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James Bridges left his small hometown in Arkansas.

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And as I promised, our very special guest today is James Bridges, a man of many talents

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and the director of a remarkable film, The Paper Chase, a film I reviewed last week on

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the celluloid armchair.

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Jim, welcome to the program.

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Thank you, Bill.

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Very nice to be here.

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Last week I told everyone about The Paper Chase, but maybe we ought to outline the story

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briefly.

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It's about first-year law students at Harvard, one in particular, Hart, played by Timothy

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Bottoms.

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Can you carry the story on from there?

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Yeah, it's about a young kid named Hart who comes from the Midwest, who comes from Minnesota

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actually and goes to Harvard first year right out of the University of Minnesota, comes

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up against the Eastern establishment, all of the very competitive young men who are

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at Harvard, and it's his trials and tribulations, his confrontation with a very famous and difficult

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law professor played by John Hausman, and it's really just what happens to him the first

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year at Harvard with this professor.

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Well, did you write the script too?

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Yes, I did.

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Well now, this is based on a novel by John J. Osborne.

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Did you use him as a consultant?

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How was he used in this?

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Yeah, John, the book is called The Paper Chase, and it was written while John was a first-year

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1L at Harvard Law School, and John is actually the great-great-great-great-great-grandson

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of John J., who was our first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and I fell in love with

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the book when the studio sent it to me because I saw this extraordinary paper metaphor in

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it about how paper dominates our lives and how young men, well, in colleges and in the

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professional schools like law school, how they chase after the grade that's on a piece

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of paper and consequently the paper chase becomes our chase for money and our chase

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for status, everything in society, isn't it?

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And John was our technical advisor, sure.

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Well did he, for instance, you have some very technical dialogue in there in the classroom,

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did he help you with this?

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Yes he did.

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I would imagine.

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You know, the law is so poetic, and I'm not really a aficionado of law myself, but the

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cases that are used in the film were in the book, but as we began to work on it, on the

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picture John came up and as our technical advisor kept going over and over and over

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all of the cases to make sure everything was accurate.

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Excellent.

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Did you do a rough draft before you talked to Osborne about the script?

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You talked to him first and then you did.

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The first thing I did was once I agreed to make the film I insisted that I be able to

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go back to Harvard, spend a week on the campus, in the classrooms, and talk to Osborne to

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get a sense of what the whole thing was about.

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And then I wrote a first draft and then went back and spent more time with John and then

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he came up and helped us actually during the actual shooting of the picture.

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Excellent.

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You know this film is so well cast.

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Can you tell us how you did cast after you were given the go ahead on this?

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Did you start really with a consideration of Timothy Bottoms?

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You did.

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Before we even, before I started, actually before I started the writing of the piece,

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I said to the studio that I would not make the film, I would not direct the film unless

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I could have Timothy Bottoms to play the lead.

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And once that was taken care of, once I wrote the script and showed it to Timothy, he fell

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in love with the material because there's so few young actors who have that kind of

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intelligence that you can photograph.

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I know some of his background.

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He was in many, many student plays in Santa Barbara.

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And you have called him really a remarkable talent.

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He really earned that, hasn't he?

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Because he has worked, he has learned his trade.

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This is I think very apparent in the film.

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I understand at UCLA, did you go to the drama school there or not?

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Where did you?

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No, I didn't.

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I went to college in a small town in Arkansas called Conway to the Arkansas State Teachers

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College for only two years.

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But my first play that I wrote was produced by a man named Dennis Steagin who was John

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Hausman's assistant at that time.

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And John Hausman had a theater group, a professional theater group on the UCLA campus.

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I see.

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And then you joined that group.

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Right.

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What did you become a stage manager then?

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I became an assistant stage manager first for $25 a week and appeared as all the walk-on,

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carrying spears in all the productions for John.

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Supernumeric.

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Yeah, right.

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Well then this is where you first met John Hausman.

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Yes, it is.

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I imagine you learned a great deal from him.

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Is this one of the reasons you chose him as Kingsley, this very demanding professor at

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Harvard?

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Yeah.

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When I make a film, I have to find something personal in my experience in order to really

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get it up there on the screen.

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It's not enough to just be making believe all the time.

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And I began to identify very much with Timothy Bottoms.

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And Timothy and I were talking about the person that he admired most in the theater in America.

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And it turned out to be John Hausman who was a friend of mine.

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And Hausman had been my Kingsfield.

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So when we went to Juilliard, it was very obvious who was going to be the professor.

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You know, his performance is extraordinary.

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Did the studio, because most people undoubtedly do not know his name, unfortunately, because

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he hasn't had the big buildup in Hollywood and all of that and is not one of the acting

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commodities, did the studio resist your casting of Hausman?

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At the beginning.

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And Hausman said they would.

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I sent him the script and I said, how do you like it?

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And he said, I want to play Kingsfield.

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And he said, but they won't have me.

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He said, but I'll test.

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And so I tested him, convinced the studio to let me test him.

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And the minute that they saw it, Gordon Stuhlberg, who was the president of Fox and who was a

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lawyer, went to, I think, Cornell.

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I was not in the screening room, but I was told that when he saw the test, he said, that's

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the man.

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And so this was your Kingsfield.

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Yep.

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And you'll probably get an Academy Award for this.

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You'll probably get one.

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I hope so.

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It will be a mutual thing.

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Who was your director of photography on this?

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The photography, I think, is remarkable.

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You've referred to the director of photography as another Greg Toland.

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There is this chiaroscuro lighting in there that you tried to achieve.

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What is, who is this fine director?

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His name is Gordon Willis.

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And I suppose most people would know his work from The Godfather.

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He shot The Godfather, Clute, Up the Sandbox, Loving, End of the Road.

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He's just done a new film for Alan Bacula called Parallax View.

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And Gordon is more than just a cameraman.

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He really is a director of photography, and we worked very closely together, the whole

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film.

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There is no hard light in the film at all.

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It's all reflected light, which is very...

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It's all reflected light.

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All reflected.

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Well, you have the feeling, especially when the students meet in these study sessions,

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that it's almost a Rembrandt, you have.

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This is...

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Well, the hope was in those study sessions, the look was that we wanted to do...

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Young men in portraits, you know, portraits of old judges.

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And the hope was that we would have the kind of our gang comedy grown up in these portraits

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of old judges.

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So it was a kind of, it was an in-joke a little bit.

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It's also sort of sepia-toned, isn't it?

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I feel that they're very warm colors.

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Yeah, always very warm colors.

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The idea was that, you know, the New York Times Magazine section of the Sunday Times,

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the look was we wanted to achieve that kind of Eastern warm autumn look at all times.

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And you did.

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It was magnificent.

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I understand you have several projects in the wings, a new play, and you're working

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with Christopher Isherwood right now, preparing a screenplay based on Isherwood's novel, A

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Meeting by the River.

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Yes.

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Is this something that you're going to complete shortly?

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Yeah.

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Christopher Isherwood and Don Bacardi wrote a theatrical adaptation, a play of the novel,

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A Meeting by the River, which I directed in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum a year

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ago with Sam Waterston and Larry Luckinbill.

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And I just yesterday morning finished working with Chris and Don on the first step outline

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of the picture, which will be a film that will shoot in India and London with hopefully

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Albert Finney and Alan Bates.

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I see.

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Who are the producers now on this?

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That's, well, I'm going to produce it with Gordon Willis.

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Excellent.

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And so you'll be able to do it just exactly the way you want to do it, right?

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For instance, now that we're talking about producers, who are the young producers now

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that made the paper chase possible?

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I understand that at least one of them is even younger than Timothy Bottoms.

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Yeah.

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Their names are Robert Thompson and Roderick Paul.

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And Rod is, he was 20 while we were making the film, and he's just turned 21.

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Tell me, what is the particular magic of a producer anyway?

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What is his function?

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Well, I've been very fortunate in the two films that I've directed in having very good

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producers.

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They put you with the material.

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They produce the stars you want, and then they fight any kind of studio fights you might

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have.

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And they stay off the set and out of the cutting room unless you ask them to come in.

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In other words, this is not like the old Hollywood factory system where a director has an option

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on first cut and then it's taken apart by the producers later on.

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Well, we worked so well together, Bob and Rod and I, that none of that happened.

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I have in my contract two preview cuts.

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And so by the time that we had the second preview, the film was solidified.

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Very good.

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Who was the editor on this?

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His name is Walter Thompson, and I've worked with Walter now in both films, A Baby Maker

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and The Paper Chase, and I'd never do a film without him.

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I think he's the greatest cutter in Hollywood.

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He cut for John Ford, for John Houston, for Fred Zenneman, and he really knows the insides

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and outs of making movies.

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In other words, you do rely on him to use his creative ability.

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Oh, absolutely.

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In other words, you don't just simply dictate.

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Oh, absolutely.

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Well, hopefully as I get better and better, there's only one way of cutting the picture,

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and I cut a lot in the camera now.

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But I've learned a lot from Walter, and we think so much alike now that he knows the

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minute I point to a take or tell him what I want to do that he knows how to put it together.

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Very good.

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I want to thank you so much, James Bridges, for joining us today.

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You really should get out, all of you in the audience, to see The Paper Chase.

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It's an extraordinary film, and the screenplay and direction are by James Bridges.

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I'll be back after these messages.

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Terrific.

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We just got it within three seconds.

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Terrific.

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Now.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Excellent, every facet of production.

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All we can do is urge people to take their feet off their TV stools and turn off the

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idiot box and get on down to see The Paper Chase.

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It's a great film, Jim.

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Thank you, Bill.

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Today what I want to do is ask you about your career.

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You went to school in Arkansas, am I correct?

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That's right, to Arkansas State Teachers College, which is now called, I think, Arkansas State College.

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I see.

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And then you had ambitions to what?

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To really go to Hollywood?

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I wanted to be a movie star.

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And I went out and I did about 50 television shows as an actor and five feature films.

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And then I was drafted, and then I discovered when I came back from the service that I wasn't

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going to be a movie star, and then decided to become a writer.

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That's the next best thing, isn't it?

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Well, I think it...

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Or maybe even a little bit better.

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I think it gets better the better I am.

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You have a longer career there, don't you think?

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Who knows?

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Well, right now you're a theater director, a screen director, a screenwriter, playwright.

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Can you also operate a camera?

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Well, I can operate a 16 millimeter camera and a little Super 8, but the Big 35, I don't

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even pretend to be able to do that.

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Do you make home movies and edit them yourself and so on?

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I did until my camera was stolen.

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I was shooting a lot of film, 16 millimeter, and then I took the camera to London and shot

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a very short 16 millimeter film over in London.

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The cameraman, an English cameraman, stole my camera.

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Well, the insurance company had nothing to say about that.

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00:14:36.620 --> 00:14:39.780
I wasn't insured, actually, so I was very upset about that.

244
00:14:39.920 --> 00:14:42.180
I was wondering whether it was one of those London closets.

245
00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:42.720
No.

246
00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:48.400
How did you get to be a writer for the Hitchcock series on television?

247
00:14:48.400 --> 00:14:52.580
I understand you wrote many of these, and did you win an Emmy?

248
00:14:53.420 --> 00:14:54.660
I was nominated for an Emmy.

249
00:14:54.680 --> 00:14:55.300
You were nominated for an Emmy?

250
00:14:55.340 --> 00:14:59.560
And I won the Mystery Writers of America, the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Hitchcock Show.

251
00:14:59.980 --> 00:15:03.300
Actually, John Housman, who's in the paper chase, had a lot to do with that.

252
00:15:03.980 --> 00:15:07.300
I wrote a play which was called The Days of the Dancing that starred Jan Sterling and

253
00:15:07.300 --> 00:15:11.580
Dennis Hopper, which was done in California in 1961.

254
00:15:12.680 --> 00:15:17.060
And John Housman came to the play, actually, an assistant of his produced and directed

255
00:15:17.060 --> 00:15:22.180
the play, and John came to it and brought people who produced the Alfred Hitchcock

256
00:15:22.180 --> 00:15:25.580
television show, Norman Lloyd, who used to be a part of the Mercury Theatre with Orson

257
00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:26.640
Wells and John Housman.

258
00:15:27.280 --> 00:15:32.340
And they liked my writing very much and asked me to come and be, well, not a staff writer,

259
00:15:32.340 --> 00:15:34.980
but I did six every season of the Hitchcock shows.

260
00:15:35.420 --> 00:15:36.620
These were hour-long shows?

261
00:15:36.640 --> 00:15:37.540
The hour-long shows.

262
00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:38.620
That's quite a task.

263
00:15:38.820 --> 00:15:43.360
Were you able immediately to write this type of script, or did it take some time to catch on?

264
00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:49.040
Well, Norman is a very good theatre man, and so we understood each other, the language.

265
00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:50.220
We had no problem like that.

266
00:15:50.280 --> 00:15:52.540
And the first one I wrote was a big success.

267
00:15:52.800 --> 00:15:54.880
I wrote it for Robert Redford and Zora Lampert.

268
00:15:55.420 --> 00:16:02.880
And after that, I'd take each one of the stories and work on them in a specific manner, one

269
00:16:02.880 --> 00:16:07.620
for plot, one for characterization, one for suspense, one for just a straight storyline.

270
00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:10.840
And so that was very exciting to work that way all the time.

271
00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:11.740
It's like summer stock.

272
00:16:12.020 --> 00:16:12.280
Right.

273
00:16:12.280 --> 00:16:16.360
And this, of course, prepared you for screenwriting, didn't it?

274
00:16:16.440 --> 00:16:16.960
Yeah.

275
00:16:17.340 --> 00:16:21.100
What was your first feature film as a writer?

276
00:16:22.140 --> 00:16:27.620
The first one that was produced was called The Appaloosa that starred Marlon Brando.

277
00:16:28.180 --> 00:16:29.200
Oh, well, I remember that.

278
00:16:29.220 --> 00:16:29.740
Yeah.

279
00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:33.340
What, did you get to meet Brando on this?

280
00:16:33.340 --> 00:16:33.660
Oh, yeah.

281
00:16:33.660 --> 00:16:39.120
I spent an awful lot of time with Marlon before we started shooting and during the first three

282
00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:39.800
weeks of shooting.

283
00:16:42.860 --> 00:16:44.600
It was a very interesting thing.

284
00:16:45.560 --> 00:16:49.660
The first 40 pages of the script dealt with the killing of an Indian, the way Matt got

285
00:16:49.660 --> 00:16:50.260
his horse.

286
00:16:50.860 --> 00:16:55.740
And at that time, Marlon was obviously into his Indian trip.

287
00:16:56.060 --> 00:17:00.000
And I went up to his house and he said, I will not shoot an Indian on screen.

288
00:17:00.100 --> 00:17:01.420
I will not kill an Indian.

289
00:17:01.860 --> 00:17:05.680
And he said, and I don't think you can rewrite the top of the show until you know more about

290
00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:06.100
the Indians.

291
00:17:06.100 --> 00:17:11.240
And he literally gave me 30, 40 books about the American Indian and said, take these home

292
00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:14.100
and read them and then we can talk about the script, which I did.

293
00:17:14.800 --> 00:17:16.180
And you changed the recording?

294
00:17:16.180 --> 00:17:20.500
We changed the, I mean, the whole opening and the ending based on not killing Indians.

295
00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:21.820
Very, very good.

296
00:17:23.120 --> 00:17:25.560
What was the first feature that you directed?

297
00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:27.820
It was a film called The Baby Maker.

298
00:17:28.800 --> 00:17:30.500
And this was also your script, wasn't it?

299
00:17:30.500 --> 00:17:30.780
Right.

300
00:17:30.800 --> 00:17:31.960
It was an original screenplay.

301
00:17:32.140 --> 00:17:33.620
And that was very well received.

302
00:17:33.900 --> 00:17:34.440
Very, yeah.

303
00:17:34.700 --> 00:17:35.160
Yeah.

304
00:17:35.160 --> 00:17:36.280
I remember it well.

305
00:17:36.820 --> 00:17:39.360
Did you get many directing offers after The Baby Maker?

306
00:17:40.560 --> 00:17:42.000
Did you take any of them?

307
00:17:42.320 --> 00:17:48.680
No, I got a lot of things like Summer 42, I was offered to direct before anybody else,

308
00:17:48.700 --> 00:17:49.680
and I turned it down.

309
00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:50.860
Why did you turn that down?

310
00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:55.380
I didn't believe the ending, but it certainly turned out to be a very successful film.

311
00:17:55.480 --> 00:17:57.940
I still don't believe the end of Summer 42.

312
00:17:57.940 --> 00:17:57.940


313
00:17:59.720 --> 00:18:04.940
And really a lot of things, Save the Tiger, Kansas City Bomber.

314
00:18:05.580 --> 00:18:08.340
You really should have directed Save the Tiger, shouldn't you?

315
00:18:08.860 --> 00:18:11.240
Well, I haven't seen the picture, but I sure did like the script.

316
00:18:11.380 --> 00:18:12.880
Steve Shagan's script was beautiful.

317
00:18:13.220 --> 00:18:14.060
Magnificent film.

318
00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:14.720


319
00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:19.760
You directed a number of plays in Scotland, am I correct?

320
00:18:19.860 --> 00:18:20.120
Yes.

321
00:18:20.140 --> 00:18:20.900
How did this happen?

322
00:18:21.740 --> 00:18:25.440
Well, I like to keep my hands in both theater and film.

323
00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:30.440
And I have over the past few years been working with the University of Southern California's

324
00:18:31.660 --> 00:18:39.320
theater department under John Blankenship, and I direct for the SC theater department

325
00:18:39.320 --> 00:18:41.920
when they go to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival.

326
00:18:42.800 --> 00:18:42.800


327
00:18:43.820 --> 00:18:50.380
With all of your creative outpouring, do you in addition have a large family, 12 children and a dog?

328
00:18:51.020 --> 00:18:53.440
I have a dog, but I'm unmarried.

329
00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:55.620
That's why you're so successful.

330
00:18:56.780 --> 00:18:57.180
Probably.

331
00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:08.000
What can we really do to save our theater, if you feel that it should be saved, as well as our motion pictures,

332
00:19:09.220 --> 00:19:15.440
from largely what I think a lot of people consider an outpouring of banality.

333
00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:22.520
Blood and Gut films, Hate Whitey films, the Disney escape pieces, all of these things.

334
00:19:22.520 --> 00:19:28.060
Who is really to blame for some of this material?

335
00:19:29.820 --> 00:19:33.480
I don't know where you put the blame, but I think that if we want the theater to survive,

336
00:19:33.600 --> 00:19:35.520
that we must nourish our playwrights.

337
00:19:36.140 --> 00:19:41.580
And there are many, many playwrights in this country and in the world that are really getting the short end of the stick.

338
00:19:41.660 --> 00:19:42.880
They're languishing, aren't they?

339
00:19:42.900 --> 00:19:43.600
They certainly are.

340
00:19:43.620 --> 00:19:49.660
What's happened is that I think, and being a director I think I can speak from that point of view,

341
00:19:49.660 --> 00:19:55.080
is that it's turned into a director's theater and to a producer's theater, and it's not a playwright's theater anymore.

342
00:19:55.800 --> 00:19:59.200
The best theaters have always been a playwright's theater.

343
00:19:59.420 --> 00:20:02.940
Shaw certainly had no director. He sat and thumped the stage himself.

344
00:20:03.060 --> 00:20:05.880
Shakespeare directed his own plays with a stage manager.

345
00:20:06.380 --> 00:20:08.060
And we have great, great playwrights.

346
00:20:09.340 --> 00:20:16.920
And as a matter of fact, I just saw last night here in Chicago, production of Freedom of the City, the new Brian Friel play.

347
00:20:17.560 --> 00:20:18.180
Did you like that?

348
00:20:18.180 --> 00:20:20.160
I think it's sensational.

349
00:20:20.320 --> 00:20:23.640
It's one of the best things I've seen in the theater in years at the Goodman.

350
00:20:23.860 --> 00:20:26.200
And I'm getting goose-flesh thinking about it.

351
00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:27.260
I just think it's great.

352
00:20:27.860 --> 00:20:32.940
And the theater in the middle of the country can make the theater.

353
00:20:32.940 --> 00:20:36.400
I don't think New York is going to help the theater survive because it's all too commercially and directorial.

354
00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:38.520
It's way, way too commercial, isn't it?

355
00:20:39.180 --> 00:20:39.180


356
00:20:39.460 --> 00:20:42.320
It's very true what you said, I think, about the playwright.

357
00:20:42.320 --> 00:20:51.240
I think all the playwright really needs, he needs paper and he needs his actors, but he certainly doesn't need the rest of it, does he?

358
00:20:51.340 --> 00:20:52.920
He needs to set up a platform anywhere.

359
00:20:53.020 --> 00:20:55.820
He needs a floor and one light and he can make a play.

360
00:20:57.740 --> 00:21:10.280
I've always had the feeling that also this is a rather inequitable situation in Hollywood where the director is always given the first credits.

361
00:21:10.280 --> 00:21:15.320
We have, for instance, Kubrick's Clockwork Orange.

362
00:21:16.060 --> 00:21:19.120
Actually, it took a person to write this, didn't it? Anthony Burgess.

363
00:21:20.060 --> 00:21:21.320
Films are a little different.

364
00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:29.340
I, as a director of film, feel that the director is the writer and I know that Kubrick works very closely with Burgess.

365
00:21:29.760 --> 00:21:34.740
But unlike the theater, the director does make many, many more contributions.

366
00:21:35.120 --> 00:21:36.220
So it's a little different.

367
00:21:36.500 --> 00:21:39.240
And it's really sort of a team warfare, isn't it?

368
00:21:39.240 --> 00:21:42.560
You really have to get a good team together.

369
00:21:43.060 --> 00:21:48.640
Well, John Huston was very responsible in an interview that he had in directors on film directing.

370
00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:55.680
I always read every director because you begin to know that you're not alone out there being insecure and not knowing what you're doing often.

371
00:21:56.160 --> 00:22:03.600
And he said, and it's been sort of the axum that I've used all the way through my life, is that you hire the very best people

372
00:22:03.600 --> 00:22:10.460
and you create an atmosphere where those people can function the best and trust them and go with them.

373
00:22:11.080 --> 00:22:15.460
It would seem to me, though, the ideal director would also be his own writer.

374
00:22:15.660 --> 00:22:16.360
I think so.

375
00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:25.180
And in this way, I think we will have some extraordinary films coming out if our producers give the writer-director his head.

376
00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:26.860
I think so, absolutely.

377
00:22:26.860 --> 00:22:29.280
I think it's the only...the director is the writer of the film.

378
00:22:29.300 --> 00:22:33.600
I know I'll be killed in California by that, but I feel it very strongly.

379
00:22:33.980 --> 00:22:37.400
You know, not too long ago, you worked with the famous director Jean Renoir.

380
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:40.820
Does he really control his material, too?

381
00:22:40.820 --> 00:22:41.400
Oh, very much.

382
00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:42.220
Always has, hasn't he?

383
00:22:42.220 --> 00:22:43.580
Very, very, very much.

384
00:22:44.560 --> 00:22:48.240
Jean is now deep in his 70s.

385
00:22:48.560 --> 00:22:55.860
And I worked on a piece that he wrote many years ago, a play called Corolla that he wrote, I think, for Jean Moreau.

386
00:22:55.860 --> 00:22:58.660
Oh, a remarkable actor she is.

387
00:22:59.120 --> 00:23:05.740
Then it was done on NET with Leslie Caron playing the Moreau role, and I thought Leslie was absolutely wonderful,

388
00:23:05.740 --> 00:23:13.540
but it's extraordinary to know Jean Renoir and to go into his house and see his father's paintings all over the walls and the sculpture.

389
00:23:14.300 --> 00:23:14.300


390
00:23:14.480 --> 00:23:17.820
He lives now out west, doesn't he?

391
00:23:17.820 --> 00:23:18.820
Yes, he does, in Beverly Hills.

392
00:23:18.820 --> 00:23:19.900
In Beverly Hills, right.

393
00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:23.060
Well, Jim Bridges, it's been an honor.

394
00:23:23.100 --> 00:23:25.220
Thank you for being on our program today.

395
00:23:25.220 --> 00:23:27.700
It's a pleasure talking with you.

396
00:23:27.900 --> 00:23:33.800
Let us just say here, your film, The Paper Chase, is out right now, and I urge that everyone see it.

397
00:23:33.840 --> 00:23:35.140
It's a remarkable film.

398
00:23:36.080 --> 00:23:36.700
Thank you, Jim.

399
00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:37.440
Thank you, Bill.

400
00:23:37.620 --> 00:23:38.980
I'll be back after these messages.

