RY: If you look at my Sicily movie [CORTILE CASCINO] or my Eskimo films [THE ESKIMO: FIGHT FOR LIFE]. I've actually brought those in. I don't know what you, you know. [INT: Great.] But if you look at my stuff, people will--that's what people say. They're amazed. Like, how did they--how did you do that? Didn't they know you were there? Of course, they knew I was there, always. As a matter, sometimes it even heightens the action. You know? My presence. But when I was with the Eskimos, and I lived in, you know, they made me Eskimo clothing, I lived like an Eskimo. I ate their food and it was 60 below zero when I got there. It was really cold. But anyway, they--I'm a hunter. I go out with the camera just the way they stalk game and I don't make any apologies about it. And I don't hide and I step in between people and I explode things and then I put it together back again, analogically. I mean, I don't believe you can stay back and film something and therefore you've caught the reality. I think that's a lot of nonsense and they had been making those, the films that way and I came in, they asked me to critique it. And I came up with a completely different way of doing it. And the anthropologist, Asen Balikci, was very open to my ideas and invited me to come and I did the winter camps of the Eskimo. [INT: Now, how did you--I mean--] But that's how I did it.

INT: Did you say that I need to engage? 'Cause I'm curious about this process. I know I'm skipping around here, but I'll center us in a second. But since we're there I would like to pursue it for a second, which is this issue of honesty and performance. This has to do with acting, this has to... 'Cause I know your pictures and I know that this is something you strive for. You strive for psychological realism that you just also said. But the question becomes, you know, would you rather have a real Eskimo and somehow be able to get that person to express whatever's going on in a scene, not talking about it, but doing it. Or be able to get an Actor to portray that Eskimo?

RY: That's interesting. 'Cause unless--that's question I've never, ever thought about. I mean, whether... See, okay. Maybe now I can come to terms with it. I can film, and I think I did capture a tremendous amount of Eskimo life [in THE ESKIMO: FIGHT FOR LIFE] and when people look at my, the Eskimo movies and the Eskimos go back to look at them, I think this film LONG DISTANCE RUNNER was very influenced by my Eskimo--the winter camp. They looked just exactly the same. But anyway, what I capture in the documentary is very, very true and I put the things to--I create little analogs of reality, of scenes, you know, so that a situation that you understand keeps together a lot of fragments and you feel like you're there and you see what the people are like and you can make judgments about them because you see the way they interact and you can get insights into them. Okay. However, when I left living with the Eskimos, I discovered that one of the women I had known had had a miscarriage. Now, of course, that's a very private kind of thing and something that an outsider wouldn't readily know about. But it pointed out to me the limitations of what I had caught. That obviously, there were deeper, deeper things, which I knew, of course, what goes on between men and women, the closer relationship between children and parents. I mean, how do you capture that? It's very difficult to capture those things and when--and, of course, a piece of fiction is a work of imagination but it's a kind of reconstruction in imagination of things that have been discovered and put together in some kind of analogical way so that it lives again and that you can't do in documentary. So when you say--'cause it's an interesting question: would you rather have an Actor playing an Eskimo or an Eskimo playing an Eskimo? Well I'd love to have the Eskimo, but I'd like to educate him to become an Actor so that he could then take me into the privacy of his--the bedroom, of the moments when, that are not public.

INT: But then go to the other side of that, 'cause I understand what you just said--

RY: And I tried to do that, actually. My Sicily film [CORTILE CASCINO] was, in my mind, and that was--I had a great idea. I made this--I'd love you to see this Sicily film. [INT: I want to see it.] I wanted it to be--it's about the lives of men, women, and children in this quarter. And what I wanted to do then was to then do a whole series of films like a mosaic, so that you could come in, actually in any film, just about, but as I worked with these people, they would gradually--I'd be able to move into areas that were more private. And I would move from what I did with documentary into the private lives. And sweep them up into my scheme and me moving over into their imagination. 'Cause I knew--I met incredible people. Like the Prince of Thieves, who was a 21-year-old kid, who was--I mean, if I could have gone into his world, I could have created things that were just absolutely extraordinary. And I caught them in fantastic scenes. But I wasn't able to move into--you know, I also did my film in four weeks, you know. I mean, just extraordinary. But I'm--one of my strengths, in the way I've really trained myself when I was younger, was as a Cameraman. And I'm--if you see CORTILE CASCINO or ALAMBRISTA! Also, I shot ALAMBRISTA! I very often operate myself. But I'm, if I'm anything, I'm a good Cameraman. And I have, I think, a very empathetic sense for what the frame should be. I don't--and I don't make picture postcards. I'm always destroying picture postcards. I'm trying to make--put you in touch. It's kind of like a dance with aspects that I'm just aware of when I'm shooting and putting those images against other images, so that analogically I'm making, I'm creating the parts of the situations so that you understand it.

INT: Let's examine this. Let's examine this for another question, which is, if you now have the Actor who is to play the Eskimo, and you've done a number of narrative films that, in fact--[RY: Well, ALAMBRISTA!, I have somebody playing an illegal alien.] Now, what do you--[RY: I mean, not an alien.] Right. What do you do to help that Actor to get to the place where you really don't feel they're playing that part, but they are that part?

RY: Well, of course, let's--I must say, and my deference is to the Actor. I mean you need a terrific Actor. And so I mean I'm--the Actor's the one on the screen, not me, not the Director. Even when I'm the Writer. I mean it's not me, it's them. So I'm very sensitive to who the Actor is and wanting the Actor to... If I have the right Actor, he's gonna do the homework. He's gonna become that character as much as it's possible. When I did ALAMBRISTA!, Domingo Ambriz, the Actor, leading Actor, who's fantastic, slept in the fields for a week. And on the set never spoke English. People thought that he was without papers. He never broke role, actually. He actually never even saw the film for two years, till finally he saw it and called me and he was afraid to see it. Anyway, I thought he was extraordinary and he did the work and he learned how to do, you know, pick cucumbers and grapes and whatever it was, you know, he did it. And he worked hard, he mastered it. Eddie Olmos [Edward James Olmos] was that way on BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ [AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE: THE BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ]. Eddie rode a horse like he was born in the saddle. I mean, it was just incredible how he rode. I still don't understand it.

RY: I think the really terrific Actors--I mean I love Actors, first of all. I mean I think it's a brave profession. And I love them and that's actually one of the, I think, requirements for being a Director. If I were gonna ask--in terms of making narrative films, and I know there are some Directors have a reputation of hating Actors. I don't understand it. I don't understand it. I love them and I think I want to surround them with my protection so that they can be, be in a completely safe place and do anything. And one of the kind of chief directions that I'm giving to Actors, and when I see an Actor in trouble, a good Actor, and I've seen good Actors in trouble. And I've rarely said, I mean, Tom Hulce, there was a time on one scene [in DOMINICK AND EUGENE] where he was still fantastic, but the problem he was having was that he was trying. He shouldn't be trying. Not only was he trying, he was trying too hard to make something happen. And you can't make something happen. That's acting. And that's not where I want him to go. I want him to go in the completely opposite direction. And I'm comforting him and I'm taking him through the place where we're at. Up to that place and wanting him to allow. Allow. It's like too much pressure of water trying to go through a pipe. You get a lot of turbulence and it doesn't work. But when he allowed, it was fantastic. [INT: Now did you actually use that word with him?] Allow? Yeah. I use that word a lot with Actors. And I'm telling them not to plan what they're gonna do. I don't want them to be telling--I don't want them to think through what they're gonna do when they go into this scene. No. We do kind of improvisations and you try to open up different avenues. Funny, sad, everything. But then don't have any plan. Look, I think I scare some people. I remember I was doing something with--in RICH KIDS with John Lithgow. It was a scene, he had to talk to his daughter. And it was about the divorce and I can't remember exactly the scene, but I'll never forget it. We walked aside, I had some thing to say to him and he said, "Bob, you're taking everything away from me." And I said, "That's right, John. That's right. That's exactly what I want." And then he's out there alone, brave, and sometimes an Actor--I remember Ray Liotta, in a particular scene, in a sense, wanting to--please, I hesitate when I say these things 'cause it's not like I'm so good or anything. [INT: That's not the way it's coming across, so you don't have to worry about it.] Well, the Actors are the ones. You know, it's not--I'm just a Director. [INT: But give the Ray Liotta--] That's what I'm supposed to do. And Ray was gonna want to fall back on what he can do so well, which he did in THE WILD ONE [SOMETHING WILD], or something. You know, crazy anger. And I--"No, I, no, that's too easy. That's not where we have to go here. That's not where you need to go.” I remember in SHORT EYES, a fantastic Actor, in my opinion, Bruce Davison. He was already cast in the part. I can't take credit for that. But I watched him do a scene when I first came in and I said to him, "You have to take us into your imagination. That's where you have to take us. There's no action in this. You have to take us into your mind so we see what you're seeing as you see it, moment by moment. Not anticipating anything, but taking us there." And he was moving and he did the scene, he sat on his hands and I didn't even realize that; he told me, you know. And one other time, there was a time he needed help from me and he said to me he needed help. And I hugged him and talked with him and brought him to the place where he was at, and again, told him to allow. Lots of times, the Actors are there. They're there. They're the character. [INT: Of course.] They can't do any--I tell them, "You can't do anything wrong, you know. You can maybe make different choices, but you can't--you're the character. You can't do anything wrong."

INT: There's a wonderful line I heard. Dan Petrie [Daniel Petrie] once said to Jane Alexander when he was working with her, I think the second piece. He was doing one of these things about Roosevelt and Eleanor [ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN]. And he wrote her a letter--a note, saying, "I want you to know, whatever pleases you will please me." The confidence that he had in terms of how she was gonna bring the character. It was quite beautiful.

RY: I think that's very true. Now there are choices, obviously, which is--and that's our job. [INT: Yeah.] Is to be able to see that somebody is doing the scene and it's an angry wife, and it's angry again. Okay, the scene should be angry. It is angry. She has a lot of hostility towards the husband. So what about bored? Bored anger, you know. I'm thinking of the scene I did with Kathryn Walker who's a fantastic Actress, and John Lithgow in a film called RICH KIDS. And I had a great, great relationship with her. I mean, I respect my Actors. I never cross any kind of physical boundary. I mean I hug, I'm a very--I mean I come from this Jewish, you know, like a Mediterranean family. I mean, I never left the room without kissing my father. I need to hug and touch and I mean it's--but I don't go beyond that. And, but I fall in love. I mean, I'm happily married, but, I mean, I fell in love with Kathryn Walker in the sense that she was just, she's just a bright--one of the brightest people I've ever met. And I--but I fell in love with John Lithgow, too, and I fell in love with the kids and, I mean, I love them, you know? Now, that doesn't mean I'm not gonna be critical or I'm not gonna...

INT: You were gonna tell a story about Kathryn Walker, working with her.

RY: Oh, Kathryn Walker is just brilliant. She's never had the kind of chances that she should have and she has the most fantastic voice. And she could do things like, and I remember directing her in a final scene in the movie where just the lines were like different notes and when you're really into something like that, you become aware of that. And I could communicate that with her. And I think that the, when you have a kind of respect with your Actors and when they trust you, which has to be earned, I think, then it's just very, it's very exciting.

INT: What'd you do with the kids? 'Cause kids are different. Kids require another kind of energy. [RY: Kids. I have, well, RICH KIDS I had two kids: Trini Alvarado, when she was 11, I think she was. And a boy who had never done any acting, Jeremy, I think his name was Jeremy Levy. A really sweet kid. And they were wonderful. I mean, I don't know. I lend myself to the people in the situation.] Well let's back off, then, to the issue of casting itself. Do you remember when you were casting the kids [in RICH KIDS] and what kind of process you go through to cast?

RY: Well, I had a lot of help. First of all, I don't see very many things, and I'm terribly unaware. So I can't... I need help. Like if I were to cast the film today, I mean, I'm not sure I know the difference without then going back and studying the performances of different Actors. I'm very story-oriented and when I go to see a movie I lend myself to the story. I'm not judging the performances and looking at it that way. I mean things bother me and I'm not happy or, you know, I think it's inadequate or this or that. But I don't spend my time critiquing it. I'm really very story-oriented. So I think I approach characters, I tend to approach them more, at first, sort of generically. In other words--so then as I seek people, then I start finding things and then saying, “Ah, this is interesting.” Now it starts becoming a reality. And with the kids, I had a friend who knew a lot. He wasn't even a Casting Agent, but he was in theater and he knew a lot of people and he told me, "See so and so, see so and so, see so and so." And I did see those people and I made my choices.

INT: Now how do you go about it? If I were, you know, in a casting scene, I'm curious about the kids, if you remember what you did with them. But if not, if I'm an Actor coming now for one of your pieces, what's gonna happen?

RY: Well first of all, I really talk to people. When I did--the first feature film that was really mine, NOTHING BUT A MAN, Mike [Michael Roemer] ended up directing. We did it together. I shot it, we wrote it, you know, we produced it. But somebody had to direct the Actors. He did and I directed the camera. So my first feature experience was really on ALAMBRISTA! And I had no Casting Director. I didn't have the money. I had a trailer at KCET and I saw at least 200 people. So I just set appointments every half hour and people came in. And that's how I met Eddie Olmos [Edward James Olmos]. He'd never been in--that's long before ZOOT SUIT. And I gave him a little part in my movie. I liked him a lot. But I didn't think he was right for the main character, which he thought he was. And I met all of the characters: Trinidad Silva [Trinidad Silva, Jr.] and--[INT: And when they would come in, though, what would be your process?] They would come in; we would talk. [INT: And would you talk about--I mean what do you talk about?] I talked about the story, but I also talked about who they were, what they were interested in, what they did. I asked about some of their professional background. Most of them didn't have it. On my film CAUGHT, Arie Verveen who's, I think, a fantastic Actor, came in, he saw a notice that we put up in the Actors Studio and he came in and actually, he was a custodian. He wasn't in Actors Studio. He just saw the notice. And I thought--he came in and he didn't have a picture, he had no Agent and he, you know, but I thought he was the best, and one of the things--[INT: And how did you--]--and I did a reading. Yeah, I do do readings, too. [INT: With the Actor, if that Actor comes in?] With the Actors. And he did everything different from what I had imagined. And I hired him. He was, I thought he was a natural phenomenon. In other words, he paused in places that I had never imagined pausing. And he made it his own. I'm sure you've had this happen. [INT: Sure. Now do you, in these situations, is there somebody--do you read with them? If you're reading, is there an Actor there reading with him? Is it a casting person?] No, I did it myself. [INT: So you'll read with the other parts, with the Actor?] Yeah, but sometimes I'll have somebody reading with somebody if I can. That's really kind of more convenient than I can, you know...

INT: Will you have callbacks? Will you bring people back? Or do you know right then and there?

RY: No, I have callbacks. But I often--I mean, look, Alfre Woodard. She was in, I did EXTREMITIES. And she's in it and I thought I wanted her in it and her reading was not very good. You know, I mean she came in and she... But, I mean she's a great Actress. She's a great, great Actress. So, I mean, I'm not gonna be... I'm more interested in who the person is than I am in the reading and very often, I mean I will discover things in the very first reading. I mean I just made a film, well, just. I made it a year ago. Now, what we're trying to get the money to distribute, called HUMAN ERROR. And there's a young--there's an Actor in it. Well, he's in his 40s now; he's not so young I guess, Bobby Knott [Robert Knott]. And he's a terrific Actor. And it's Tom Bower, Xander Berkeley, and Bobby Knott. And I'm sure you know Xander Berkeley and Tom Bower. [INT: Xany and Tom, worked with both of 'em.] He's marvelous. [INT: Yeah.] And he's fantastic in my movie. But Bobby Knott is the one I didn't know. And he's good to play a young, or an innocent kind of person. And I start talking to him and this is where I find out things. I mean, I found out he's from Oklahoma and he also writes. He has something that he's writing himself. And I heard him, asked him to do a little bit of it and he did a little dialogue, and I discovered his voice. I said, "That's not the voice you're now using. But this down-home voice, this is who you are," you know. And, god, "And I think you should wear a cowboy hat and..." you know, right away all kinds of things happen. That happened to me on BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ [AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE: THE BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ], talking with, oh god, now his name escaped for the moment. A fantastic Actor. And he was using a voice that had a projection to it. And I--and but while we were talking, I said, "No, this is the voice," you know. "This is the authentic character. This is the guy who--not this other voice."

RY: I actually had a situation where--'cause I haven't dealt much with big, big name Actors, but I had a situation with Madonna. And Arnold Kopelson was thinking that maybe she would be the right person for the girl in TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT. And she came in to Arnold's house and Willem [Willem Dafoe] was there and I don't know how the heck it happened, because I thought it was very inappropriate. But it came about that somebody said, "Let's do a reading. And I was sort of embarrassed because, I mean, I wasn't prepared to do a reading and I hadn't thought about it and, you know, but anyway, we were gonna do the reading. So Madonna, so we had a scene and she started reading it... But, and I told her right away that, I mean, I could see that she was taking voice lessons. And about her pronunciation and accent and stuff like that. And I said I wanted her to wipe all of that out because it was--because what she was doing in her performance was drawing attention to the surface. And that is fatal, you know, unless that's mastered. I mean that's fatal, that I'm going someplace else, so get rid of all that. And anyway, we did several readings and she became--and she was not very good at first. And she became really quite good in about three or four readings. And actually, she then laid--then she sent me a script, because I guess she really liked what happened. And I didn't like the script and I'm not, you know, I'm so bad operationally, you know. I didn't like the script and I, you know, I wasn't in touch with her directly, it came through an Agent, and I've screwed up a number of times this way and so I never got to talk to her. Because I liked her. I liked her tremendously. I thought she was enormously intelligent. She was not right for our part because she was too worldly. And where I was going, that would be wrong. I wanted somebody who hadn't been worldly, who was taken in and swept in to the camp. [INT: Sure.] And they never had a chance to live. So she was the wrong character. [INT: It's interesting--] And that's what my people should have seen right away, you know? [INT: Right.] So she was not right. I knew she was not gonna be right, but I loved working with her and I thought I could've done--I don't mean me, like, so great a Director or something, but I thought she was great. And I wished I had the opportunity to actually work with her, but her script was terrible.

INT: Now, speak--let's go back to script now. In fact, let's use TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT as one, 'cause I actually even know that script, at least when it first came out. What turned you on about it? And how did you work with the Writer or Writers to turn it into something that you wanted to make?

RY: Well, that was something. First of all, I get a call from Arnold Kopelson that he wants to meet with me, and he sends me a script, you know, TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT. I read it and I hate it. It's terrible. And I have a meeting with him and the Writer, Laurence Heath. And I tell them not to make the film. I say, "It's a desecration." You know, "You're showing naked bodies and all kinds of things. People are gonna look at their private parts. They can't help it. It's not--you're doing it wrong. It's all indicated. It's all telling, it's all asking for sympathy. It's terrible." That's what I told them. And I told them what I thought they ought to do. And that was the end of the meeting. And it was a long meeting and I tried to be respectful to Larry Heath. You know, he's a good Writer, but it was awful. Awful. There were things made up that were, not just that they weren't true, they were psychologically not true. And they were wrong, you know? I had strong feelings about it. I told them so. Anyway, four months later, I get a phone call from Arnold, which really endeared him to me. He said, "Bob? I'm calling you because I just saw DOMINICK AND EUGENE and I loved it. And now I have to tell you that the reason I called you before was that I had, of course, made PLATOON and Orion [Orion Pictures] had been involved in that and so I went to Orion and I said, 'I have the story, TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT, and I need a Director. Who do you recommend?'" And they recommended, I think, two Directors. I was one of them. I don't know who the other even was. So he calls me and I come in. He gives me the script and that happened. He said, "Now that I... And I thought that they were gonna, that would help me get the money. And now I don't think it's gonna work, but now I'm calling you for you. I have never seen any of your movies, but I saw DOMINICK AND EUGENE and now I'm approaching you, you know, to be the Director. And I want to meet again because now I want to hear what you really have to say." So I went back and started working with him and with Larry and changed a tremendous amount of the script.

INT: And how do you work with the Writer? How'd you work with this Writer [Laurence Heath on TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT]? I mean do you--

RY: Well, I try to be honest. And one of the things--one of my weaknesses is, I'm not confrontational. You know? And I don't believe in being confrontational because I don't think it gets the best out of people and I think it polarizes things and leads to a kind of even the schismogenesis. You just go farther and farther apart. And I'm interested in arriving at the center and trying to understand, but that doesn't mean compromise. You know? Sometimes there isn't a compromise. Sometimes somebody sees something or they believe that something should be done and it's not right, will you try to really--I always have believed, and it's not completely true, that somehow you can always explain to people and finally get them to see something so they'll, you know, they'll see it. But, of course, that may be my, not only may be, it is my own limitation because I see things a certain way and it may not be that that's not the only way you can look at things either. However, we got together, and we worked on it, and we developed the script and it went a certain distance. [INT: And do you work with it--] But it didn't get where I wanted it to be. [INT: Is this a daily process?] Yeah. Oh yeah. It was a daily or every other day or something. Because--well I'm a Writer, too. [INT: I know. That's why I'm asking.]

INT: Do you work structurally first? And how were you working on that particular, if you remember [screenplay of TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT]?

RY: Well, you know, I'm too slow. On some things, if I really know it, I'm actually pretty fast. But basically on some kind of new material, I mean I, to digest it and make it part of you, I mean is a big process, and I think I'm slow. But I do believe in certain things, and I believe that things tend to migrate. Things--you find something interesting, you hold onto it. Don't give it up, but don't--it doesn't mean it works. So not until it starts to migrate into the center of the story, into the real structure, into the central characters. And there's a good example. For example, we had created a scene where, when they came into the camp, there was a cousin who was pregnant and they tried to talk her into aborting because certainly they would see that she's pregnant and she'll go up in smoke. So it was a very exciting--it was an interesting idea, and something that happened all the time, and it seemed like part of the story. Now look, I'm not--the story was based on a true story, but one had to flesh it out and it was really the story of the people going into the camp: a man and a woman, not just a man. And so they had this phony girlfriend who was not right at all and it was a fictive character because the guy, Salamo Arouch, didn't actually meet the woman he married until after he got out of the camp. She had been in another camp. But he didn't meet her in the camp. Okay. One of the things that was wrong about the story was that survival is about not only a man, but it's about a woman. And I thought the story was not complete. It was not, it wasn't--it didn't do justice if it didn't do certain things. One, it had to have a woman in it. It couldn't be just a man, in my opinion. Okay. And I'm a strong, opinionated guy, you know, so… The second thing, and this is what I did. This is what I created. She had a sister and when, at one point when they're eating, the sister reaches over and takes something from her bowl and she says, "What are you doing?" And the sister done it out of a kind of a reflex and the sister was then humiliated and said, "I'm hungry," you know. She said, "Well, I'm hungry, too." And she said, "Yeah, but I'm gonna have a baby." Jesus. So now, the sister becomes protective of her. And what I wanted to do--so I made up a story that--one of the things I wanted to do, I thought it was so important to do, how does an audience understand that a young person coming into the camp has never lived? How do you--they're there already and now they're gonna get executed. Well how do you make them feel for the fact that they never lived? How do you do that? So, okay. So I made up a story that she had been in a situation where somebody--she was not wearing the yellow star, somebody saw her and she became nervous that maybe they thought maybe she was a Jew. And a young man came up to her, unexpectedly, and said, "Mom wants us home." And he took her out. And he took her to his apartment and they made love. And that's… And the sister, of course, had never known about this, and then during the whole course of the movie, they talked to her, then, about getting aborted, aborting the kid. And she says, "No. She's gonna be a ballet dancer," and she makes up a name for the kid. And the kid--and she begins to, like, she believes it, you know? And she creates this world, this life of a kid and a love that she's never gonna have. And then ultimately, some of the women who become suspicious of her, take her down, examine her, and say she's not pregnant. And then she's tremendously humiliated in front of her sister who feels betrayed, and it's just a devastating kind of scene, but it's really strong. But that--[INT: This was not in the script?] What? [INT: This--] That's what's in the movie. [INT: But it was not in the script.] It was not in the script.

RY: Now, every night, I wrote the script [TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT]. And Eddie Olmos [Edward James Olmos] created the complete part of the gypsy and one of the two great things that I have to say about two of my Actors--my Actors. I'm being possessive. It's really in a loving way. Willem Dafoe and Robert Loggia was, those guys are in my book, incredible Actors and heroes. They wanted to be in this film but there were no parts. There was no part. There was hardly any lines, even, for Willem. There was nothing for Robert Loggia. He went off on a vacation, actually, and unfortunately got suntanned during part of it while we were making the film because his part wasn't finished. And they believed in it and they believed in the process that we were doing. They trusted me in some kind of crazy way. I don't know how it happened. But I wrote those scenes every night before the next day and the people who are credited for it never did it. [INT: And how did you--] And my Editor, Arthur Coburn, who's a fantastic guy, helped me write a couple of scenes.

INT: Now how did you then, I mean, at what point in this writing process before you started shooting [TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT] were you saying, "Okay, I'm gonna--we've got a script, let's go!"

RY: I had no choice. We had to start, we had to get the winter. Everything was moving forward. Larry [Laurence Heath] was not about to come to Europe. I don't know why. I mean it wasn't like I didn't, you know, I didn't say, "Don't bring him," or anything like that. We actually had, even, another Writer came in very briefly who didn't do anything. I had to do it. And Eddie [Edward James Olmos], as I said, wrote the whole part of the gypsy. It was just too much. I couldn't possibly have done it. He got involved with the gypsy community, he brought them, he learned their dances, music, and I created the story and wrote every single night. I'll never forget the night before the next day, a thousand refugees are coming in in a transport and there's no scene. I've--that's been one of the things that I feel that I've learned from making documentaries. I mean I've been in, you know, I've jumped in the sea and with--I made a film called IN THE WORLD OF SHARKS that inspired the book JAWS. Yeah, swimming with pelagic sharks while they were feeding. And they try to bite you, you know, I mean I have that movie. It's sort of a crazy movie. It inspired BLUE WATER, WHITE DEATH, which Peter Gimbel wanted me to direct with him but I didn't want to do it. I had enough. I didn't want to make a film about amateurs trying to be heroes. I was interested in the sharks, actually, and the beauty of them and the way they swam and everything. So, but anyway, the point I'm making is, I'm used to jumping into situations without knowing exactly what's gonna happen. I did that a number of times--[INT: How'd you handle 1,000--] What? [INT: You had 1,000 extras the next day with the scene that you didn't have.] And I made up the scene. Well, I made it up as I went, you know, I made it up that night and as I went along and I staged it and I did it like a documentary. And that's one of the techniques that I use. I often create reality situations and then I move inside of it with a camera because I shot it myself.

INT: In TRIUMPH [TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT], you were operating?

RY: Yeah. Not always, but I would say maybe--I mean I had a beautiful DP [Director of Photography], Curtis Clark. He's great. And one of the things that he--but he is completely--and he's very good. But he's completely open to me and when there's something that... And just like on CAUGHT, too, some of the scenes I shot myself. And Mike Barrow [Michael Barrow], a great DP also. I mean, they want me to do it because--[INT: Now do you think that--] Because I can't tell somebody what to do. I mean, I create the situation. For example, Willem [Willem Dafoe] is on a transport. His girlfriend is in another car. They open the doors. The passengers come out. Okay. It's like, I want the camerawork to be a correlative of the situation. So what I do is--it's very simple, in a way. There's 1,000 people and they're all being--and the coppos [police force] are coming and they're lining them up and they're trying to separate them and people are looking for their family and people are confused and I create, help create that kind of situation, also, with the fantastic Polish Assistant Director [Krzysztof Zbieranek], 'cause I can't speak the language, but people get into it, you know? And Willem comes out and I put my camera on Willem and I'm on Willem and he's looking for that girl and he goes through and the crowd and I just don't have anybody protecting me or anything like that. That camera's on his face and he's going through the crowd, and then, of course, I get the shots of what he's looking for. And then he sees her and he meets her and it's like he's a cork, bouncing in the sea, and the forces of all of this is really what motivates the scene, but you're on him and then his father comes out and grabs the mother and the baby and they're separated and they're looking for him. And then the Nazis come in and they, the coppos and they tear people apart and I'm into all of that, you know. I wish I'd made the scene--I mean, the scene is fantastic. I think it's cut actually too short 'cause it's a great scene.