Take One (Nov 1978)

At home with the clarinet but this is darker than-that. It’s got to do with how a person can maintain his lifestyle and integrity, a decent life, in the face of the onslaught of contemporary society, all the temptations and all the terrible stuff that you have to go through. And so again, it’s comedy, but on a more serious level. In addition to integrity, bravery and courage, what interests me the most personally is more existential. Religious stuff for instance. Why are you here? What's the purpose of life? Spiritual meanings. I tried to dwell on that to a degree in Interiors. Probably the picture will be perceived, and rightly so, as a psychological family drama. Anything on that level ... but I think there’s also a certain amount of religious thought in it that probably will not be apparent to people, because I either failed to do it skillfully enough or it'll be too subtle, or the other things dominate the story so much. The mere domestic relationships will be so either likeable or unlikeable to people. Renata (Keaton) has come to the conclusion that having a great talent or having talent of some sort, expressing yourself, to create things that will live forever, in the sense of her mother’s perception ... dealing with vases and things, that doesn’t mean anything. It’s all jerk-off, it’s all fooling around. You have a sense of immortality, that your work will live on after you, which is nonsense. Art is like the intellectual’s Catholicism, it’s the promise of an afterlife, but of course, it’s fake—you're only doing it because you want to doit. Originally I wanted Geraldine Page to have a religious character, to have believed in Christ and be very involved with that, and my feeling about that sort of involvement is that it’s crazy. Yes, you can get a feeling of immortality, but it’s crazy. There's no rational thinking. Renata comes to realize in the movie, if it’s successful, that the only thing anyone has any chance with is human relationships. Unless she’s closer to her sisters or her husband, or whoever, she’s lost! no amount of aartistic selfimportance and disdain for philistines is TIINVH NVING going to do anything for her. Richard Jordan seemed to me the failed artist who invariably turns to intellectualism, cerebralism, criticism, teaching, stuff like that. The kind of person who vents his personal hostility under the guise of high standards, but it has nothing to do with standards. When he discusses the play with Maureen Stapleton, she’s saying that it’s simple. He's saying, well, it’s more complex than that, which is an intellectual posture. Intellectuals’ positions are very complex, and that’s all junk, you know, because they build structures for themselves. To her, it isn’t at all complex. She’s right. I mean, she may be right because she’s mindless, because she’s not a thinker, but she is right. She’s not befuddled by all the intellectual constructions. The other guy, Waterston, never deals with his own personal problems—goes on living with this girl, doesn’t exactly know why, has feelings of love for her, but he only loses himself in abstractions—you know, the masses, as he says in the thing, “What is the life of one person over the life of thousands of others?” But the thousands of others are always vague and faceless. E.G. is just the father trying to do the right thing. Flyn (Kristin Griffith) in the picture was to me the person who avoids the issue by dehumanizing herself. She goes to California, she’s a pretty object. As Richard Jordan says to her when he’s trying to rape her, she only exists in other people's eyes, she only feels that she exists in the comprehension of another person, and she’s just a pretty object. She doesn’t want to know from the family really, she lives out there, is involved in her pursuit of TV projects, and her grass, and her flirtations, and she is flirtatious with Richard Jordan. She’s focused her mind, she chooses to live her life on one level completely. What she has going for her she pushes, and she’s like an object, no real concerns. Joey (Marybeth. Hurt) is, in a certain sense, the healthiest one at the beginning. She’s got a terrible problem, but what probably happened I would imagine, was that years ago, when her mother cracked up, her father was most affectionate with her, and closest to her, because of the nature of the others, and because of that, she does have a few personal resources. She is trying to express herself in some way and just doesn’t have the talent, and has to deal with a sister who does have talent, and another one who’s attractive and successful. But Joey at least had the advantage of real indulgence from her father. Renata never had that advantage. My feeling is that what I think is going to happen is that Joey is going to have a calmer life than her mother. There is some feeling between her and Keaton, though Keaton isn’t quite ready yet for a rapprochement. And I think Joey will feel the influence of Pearl (Maureen Stapleton). I don’t know which philosopher it was that wrote that the natural person, the brave person, the good person, will always be perceived as a vulgarian by the other people. And this is what I think is true with Maureen. Maureen is far more natural and flexible and decent than all of them, but she'll always be perceived that way, as a vulgarian. Of course, she probably is a little vulgar, but I want people to be on her side, which I think they will be. The film was originally, clearly about Joey, but in the editing and rewriting and shooting, it’s become a little more ensemble. Still, I feel that Joey’s the central character. I thought about Keaton as a possibility for Joey, with a completely different direction, and then | thought of Keaton’s part being played by Jane Alexander, and it’s just a different set-up. Keaton felt that she could play Renata better. If she had said, Joey is perfect for me,” I would have gone that way. I gave her her choice, who she wanted. Mary Beth, I had never seen, or anything. She came up to this office and the second she walked in (I don’t think I spent more than sixty seconds with her), the second she walked in, I knew she was perfect for Joey. I had seen Kristin Griffith before. I felt she reminded me of Keaton’s actual sister TAKE ONE / NOVEMBER 1978 17