Cinema Canada (Dec 1974-Jan 1975)

situation occurs in exactly those circumstances. We look at it and say, ‘‘Isn’t it obvious that the man should be wealthy and have a nice home?’ But isn’t it also true that the man is wealthy and has a nice home? A number of people have said, “Why doesn’t she leave her husband and go to this guy if she really loves him?” How many people do you know who are absolutely miserable in their marriage? Why don’t they leave? It’s strange because we live with that all the time. Yet, when it’s put into a film, people ask those questions. The truth frustrates. People want a specific answer because they don’t know why they don’t leave and they hope to get an answer in the film. They don’t get that answer, but maybe they see a mirror reflection of what they’re doing with their lives and hopefully, that will give them the answer. Why do we stay in situations we absolutely hate? We really hate being in our jobs, or we hate being with this other person. Yet we invite this other person over to our house — or we live with this other person. And it goes on and on and on. Why don’t we stop that? That really has a lot to do with what the picture is about. Why don’t we act on what we want to do? If we love, why don’t we live out that love instead of living out the frustrations and masochistic things we do to ourselves to avoid dealing with it and taking our chances if necessary? Haven’t you been in that situation — where you couldn’t do what you had to or wanted to? Where your situation seemed hopeless? It’s certainly not the way I live my life. I wouldn’t do what those people in my film do — I did once. I was involved in something not unlike what the story is about. That’s where the story came from. But I would never do it again. It’s too destructive a force. I’ve taken a number of chances with my life. The day when I feel I’ve stopped taking chances is the day I’m going to feel I’m starting to get old. Getting old is being afraid to take chances anymore. Your first film, “Jenny”, certainly took a lot of chances... I guess I was lucky to be asked to do Jenny at the time. Martin Lavut and myself rewrote that screenplay and it ended up being a slightly more sensitive film about that woman. I was very fortunate to be able to influence the producer with it, because it was a first film. That had a lot to do with the fact that Marlo Thomas loved it and wanted to do it and she was his name star at the time. Stars have a tremendous influence on what you’re able to do as a director when you’re working in the American film industry. That’s a fact. It’s interesting that both these films have lead dramatic roles for women, which has become increasingly rare since the 1940’s. Why aren’t more scripts written with major female characters? I think it’s because there are more men writing scripts than women... . But one of the things you have to recognize is that the pictures which actually get done get done not because some sensitive writer has written a terrific script and a fine director comes along and says, ““My God! This is a terrific script! Let’s do it!” There’s this other character involved, called the producer, who has to get the money. And that guy usually has a lot of opinions and usually they’re not quite as sensitive as that fine writer and director. They’re based more on, ““Who’s going to see this? Is this a grabber?’”’ A lot of those things get involved when it comes to the nitty-gritty of actually making it happen. I suspect there are probably a lot of terrific scripts about women that aren’t being made because a producer doesn’t think it’s going to be box-office. Did you have any of those problems with “Child Under A Leaf’? It was a different thing altogether because I had a producer who was enthused about making the same film I wanted to make. Child Under A Leaf was a script I wrote about eight years ago, just prior to leaving the CBC. It was sold to a Hollywood company a week after I wrote it and I had an option to direct. They came up with a package with a good name star who I couldn’t see in the part, at all. I lost my option and they paid me for the script. Then, I guess, their money fell through and that script sat on a shelf down there for about seven years. When I first got together with Murray (Shostak), I gave him a screenplay I had just completed — along with a number of other things including Child — so he could see where my head was at. He came back and said he liked my screenplay but he really loved Child Under A Leaf. So we bought it back and then I rewrote it completely. It irked me that we had bought it back, because the only things that remained the same were the characters and the title. The dialogue and the situation had to be changed because of the seven year gap. A lot of things had changed ... but Murray Shostak happened to love that piece and supported me all the way. I didn’t have any conflict in terms of whether it will be a box-office success or not — that’s something we both have to live with. How do you feel about directing material you wrote? One of the things I try to do is to abandon the writer the moment I begin directing. When I’ve written it myself and I’m directing, I don’t hesitate to slash it whenever it’s necessary. I find myself cursing the writer when it’s me... Cinema Canada 45