Cinema Canada (Apr-May 1978)

Thursday!”’ It would be fair to admit that I felt a little like a yokel when I first stepped through the gates of Century City and asked to be directed to the studio where “tthe Norman” Jewison was conducting make-up tests. In the centre of a vast grid-strewn hangar was a tiny little cluster of lights and people, dwarfed by the vastness of the building that surrounded them. To my eye, the skeleton staff for the tests looked just like a documentary crew — a warming thought. It was here that I met the cast of characters who were to appear “‘behind” the camera: Laszlo Kovaks, the DOP on “F.I.S.T.”, whose work goes from Easy Rider to New York, New York and includes most of the Bogdanovitch movies, as well as Shampoo and Five Easy Pieces; Mike Westmore, the makeup man for Rocky, who was experimenting with ageing Stallone, an effect crucial to the plot of F.I.S.T., which spans 30 years in the life of Johnny Kovak, the character Stallone was to play; Anthea Sylbert, the costume designer, with such films under her belt as Julia, Chinatown, Shampoo, Carnal Knowledge and Rosemary’s Baby, her job being to impart the feeling of the depression years to the look of the cast; Richard MacDonald, the production designer, who has escaped from teaching at an English Art College and has imprinted his look on such films as Marathon Man, Day of the Locusts, Far From The Madding Crowd and Jesus Christ Superstar; John Rothwell, the publicity and public relations man for the production, who handled the uncredited task of diplomatically fending off the hords of press demanding Stallone (John and I became good friends, he had seen it all before — “Same thing with David McAllum when he was in the Man from U.N.C.L.E.; sometimes you chase the press and sometimes they chase you.”); Pat Palmer and Larry De Waay, who were, respectively, associate producer and produc tion manager, both men working with Jewison as a team. They helped him keep his sanity, looking out for potential problems and trying to solve them before they happened. F.I.S.T., an eight-million dollar production, was brought in on time and on budget, despite a shooting schedule almost five months long. Much of the credit goes to their efforts. The first thing I noted about these movie luminaries was that they didn’t shine in the dark. In fact, they all looked reassuringly human. F.I.S.T., the title of the movie, stands for The Federation of Interstate Truckers, a union. They story of F.I.8.T. follows the rise to power of Johnny Kovak, played by Stallone — a role vastly different from Rocky. Kovak is a young idealist who sets about organizing truckers in a strike against a large company, “Consolidated”. He starts by confronting goons and company guards, and eventually climbs to prominence in the union. The film follows him through three decades. The union becomes the most powerful in America, and Stallone’s character becomes corrupted by the power he wields as its leader. Being an observer with no particular responsibility is a delightful position to the curious-minded, such as myself. Jewison and his crew were open and willing to allow me to quietly plant myself in the 20/Cinema Canada centre of any situation that was going down, and listen in. I was privy to their problems, their delights, their politics and their plans. I quickly learned that the success of Hollywood lies not in its talent, which I believe could evolve anywhere; but in its flow of finances, its experience, and its organization. These people have played their roles many times (the props men alone seemed to have been around the business for a zillion years). The planning is free-form to some degree; ideas are integrated and rejected as the production evolves, but always there’s a quick way to a solution within grasp, and enough funds to deliver it. As my days with the F.I.S.T. production unfolded, I experienced many interesting comparisons between their process and the way John and I had developed the workings of Insight. Jewison, Pat Palmer, and Larry DeWaay headed up the project, each facet of the process was carefully monitored by their overview. They took the responsibility for negotiating their deals, talking the town of Dubuque into allowing them to film on their streets, communicating with United Artists, casting, publicity, department budgets, etc. — all of it was centred through Jewison’s three man team. They knew what was happening, and how and where to juggle. I assimilated as I roved, sometimes very casually, and made notes of my random observations. On Jewison’s desk I noticed Barbara Frum’s book ‘“‘As It Happened”. Ross Tamblyn tried out for a part and wasn’t chosen. The first draft of the script was very similar to the final version, only much longer. Credits are sometimes more important to an actor than money. One thespian was willing to sacrifice a substantial amount and not play in the film if his billing request wasn’t met. In other cases, the reverse is true — some actors give free weeks in their contract, which means they’re payed for eight weeks, but actually work twelve. In this way, they can inflate their weekly rates for their next job. The make-up tests didn’t work the first time; the successful look was much more subtle. Jewison watched They Drive by Night, a Raoul Walsh-Bogart movie on truckers. I learned that a company working outside the state of its incorporation, such as a film company on location, can, under certain circumstances, be hit up for income taxes from both states. Jewison drives an unpretentious Ford Pinto, yet the costume designer will have custom-made clothes ordered for dozens of actors, right down to their shirts, and in some cases, two or three copies of these clothes will be required in case they need quick changes — no cheap proposition. Twelve weeks of the film is on location in Dubuque, Iowa. This town had been left behind by time and now, for a while, its faded face was to be appreciated. Before initiating shooting, the whole film had been plotted out and its schedule planned, but this plan was changed quickly and frequently, as production requirements demanded it. The production process was one of applied finances and logic. Problems were tackled with the attitude that they could all be solved.