INT: So we're here to do a segment of your audiovisual history. As you will recall, you joined the guild in 1978 when you did the film COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER. When was your first real institutional contact with the Guild, and what was it about?

MA: Well what was strange was I knew I had to join the DGA, as part of the deal to do COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, and I did it. And I was away for the whole time of doing it, and then oddly the next three or four films I did were also out of Los Angeles. I went to Russia to do GORKY PARK. I went to the hinterland to do THUNDERHEART. I went to China to do a documentary, so I was never part of the Los Angeles world, as it were. I was away. So I didn't really know very much about it at all. But I became in direct conflict on a particular project, THUNDERHEART, which I made for Fox, which brought me head-to-head with the management and then ultimately with the DGA.

INT: So before you tell us about the conflict, why don't you tell us a little about the movie THUNDERHEART?

MA: Yes, it's based on a book, “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse”, and it's about the battles between the Nixon administration, and the CIA, and the American Indian movement; how they conflicted with each other. And the theory was that Nixon had created a civil war in South Dakota or whatever between the half-bloods and the pure bloods, so there was a lot of, it was very controversial period. Very politically charged, and you know it was a very interesting film following. So it was always a kind of highly charged subject. So we made the film, you know, and it was interesting to see the residue of that, and it was quite a dangerous film for me to make, because people were still angry about the way that, you know, the half-bloods and the full bloods had been split up by Nixon. So it was always controversial. So I made the film and--

INT: Just by the way, when you say half-bloods and full bloods, can you explain that? We're doing this for an international audience.

MA: Yeah, no, okay. Well the distinction between the half-bloods and the full bloods is sort of what it says is that full-blooded were pure Indian blood, and half-blood were those who were a mixture of Indian blood and American blood, white American blood, black American blood or whatever. And it wasn't necessarily in a sense volatile, but because during the period of the '70s [1970s] when a lot of groups of people were sort of organizing themselves, Black Power and whatever, and the Native Americans did, and the Native Americans formed themselves into sort of a political thing to take on the government and whatever. And what Nixon did is was what happened, in a sense, in Vietnam. He gave money and arms to the mixed blood against the pure blood, and it was clear that that was going on, so it's a very highly charged story.

INT: Were there any special arrangements that you had to make to make the story, to be able to shoot where you did?

MA: Yeah. It was a very difficult... it had happened 20 years before I was doing the film, but there were still, the memories were still there, and particularly... well both parties. What was left of the full bloods and what was left of the half-bloods were still very... had a lot of opinions; a lot of anger about that period. And for me to get people to take part in the film I had to kind of reassure them that I was going to present their lives, and their cultures or whatever. With the full blooded it meant honoring their ceremonies and whatever and filming their ceremonies, as part of the narrative, and they only agreed to be in the film if I did that. As similarly with the half-bloods they were very nervous of me coming in to do it, because you know they were highly in conjunction with Nixon, whatever, but everybody had their agenda, and so we did it. Made the film. They kept their part of the bargain. I kept my part of the bargain, and the film was fairly successful for what it was. You know it was quite a difficult film, and then came the point when it was being sold to television, and it was sold to Fox Television, and as is usual in those cases, the director gets told how much he's going to cut out, or what he's got to put in for commercial breaks and blah, blah like that. The film ran 118 minutes in the cinema. When it came back to me from Fox they wanted to take over 18 minutes out of the film, and so I went barmy about it, because what they wanted to cut out was all the kind of spiritual stuff that they'd made me agree to shoot, in order for me to make the film. And so I didn't know what to do. I had let these people down. I would have let these people down, if this film had gone out on television and had been emasculated of its spiritual side, and I didn't know where to turn. And I spoke to my agent here, and he said, ""Well I don't know. Why don't you go and talk to the DGA about it?"" So I rang up the DGA, and I got put through to Warren, Warren Adler, and I explained the situation. He said, ""Well come in and talk to us about it."" So I did. I said... [INT: This was 1992-1993?] 1992, so it was two years after I'd made the film. It was ready for television. So I said, ""Look, I have no objection to making cuts in films to fit television. I've done that before,"" but what they wanted to take out, because it isn't part of the narrative, was all the stuff that I'd asked them to do for me, in return for them to taking part in the film, so I said, ""I can't have this film go out with the cuts they want at the length they want, because I will appear to be, and Hollywood appear to be, not men of honor."" And in some ways Hollywood was in good form there, because Costner had done Dances with Wolves. What was the Kevin Costner film that won the Academy Award? [INT: DANCES WITH WOLVES.] DANCES WITH WOLVES. Kevin had done DANCES WITH WOLVES, and he'd behaved very well. It was a very well-received film. He presented Native Americans in a good light, so I said, ""This is going to set the whole thing back."" "

MA: So the Guild took hold of it. Warren [Warren Adler] started working on it and introduced me around, and we started going through the process of appealing, and as it were, challenging what Fox were trying to do. And it was very, very impressive to me what the Guild was going to do, and how much attention they paid to it, and how careful they were with it and how they were not reluctant to spend money, you know, to go ahead with it, because it went on and on. You know we went into arbitration, and we lost and all this, and then we appealed it, and we won the appeal. Then they came back again. It went backwards and forwards. It's a very big deal going on, and they saw it through. They saw it through. We were going to go to the Ninth Circuit, and eventually Fox threw in the towel. And to my mind that was just a brilliant piece of work. I mean my history with trade unions before this had been somewhat sketchy and not very good, with the ACTT [Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians] in Great Britain. I've always been interested in the trade union movement through my mother really. She was very much, not involved in it, but interested in it, so I was always sympathetic to it. But anyway what the DGA did for me here was in a different league, a different class with what had been happening in the United Kingdom where Margaret Thatcher was, you know, systematically destroying the unions. So I got just very involved in the Guild. I'd met most of the management. I'd met you. I'd spent a lot of time with Warren, with Elizabeth Stanley, all about this issue.

INT: So let's go back for a second. By the way, the issue in THUNDERHEART was the issue of whether your name, given that they had made the changes, that it shouldn't be attached to the film. And the result of the settlement in THUNDERHEART was, pardon me, was it taking your name off, or was it listing an objection to what had occurred?

MA: The arrangement was or the verdict was that Fox would have to put a caption up at the beginning of the film saying, “The Director of the film does not approve of this cut,” and that's what threw Fox into panic. [INT: And that was obviously very important to you.] Yes, so it was important to me, but it went much deeper than whether my name was on a film that had been massacred. It was that I, my workers, my Crew would have dishonored themselves in the eyes of the people who had been very helpful and cooperative.

INT: So before you came to the Guild you worked in Great Britain, and you'd worked on a number of documentaries, and films and television programs. And then you came to the United States and you did COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER. And after that, over the course of the next 15-plus years between COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER in the mid-1990s you did another dozen or so pictures. When you were doing those pictures were you aware, in the United States, were you aware that you were getting residuals?

MA: No, no. I wasn't aware of that. My only version of residuals was if a film is successful that the company that made the film would share out some of the profit. I mean in COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER-- [INT: But that's England?] No. My view of residuals in America when I was making all these films was it was nothing to do with the DGA, that it was if there was any profits from a film, some of that would be passed down to the Director. [INT: So it wasn't 'til after you came to the DGA that you realized that residuals came whether there was a profit or not?] No. Exactly. That was a big revelation to me.

INT: At some point in time after THUNDERHEART you decided to become more involved with the DGA. What was your first direct involvement, Michael?

MA: I think my first direct kind of organizational was I was elected to the council [Western Directors Council]. I mean I'd been around. I didn't really know how people could know me. I didn't know what the dynamic was at the Guild. You know that they might have been looking for fresh blood and all this kind of stuff, but I'd spent a lot of time around here, and hung around and gone to see a lot of people, because it was, you know, quite a major event. And then to my astonishment you know I sort of went up for the council, because you can, and I was very interested in the organization, 'cause I had a lot of respect for it and thought this was really something splendid, something good and something that played into my kind of nascent trade union sympathies, but I got elected which surprised me. And so then I started showing up to the council meetings. [INT: Now you got elected as a replacement to the council.] Yes. I mean I didn't know who it was at the time, but it was someone very important, wasn't it? [INT: Well it was Sheldon Leonard.] Sheldon Leonard who was forever secretary treasurer, more of which later.

INT: So why don't you tell us a little? So you got on the council [Western Directors Council]. You'd never been on the council before. What was your experience? What did you?

MA: Well it seemed to be a very lively thing. You know people, a lot of important people who I knew by reputation were showing up, and the business of the Guild, the cultural business of the Guild was discussed, and I just thought after the lame efforts that had happened in Great Britain this was a kind of living organism, and so I was very interested. And my interest had been spiked by my experience over THUNDERHEART. And then I could see how the thing worked and how the Guild worked, and it seemed very, very, you know, highly to be recommended, and to be part of and to try and have a voice.

INT: Now at some point after you got on the Council [Western Directors Council], I think it's shortly after you got on the Council, you got involved in a committee that you helped found. Could you tell us about that?

MA: Yes. Just to go back a bit. Go back to it. Much as I love the Council, I never said anything, and I was so angry with myself. I was too shy to say anything. I remember after every meeting I used to go down to that little toilet down there and just curse myself. So I was anxious to participate, but shy to participate. But because I'd done a number of documentaries as well, you know, feature documentaries, and you know I became aware that certain branches of the industry were not represented really at the Guild on the Council. There was not much talk about independent films. There was no talk at all about documentaries. And I think also I became very friendly with Elizabeth Stanley who you [Jay Roth] had appointed who was also in some ways focused on that. And between that and that I met Steven Soderbergh who I sort of fell in love with and all that, and so there was a little group of us who thought, "Wait a minute. This is all very well. This is all about studio films and budget films. What about a lot of people who are doing a lot of work and don't really have a voice?" And also that was at the same time that independent films were beginning to take a kind of have their moment. You know Steven had come out with SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE. More and more energy was going into independent films, so through Elizabeth and through Warren [Warren Adler] we suggested, "Why don't we have an independent committee who could report to the council, but they would have their own meetings?" We would meet once a month at lunchtime, and we could share our issues, and air our complaints and whatever and make them part of the process of the Guild. [INT: And so that committee was what is the Independent Directors Committee, that was formed in 1998.] But it had a sort of informal thing. It was just a group of us. Then when we were formed it was an argument about who should be chairman of it, and then some people said, "We shouldn't have a chairman, 'cause we're independent, so let's not have a chairman." But that didn't work very long, so either I asked or was volunteered to, you know, become chairman of it, and Steven was the assistant chairman; the vice chairman of it.

INT: During this period of time you made EXTREME MEASURES, 42 UP, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH and ENIGMA. You were on the council [Western Directors Council] now. You were chairing this committee [Independent Directors Committee]. Did those films take up any of your time?

MA: You're kidding me. I mean I did the Bond film, which meant I was out of America for six months, but somehow I kept in touch. I was part of the fabric of the Guild, and so now I knew more of what the Guild was doing, and so I never ceased to be interested in it. Because I went away, because I was working, it didn't stop me taking an interest in it And when I was back here, I mean I wasn't away for a solid period of two years or something. I would always go to the meetings and do… but you know my main priority was to keep working, you know I wanted to build up a body of work, and keep my family and all this sort of stuff. And I found that I could do that and make the Guild one of my most interested side hobbies, if you want, something I was really interested in and could keep going. And because I was making films I thought I was of more value to the Guild, because I was in the field. I hadn't retired and all that sort of stuff. So I thought people who were working on films should be at the center of the Guild, because they knew what was going on. You know, they had the energy, and they knew what was happening, so it was a two-way thing. [INT: And if there was a board meeting, the Guild flew you in from wherever you were, if you could come.] Well once I became on the... you know I was eventually elected to the board [National Board of Directors]. When that happened, yes. Then I was flown in. Forever I was. I mean wherever. If I was in Europe or America, I was brought in for it. You know they gave you a good air ticket, and put you up and all that, so the Guild made every effort to accommodate your work. There was never any feeling that your work was a distraction from the DGA. You know I think it was very important to the DGA that the active Directors in the Guild were working; that they were in the field. They knew what was happening. You didn't want, with respect, a lot of people who'd retired who were coming in running the Guild. So I felt the guild encouraged younger people or active Directors to be here.

INT: Gil Cates, a good friend of yours who, you know, said to me once that if you are organized, and organized about your time and make time, that you can be very active in the Guild. Was that your experience?

MA: Absolutely, absolutely, and the Guild were very responsive to that. If I was away, and there was a meeting, and I said I just couldn't come, they would say, "Well fine. That's fine," but most of the times I did come to these important meetings, because I wanted to keep up with it, I was interested, and I want to be involved in it, but it is a question that most Directors are organizational. You have to be, to get through the day. And so why they would stop being organizational when it comes to the Guild somewhat defeats me. You know you could organize anything, if you're careful with how you use your time. And I thought it was important for me to be part of the Guild, and I thought it was important for any working Director to be part of the Guild.

INT: So now in 2001 you ran for the board [National Board of Directors]. Do you recall what lead you to run for the board in 2001?

MA: Well I was away. I was away doing a movie, and I had gotten this call saying, "Would I be prepared to run for the board?" Because, you know, I didn't really know about the board. I wasn't on the board then. I was on the council [Western Directors Council]. I hadn't been to a board meeting, so I said, "Yes." Not thinking, "Why would I be invited onto the board?" but I was. And that was a revelation. You know that was a completely different thing from the council, and I thought this was extremely interesting. This showed you the workings of the Guild. You know the Directors Councils was a lot to do with credits, and all this sort of stuff and whatever, but the board meeting was about how much money the Guild had, how it used its money; you know, what its obligations were. I thought, "This is great." I mean this just shows what I really didn't know about, you know, how the business of the Guild was done. [INT: Well and the board is the highest policymaking body of the Guild.] Yeah. I mean you made policy decisions at a low level in the Directors Council, but now you were making very important financial, structural, whatever, and you know that got you closer to the heart of what the Guild is about.

INT: So in speaking of both the council, the Western Directors Council, and the board [National Board of Directors], can you characterize further what kind of people, who you were joining and participating with, on those bodies, Michael?

MA: Yes. I mean what was impressive to me was the quality of the people and the quality of their work, and it was just wonderful to be able to be around those people and talk to them. You know, that was…I've talked about the institutional part of the DGA, but one of the joys of going to a council meeting or to a board meeting was meeting Directors. Meeting people that I wouldn't necessarily run across during you know my working career, and just to be with them, and talk about them, and not necessarily talk about the DGA, but talk about the work, and what they were doing, and what people liked and what people didn't like. That congeniality; that kind of brotherhood of Directors was perhaps even the most important thing to me, because I didn't grow up in America. These are all names that I knew from watching films in Europe or whatever, but it was just the fraternity of it that I thought was impressive and enriching.

INT: Do you think, you know, being in a room with, you know, Bob Wise [Robert Wise], and Del Mann, and Michael Mann, and John Frankenheimer, and Paul Mazursky and people like that may have had something to do with why you might not have talked a lot the first couple of years?

MA: Well maybe. Maybe. Heavy company. I mean 'cause it was awesome, and you know I mean I'd never been in a room full of such distinguished Directors, so I think you're being very generous; that maybe I shouldn't have said anything.

INT: So you get elected, and you get elected to the board [National Board of Directors] in 2001, and it's more of the same kind of people on the board, and you said you were shooting films at that point in time. The board has two-year terms, so you got elected in 2001, but in 2002 you got elected to another position before the convention, and that was... [MA: Fifth Vice-President.] And why? What were the reasons why you became the fifth vice-president?

MA: Well I was asked. I mean I was asked whether I would run, and again I think I was away, and I said, "Well I would be honored to.” I can't imagine why people would want to vote for me, but no. I was asked if I would stand for it. [INT: And whose place did you take?] I took John Frankenheimer's place, who had passed away, which was horrible. A great man and a great Director. And it seems kind of absurd that I was taking his place, as it were. I mean I'm not that young, but because I was... and not middle-aged or anything, you know, but I was well into my 40s joining the Guild. I felt young, you know, whereas I wasn't much younger than those, but I was new to it. I was new to the whole thing and, "What does he know? He's English," because I don't think there was another English citizen on that list at all, so I thought, "Why would they vote for me?" But they did, and they made me fifth vice-president.

INT: So you served as Fifth Vice-President, and in 2003 there was a convention. But before we talk about the convention, I want to go back for a second to talk about the period you were on the Board [National Board of Directors]. So calling your attention to, you know, your activity in the guild in the early 2000s, the Writers had negotiations in 2000, 2001 where a great deal of the focus was the rights of film Writers to be more involved in the production of a film, best symbolized by a mandatory right of the Writer to be on the set and also another issue which was a historical issue between the DGA and the WGA about the possessory credit. And I know you came to some of the meetings; it was before you became president. But you were a board member of the Guild and were involved. Could you talk about those things, Michael?

MA: Yes. The relationship with the Director and the Writer, you know, for me has always been very important, and usually 90 percent of the time it's worked out very well. But when it becomes a matter of kind of legislation of who does what and how you define it, then I got slightly squeamish about it. I, on the whole, liked the Writer to be on the set, but the idea that it would be compulsory for the Writer to be on the set I thought was obnoxious and sort of pecking away at the Director's autonomy on the set. I would think in a well-prepared, well-organized film there would be organically a place for the Writer around, at least there was in my film, as I can't speak for others. So I didn't like the idea of institutionalizing this in legislation that the Writer had an absolute right to be there. I thought that should be a matter between the Writer, the Producer and the Director.

INT: Isn't there also an issue about which Writer?

MA: Well yes, I mean because the writing credits are so confusing usually you wonder who did write it and whatever, but I'm only talking personally when I knew who'd wrote it and whether that Writer A had been helpful, and Writer B hadn't been helpful, who I would like on the set. I didn't ever want to ban a Writer from the set, unless I thought it would be a negative, and I encourage the Writer to be on the set, if it was positive. So it was one of the decisions that was the Director's decision. And I would listen to discussions about it, whatever, and I'd make a decision, "No, I don't want this guy on the set," or, "I'd love him to be here. Where is he?" On the other hand, when it came to the business of the possessory credit, I thought that was equally unfair the other way. That the Director could get a "film by" credit automatically when a Writer had clearly been the germ of the whole thing, and been a major contributor towards it and whatever, and he was kind of shut out. And yet a Director who hadn't done anything before, maybe it was his first or second film, and he'd been guided through by all the senior Crew and all this was entitled to a "film by" credit. I thought that was an exaggeration and unnecessarily kind of cosmetic for the Director to have, unless he really earned it, unless he really was part of the film all the way through, in the conception of the film and the execution of the film. So as much as I disliked the idea of a Writer having an automatic right to be on the set, so I also was opposed to a Director having an automatic film credit. I thought both had to be negotiated. [INT: And in the 2001 negotiations you and others made a commitment that some time in the future you would do something about that.] Yeah, so yeah. During those negotiations, which I was only on the fringe of, but I made, in my mind and publicly, that I wanted to change the "film by" credit, and that was the first thing I did when I became president is automatically disallow it for every Director, unless they had brought something to the table, and that stayed in. I mean I don't think the Writers gave us any thanks for it, but I did, I thought, put it on even ground, on fair ground.