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Peter Bart: So, I would like to ask each of you, as we go down the row--starting with
you, Darren--what effect do you feel that being involved in this ritual,
how has it affected you, how it will affect your filmmaking plans? And talking
about yourself constantly night and day, how does this--does this build a
certain self-loathing within you? Darren Aronofsky: I think the self-loathing
is important. I remember after Pi, I used to write in my
journal, "I don't know anything. I don't know anything. I don't know anything."
after the success, just to try and keep tough.
And I think it's important that with all the good stuff you have to
remember that the reason you got here is all of the hard work, and all the
doubt and stuff. And there was tremendous doubt.
I mean, four weeks before we started shooting Black Swan, the money fell
apart, and I literally was going to give up except for the threat of being
beat up by Natalie Portman. So, and I was willing to give up because I
had doubts about the project, which I think that you always forget.
I don't know. Every time I go to a film, I get all the big doubts all the way up to the
beginning and then you forget those doubts. It's important to write down all that fear,
so you could remember; it's going to come up again.
And I think, if it doesn't come up, it's a bad thing.
So, I don't know. It's, the whole circuit I think has been--
the best part's been the friendships that I've had.
We were joking backstage that I could play Hooper and Hooper could play Russell,
and we could do each others lines because we have gone to, we have done a bunch
of these and we know each other's answers at this point.
So, all of us are trying to be fresh and tell new stories and--
Tom Hooper: He is just currently doing me, by the way.
(laughter) Darren: So, well that's been part is that
there has been some, I think probably lasting comradeship between the filmmakers
here, which has been a good part of it.
And I think as quick as possible, on February 28th we are all going to get
back to work, so... Peter: Charles?
Charles Ferguson: Well, I am kind of new to this.
This is only the second film I have ever made, and this is certainly the first
time I've had this incredible immersion into the anthropology of Hollywood,
which certainly is different. It's not MIT.
I've enjoyed some of it, I have to say. I've been to a couple of really nice parties
with some very, very good food. And I have met a number of wonderful and interesting
filmmakers, both feature filmmakers and the other documentary filmmakers,
who are very interesting guys. I met--not all guys, excuse me.
I recently met the two very guys who did Restrepo. And my previous film was about the occupation
of Iraq, so it was interesting to see their sense of a different war.
I have enjoyed a lot of things, but it is also true that it has been very hard
to carve out time to write and to work. I love making movies and I am very eager to--
Peter: Now I know you are thinking of doing actually a dramatic, a theatrical movie next.
Does that, do you think that's been stimulated by your proximately to infamous
characters like David O. Russell? Charles Ferguson: I, with all due respect
sir, no, I'm afraid not. I've wasted a very substantial fraction of
my life from a very early age, like seven, reading and watching thrillers, and
I love them. If I could make Chinatown or something like
that, I would be just in heaven, just in heaven.
Peter: Debra? Debra Granik: I think something very positive
that I am feeling about participating in this season is, sort of seeing-- it's really
where you started the panel with, seeing that there is a crop of films that
are being made differently and finding kinship with other films that are made on
small budgets. I think it gives me a lot of hope, actually.
I feel like it's a little bit of hopeful season, this one.
I think the awkward thing at the beginning of the season was sort of just
the female, the woman question was awkward. That set me in so often a weird headspace
because it's hard to answer that one. Is there an effect from last year and what
does it mean? So, that one I am so glad but that's not actually
being raised. But that, I had trouble even coming up with
good answers on that, but otherwise, I feel like another thing that was extremely
rich about the season was seeing journalistic support for small films
and seeing what they could do, how far they could go.
With writing contextualized interesting information about films to actually get
an audience for paperless, for a film that had no billboards and no advertising,
that to me is also, it's just a really hopeful sign, and so I feel inspired by
this time that we are in. Peter: Well, I think the only answer to the
question, 'why aren't there more women directing?' is just simply to say, well, why
don't you ask Charles Ferguson why does Obama keep on appointing people from
Goldman Sachs? There is no answer to that question.
One hopes that there will be a lot more women directing.
And in the early days of Hollywood, as you know, women were in a real leadership
role in writing and directing. They were the principal forces.
Mr. Hooper sir, do you wish to comment on the general thesis as to how has this
ritual affected your life and thoughts and self-regard?
Tom Hooper: I feel a bit like Darren. I mean, it's--what is that, I think it's Uncle
Vanya, Chekhov's play, which ends with the line "Work, work, work."
And I kind of feel, unfortunately in my family, that's a little bit of mantra.
Whenever any one is having any kind of emotional roller coaster, the general
medicine is "Get back to work." And I kind of feel that's the key.
Having observed I suppose aspects of the award season from the outside
over the years, I think the great risk is that you as a director become
paralyzed by it, and you start to think, how can I do better than that,
or how can I would be back in the same place, and I think that's absolutely
chasing a false god. I think I didn't make this film to be in this
position. Being in his position has been this extraordinary,
wonderful journey and stroke of chance, but I made it for that story.
I made it for the love of that story. And I think you have to go back and connect
with the stories you love and make another film to make the film, and if
this happens, it happens, but I don't think you can chase it.
Peter: David? David O. Russell: Yeah, I would echo that.
It's a constant prayer of humility every day to keep you awake.
Because every day you say that, but then every day, all day you are getting
saturated in this experience, because what I said at the start of it is
"Everything I'm going to get from this film, I already got," and that was my
mantra from the start. I got to make this film with these beautiful
people. I love the film. I am going to get to make another another
couple of films period. But then every day you're talking to these
guys and you are talking to these audiences, and you can't help but get sucked
into the whole thing a little bit. I think getting back to work is the best way
to do it. It's hard to do work in this climate though,
because I was supposed to be finishing a screenplay right now and it's
such a strange change to sit down to write from being in this milkshake all day.
But I will say I'm extremely grateful for it, because I had a bumpy couple of
years that I am grateful. And when you get, it's like anything, whether
you are an athlete or anybody, you are grateful to be back up on your feet
and you intend to stay there when that happens. So, I am looking forward to
doing some more good pictures. Peter: Lee?
Lee Unkrich: Well, first of all, I think, I hopefully that goes with that saying
I find it an incredible honor to be sitting next to David and Tom and everybody
here on this panel, because I admire and love their films so much.
As Darren said, this whole season is a great opportunity to just to get to hang
out with people and talk to other filmmakers whose work we admire.
We're in a little weird position at Pixar because we are up in Northern
California. We're in a bit of a bubble in this kind of filmmaking Utopia--
which is great, I wouldn't trade it for anything-- but it can be a little insular sometimes,
and we don't have the opportunities to interface with a lot of other filmmakers
as much as we would like to. So, the season has just been a great way to
do that. But above all else, it's just been an honor
for us to be a part of all this, for me to be sitting on this panel with these
other directors and to have received the nominations and been a part of
these different events, because in animation we are often kind of pushed off
to the side. That's kind of been the history.
And from day one at Pixar with Toy Story, we have tried to make films that
transcended anything that hadn't been done in animation prior, and we tried to
make films that were cinematic and that had new stories to tell.
And we can we think of ourselves first and foremost as filmmakers, so it's
really just the ultimate honor for us to have been invited to be part of all this.
Peter: But I feel that you guys would do the community, the creative community, a
great favor if you made one real miserable bomb.
Because to have a totally impeccable record sets of bar that no human
being can really aspire to. Lee: I wish somebody would so that I don't
have to be the one. We have these friends.
Whenever they have a dinner party, the people who host the party knock over a
glass of wine on the tablecloth so that nobody else has to be the one to get
embarrassed doing that. I have kind of feel like
we need to just, yeah, purposefully put out a cruddy movie and get it out of the way.
I don't know that the studio would agree with that.
David: That's a funny, that's a funny premise for a movie, because if you had like
a Pixar guy, like the opposite of Springtime for Hitler. Oh, it is Springtime for Hitler
because he'd, you got to make a bomb and that you just can't help it.
David: It just keeps becoming a hit. Lee: You know it would be our biggest film.
Darren: It's like the Producers of Pixar. Tom: It would be a tough pitch, wouldn't it,
saying, I need to do this film, I want you to pay me to do this film
so I can like make it really bad. That would be good for me.
I don't think anyone would go for that. Peter: So, if you were--I think the worst
moment of the whole process are acceptance speeches, because you always feel at these
dinners, you will all accept, all of you on this panel, have accepted something
in the past month, and it seems to me that when people give acceptance
speeches, they suddenly freeze and they feel, I can't say what I really
think. I have to mention my ex-wife and my agent
and my proctologist and my lawyer because this is my moment in the sun.
So, I'm curious, and I will ask this to each of you.
If you really forget the TV cameras, if you really were to give a totally
candid acceptance speech, who would you thank? Darren: I have to go first again? Peter: Yeah,
yeah. Darren: Start down there. Let me get think
about that one. Tom: You can do me again Darren.
Peter: Because, it is tempting to simply say thank Harvey or thank whoever put
up the money. I mean that's what it's based on.
Darren: I don't know. I am not sure that's true.
I think actually people do want to thank because it's weird that we get the
credit, because now I am going to sound like I am making one of
those &*&^#@$ speeches. But it's true though that filmmaking is so
collaborative, and it's just such a collection of so many people. La la la la
la la la. But it's true! It's true! (applause and laughter)
It's unfortunate but--I mean, we can't, as directors, we really aren't good
any one good thing. We're just sort of dilettantes in a lot of
things. We could sort of draw, we could sort of work
with actors, we could sort of schedule, but we have all these specialists
that really know what they're doing. You have a DP who really understands what
7,200-degree temperature means for a light bulb.
Well, I don't even know if it tungsten--I don't even know, I forget.
I learned it in film school, but I don't remember. And we are like, yeah put the 12 millimeter
on, but we don't really know what it's on till we put our eye on a lens and
go, oh yeah that's what it looks like. So, you are working with all these people,
so it's appropriate to thank those people. I am not paying for my movies either, so I
understand. So I don't know, if I had to give a candid
thing, it would be probably, at this point, I think, there is like this postmodern
thing because you feel like you're not supposed to thank people because
the Academy made a big thing about a few years ago where they wanted you to go
backstage and do all your thanks on Darren: the Internet. Peter: Exactly.
Darren: And then to do something creative in front of the crowd to really cry.
Peter: Yeah. Darren: So I don't know, I don't know, maybe
they--I don't know. Peter: Or to do the famous Jane Wyman thing
when she accepted an Oscar for Johnny Belinda and said, "I got this award for playing
a mute; therefore I'm just Peter: going to zip it up." David: Ah! So
genius! Darren: And then Joe Pesci did the great one
where he just sort of said, I forgot what he said, but it was like three
words, and he walked off. Peter: That's right. That's right, but on
the other hand, a director could thank a particular Peter: filmmaker whose influence particularly
influenced him. Darren: It's a good idea. Darren: Hooper, you can thank me when you
are up there, okay. Feel free. (laughter)