Michael Cimino:

The Full, Uncensored Hollywood Reporter Interview

By Seth Abramovitch 3/2/2015

The Hollywood Reporter's Feb. 27 Oscars issue featured the first major interview with reclusive director
Michael Cimino (1978's The Deer Hunter, 1980's Heaven's Gate) in more than13 years. It was edited and
condensed from a two-hours-plus phone exchange with the 76-year-old filmmaker.  The following is an
unabridged transcript of that conversation.

Have you seen American Sniper?

Yes, I have.

What were your feelings on it?

I think they should cancel the awards and give all the gold to Clint [Eastwood]. It's his
best work as a director. By far.

Can you expand on that? Why do you feel that way?

For all of the reasons that people like it. It's beautifully acted. It's shot well. There're no
weak links in the movie. I think the guy emerges as a star. I think that it's very smooth in all
of its transitions. It's very fluid. And you're not ever, you never feel an abrupt shift, a time
shift or a place, a shift in place or time. It's so well done, you don't notice, you just go with
the flow of the whole piece. I don't think very many people, I don't know of anybody else
who could have done this movie. I think that also, I think the actors, and it's Bradley
Cooper, right?

Yes.

Yep. I think that with Clint directing, he inspired them by virtue of what he is and who he is
as a man, as a principled guy. I mean, he's remained my friend for over 40 years. He's
responsible for my career. I wouldn't even be talking to you were it not for Clint.

He took a big chance on you in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.

Huge. And that's one of the great things about him, is that he's never been afraid to take a
chance on new people, on new cameramen, on new writers, directors, whatever. He's very
generous and he's got a good eye for people. What you see is what he is. I mean, there's
no pretension about Clint in any way. He could be Bradley. He could be that character. And
I think that his physical and spiritual presence during the making of the movie could not
have helped but inspire all of the people in it. You know, I think he's kind of a living
example of the spirit of this man.

And I don't think there are other directors, including myself, given the same resources, the
same cast, the same situation, the same locations, could have got the same result that he
did. I think he got an extraordinary result because he is an extraordinary man. And he
inspired these people. I guess that's as well as I can put it at the moment. You know, I just
saw it, so it's fresh in my mind. I just saw it the other day. And 'cause it had been delayed,

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they sent my screeners [to the wrong house]. They never know where to send the damn
things.

And I was really, really, really, really impressed. I was proud, I was impressed. He's a guy
who stands by his convictions, and I think the movie also demonstrates that, you know?

How does Sniper compare with Deer Hunter?

It's not, you know, in my view, much like Deer Hunter. Though it was characterized in other
ways, it's not a political movie. It's not about the rightness or the wrongness of the war of
this or that. It could be any conflict at any time, but it deals with the impact on the people
who go to war and on the people who stay behind — the wife, the kids, friends, etc. It's the
impact of trauma, the trauma that war inflicts inevitably.

I mean, war is a brutal, messy business however you cut it, whatever you think about it. It
is not a pleasant enterprise. There's nothing but brutality and bravery or cowardice that
comes out of war. That's pretty much it.

And I think that Clint making a movie like this with so much feeling, with so much heart, at
this stage of his career is rather extraordinary. I think it's very, very special. I applaud him;
I'm glad I'm still his friend. I'm glad I know him. I'm proud to know him. And he means what
he says, he says what he means, and there's no entourage with Clint. When you meet with
Clint, it's Clint. There aren't 12 guys hanging around.

I remember we saw The Wild Bunch together in New York at a theater — it was myself, my
producer, Joann Carelli and Clint, the three of us went to the theater. We watched it and
then we walked down to P.J. Clark's and had a hamburger. And no big deal. You know,
Jeff Bridges, the same way. And I was fortunate enough, so fortunate, unbelievably
fortunate, to have the both of them in my first film, which [is now] miraculous, given the
state of cinema in these recent years. You know, they were my first choice, both of them.
Nobody else ever got to read the script. Clint got it, Jeff got it, they said yes. George
Kennedy, Jeffrey Lewis and we went.

And never have I had such a good time and a great experience making a movie. I would
go to Clint every day and say, "Hey, boss, you happy with the dailies?" He said, "Michael,
you just keep shooting what you're shooting." He says, "You're one of the few people I've
ever met who has an eye for scope." He said, "I've done so many films with great
backgrounds and when I see the cut, it looks like it could have been shot in Burbank." He
said, "But you have an eye for scope. Whatever you've written on that page," he said, "just
keep putting it on the screen.”

And how much simpler can you be? How much more honest and direct can someone be?
You know, it's no committees, no second-guessing, no video cameras on the set, just an
amazing experience. When I look back on it, given all of my experiences since then, it was
the best, by far the best. It was something special. I treasure it.

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What are your memories of the night Deer Hunter won five Oscars?

I feel very, very upset that when it came time for me to get an Academy Award, I [only]
thanked my cast. I, you know, I was in the middle of preparing Heaven's Gate, I was going
back and forth to Montana and they had to remind me, I was on the floor measuring
somebody's outfit at Western Costumes. And the chauffeur had to come in and say,
"Michael, you've got to go home and change." I said, "For what?" I forgot that it was the
awards that night. He says, "You've got to go downtown." I said, "What am I doing
downtown?" He said, "Well, it's the Academy Awards." So I jumped in the limo, drove to my
house, changed my clothes, went back down, do the thing, next day, get on a charter
plane, bam, right back to Montana and start working.
So I never really had time to digest it. And Clint should have been the first person I
thanked because without Clint, though he was not directly involved with that movie, I would
not have been up on that stage, I would not have had the chance to make Deer Hunter.
He made it possible for me to do that movie. And I've always felt badly that I didn't say, "I
want to specially thank Clint Eastwood." And I was doubly humbled by getting one of the
statues from John Wayne, who has been a hero all my life with all the great, great movies
he's made with John Ford, an inspiration. So two legends, hard to express what one feels.
Hard to express. It's a bit overwhelming.

You say Deer Hunter and American Sniper are different films, but watching them, I
did see parallels. For example, they both deal in the grief of war.

Yes, especially at the end, the way it ends with the flashback to the death of the real
protagonist and the reaction of people with flags. And it reminded me of [the ending of
Deer Hunter, when De Niro, Meryl Streep and others break out and sing] "God Bless
America, which again was not meant to be a political statement. It was simply a group of
people making a communal sound. You know, when you're overwhelmed with grief, what
can you do? I mean, you'll see women in Africa, in Arabia, in Indonesia wail. But in
America, we don't wail. And I think what people do is reach out for a common, some
common expression that everybody doesn't have to think, because everybody knows that
particular song and they just break into it spontaneously.
And that idea came from an experience in a restaurant in Pittsburgh, where people
actually one night for no reason whatsoever broke into that song. Had nothing to do with
anything. It was just a totally spontaneous event. And it's just a way of uniting, of relieving
the grief and knitting back the family because that is a family. And I felt that the ending of
Sniper with the multitudes of people — I'd never seen that footage before, so it kind of
overwhelmed me. And I had the same emotion.
But my God, I don't understand for the life of me how it could have been overlooked for the
Academy Awards, how Clint could have been overlooked. I'm so happy he's up for the
DGA thing. I'm going to be at that. I think it's next week.

You're going to be at the DGA Awards?

Every year they have a breakfast in the morning for all of the nominees. And the people
invited to attend are past winners of the DGA Award. So I'm going to that. I think it's on a
Saturday. And last time he got one I was there. And it was great to see him —  it's always
great to see him. He just reminds you that there are real human beings in the film
business.

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Have you reached out to him since you saw the film?

No, I just saw it yesterday. So I think I'll simply hold off until I see him in person and say,
"Hey, boss, number one.”

Deer Hunter was a big part of my childhood — I have distinct memories of my father
being very affected by it. But I was too young to remember how it was received
when it first came out. What was the reaction? 

All I know is that it was an overwhelming, emotional reaction. It was shocking. We were in
theaters and doing previews and my assistants would come running up to me [in
Westwood], where we screened it only for two weeks or 10 days. You have to screen for
10 days in L.A. to qualify for the [Oscars], which Sniper is not doing. I mean, it just opened
and it's running straight through. But we were trying something new and which people
imitate now, but at that time, nobody had done it before, which is that we opened for two
weeks, and there's a limited sale of tickets.  And then after we got the awards, then we
opened the movie.

But I remember, at the very first screening, my assistant, who at that time was the
daughter of Robert Shaw, the actor, her name was Penny Shaw. You remember Robert
Shaw, the great English actor, you know who he is, right? You know Robert Shaw?
Yes, sure, of course.

Yeah, OK, his daughter, she was with me in the editing room the entire time. And we were
sitting in the back row of the — I've forgotten the name of the theater in Westwood — and
people were just driving up in cars, just a line of cars. And someone would run out and buy
12 tickets. Someone would run out and buy 20 tickets. And this kept going and going and
going and going.

And then we had a screening and Penny came running up to me and said, "Michael,
you've got to come quick, come quick to the lobby." I said, "What's wrong?" And she said,
"Come with me." And the ladies room was filled with women who were weeping and
wailing and just broke down crying. There were ex-vets who literally crawled up the aisle
out of their seat. It was just an astounding, astounding reaction.
I mean, all of the letters that I received after that and still receive, oddly after all these
years. One in particular, I think it was a black sergeant, and he said, "You know, somebody
told me about this move, The Deer Hunter, I went to see it." And he was a combat vet, and
he said, "I don't know, man, that was ... I don't know what that was, that was no movie." He
said, "When those choppers came up the river, the hair on the back of my neck stood up,
stood on end, I crawled out of the theater." It was an overwhelming emotional reaction.

What about critics? Do their opinions matter?

I'm not in the habit of reading reviews or opinions, I've still got unopened stacks of all the
stuff that was written about Deer Hunter, about Heaven's Gate, about Year of the Dragon
because in each one I was categorized, you know — first film, I was homophobic, second
film, I was a right-wing fascist, third film, I was a left-wing racist, this and that, left-wing
Marxist, and fourth film, I was a racist. So they couldn't make up their mind what I was.
But there is no doubt who Clint is. There never was, in my opinion. And I just wish that
night that I was fortunate enough to be on that stage. [It] was John Wayne's last public
appearance. I was so overcome. And I just wish I'd had the presence of mind to
acknowledge the debt I owed Clint and feel I still owe him.
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So I'm sure there are areas in the U. S., I mean, I don't know, you probably know better
than I. But the film is doing so well that I'm sure in certain parts of the country, in certain
kinds of population mixes, there are similar emotional reactions. There's got to be some
kind of extreme emotional reaction for the movie to be doing that well. You know what? It
hasn't happened since The Deer Hunter. I mean, all the movies that have been made
about war were, from Platoon to the thing the girl made about the box…

You mean Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker?

The Hurt Locker, right. "The box." (Laughs.) The Hurt Locker. There's been none of that.
But here there's an emotional charge.

Well, help me understand that.

  'Cause it's about people. It's about people. Movies are about people, there're not about
ideas. It's like great novels. Great novels are not about ideas. There’s never been a great
novel about ideas. You think about the great novels in history. Think of
[Gustave] Flaubert, [Madame] Bovary, it's about Emma, it's not about an idea. You think
about Anna Karenina, it's not about an idea, it's about Anna.

Every great movie is about the people, even if it's a great popular success like Gone With
the Wind. It's really not about the Civil War. It's about Scarlett and Rhett. That's who you
go to see. You're not going to root for the North or pull for the South, or, you know, it's the
people you remember. And the great strength of movies is when it creates great
characters. The greatest movie — what movie do you love above all movies?

Oh man …

Give me one or two.

The Godfather films, Psycho.

OK, and who do you remember?

You remember Michael Corleone, you remember Norman Bates.

OK, you don't remember an idea. You remember a character. You remember the people.

But you feel that Platoon, The Hurt Locker somehow fall short of that? How are
those different?

No, I don't think they fall short at all. It's just that they're made with a different sensibility. I
mean, I love Oliver [Stone], I worked with Oliver, we co-wrote Year of the Dragon together,
and I think Oliver's one of the most talented screenwriters in America, he and Jimmy
Toback. And they direct, they've both directed movies — Oliver's won a couple of gold
statues. But they are really great writers.

It's just that Clint has brought a special feeling to this. This is something that has come
from within inside of him and the story of this man resonated inside of his body and his
soul and his mind and his heart. And those other films don't do that because they are
about the war. Do you see what I mean? They're about Vietnam or they're about Iraq. This

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could have been a movie about any war in any country. And I believe that's true of Deer
Hunter. It's just about war, period.

And war is hell.

I mean war is ... you know, when there is a battle, the most difficult thing about war is the
waiting. That's where the idea of the Russian roulette comes from in Deer Hunter. It's
waiting, waiting for the next thing to happen, waiting to be hit, waiting to be ambushed,
waiting for a bomb to go off in your face, waiting, waiting, waiting. How do you dramatize
waiting? Well, you can shoot a movie like Andy Warhol did where somebody was asleep
for 24 hours. Because a firefight is always very fast. It happens. It's waiting, waiting,
waiting and waiting and then ka-bam! And it's over and either you are dead, you're alive or
you’re horribly maimed and wounded and you're on a chopper and the next thing you
know, you wind up at Fort Sam at the Burn Center in San Antonio.

And I mean, you look at the great John Ford Westerns, there's always a reference in Ford
to Wayne being reverential toward the South usually. In The Searchers, he identifies with
the South. In She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, he pays tribute to that older Southerner, I think it
was a colonel, I can't remember exactly the name. But he's in the war as a private and
Wayne salutes him as a colonel. But none of the Ford movies are about the North and the
South. They allude to it, but it's about characters in another situation. It's not about the war.
I don't know if I'm making myself clear to you or not.

I understand what you're saying.

I have a feeling you're not agreeing with me.

No, I'm letting you think it out. I'm letting you talk it out. Let me ask you this: Can
you make a war film that's anti-patriotic? Alternately, can you make a war film that is
very patriotic?

Sure. I mean, in World War II, look at all the American movies that were pro-Allies. And I'm
sure you can find movies to the contrary. I believe Ford was an admiral when he made
They Were Expendables with Robert Montgomery and John Wayne, Joanne Drew. I
mean they were magnificent. Robert Montgomery was at his very, very best.
I don't know if you've ever seen it, it's black and white. And if you haven't seen it, you
should make an effort to see it 'cause it is a beautiful, beautiful, understated story of the
men who served on the fast boats, the PT boats as they were called, you know, that [John
F.] Kennedy was on. And it's a magnificent war story about the war. But again, even there,
where it's clearly, you know, a pro-American story, it's still about the three characters:
Robert Montgomery, who was in the war, John Wayne and Joanne Drew, they give three of
their finest performances.

But with The Deer Hunter, I mean World War II, of course there weren't many people
who were saying that wasn't a justified war. But you undertook the first film about
the Vietnam War when people still hadn't processed it. I mean, that had to have been
an anti-war film, no?

Well, every good war film, if you want to use that phrase — I don't think it's a good phrase,
but if you want to use that phrase — every good film, a first-rate film about war, is an anti-
war movie. You think of All Quiet on the Western Front, Lewis Milestone. War is a brutal,
bloody, revolting business.
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And there's nothing good that comes out of it, as I said. Nothing good comes out of it.
Individuals emerge who become special, but it's a brutal business. All one has to do is look
at footage of the firebombing of Dresden during World War II, the old footage, and think of
the people beneath those bombs. It's horrific.

And I don't think you can make a movie that moves you about war which is in some way
not anti-war. I think American Sniper is anti-war. I mean, it demonstrates the agony of the
decision-making that goes on. When do I pull the trigger, do I pull it on a 10-year-old kid
picking up a bazooka or not? Do I shoot this woman or do I not? It's agony. 

But the overall picture isn't one of an American hero, you know, of someone to
aspire to and to identify with.

Well, what do you think he is?

Based on what I have seen in the film, that's what I think.

You think what?

That he fell into something, he had this talent and he was thrown into this difficult
situation and made the best of it, you know, grappled with it and that he probably
saved a lot of lives, soldier lives.

Right.

But you could also say he's a mass murderer.

You can't use that term when it comes to war because all of war is murder, all of it, on both
sides. It's one of the horrific things about it. I mean, there's no, there's nothing artful about
war, nothing. There is nothing good in it. It's a simply hell on earth and people survive and
people don’t.

I remember seeing an old documentary somewhere about Eisenhower going back after he
had left the presidency, going back to Europe. And he was sitting on a wall overlooking
those thousands and thousands of white crosses of the men who died at Normandy. And
he made this amazing anti-war speech how this must never happen again. So here was a
man who was one of the leading reasons we won, and at the same time saying, "This can't
happen again.”

And I think the apocalyptic question today for all of us is, Where is the next World War
going to start? Because something is imminent.

What do you make of these, you know, brutal videos that ISIS disseminates?

I'm horrified by them, I'm repulsed by them. I think they're hard for me to watch. And I can
only imagine the agony of the men who are beheaded, because they're not beheaded by a
guillotine where something's over in an instant or even a headsman's ax, you know.
They're beheaded by some moron with a dagger sticking it in somebody's neck. And I just
think that they just must have been in awful agony.

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And it pains me to look at those people in orange, those orange uniforms, hard to watch,
very hard to watch. Very, very, very difficult. Just as it's hard, it's equally as hard to watch
amputees, American amputees, you know, guys with no legs, guys with prosthetic arms.
Just tough, just tough to watch. Tough to watch.

Coming Home was up against Deer Hunter that year, right?

Yes, it was.

What did you make of that film?

Well, I don't know if you should be quoting me on this, but it was rather interesting because
it was produced by Jane Fonda, who at that time, of course, had made films with Ho Chi
Minh and was virulent anti-American. And at the Academy Awards she wouldn't look at
me. We were in the same elevator together. Backstage I had just won for something, I
don't know which one I got first, and I got a second one and we were in the same elevator
going upstairs from one place to another. She just wouldn't even look at me.

It was just the two of you?

Yeah. I wanted to say congratulations, but she turned away. And from what I know about
the script, the original script was honest, but I think because of her political stance at the
time that she managed to turn it into American guilt, if you like. Did you see the movie?

I haven't seen that film, no.

Oh well, you have to see it because it's very hard to talk about it if you haven't seen it. Do
you know what the end of the movie is? The end of the movie is the American officer, I
think it was played by Bruce Dern, I can't recall. I know Jon [Voight] was in it, Jon got the
Academy Award for it. But I don't remember, I think it was Bruce Dern.

Yeah, it was, it was Bruce Dern.

And he walks out of unspeakable guilt, overriding guilt, walks into the Pacific Ocean like
Norman Maine, do you know who Norman Maine is, from A Star Is Born? 

Yes, the alcoholic actor.

When he walks into the ocean to drown himself. Well, Dern walks into the ocean and
drowns himself out of guilt.

I see.

That's not what the original script was. The original script was that character is so filled
with rage that he strides the hillsides of Laurel Canyon onto the 101, as I recall, and he's
got a machine gun with him. And he walks ... somehow he gets to the center of the
freeway and it's oncoming traffic in both directions and he's just howling, just begins firing
in a circle at every car in sight. It's an apocalypse, cars are blowing up all over the place.

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Wow.

Now, that was the real ending. But that's coming from a real character. A real character
doesn't walk into the ocean out of guilt and then drown himself. So you don't have that kind
of moviemaking in order to prove a point about your political conviction in American
Sniper.

Well, it was based on a true story, so you couldn't really change what happened.

Well, I could tell you that in all the research that we did over the years, even after the
movie, were stories of women dealing with vets who came home sitting on the rooftop all
night doing all kinds of crazy, wacko things. You would not believe some of the stories. And
so the original idea rings true to me because I could understand that happening coming
out of that war, especially if it was a guy who came out of something as brutal as the Ia
Drang Valley, which is one of the fiercest battles of the entire war. I could emotionally
connect with that idea. But I can't connect with the idea of a guy who walks into the water
and slowly drowns himself.

Soggy.

Well, that's A Star Is Born, you know. That's not exactly a powerful movie. I mean it's a guy
who's upset because his wife is a big star and he's no longer a big star. So he walks in the
ocean to kill himself. That's kind of sappy.

It's a cop-out.

Well, you said it, I didn’t.

And you think it's Jane Fonda who was the one to have it changed?

Well, she's the only one who had the power; she was the producer.

She felt you were supportive of Vietnam? Had she not seen the film? 

She claims she never saw it.

So why didn't she want to look at you?

Because I had already been labeled a right-wing fascist.

By whom?

Oh, people in the press, people in the business, people all over the place.

Had you ever spoken to her after that night?

Never, never had a chance to ever be in her presence since that night. Jon is a friend, an
old friend, and I was happy to see Jon get the award. And [Jon and I have] spoken since
then about various things, but I've never seen her ever again.

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She apologized recently for that photograph of her in the tank.

Well, I don't know how far that goes, an awful lot of guys died.

And so are you happy having won all those Oscars for Deer Hunter? Or did you feel
maybe that it sort of set you up unfairly for your next film?

No, of course I was happy. I was thrilled. I mean, I was tongue-tied. And being so young, I
mean, you know, it was rather overwhelming, which is one of the reasons I couldn't speak
very well. I took an ad out in Variety and I tried to explain why I neglected to thank certain
people because I was just overcome with emotion. You know, you go out in front of
thousands of people. And they were all people in the business, and all people who voted
for you.  And it's, it's hard not to be moved.

So you took out an ad in Variety to…

Well, I took out an ad to try to make up for my, the shortfall of my dumb-ass acceptance
speech. 

Your definitive cut for Heaven's Gate made it to the screen and is available now. Are
you happy with it?

Yeah. And it just had, just overwhelming responses. It was at Venice and it was just a half-
hour standing ovation, and New York Film Festival, same thing. And just packed, I mean
the minute they announced it, it was sold out in 10 minutes. And then of course at the
Lumiere Festival in France, the biggest film theater I know of in the world, 6,000 people,
was filled from top to bottom. It was overwhelming. I got on the stage, I couldn't speak. It
was just, I mean, 6,000 people giving you a standing ovation is quite an experience.

And so obviously a moment of huge vindication for you? To go from the initial
reception of the film to this 6,000-person standing ovation, I assume?

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding your question.

That you felt vindicated finally for your vision.

Oh no, I didn't need vindication. It wasn't about vindication. It was really more ... at the
New York Film Festival, I was most pleased that Kris Kristofferson was able to attend.
And we sat next to each other, you know, and nobody moved, I mean, nobody left their
seat, it was just ... And then when there was this burst of applause, I said to Kris, "How
does it feel to hear applause after 40 years?" And he just smiled.
And I got on the stage with him. I said, "Well, here we are at the scene of the crime. Not all
the players are with us but we're here. And we're happy you liked what you saw." And no, I
never needed vindication and I don't feel that way about it. I don't think anything was
vindicated. I didn't need vindication. I mean, I knew what I had done.
And it's sort of like, you know, almost every guy making movies today uses a video camera
alongside the film camera or the digital camera to check what a scene looks like. And I
never used that, I've never used that and I never would use that. Because if you don't
know what you've got in the camera ... I never even look at dailies. I've never looked at
dailies in my life. I know what I have, I know it's on film or on digital and I just tell the editor
to start cutting. And when I finish shooting, I'll take a week off and then join you in the
cutting room and we'll work together.
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I think it's a sign of insecurity, you know, when you don't know what you've got or you're
unsure of the images that you've just put on record on some either electronic or on film.
And you need to check and you need to have a group, and assemble a group of crew and
whatever around you, everybody giving you their opinion. I mean, I don't even show the
film, the dailies, to the actors. It's one of the worst things you could probably do. Then they
start making all kinds of adjustments that they don't need to do. 

Is it you true that you changed the locks on the doors so that nobody could get in
while you edited it?

No, I never put chained locks on any doors. That's a silly story, I don't know where that
comes from.

I give everything I have to the actors. One of my primary jobs is to make them look as
good as they've ever looked, to give the best performance they've ever given. I don't
personally like this idea of the adulation that directors receive. I don't like it. Directors
should be faceless. They're behind the camera, they're not in the front of the camera. The
people in front of the camera, OK, put their pictures up on the wall, put them on the
theater, do documentaries about them, shoot stuff.

But I prefer the days when ... I mean, it was a long time before I knew what John Ford
looked like. He looked like an old bum, which I loved. That's pretty much how I look like on
the set. (Laughs.) Scruffy and dirty and smoking a chewed-up cigar, which I don't do
anymore. But in those days, you didn't have any idea. The only person you knew, you
could recognize, is [Alfred] Hitchcock because he did that TV thing. But you didn't know
who Bill Wellman was, you didn't know what Howard Hawks was, you didn't know, you
didn't know what these guys looked like. They were just names. And I liked that.
I mean, I would have preferred to come along much earlier in the history of movies and
have been making movies in the days when directors were under contract to studios. And
you made three films a year instead of one film every three years or every 13 years. I
mean, people crack me up when they say, "Oh," they finish a movie, "oh, I've got to take a
three-month vacation." I mean, you're never more ready to shoot a movie than when you
just finish a movie. Everything is cooking, you know, you're sharp.

It's like football. Can you imagine a team playing or Tom Brady saying, "You know, OK, we
won the championship. Now before the Super Bowl, I've got to go to Tahiti for three
months?" No! You've got to get to the next game quickly while you're hot. And somehow
the industry knew that then. The old moguls knew that then and people worked more. And
I think the more you work, the better you are.

I mean, when you think of the fact that Victor Fleming ... Victor Fleming made Gone With
the Wind and The Wizard of Oz in the same year. Now today, between them it would take
30 years. It's ridiculous. And nobody even knows who Victor Fleming looks like. I don't
even know what he looks like, I've never seen a picture of him.

So you feel directors have become too “celebrity-ized"?

Yeah, they've become merchandised and I think they should be hidden. I think they should
be faceless. I don't think just because you're a director entitles you to celebrity. Look at
Ford. I mean, he used to do a movie and then he'd get on his boat with a bunch of his
crew, play cards and drink and sail to Hawaii or wherever the hell he went. 

11
Well, I guess you could say that those guys have gone to TV.

Which guys?

Those sort of hard-working, journeymen directors who'll do tons of episodes of a

show like Breaking Bad or something. But you don't know who they are.

No, but I'm talking about the really good guys.

Right. But now don't you need to sort of parlay your persona into getting more films
made, like with Quentin Tarantino? I mean, he's a brand, you know. 

Well, he's a nut. He's a great guy, he's funny as hell but he's a nut, I love
him.  (Laughs.)  He's totally crazy. And interestingly, he comes from the same town,
Knoxville, Tennessee, where the greatest American film critic whoever lived, James Agee
comes from. You know who Agee is, of course. He wrote the screenplay of The African
Queen amongst all of his other accomplishments.

Yes, sure. Are you friends with Tarantino?

Yeah.

Who do you count among your closest friends in the industry?

Well, you have to understand I'm not a film person. I don't come from film. I did study film. I
didn't go to film school, I didn't go to school to learn how to write. I mean, I come from
architecture and painting and straight from the Ivy League with three degrees, none of
which have done me a bit of good. And now I'm well on my way to getting my doctorate. I
wanted to be called "Doctor," you know, before I was 18. And I was sort of something of a
child prodigy. But then I got just tired of it and finally just said, "OK, I'm going to work."
So I got into film really by accident. I came out to California because I had friends here, I
had family here in the South Bay area. And I loved the lifestyle. You know, everybody I
knew at that time rode dirt bikes, horses, flew airplanes, surfed, the real outdoor life and I
loved it. And for a while I was happy to be a part of it.

Were you heavily into hunting and he-man things and outdoors?

Well, that's where the scene from, that's part of where Deer Hunter comes from. I did go
hunting and there was one day where I couldn't do it anymore. I put the gun down and
that's where that comes from, just laying aside the weapon and not shooting and saying,
"OK." It's a very personal movie, that movie, even right down to the wedding. I mean, my
best friend at the time was a White Russian, of White Russian-descent,
Nikanor  Chebotarevich. Which  was the name that Christopher Walken
has, Nikanor Chebotarevich. And I was best man in his wedding. So the thing that you see
in the wedding is what I did, walk around in a circle and into that glorious Russian wedding
music. If you're going to have a wedding, have a Russian wedding, 'cause it's the
best. (Laughs.)

All right!

Everybody dances, everybody has fun, everybody cooks their own food. It's just a great,
great, great, unforgettable time.
12
You say you're not part of the film world. But of course, you have been for years.
I'm part of it by collision. You know, we collided. But I don't have a lot of close friends in the
industry, I have more friends outside of it. You know, my heroes were people like Frank
Lloyd Wright and certain writers. I mean, you know, [Vladimir] Nabokov, Flaubert, [Leo]
Tolstoy, you know, great painters, [Edgar] Degas, [Wassily]  Kandinsky, great
composers.

You know, I wasn't like one of these ... For example, Quentin knows every goddamned
movie that's ever been made. 'Cause he worked in a video store. So he knows everything.
He knows everything about movies that I don't know. (Laughs.) And he can quote you lines
from the most obscure science movie that's ever been made from 1920-something and
he'll know what it is. And I have no idea what he's talking about.

So I'm sort of an accidental filmmaker, you know, I come to it by accident. I sort of bumped
into it. And then the results have been what you've seen for better or for worse. And I had
the great good luck, impossibly good luck to have my first experience with Mr. Eastwood,
the boss. And Jeff Bridges, it could not have been better. And I'm still collecting checks on
that movie, if you can believe it. It's still shown all over the world.

So what's your life like these days?

It's always a struggle to write. It's a daily struggle.

What are you writing, screenplays?

Well, I've been alternating between screenplays and novels, I've published a couple of
short novels in France. I didn't want to publish them in English 'cause I loved the
characters too much and I didn't want to subject them to the American critics who were not
exactly favorable toward my work, any work that I do. So I didn't want them brutalized
unnecessarily. So I published them in different countries.

You write in English and then have someone translate to French for you?

Yeah. And it's a hard thing because you've really got to go over the translation,
painstakingly, you would know what to translate and find the right translator and make sure
they're really translating or not substituting. For example, you might write something funny,
a funny line or a funny scene and in France, instead of doing a direct translation of what
the characters say or the situation describes, they'll substitute a French joke. And that
could be very aggravating, something that they know will make people laugh simply
because they know there's supposed to be a laugh there. But it has nothing to do with the
book you've written.

But I was just reading Ezra Pound on a plane a couple of days ago. And I was
reading The Cantos. And it is one of the poems where he appeals to the gods, "Oh Venus,
oh, Dionysius, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Please give me a little ..." I'm paraphrasing
wildly ... "Give me a little ..." Oh, let me see if I have it in front of me. I'll see if I can find this
thing fresh in my mind. This always happens to me, I mark something down and then I
can't find it. (Pause.) Oh here it is! It's not part of The Cantos, it's a poem. Well, you're a
writer, did you write things other than articles?

13
I've written short stories and screenplays and whatnot.

Oh good. Then you know what the agony is.

Definitely.

So here goes: It's from a poem called "The Lake Isle." And at the end of it, he appeals to
the gods, he says, "O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, Lend me a little
tobacco-shop, or install me in any profession. Save this damn’d profession of writing,
where one needs one’s brains all the time." I read that and I said, "Amen, brother.”

I can sympathize, too.

Right. I'm sure you can, what writer couldn't? So what question do you want to ask me that
you haven't asked me that you've been dying to ask me?  (Laughs.)  Or maybe there's
none, which would be great.

No, there's a lot.

Well, this is supposed to be about Clint, right?

It's about him and you.

Well, please make it more about him.

I think people wonder where you went. You're not seen around as much anymore.

Well, I'm always traveling. Half the time I’m in Europe, the other half of the time I'm in New
York. I don't have that much time to do the club scene in L.A. At one time I did. Every night
it was a different club. But that's kind of a little change right now.

What do you mean "a different club”?

Well, at one time there was a different club every night — that was the night you went. It
was the Whiskey Bar one night, there was this other club on another night and you went to
another place on another night. Every night, seven days a week, there was a place to go
and I was out every night.

Was that the '70s and ‘80s?

No.

2000s?

Yeah, the 2000s and the '90s. I was working all the time in the '80s. I mean, even
though ... Don't forget from Heaven's Gate there was a brief interlude and then Oliver
[Stone] and I, in New York, collaborated on the screenplay for Year of the Dragon and then
we shot that, part of that was done back in Thailand where I'd done part of Deer Hunter.
And then I came back and then there was at least a year spent in Europe on The Sicilian
and then there was all the editing on that. And there were two other films. So I didn't have
that much time then.

14
You're in L.A. now?

Today I am, yes, as you can tell.

And are you still in a relationship with Joann Carelli?

Yes, she's my producer.

It's not personal, it's just professional?

She has been involved with me in film production since the first movie.

She's your neighbor as well?

Yeah.

But are you in a relationship?

Professional, yes.

But that's it?

Yeah.

There's no one else?

No. You mean other girls?

Yes.

Oh yeah, of course, but I'm not gonna go into all that.

You're dating. Nothing serious.

No. I don't want to get serious.

Why not?

Don't have the time. It takes a lot of work to get serious.

That it does.

I don't have that time right now.

Do you spend most of your time alone? Are you a loner?

Well, writing by nature is a fairly solitary occupation. I spent one year working on the
screenplay for Man's Fate, the Andre Malraux novel, which I still hope one day to do.
Heaven's Gate, another year, Deer Hunter, another eight months, nine months, same thing
with Year of the Dragon. I mean, you spend an awful lot of time with your butt in a chair
where you're not out, hanging out.

15
I mean, I have friends who are partially in the business but they're the kind of guys that
Ford would have been friends with, they're cowboys. I mean, honest-to-God, real cowboys.
And rodeo champions and tough guys. And I love 'em because there's nobody like 'em and
they're a dying breed. I love those guys. They're straight shooters. Those are the people I
spend more time with than film people. I'm not someone who enjoys talking about movies
the way Quentin does.

Quentin loves to talk about movies. He's like Scorsese. They'll talk about every old movie
that was ever made, know every line that was ever written. I don't do that. I can't retain
lines of dialogue from movies made in the '20s or '30s or '40s. I prefer people to talk about
horses and rodeo bull riding, steer roping, where can you get a good pair of leather gloves
made, work gloves, where can you get a good saddle made.

Do you still ride?

Yeah, occasionally.

Do you own horses?

Yeah, a couple. I've got a beautiful, beautiful hand-tooled saddle which you can't even buy.
I mean, you can hardly find a good hat anymore, a good Western hat, a beaver hat, it's
almost impossible to find one, or a straw Stetson for the summer. You can't find these
things. You can't find a hand-tooled saddle in America. 

When we did Heaven's Gate, which is quite a long time ago, we had trouble even then
finding people who could ... I mean, we found that wagon that we used, the little buggy that
Ella drives, it was in an old barn in Kansas somewhere. It was just a wreck. We had to
send that thing to a half a dozen places all around the country just to get ... At one time
you could do everything in California, but there are no wheelwrights in California who can
make wagon wheels, ya know? You go one place for that, you gotta go to another place for
the paint, another place for this, another place for that. I mean, you couldn't make
Heaven's Gate today, even were you to quadruple the resources to make the movie, you
couldn't make it because the people don't exist.

Wasn't that part of what delayed the production, is that you wanted each piece of
clothing, each prop, to be as authentic as possible?

No, nothing delayed the production. The production started when it was supposed to, but it
was very difficult to train people. In the days of the studios, they trained their actors to ride
horses, to do fencing, to do all sorts of boxing, to do all sorts of things, but we had to take
the place of a studio.

So for example, we had all of these immigrants who spoke different languages, a lot of
them came from back East, they had never been on a horse in their life, had never fired a
rifle in their life, so we had to have classes, we organized classes at the local fairgrounds
for people to learn to drive wagons, to learn to ride horses. We had lessons. We had a
lesson plan every day. From one to two, whatever, you went riding and wagon ... People
had to learn how to roller-skate, people had to learn how to shoot, we had shooting
lessons. Every day there was something. It was like a big school.

16
So we were simply replicating what the studios once did — learning how to dance,
learning how to skate, learning how to work with the music, I mean, it all fell on us. And it
was time-consuming and fortunately we had people who were willing to, including
Kristofferson, who were willing to do all this stuff. It was very, very, very hard.

So you were emulating an older model of how to make a Hollywood epic?

Yeah, it was as if we were Warner Bros. or we were Columbia or we were MGM. And we
were teaching people how to do all of these different things. And then of course we didn't
have the great costume department that people like MGM once had or Columbia once
had. So we had to make a lot of our stuff. And part of it was done in England.

We couldn't shoot at the real Harvard because a small little movie had mucked up the
campus and Harvard said, "OK, no more movies." And even I went to my school, Yale, and
they said no. Nobody wanted a movie shot on their campus after that incident with
Harvard. It was some small little movie, I can’t remember the name of it. And so I said,
"OK, let's go to the model." I knew England very well, I said, "Let's go to Oxford."
Cambridge is not right, it doesn't have the right color, Cambridge is all white and Oxford is
all gold and brown and sepia and beautiful. And we went to Oxford. And so there, we had
to find dancers there and practice the waltz there and the costumes.

Even getting top hats was a horrendous problem because the last house that made top
hats had thrown all their blocks away, the thing that you block a hat on. So every single
element of the movie presented an obstacle.

And you weren't willing to cut corners or use existing costumes?

Well, there was no way. I mean, what do you do? You can't dress them like Kirk Douglas
did in his Westerns with tight leather pants and tight leather vests and a hat with silver
conches on it. It would look ridiculous.

But great Westerns have been made since then. Look at Clint — he made
Unforgiven.

Yeah, but it was a very, very small, contained story.

Right, not an epic.

No.

When you watch the film now, are you happy with it?

Which?

Heaven's Gate.

I'm blown away. I've watched it several times now, happily watched it, and I’d watch it
again, especially on a big screen, especially the new version because I don’t know what
happened. Something happened with the color. I don't know whether it was due to the
cinematographer messing around in the lab or whatever, but there's a red veil over
everything, probably trying to make it dusty or something.

17
But when I looked at the footage for the first time at Sony as I shot it, I was blown away. I
said, "My God ... I remember calling Joann in New York, who produced it, and I said,
"Joann, I'm just looking at this footage, it's like looking at 3D, you can see forever." I can
do a movie basically with two lenses, the 10-to-one and the 30-millimeter lens. And the 30
you can do the biggest landscapes and the most incredible close-ups in the world. And it
was a revelation to me. It was like I was seeing the footage for the first time. And that's
what you see now in the restoration, is the footage as it was meant to be, as it was shot.
It's gleaming. The landscapes are just ... they just pop. It's very, very exciting.

And the thing that's the most exciting thing to me is, it was shot over a very long period of
time under very difficult circumstances. It wasn't shot on the Disney ranch or some place in
Burbank. I mean, it was shot where it was really shot — in the mountains. I didn't want to
go to Monument Valley, that belongs to John Ford. I would never do that. I would never go
where somebody else. I had to find my own place, which I did. And it was difficult. Every
part of it was difficult. Traveling was difficult.

But the thing that blew me away was the energy of the people and the energy of the actors
and the ability of the actors, all of the actors, to maintain the passion of the character
through such a long period of production. It astonished me. I thought, "My God, I know this
scene was shot in the spring and this was shot in the summer and this was shot in the
winter and you would never know it." It was remarkable. The dedication of the actors was
absolutely remarkable, remarkable.

And that’s the thing, I think for me, which blows me away when I look at it, is how they
were all able to maintain their passion, the core of their character. And Kris and John Hurt,
all the way through to London and Oxford and Pinewood. Their dedication was
remarkable, and that's what astonishes me about it.

Is it your favorite film of yours?

Your favorite film is always the film you haven't made yet.

Which is what, in your case?

Oh my God, I've got a whole room full of scripts. They go to the ceiling. There’s so many
things in that room, I can't even hardly walk into it anymore. There's just so much writing,
writing, writing and I'm not a writer. I mean, I wasn't trained as a writer, I had to write.

These are all scripts written by you?

Yeah. Some, as I said, there are some that I did in collaboration with other people, I
worked with [Lawrence of Arabia screenwriter] Robert Bolt on the script about Michael
Collins; we co-wrote that in London. But that picture fell through. I wrote with Gore Vidal. I
had very good luck working with great writers. I worked with Oliver Stone, with Jimmy
Toback, with Raymond Carver. And I've always enjoyed working with these top writers.
We have always gotten along very well and had a good time writing. Each one was a good
experience, a really good experience. And then the rest of it, of course, was alone. And
most of the scripts are original and there are some adaptations, like Man's Fate. But most,
I’d say, were original.

18
The last interviews I read with you were from 2002, so over 13 years ago.

Where was that?

It was with Vanity Fair and The New York Observer. And you're speaking in it about
Man's Fate, that seems to be the project.

I did do an interview with them. They began to interview me in the false pretenses about
something and then I called it off. They started to veer off into some crazy stuff and I said,
"Hey, that's it. I'm out.”

Do you remember what it was?

No. I don't have to tell you. You work for publications and you know that it's usually the
editor who calls the shots, it's the editor who tells you what he wants. It's the editor who
shapes the piece, not the writer, sadly.

The very, very first interview I did about movies was with this wonderful girl who worked for
Esquire. And she had a brother who was a vet. And it was the best kind of interview
because I ended up interviewing her, which is as good as it gets. And of course when
Esquire got it, they had her completely rewrite it and completely edit it and made a total
mess of it, but it was a brilliant article before they laid their hands on it.

So usually I ask, I say, "OK, what does your editor want?" And nobody can ever tell you or
will tell you. And I don't have to tell you what editors are like. I mean, they all have their
own agenda, they have their own opinion, they all have their own whatever.

It's a group effort. Some are more guiding than others.

I think the best interviews are direct and personal. Hitchcock by  Truffaut. You know that
book?

Yes, I do, quite well.

Yeah, but that makes sense.

You been avoiding them since?

Avoiding who?

The media, press, interviews…

In America, yes. I won't do anything in America.

Till now. I caught you on a good day.

Yeah, I didn't think of it that way but yeah, I didn't even intend to. This caught me by
surprise. But no, I don't care to because there've been so many false things written about
me by people who don't know me that I just don't wanna…

19
Well let's set the record on one of those things, which the writer spoke at length
about in the Observer interview, which is that you were transitioning between
genders.

What?!

Yeah, she even had people ask you about it in it. Gore Vidal, Kris Kristofferson.

Oh, please. I don't even wanna go there, OK? I don't know what that bullshit is all about,
but that might've been the reason I stopped the interview. You're not getting into that in this
piece, are you? Because that's absurd.

Just a false rumor.

It's worse than a rumor, it's personal assassination.

Is it, though?

Is it what? Personal assassination? Yes! If you can't stop somebody from working and
making movies that you hate, what's the next best thing? Destroy them personally.

Well, but the culture has come around a lot in the past couple years where it's not
considered an insult.

What? What's not an insult?

Those kinds of rumors. It's considered an act of bravery, not something that would
destroy someone now. Maybe 10 years ago, it was different.

No, look, it's absurd. I don't want to really go into it. It's stupid, it's ... how these things get
going, I have no idea. But it seems to me that I am a fount of fodder. Because people don't
see me around a lot I'm the source of all sorts of rumor. Rumor material.

Have you become more reclusive? You say that you're out there busy, traveling,
working. But the truth is that people don't see you very much.

Listen, I was in ... You don't travel the way ... I was in Lyon, in front of an audience of 6,000
people signing gazillions of autographs, doing interviews with every French magazine,
newspaper, TV, radio station that there is. That's not being reclusive, I just won't do that
here because you don't get that stupid bullshit over there. They really love movies there.
They are not into secret agendas.

You feel that Hollywood has agendas underneath it?

It's not Hollywood, it's not Hollywood, it's just ... Look at the state of the media in America.

What do you see when you look at it?

Do you think the Patriots deflated their balls?

20
Yes, probably. Am I naive?

I'm asking you what you think.

Look, I'm not a football fan by any stretch of the imagination, but everything I've
been seeing about it, it definitely doesn't look great for them, that's what I'm taking
away from it. But I'm not the guy to ask, that's for sure.

OK.

What do you think?

There's an awful lot made about it, isn't there?

So you think it's much ado about nothing?

(Sighs.)  Aaron Hernandez, who was on the Patriots at the last Super Bowl, played for
them, is up for murder. And after that, two more murders. It seems to me that's more of an
issue than a pound or two in a ball. And besides which, if a ball is deflated when you kick
it, it's not gonna go as far.

Mm. 

And if you throw it, it's not going to go as far.

So you think it's a media conspiracy?

No, I don't know what it is. I feel like I'm talking to you the way I would be talking to ... I feel
like I’m talking to Hillary Clinton talking about Benghazi. All you get is shit. Bullshit. And
finally she throws up her hands and says, "(High voice:) It's all in the past.”

She says it's all in the past?

Yeah, she's such a wimp. God. Secretary of State. Unbelievable.

Really? You feel she was a wimp about it?

Well, she certainly didn't come out and tell us the truth, did she? I mean, why are they still
investigating it? I think Clint should be president.

What did you make of his speech to the —

I loved it. I loved it. I absolutely loved it and only he had the balls, would have the balls to
do something like that and mean it and pull it off and I thought it was ... I loved it, I just
loved it. I loved it, I thought it was unique and special to him.

I gotta ask this since we've gone into the political realm: What do you think of
President Obama?

I'd rather not go into that.

21
He's been fairly aggressive when it comes to war on terror, Afghanistan, drones,
surveillance, no?

We haven't talked about Afghanistan.

You and I haven't but I'm saying you ... If your problem with him is that he's not
hawkish enough, I wonder if that's true. What did you make of the Edward Snowden
revelations? The NSA monitoring?

Once again this has gotten so far off talking about Clint, American Sniper, I'm beginning to
feel acutely uncomfortable.

You don't have to answer these questions. I'm just exploring.

I know, but the direction of your exploration is taking for me a sour turn.

Well, you brought up Hillary.

Well, in the context that you brought up …

You were talking about the media and then you got into football and then we got
onto Hillary.

No, I thought we were talking about ... the reason I agreed to talk to you is to talk about
Clint. Not to talk about me, not to talk about what I'm doing, not to talk about where I live,
not to talk about where my horses are, not to talk about who my friends are, not to talk
about any of that stuff — it was to talk about Clint. He was great to work with. He's still a
friend, I'm happy to say, he hasn't changed and I remember that —

Is there anyone who could take his place? He's in his 80s now …

No.

No one who can carry the torch?

No. No. No, I really don't. We just don't produce people like that anymore. I mean, that's
another reason I'm so happy that he made American Sniper when he did, while he was
able to, with vigor and conviction. That to me is what's important. I mean, and figures like
John Wayne are unique. I mean, they're unique Americans and they're unique in the
history of film, obviously, but they are unique in terms of Americans and American men,
American people. I think both of them are very special. Two legends, two American
legends, my God.

Yeah, it's amazing what he accomplished in his eighth, ninth decade.

I know that, especially something like this. And he didn't do it on the back lot. He was in
Morocco, he's all over the place. And that takes a certain amount of energy and it takes a
certain amount of conviction. And you could feel his energy in the scene. You could feel it
in the way he's directed each scene. You can feel it in the way he's pushing the guys. And
it's wonderful. And they responded to it.

22
And I'm sure part of the reason they responded to it, as I've said earlier, is because of Clint
and who he is and what he represents and the kind of guy he is. He doesn't expect
anything. Clint expects the best from you. He'll give you all of his trust, but then you've
gotta give him your best. If you give him your best, he'll respect you. And if he respects
you, he'll work with you any way that you need and he'll do anything you need him to do.
But you've gotta be working at your best and he's gotta feel that and know that you are
giving it a hundred percent.

And I think all the guys in that movie, and the gals, did that. I think they all gave him a
hundred percent 'cause I think they felt he had a special feeling, a special passion for that
particular film, for whatever his reasons. His reasons don't matter. What matters is the
movie.

That's what I'm trying to get at. Directors as celebrities, it's so much bullshit. It's like, "Oh,
he's this kind of guy so he made this kind of movie." That's crap. It's a load of crap. The
movie stands, boom. I mean does anybody ever talk about Bill Wellman and The Story of
G.I. Joe with Robert Mitchum, the invasion of Sicily, in Italy? Nobody knows a fuckin'
thing about Wellman. Have you ever seen that movie?

No I haven’t.

Well make it a point, it's a war movie.

I'm looking it up as we speak. And interestingly, I see Wellman directed A Star Is

Born, which brings us full circle.

I guess. I guess.

Well, I think we've covered a lot of ground.

Well you've got more than your two bits worth, I can tell you that. ... I don't need publicity. I
don't want to be publicized. I told you, I want to be anonymous. I did this really for Clint
and for American Sniper but not for me, for God's sake.

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