved in the scheduling or, with you. How did--and sort of putting a board and--

RY: Right. The AD will be. [INT: And how's that for you? I mean is there a scheduling methodology that you prefer? For example, do you want to shoot in sequence?] Yes. [INT: And where are you?] Yeah. I am--I try, if I possibly can, to shoot in sequence. As a matter of fact, I did CAUGHT completely in sequence. Even though I went back to one location like four times. And it made a big difference in the production. And it also led me to drop scenes that I didn't need. So I'm--you know, some Producers, they hear what I did. I mean they think I'm out of my mind. But I know that, like what happens when a script is--they decide, "We're interested in this. Let's budget it." So they break it down and the Assistant Directors break it down and it's because of the, you know, you pull the Actors together, you pull the locations together. You don't want to spend too much money by paying this guy when he doesn't--you know. And those are the criteria for the shooting of the movie. Okay. Now, lots of times, it doesn't make--to me, there are all kinds of other money that's being spent and I'd rather be spending some of the money on some inconveniences. I mean, if I go back to--in CAUGHT, actually, it was on location that I built. I mean I bought a store and we constructed it. So it wasn't like I couldn't go there. I mean there are times when you can't do that kind of thing, so I shoot things out of sequence. I'm not a prima donna. [INT: Right.] I understand that that's the way you make movies. However, if I can, I find enormous advantages because I was doing a scene with Eddie Olmos [Edward James Olmos] and in the script, he has a heart attack and an ambulance comes, and then there's a scene in a hospital room. And I'm shooting the scene with him and I actually am physically operating. And the scene is so fabulous and so strong, I say, "Eddie, Eddie! Take it all the way! You're dying in this scene." And that's what happens. And it's powerful, powerful scene. And I wasn't gonna attenuate it by an ambulance and the hospital room and do things that I didn't really need. So I said, right then, I said, "This is it. I want--let's do the scene." You know, let's take it all the way.

INT: Now will a budget stop you? Or will you say--'cause it sounds like, for example, in this one you just talked about, "Well, they say it's gonna cost me eight million dollars--[RY: I came in on budget]--and I'm gonna do it for--'cause I don't have that money so I'll do it another way." [RY: Yeah.] I mean some people look at the budget and say, "I can only make this picture at this price. If I can't get it this price, I can't make the picture."

RY: Well, I suppose there must be absolute prices, of course. Like, there's something, I have a script that takes place in New Guinea. You know, I don't know if anybody's ever gonna do it. People think it's a great script, but anyway... Yeah, there's a certain amount of money I need. I don't know what it is, actually. You know, maybe it's 12 million dollars or 10 below the line, you know. So there is, yes. There are pictures on location and there's, you know, you have to fly people and you may get the crew in New Guinea and Australia but there's still fixed costs. Beyond that, I guess I'm always willing to take away from myself. For example, you know, it's--I mean, okay. I'd like to get paid and I'd like to be well-paid, but you know. I mean my last film, CAUGHT, I spent my pension and my wife's inheritance on it. I'll never see the money. The film's made over eight million bucks, but we never--we'll never see it, you know. It's the distribution deal. Honest, but not fair, in my opinion. But anyway, and this last film, HUMAN ERROR, I also did it for nothing. I mean I do certain things, I did NOTHING BUT A MAN, essentially, for nothing. And four years ago, five years ago I made a film in Harlem. I read a script that a young black woman had written and I thought it ought to be done as a personal thing that somebody would actually accomplish something, and my partner, Eddie Pomerantz [Edward Pomerantz] and his wife and I raised the money, from ITVS [Independent Television Service]. Took us five years. And I directed it and, you know, it took me six months of no money and actually losing a lot of money, but I did what I said I was gonna do.

INT: On the shoot, what makes you anxious, if anything?

RY: Well, that's an interesting question. See, I love the process. I'm very nervous about it beforehand, I worry and everything like that. But I love the process. I love making a film. It's very exciting. I could be naked, I suppose. I mean, I'm at my best making a film. So from that point of view, I'm very happy. What--I have had a number of films, several films, that really were unhappy experiences for me and I think they were my own fault because of my own inadequacies. ONE TRICK PONY with Paul Simon was a very unhappy experience for me. And I saw I was nervous a lot. And when you're nervous, it's very hard for you to be inside yourself, because I never knew--we never got to do what, why he'd hired me. He hired me 'cause I had certain ideas about how I was gonna do a musical, a film that where 12 songs had already been composed and I wanted to use them with ear-wigs and Actors moving and counterpoint to the music, stop the music, do the dialogue, continue music. I wanted to experiment with all of that. And I found that because of, you know, he had his own agenda. It was Carrie Fisher and we never did the things that we talked about doing and I tried to back out before the film started. So I was very nervous on that film because I didn't know--because if I did--I would say, "Paul, what if we tried such and such?" And he may listen and then walk away. I've never had that kind of experience before, and he's a very nice guy but--and he said to me once, he said, when I complained, he said, "Bob, you have to be confrontational then." He said--his closest friend was Lorne Michaels on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. He said, "They have eight or 10 Writers. They're all competing to be on. And that's what you have to do." And I said, "I can't do that. That's not me and it's not what I do. What I do is, I don't care--it doesn't have to be my idea. I'm a conductor. I have lots of ideas. I'm not a dope, you know. I have plenty of ideas. And I like, in fact, to honor other people's ideas. I always say, when I talk about CAUGHT, that the ending really never would have happened without Mike Barrow [Michael Barrow], the Cameraman, who said the ending we had was melodramatic and it needed to be, cost something. And that led to the ending that we did. So it's not--I want it to be the best thing that could possibly be on the screen. That's what I want. And I'm not--'cause he said whoever got their skit on, that was what they wanted. And it wasn't necessarily the best. And I don't want anything but what is the best. And I'm not--I can't be confrontational about it that way.

RY: Now, I have had--I once had, on a set, a terrible experience. It was on SHORT EYES. And these were the guys who told the first Director they'd kill him if he came back on Monday. And he left. And I was in a situation where there was a scene that I had to do that I kept putting off and off and off 'cause I hadn't solved it yet. And then one night I think I solved it. And Miguel [Miguel Pinero] and I, the Writer, stayed up the whole night and reconstructed the scene and it was his words, but it was my construction. And I took a scene out of a day room and put it in the cells, which is the way it should have been done, but couldn't have been on the stage. And I'm about to--so the Actors come in and Jose Perez, one of the Actors, a wonderful Actor, I give him the scene. I say, "Look, Jose, I figured it out. This is what I think we ought to do, but let's try it and see how it works." He looked at it and he said, "This is not the play. I'm not doing it." I said, "What do you mean, you're not doing it?" Anyway, somebody actually--somewhere, there's a tape of this. For 45 minutes, we sat and talked with the whole cast and crew around, arguing about whether we were doing it or not. And I said, "Look, if it's wrong, we'll see and we won't do it. But we have to try it." And I was very gentle at first but as we talked, the arguments, it got stronger and stronger until finally, I heard myself say, "Well, I mean, either you do it or...I mean, I'm directing this thing. Either, you have to at least try it. If you can't do that, then I don't know what we do. There's no place for you in this." Something like that. I mean I took it to here. And he got up and he walked out. This is my star. In the middle of my production. Miguel, fortunately, was there, heard the whole argument. He said, and this is the thing that--his treasure. He cared about this more than anything in his life, SHORT EYES. And there's the guy walking out the door. He said, "We’ll write the son of a bitch out of the play." That was his response to me. So I thought that was tremendously loyal. So, I didn't know what to do. He flew to California. And he was gone for five days. And I didn't know if he was coming back. And I shot what scenes I could and it was very tense and tough. And the fifth day, we look around and here he is, walking back into the studio, into the tombs. And we both said we apologize, for whatever had taken us to that place. And we did the scene right then. And it's a great, great scene and he acknowledged it, you know? [INT: That's fabulous.] And it's not, like, just that I have to be right or something like that. If I'd been wrong, I would have said, "Look, you're right. It doesn't work." But I couldn't stomach him not being willing to try it. And for us to find out.

RY: So that's--look, Directors get tested. I once was in a knife fight on ALAMBRISTA! I mean, I'll never forget that. [INT: That's being tested.] A guy came at me with a lettuce knife. [INT: This was an Actor?] No, well, yeah. It was an Actor, but he was a non-professional Actor and in the scene, there was a lot of drinking that went on. [INT: Right.] And I wasn't aware as I should have been of all of that kind of stuff. And I went outside with Mike Hausman [Michael Hausman] to do a scene where guys were running into an immigration truck that was backed up against the back of the cafe. And these guys, most of them were without papers, they were illegal, you know, guys. And I hear a scream inside and I put down my camera and I run inside with Mike, and Mike gets hit over the head with a beer bottle, which explodes. And I see a guy has just taken some guy, put a glass in his eye and taken his eye out. And the next thing is a guy jumps off the bandstand, one of the musicians, and this guy catches him in the nose and splatters it over his face. So I grabbed this guy. I mean, you know, this is our film. I grab this guy and he's bigger than me and I'm holding onto him. And then other people come and they wrestle him out. And I turn around to see the damage, and somebody screams and I turn around and there's this guy coming at me with a lettuce knife. A lettuce knife is a little bit like a linoleum knife, only it's longer and it's as sharp as a razor and comes to a point, you know? And I instinctively, I grab his wrist just above the knife. I mean you don't think about anything. You just do what you have--you know. And I'm wrestling with him, but because I don't--I'm very physical, actually, but I don't fight. I don't hit people. So I don't hit him, I'm holding him. And then Mike Barrow [Michael F. Barrow], my Cameraman, comes to grab him from the back. And all of a sudden--and I'm looking, and I'm struggling like hell with this guy. It all happens very quickly. And the knife is just an inch from my belly. And then all of a sudden, I see the face of my son, Andy, who's 15 years old, underneath the knife. Andy jumps in and comes up and reaches up and grabs the guy's hand and opens it. I was furious at my son. That knife was just above his face, you know. Anyway--[INT: So that's--]--I mean--[INT:--is that the angriest you've ever been on a set?] Oh, I was, you know, that was really something. The girl had a tooth, had a... [INT: Pick?] Ice pick, you know, knife. I mean, you know, I mean, you have to be prepared in a sense for anything. And I've been on many films where there's some point of crisis where something might, the whole thing might blow up. And that's why, to me, I mean, I want to be involved with something that I really care about, that's really worthwhile. [INT: If you're gonna have to do this--] If I'm gonna die, I wanna die for at least some kind of a noble cause. And--

INT: Let's talk post-production. Let's talk post-production, speaking of noble causes. You said you shoot knowing editorially where you're gonna be.

RY: Well, at CAUGHT--now I'm sounding like I'm bragging, but CAUGHT was edited in four weeks. [INT: So--] In five day weeks without any overtime. [INT: Now do you work with an Editor or with Editors?] Well, that one, yeah. Arthur Coburn is an Editor I love and Norman--oh god. Norman Buckley edited CAUGHT. He's wonderful. Actually, my last Editor, they were busy and I used a guy named Roger Cohen on HUMAN ERROR. He'd never edited a film before. But he's fantastic, technically, and so I was able to do exactly what I wanted to do. [INT: Now, how do you work with an Editor? Do you let them do a first assembly? Or are you in the editing room right away?] Well, they know what we've talked about and so they know what I want, so they'll do an assembly and then I come in. [INT: Do you give notes to the Editor while you're shooting? Are you looking at dailies, for example?] You know, sometimes I'm not able to, but yeah, I essentially do. And they would be at the screening and we would talk about what we liked, and what. So they have a basic idea and they know my style and what I'm trying to do. I mean Arthur Coburn, who's a marvelous Editor. I mean, he's edited about half a dozen of my movies and he also did, was on BEVERLY HILLS COP, and he did, you know, a lot of the Sam Raimi movies including SPIDER-MAN. I mean he's done a lot and so he's done some great things. Anyway, on DOMINICK AND EUGENE he was tremendously nervous. And I encourage my Editors to speak up, too, you know. He was very nervous 'cause I like certain long takes that I'll do, and he felt that I didn't have coverage. And that's something I have to be very careful of, actually, but it worked, you know. There's something about sustaining certain things and I feel that certain places where I want the camera to be, 'cause that's where the story is and I don't want it any place else. So look, I'm a little… But I encourage him to try something else. I mean, look, I'm a funny kind of a paradox. On the one hand, I think I am very open. He can try anything he wants. I tell him that. "Surprise me. It's okay." But I have very strong ideas about, you know, usually, not always, but usually about what it is that I--why I did something and why, you know, to try to make it work. [INT: Now will you come in to the editing room?] Yeah. I'll be there most of the time. [INT: You will. So is there a period when you're not there?] Well I like to--when we talk about a scene, I like to be able to step out so that he feels he doesn't have me looking over his shoulder, ‘cause I think that's not very good. And I also want him to know that I trust him. He can do anything he wants. And I know that he'll do anything that I want.

INT: Now, speaking just in terms of coverage, do you shoot a lot or a little? Or does it depend on the film? [RY: I shoot little.] You do. Many takes? [RY: No, not usually. On CAUGHT, two, three, sometimes four. Very rarely more than that.] Now do you--[RY: Same with HUMAN ERROR.] If you're shooting something that you say, "I could do this is one shot," do you give yourself protection? Are you still--

RY: Well, one of the things that I found out, and I found this out early, that I would do things because I get--I do very strongly believe you put the camera where the story is. And I would get caught up in ways--I would do a scene, the whole scene, and maybe it would--maybe one shot, maybe two shots, three, but I'd have it exactly and they'd cut, and it would be beautiful. And it was a great scene. But then, you string up all these scenes and they may each one work real great. And then you say, "But look, the pacing is somehow off. It's getting too slow here," or it's, you know. So I've learned that I have to find some kind of ways of getting out on things and I have to start thinking--I think in terms of some alternatives, some kind of places where there are cutting points where I can do another shot so I can something--collapse something more or eliminate something or, so I do think about that because I know that I can be in trouble later. But not in terms of the scene itself. [INT: What do you--] Most of my scenes play in the cutting room the way I--[INT: Envision.]--imagine them, yeah.

INT: Music? When does music start to play a role?

RY: Well, you know, I think I've always been a little bit insecure about that 'cause I'm not a musician, although my kids are. My kids are amazing musicians. And my uncle Joe [Joe Young] was a--wrote "My Mammy" for the first sound movie and, you know, I come from some kind of a theatrical family in a way. My uncle wrote "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" [“Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue”] and, oh, I could go on. “I'm Sitting on Top of the World,” and "Dinah," and wrote a lot of great, great music--[INT: What was his first name?]--and he's one of the founders of ASCAP [American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers]. [INT: What was his--] What? [INT: What was his first name?] Joe Young. [INT: Joe Young.] Well, the name originally was Joe Judewitz. But, you know, Judewitz, son of the tribe of Judah, but you can't be Joe Judewitz and write "don't let them take the red and white out of the flag and leave us with the blues," you know, or "Hello central, give me no man's land," or "When the Angelica is ringing," you know, an Irish song. So he took the first three letters, Y-O-U and he said the rest was N-G. No Good. [INT: Right.] So he became Joe Young and the family changed their name and I was born a Young. But anyway--[INT: Music.] Too answer to your question, which I've avoided, about music, I have a lot of strong feelings about it. I love music. But I think I'm so story-oriented that it doesn't really come to my mind right away. And then I start thinking about it. I think that's a deficiency in that I wish that I, that when I was first thinking about the ideas that I would be thinking about the music, because in the last 10 years or 20 or 15 years, because my sons are musicians, two of them. And they're incredible musicians. I tell you, one was signed by Interscope [Interscope Records] when he was 13. And then both of them were signed by DreamWorks [DreamWorks Records] and they have an album out and they're doing a second album now. And they're just wonderful Musicians and Composers. I mean, they write all their own stuff. So I've gotten into it more because of them. I've been thinking more about music, because of my kids. And I was--and on HUMAN ERROR, I told you I was…I had the opportunity to, I started thinking in another way because I was doing a different kind of movie.

INT: Now, you had a real ominous score in TRIUMPH [TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT]. I mean I remember, just vaguely.

RY: That was, I thought that--I loved the score on TRIUMPH and the Composer [Cliff Eidelman], actually it was some big, famous names that I could have gotten and I didn't. I went with the young guy, who’d never done really anything before, but I had heard a symphony that he had written, and I thought that he was the right guy to do it and he did, I thought, a brilliant score. And, if I might say so, they're reflections of what he did in SCHINDLER'S LIST, you know. [INT: Yeah.] But anyway, I didn't mean that mean-spiritedly. I mean, I think that's fine. But I mean, that he was, he was so good and...

INT: Do you temp score on any of your pieces?

RY: Yeah. During the editing, sometimes. But I must say, I've had a lot of help from, like, Arthur Coburn and Norman [Norman Buckley] on that. They've been very good. [INT: But, let's--] Then I talk to the--but I do talk to the Composer very intimately. I mean I have a lot of ideas about what I think the music is supposed to accomplish. [INT: And what kind of words will you use?] Well, for example, on CAUGHT, I heard a horn, a trumpet, something lonely and blues-y. And we picked--and Norman found him, listened to a bunch of people who played the trumpet and heard this guy Chris Botti, who's brilliant. He's been on tour with Sting now. He's a fantastic musician and he composed the score. And we talked about it dramatically, I mean, what elements in it needed to be supported. How to--'cause I do think film has a tremendous amount in common with music, and that's where I do have, I think, an affinity for it, even though I'm not--I don't think I'm really musical. My affinity for it is structural, and I think that just as there are--just as the sub-plot is another motif and you come into conflict and that's a different kind of instrumentation, and then things get resolved, musically, because you bring in things and accommodate them and it becomes something new. I mean I think that--but themes, you know, recur, and things develop. So, I think, I think musically in some kind of way and I find that I'm always able to talk to the Composer about what it is that I'm trying to accomplish. And we seem to have, really, a good dialogue. So I've never, for example, had a score done that had to be redone. We always stay in touch. I've always been happy with them. [INT: Do you, if there's a choice between less and more music, will you head for less?] Probably. Probably. I think that space is very important, too, and… But I, you know, I think music is tremendously important.

INT: How are you in the mix? What's the mix like for you?

RY: Well, you can tell by now that I'm a meddler in everything. I mean I don't do anything technical. I don't, you know, my kids are experts on Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools and I mean they can do anything in editing and everything like that. I'm not technical at all in any of these things and it's just what I listen to and what I think it sounds like and I want, very much, to, you know, what the film is really about. I really believe that everything comes from the center and grows. And that means the music, too, you know. So I don't like things that are kinda tagged on. I want everything to be, essentially, organic and things grow and a story is unfolding. And that's the way the mix should be, too. You know? I mean, I don't pay attention to the…I mean, if the voice sounds right, I mean whatever those guys do, they're so much better than me. I don't mess around with anybody. I'll never say something to somebody, moving into their technological space, because I don't understand it. I'll just say what I think in terms of my general comments.

INT: Let's jump to marketing issues, ‘cause you've had your films sold, obviously, and sell them. Where are you on all of that?

RY: I'm no place in marketing. I've had terrific trouble and I think I don't think about things, maybe, the right way. You know? I mean when we did DOMINICK AND EUGENE, it's a good example. It's a film that really still lives. I think it's still popular and I think it's made money. But for five days after DOMINICK AND EUGENE came out, they did not put a review in the papers. I don't understand it. They were just--they didn't know what to do with the movie. I think they were afraid of it, because there was a person in it who was partly dysfunctional. He'd been brain damaged. And I think that they thought that was a very hard sell and the movie, actually, there are some people who feel like it's one of their favorite movies in there that they love, you know. A lot of people bought it and love it and I don't understand. I know that the business I--I think the business is run by marketing and those are the decisions that are made and I don't… I believe in much more a grassroots kind of approach. I don't…partly 'cause I'm afraid of money, I suppose, and big money. I don't understand the whole, I mean, I intellectually do the buying of the grosses in a way and then everybody in the country has to see the thing and… But I'm alienated from the studios and from a lot of the process in this business. I mean, I find it, you know… Look, I'm only gonna embarrass myself talking about it, but in terms of being honest, I mean I don't, you know, I read Variety occasionally when I see it, but I don't--I think I only--once my wife gave me a subscription for my birthday, but I don't subscribe. I don't read the trades. I don't know anything about what's going on. I don't know who the heads of the studios are. I can't name the people who are making the deals and, you know, it's a big failure in my part because I'm not active enough and I think I've hurt myself a lot. I used to be invited to all kinds of stuff and I didn't really go. I don't--we don't entertain. We don't have that kind of money. We live in a very modest house. I spend my own money on some of my films. You know, I just don't live the--I'm not part of this community, so I don't go--I mean, I'm in the Academy [Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences] and I'm in the Guild [DGA] and I think the Guild is fabulous.

INT: Let's talk about the Guild [DGA]. Has the Guild ever been helpful to you?

RY: The Guild has been tremendously supportive, psychologically. When I wanted to do CAUGHT, I didn't want to go again and be an outcast and be in the same position I was in on SHORT EYES. I don't enjoy being--I'm not a renegade. You know, if anything, I'm more middle-class than I would like to be, you know? I'm much more, in my thinking, really would be more radical. But I'm a very middle-class person. I have a summer home and, you know, I… But I want that for everybody, you know. And I know it can't probably happen, but I don't like the business of, a lot of the business in film from what I've seen. And I think I have just a very fundamental, simple kind of feeling about, that really, what we're--look, I believe in entertainment. I love to be entertained and I love movies. I go to the movies. I enjoy them. But I often feel disappointed in that something wasn't taken to the place where I believe it could have been, 'cause I do think that the function of art, which is, I don't think of myself as an artist. I put artists on a pedestal, I think, but that would be what I would aspire to be if I lived my life again. But I--[INT: And the function of art?] Well, I think the function of art is to ground us. I think any great piece of art grounds you in the reality of the expression. Even if it's just lines and cubes, then it's about something about form. But it's about grounding you. I think a great painting or a great movie grounds you in--puts you in touch with, really, realty. What is close to the truth as you can get. And I was tremendously influenced--now, it's interesting. The film that first influenced me was KING KONG, a very imaginative film, not grounded in a psychological reality of a woman who wanted to become something and a guy who wants to make something, and a beast and a woman and beauty and, you know. But a fairy tale. But the films that affected me when I was young were the neo-realist films, PAISAN and OPEN CITY [ROME, OPEN CITY] and BICYCLE THIEF [BICYCLE THIEVES] and all of those movies had a--and I didn't see them more than once, either, but I still remember them. They--and Kurosawa [Akira Kurosawa]. The SEVEN SAMURAI, which I thought was a magnificent masterpiece. And so that the, you know, and I'm a Cameraman and so images and movement and to be able to tell stories, but I want the story to be about something. Not always. I mean, I understand I'm too tired at night, I don't want to get involved in something that's maybe so earth-shaking, but I feel that lots of times our spirits are stolen because we're taken into areas where we're really being deluded and where we're being taken, led farther away from the truth. And I think that that's happened in this country a tremendous amount and, look, I'm, I mean, I'm no, you know, mistaking who I am. I mean I'm on the left. I'm liberal. I mean, you know, I'm a New York liberal, even called by a sheriff in New York, “liberal Jew,” you know, when I went south. I try to be bigger than…I try to be as honest as I possibly can be in terms of serving my convictions. And I don't do a film that I don't believe in and I'm interested in sex and I'm interested in violence, and all those things, because I think they're tremendously important parts of our life, but they have to be dealt with honestly. And I resent being, you know, I think the whole country has been led--and now I'm not blaming Hollywood. I think it's only a part of it--but I think we've been led away from who we really are in many, many ways. [INT: Talk about one more thing.] And there's a lack of honesty. [INT: Yeah.] That's this whole thing about social security and all that and it's part of it.

INT: You've been actually active on the Guild's [DGA] independent committee [Independent Directors Committee] here. [RY: Right.] Tell me about that experience because--

RY: Well, you know, I'm not as active as I'd like to be. I mean, I got on the committee about three or four years ago and it's my first experience with the DGA, and the people I've met are terrific. I've made some close friends on the committee and I was first--Michael Apted was running it and I have great respect for him and admiration for him and other people who are on the committee. And I, you know, I like the kind of fresh air and that people are genuinely looking to try to solve, try to understand, and exploit, in a good way, what the possibilities might be so people could be more expressive and make things that are more independent that don't have to be controlled by money. I mean, I have a lot of, you know, some of my films like, I went to Angola [to film ANGOLA: JOURNEY TO A WAR], I sneaked in Angola in 1961, you know, and I was with the rebels. I'm political. I'm not overtly political. It's not like I'm necessarily any political party, but I do believe in a lot of very fundamental things having to do with human justice and dignity and I want those things--I want to express films. Now, I don't want to be making goody-two-shoes films. As I said, I'm interested in--I'm sexual and I understand violence and I've been in wars. I've been in a couple of them. [INT: What would you--] And I've seen it up close.

INT: What would your advice to a young filmmaker be now?

RY: Well, I don't know. You know, in terms of today, I'm not sure that I would give the right kind of advice. I mean I believe in following your--I believe in what Carlos Castaneda said. He said that Don Juan says, "You follow the path with heart, but you know it's a cosmic joke." That's my philosophy. I mean, what is the point? I mean, why not pursue the things that you really love and believe in? And the things that energize you, the things that make you feel fulfilled. The things that could put you in touch with what it's really like to be in the world. And that's why I spent six years making films about life in the sea. I mean, I was tremendously in touch with a limited part of the world, but I faced all kinds of fantastic creatures and I studied them under microscopes and, I mean, I was very lucky to be part of the, like, feeling I was part of the creation. You know, I witnessed it. I saw a lot of things no one had ever seen before. So I don't--I can't imagine telling anybody not to follow, not to try to wake up to the fact that the world is an incredible place, full of people who are so interesting and different, yet with some kind of real commonality in all of them, you know? So I've been with incredible tribes people in New Guinea, you know, who think so different from the way I do, that people don't die but they, you know, but somebody does magic against them. And I just--I mean, I don't want to just go back to the derivative stories. [INT: People don't die, somebody does magic against them? That's why they move out of their bodies?] Yeah. Oh yeah. They don't believe that they die. [INT: Right.] Oh yeah. I've been with a lot of--I've been with the Yanamamo up between Brazil and Venezuela. I contacted them with one of their--with an assistant and an Indian [indigenous person]. And I stayed with them several weeks. And they were--nobody had been in contact with them.