Author: Pete Hamill Translator: Isaac Proofreader: Onegin Source: "American Movie" We use the epic crime film "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984) and the article published by Pete Hamill in the June 1984 issue of "American Movie" Above, excerpts from an interview with film dir

2023-12-29 20:49:03 entertainment 9502℃

Author: pete hamill

Translator: issac

Proofreader: Onegin

Source: "American Movies"

We use the epic crime film "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984) and by Pete Hamill in the June 1984 issue of American Film, excerpts from an interview with film director Sergio Leone celebrate the 20th anniversary (Translator's note: commemorative article published in 2004).

Author: Pete Hamill Translator: Isaac Proofreader: Onegin Source: 'American Movie' We use the epic crime film 'Once Upon a Time in America' (1984) and the article published by Pete Hamill in the June 1984 issue of 'American Movie' Above, excerpts from an interview with film dir - Lujuba

Sergio Leone on the set of Once Upon a Time in America

It’s clear from that candid interview that for someone like Leone, who grew up in a film family, filmmaking is something sacred. belief. In the 1950s, under the influence of Hollywood, the wilderness of the American West was always beautified or cartoonized.

Leone masterfully revealed the true face of the American West, and in doing so established his own artistic expression, which he perfected through three films: "The Red Dead," "The Good and the Bad," and "Once Upon a Time in the West." The genre of spaghetti westerns.

Leone confides in us the difficult and lonely 10 years it took to create what would become his final and best work. Here, he talks about technical filmmaking and his firm and sentimental belief in the idealized American dream, "America is a decisive denial of the old world, the adult world."

During the filming of "Once Upon a Time in America," Sai Eljo Leone is largely unavailable for interviews. However, in the early spring of this year, he finally had time to talk about his method of making films.

Reporter: When you were a child, did you have any impression of the United States in your mind?

Leone : Of course, as a child, America existed in my imagination. I think that America exists in the imagination of kids who buy comic books, read books by James Fenimore Cooper and Louisa May Alcott, and watch movies. The United States is a decisive negation of the old world and the adult world.

Sergio Leone and composer Ennio Morricone

I live in Rome, where I was born in 1929, when it was the capital of Mussolini’s dictatorship - everywhere on earth They are all newspapers, and the culture can see the shadow of Tokyo and Berlin, with military parades happening one after another. But my family was anti-fascist and committed to the film industry, so I didn’t have to suffer the pain of ignorance. I watched a lot of movies.

Anyway, it was roughly after the war that I became obsessed with all things Hollywood. The Yankee troops brought not only cigarettes, chocolate bars, Allied military stamps, and the peach jam praised in Vittorio De Sica's "Shoeshine Boy" - they also came to Italy with them. There are countless movies that have never been dubbed in Italian before.

"Shoe Shine Boy"

For two or three years in a row, I must have watched three hundred movies every month. Westerns, comedies, gangster movies, war movies—I watch them all. The publisher also publishes translations of works by Hemingway, Faulkner, Hammett, and James Caan. This is simply a cultural feast.

This also made me understand that the United States is really the wealth of the world, not just Americans. Americans will always use American lifestyle to dilute their mythical ideas. The United States once existed in the dreams of philosophers and tramps. It was a land of suffering before it was discovered by the Spanish fleet, and then colonists from all over the world went there to thrive.

The Americans only rented the place temporarily. If they don't do well, or if America loses its mystique, or if their movies stop being interesting and their history becomes just mundane and day-to-day boring, we can always kick them out of the land. We can take back any agreement we make at any time.

Reporter: Your father Vincenzo Leone is a director. How did this affect your first impression of the film?

Leone : As a child, I thought my father invented movies. I thought my dad was Santa Claus, and I also knew that there was another aspect of the film world, off the screen, where there were a lot of technicians and makeup artists and set workers and hair and costume people.

I know everything about cables, cameras, microphones, and reflectors. Perhaps because of this, I care very much about the technical aspect when making movies. When I go to the studio it's like going to mass, and the mixing part is the most sacred ritual for me.

I think making movies is very interesting in itself, especially when shooting in Death Valley where wolves are howling and on the Brooklyn Bridge where ships are honking.

But the audio and video editing machine is the altar full of magic. A man sat in front of the console, waving his hands like a god. I've always known that people make movies and then structure them like a prayer.

Reporter: Can you talk about the difficult process of writing the script for "Once Upon a Time in America"?

Leone : I heard about the characters in "Once Upon a Time in America" after filming "The Good and the Bad." I found this book in a bookstore in Rome. It was "the hoods" by Harry Gary.

The story of these Jewish gangsters—defying God three times and then resolutely challenging it five more times—is as lingering in my mind as the mother’s curse in an old Boris Karloff movie. I desperately wanted to make this movie.

We started working on the film adaptation rights, but two other companies had already taken the lead. Things didn't go very smoothly, but we succeeded in the end. It took a lot of brainpower and a lot of money to get the copyright. Then the hellish screenwriting phase begins.

"Once Upon a Time in America"

Among the many screenwriters, Norman Mailer was the first to write. He locked himself in a hotel room in Rome with a box of cigars, a typewriter, and a bottle of whiskey. However, I'm sorry to say that he only gave a terrible version of the script. At least in the eyes of me, a long-time fan, Mailer is not the material to write movies.

Various strange controversies arose during the production stage - material issues, supernatural issues, all kinds of messy metaphysical issues - and new versions of the script were constantly written, but none of them were satisfactory. Later, I took the initiative to meet the enemy - that is, thinking about the filming aspect. After a long time, I met with Arnone Milchan.

Before he devoted himself to photography, he must have been an archmage in some Gothic church. In fact, at some point, everything slowly started to take shape.

Detective writer Leo Benvenuti and film enthusiast Stuart Kaminsky miraculously completed the final draft, the sun in the sky bloomed again, and we all embarked on a great journey. We worked continuously for two years. To me, we were like a ship. We finally arrived at the port with colorful flags fluttering in the wind and no crew casualties.

Reporter: You are very obsessed with American mythology, first the myth of the West, and then the myth of the gangster. why?

Leone : I'm not obsessed with western or gangster mythology like you said. I'm not like people in East New York or West Los Angeles, who are all obsessed with the mythical concept of America. I'm talking about the individual, and the endless horizon - the "El Dorado".

I believe that except in rare movies, movies have never absorbed much of these concepts. If you think about it carefully, you will find that the United States itself has never made any efforts in that direction.

But there is no doubt that cinema, unlike democratic politics, has done what it can. Think "Easy Rider," "Taxi Driver," "Scarface" and "Bad Guys." I really like John Ford's vast spaces and Martin Scorsese's urban claustrophobia. These are the intersecting petals of the American daisy.

"Easy Rider"

America is like the elf in a fairy tale, saying, "If you want something for nothing, your wish will be fulfilled. It will just appear in a form that you cannot recognize at all." My films are all about these fables.

I really like the social aspect, but I still love fables, especially their dark side. I don’t think my next movie, by any means, will be an American fable. But now I am saying this and denying it.

Reporter: Why does the Western as a movie genre seem to be coming to an end? Did the gangster movie replace it?

Leone : The Western is not finished, not before and not now. What really comes to an end is the movie! Perhaps compared to westerns, gangster films have not yet been drilled into their bones by professors of sociological truths, teachers of demystifying and stomach-turning, but that advantage will soon disappear.

If you want to make a good movie, you need a lot of time, money and credibility. And now the need for these is doubled.

California's movie paradise once sparkled, but unfortunately the golden blood of the past has almost completely dried up. A few intrepid miners kept digging, weeping and cursing the television industry, fate, and the age of spectacle that brought the studios around the world. But they were dinosaurs and destined for extinction.

Reporter: At that time, no one could be like Clint Eastwood. What do you think of him?

Leone : There is a story that someone asked Michelangelo what he saw on this marble when he selected one among hundreds of marbles. Michelangelo replied that he saw Moses. . I would give the same answer to your question - only backwards.

In 1964, Clint Eastwood was playing some second-rate character in a Western TV series that I didn't know existed. When they asked me what I saw in him, I simply said that all I saw was a marble. .

"The Good, the Bad, the Bad"

Reporter: How do you compare an actor like Eastwood with an actor like Robert De Niro?

Leone : Eastwood is hard to compare to Robert De Niro. The former is a paraffin mask. You can think about it, in reality the two of them are not engaged in the same profession at all. When Robert De Niro enters this or that role, he will give it a character naturally and elegantly, while others would focus on the appearance of the character.

Clint Eastwood put on a suit of armor and pulled down his visor with a click. This just happens to be a low-grade visor that shapes who he is. And the crunch he made when he pulled down his visor was like a martini in Harry's Bar in Venice, dry and tasteless, and so was he.

Take a closer look at him. Eastwood moves like a sleepwalker in a hail of bullets, always staying the same—just a block of marble. Robert is first and foremost an actor. Clint is first and foremost a star. Robert suffered a lot and Clint yawned a lot.

"Once Upon a Time in America"

Reporter: Are you surprised that an actor became the president of the United States? He was supposed to be a director, right?

Leone : Let me tell you straight, I won’t be surprised by anything anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if I read in the newspaper that in our turn, a president became an actor. I'd be surprised if the movies he starred in were worse than those starring actors who became President of the United States. Anyway, I don’t know many presidents, but I know a lot of actors.

So I'm pretty sure that actors are like children - trusting, narcissistic, and volatile. So, correspondingly, I guess the same goes for presidents, just like children. Only a child who became an actor and then president would truly believe that "Aftermath" hides those who know about the new "Yellow Peril" (Translator's Note: Ultra-nationalist theory, promoting yellow people as a threat to white people).

"After the Catastrophe"

If possible, the director is the least suitable to be president. I could film him as the head of the Secret Service. He will mobilize his men, and then they will perform until the end, and if nothing else, they will put on a big show. If it's a good shot, that's great. Otherwise, just reshoot. The aging Yuri Andropov would have had a much smoother job—and maybe even lived longer—if he had been a director instead of a policeman.

Reporter: Most of your films are full of masculinity. Do you have any problem with women?

Leone : I have nothing against women, in fact all my best friends are women. How can you think so? I tolerate minorities, I respect them and am close to them, so you can imagine me kneeling down in front of my other half in heaven.

Think of it this way, I'm even married to a woman and in addition to a son, I have two daughters.

So if my films ignore women, at least so far, it’s not because I’m misogynistic or chauvinistic. It’s that the epic films I’ve made and epics, by definition, are a male universe.

The character played by Claudia Cardinale in "Once Upon a Time in the West" should be a decent character to me. She is an unusual, somewhat violent character, if I may say so. Anyway, I've been thinking about making a film about a woman for a few years now.

"Once Upon a Time in the West"

Before going to bed every night, I ponder a few good stories in my head. But, whether out of caution or superstition—because I am only a human being, perhaps even too much of a human being, I had better not discuss this now.

I remember in 1966 or '67, Warren Beatty and I were talking about an American gangster movie project, and a few weeks later, he announced that he would produce and star in "Gangster." All these coincidences and associations bother me.

Reporter: Where do you think you are among Italian directors and other European directors? Which director do you like? Who else is overly praised?

Leone : Of course, there is no doubt that I myself have a place in film history. I was on the director's list in order of the letter "l". In fact, behind me was my friend Mario Monicelli, and in front of me were Alexander Korda, Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa.

Akira Kurosawa's brilliant "Yojimbo" was inspired by an American detective novel, and his film inspired my "Red Dead Redemption." My producer wasn't very bright.He forgot to pay Kurosawa the royalties, and Kurosawa was dissatisfied, so my producer later compensated him millions of dollars. But that's the way the world is.

"Yojimbo"

No matter what, I will always have a place in film history. Right between the names starting with k and the names starting with m, it can be found somewhere between page 250 and page 320 of any directory of great directors. If my last name was Antelope, I would be number one. But I still like Leone; I was born to be a hunter, not a prey.

As for the second question, I especially love young directors from the United States and Britain. I like Fellini and Truffaut. But I can't say that it's overestimated. You should ask the film critics - their reviews are the only ones that are reliable on the scale of overrated, underrated, or so-so. The film critic is a public servant, and he has no idea who he is busy with.

Reporter: Who is more important, screenwriter or director?

Leone : Director. Writers should have no illusions about this. But the screenwriter is second most important. The director should have no illusions about this either.

Leone

Reporter: Do you have any advice for people who want to be directors?

Leone : I think you should read more comics and watch TV more often, and the most important thing is to know that movies are not made for snobs, other filmmakers or petulant film critics. A successful movie must be both lowly and high-spirited. Otherwise, it will look like a donut with only a hole in the middle.

Reporter: F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "Action is character." Do you agree?

Leone : In fact, I am not good at doing action scenes, and in my opinion, John Ford is not good at it either. I prefer photographing gestures and silence. I am also the interpreter of the picture. But if you really want an answer, then I would say I agree with Fitzgerald.

I myself often say that actions are roles. But actually, more accurately, I said, "Listen! Get ready for action and character." Of course, we're talking about the same thing. At other times, like at the dinner table, I sometimes say, "Listen! Let's start the meal. Pass me the salt."

Reporter: When you're not making movies, what do you do?

Leone : I have to confess, ever since I was a child, when no one dared to ask me these questions, I would always imagine that I would be the first to respond coldly, "Stop it! No way! I won't even listen to you. Question. My privacy is sacrosanct and I don’t want to put it out there just to amuse you nosy reporters." Every time I tried, they shamed me into admitting all the facts. .

The next is my answer: I will sunbathe, watch movies, watch football games, think about my next movie, read books, read scripts, meet friends, sometimes go on vacation, play chess, often visit my family, It annoyed them all.

I love my family very much, like all Italians, including Luciano Luciano and Don Viter Corleone, but I don't know how to talk to them. They say they have been putting up with me, but in fact I am putting up with them.

Reporter: Now that you have finished filming "Once Upon a Time in America," can you look back and evaluate the film?

Leone : "Once Upon a Time in America" is the best movie I've ever made, one of a kind - I swear - I knew it from the moment I got Harry Gary's book.I'm glad I made this movie, even though I was as tight as Dick Tracy's jaw during filming. It's always like this when making movies. Filmmaking is hard, but finishing a movie feels great.