Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 331: Can Martin Scorsese Save Cinema? with Margaret Bodde

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BPS 331: Can Martin Scorsese Save Cinema? with Margaret Bodde · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
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Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three thirty one. Cinema is a matter of what's
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in the frame and what's out. Now, more than ever, we need
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to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we
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see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this. Martin
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Scorsese broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really should be
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working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the
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craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of
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the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Now,
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today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now, unlike other script
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coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are
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in the goals of the project you are, so we actually break it down
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by three categories. Micro budget, indie, film market and studio film.
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There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to reading tempowl movies
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if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on
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over to cover my screenplay dot com. Well, guys, Today on the
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show we have Margaret Body, and she is the executive director of the Film
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Foundation, the nonprofit organization created by the legendary Martin Scorsese in nineteen ninety and
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it's dedicated to the preservation protection of motion pictures from around the world. Over
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the years, they have preserved and restored over nine hundred and twenty five films,
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including forty nine restorations from twenty eight countries as part of the World Cinema
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Project. Now, Margaret and I had a fantastic conversation not only about cinema
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history, about restoration, the process of restoration, how important it is for
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us to restore and protect our cinematic heritage, but also about their new program
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where they're going to be showing free restored projects as part of their restoration screening
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room. We also talk about Margaret's experience producing films with mister Martin Scorsese,
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and much much more. Now at the end of the episode, I will
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give you a link on how to get access to the restoration screening rooms monthly
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screenings. So, without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Margaret
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Body. I like to welcome to the show, Margaret Bodie. How you
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do, Margaret, I'm doing great, Alex, It's so great to be
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here. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm excited to
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have you on because we're going to be talking about film restoration and the work
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you're doing at the Film Foundation, and as well as some others you do.
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You have as a little sidehustole that you do as well, besides film
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restorations. We'll talk about that as well. But the first question I have
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for you is how did you get started in the business. It's a really
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great question because you know, looking back, it all seems so well planned,
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but it was really just a random set of circumstances. I did go
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to film school, which is, you know, kind of rare in this
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business. Usually everyone studied history or politics or global studies. But I studied
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film and I my first job out of school was at the Library of Congress,
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and I was doing archival work at the Library of Congress. I was,
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I was making photographs from either their glass negatives, their nitrate negatives.
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There their incredible photographic collection that included, like I said, glass negatives from
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Matthew Brady to you know, nitrate you know, four by fours and two
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by twos that were created during the WPA era. And I remember I was,
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I was making both copy but they called copy prints. This is in
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the days of the old fashioned photographic lab where you would you know, you
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know, expose the paper and then process it and all these wonderful chemicals that
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I breathed for about two years. And what happened was I became it was
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like a master's degree in history, in exposure, in photography and also by
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extension and film, and so that was that was an amazing milestone in my
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career that I hadn't intended really necessarily as as what I wanted to do.
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And then from there I went to independent film exhibition. I worked at a
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movie theater we booked independent films, and so I had the exhibition side of
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it. And then I went to work. I moved to New York and
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started work for a fledgling company called Mirramax, and I was doing independent film
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distribution and marketing. And there were about twenty people at the company at that
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time, so it's early days. And then I worked there for a couple
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of years, and then I moved into this kind of miracle where I got
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a call from a colleague who said, you wouldn't want to work for Martin
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Scorsese? Would you? Would you want to be his assistant? And I
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was like, I would sweep a floor for that guy. Like that was,
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you know what a question. So it was like, I said,
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this kind of random set of circumstances that just now kind of all add up
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and make sense, But at the time it was just you know, you
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get the jobs you can get that you're interested in, and yeah, exactly
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like they I mean, how many filmmakers around the world would like, Hey,
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would you like to to work with Martin Scorsese? Can you imagine doing
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anything? Doing anything right? Absolutely anything. So that brings me to my
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to my next question. I mean, you got to work with him on
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some some not his early films, but early nineties films like the Age of
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Innocence, which I absolutely adore. I was just obsessed with Age of Innocence
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when it came out, Uh and Casino. So I'm assuming as an assistant
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and working with him, what did you see on set? Like? How?
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Like? I have to ask you the question that every filmmaker listening wants
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to know. When you first walked in and met Martin Scorsese for the first
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time, what was going through your head? How did you deal with it?
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How did you I mean because essentially, even even in the early nineties,
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he was still he was already a legend. At that point, he
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was absolutely legend. I mean he had just made I mean you Good Fellows
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in nineteen ninety, right, and then I started working for him. On
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my first night, my first night on the job, was the premier of
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Kate Here. So you know, it's it's just he was he was to
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me, he was the top of the mountain, you know, I mean,
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he was it because he had also started the Film Foundation in nineteen ninety
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and when I met with him, which I'll never forget. He lived at
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the time at the Metropolitan Towers on fifty seventh Street, and so I literally
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it's like I went up, you know that I went up to like,
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you know, Mount Olympus exactly, and I remember, you know, obviously
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I was I was nervous, but I also was just I had kind of
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the attitude of like, I just want to meet this man who has made
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films that have meant so much to me and so many people. So it
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was really kind of an experience of a lifetime. I thought, whatever happened
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with the job, I kind of thought, this was this wonderful opportunity to
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meet this to meet this person. And when I met him, we just
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really hit it off. He's so warm, he's so smart, he's so
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funny. He's really like just an easy person to talk to and get to
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know. And one of the things that stood out for him with me was,
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oh, so you went to film school, you know about film,
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you know about film history. We just started this foundation. Maybe you can
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help with that. And so, you know, that was to me that
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was part of this glorious package, you know of just you know, being
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able to work with someone who's an absolute master of the of the craft and
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the art of filmmaking, and someone who cares about other people's films and also
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cares about the audience and making sure that you know, the continuum of film
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history is available to filmmakers today and in the future who can look back on
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the past films and be as inspired by them as Marty has been. That's
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remarkable. So when you're are so when you're working on Age of innocenswer a
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casino, what, how do you see him working? What do you I
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mean, I'm assuming you're trying to take as much in as you can when
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you're watching him. Were you on set, were watching him work? Yeah?
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Yeah, and you are taking as you're taking it all in. But
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you know, everyone on that set has this mission, right, and you
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know there you don't have a lot of time for reflection, so you're not
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necessarily, you know, kind of absorbing and processing. You're just kind of
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like running from like as an assistant especially, you're running from one task to
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the next, and your mind has to be very sharply focused on, you
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know, whatever he has, you know, needs you to do, has
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asked you to do, whatever communication you have to give to the various different
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department heads. So I'm not like I wasn't ever involved in like the make
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of the film. It was just there to support all the things that he
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needs. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
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back to the show. But the set is an extraordinary place to be with
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Marty because it's so it's such a pure expression of filmmaking where it's all about
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what do we need, how do we get it. He's brilliant about,
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you know, creating an environment where the actors feel like it's all about what
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they need to do, where the DP feels like it's all about what he
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or she needs to do. Everyone feels like they're the most important person in
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that process. And it's just it's a it's kind of a I mean,
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you know, not to be you know, I have drank the kool aid.
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I will admit to that, but it is like kind of a sacred
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place. It's a really exciting place to be, but it's very much there's
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nothing frivolous about it. Yeah it seems to be. And I mean I've
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any filmmaker worth their salt has studied Marty's work over the years. I mean
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and every documentary. I mean, I remember working at a video store in
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the eighties and early nineties, and I was I saw Good Fellows in the
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theater multiple times, I mean, and you just sit there and you wait
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for any making of document Back in the day when there wasn't any information about
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my first laser disc was Raging Bull because I wanted to hear I wanted to
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hear Marty's commentary on it, you know, things like that is fascinating.
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There was an early laser disc of The Last Waltz. I remember, it
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came out like in the mid eighties, early eighties, and I remember just
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you know, I had seen The Last Waltz is aging me quite a bit,
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But I had seen The Last Waltz when I was like in high school,
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and I remember just being it was something very special. I couldn't really
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articulate it because a lot of people were making documentaries in that way that weren't
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verite, you know, I mean you think about like Woodstock, Yeah,
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you're capturing everything, and that's that was really what was happening with music documentary
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at that time. And then I remember the Last Waltz felt like a film,
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right, And I remember thinking like, that's interesting, what's really happened?
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What is he doing differently than everybody else's And didn't he also work on
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Woodstock as an editor? He was I think he was assistant director and I
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think he did some editing. Yeah, but Michael Wadley, you know,
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was the director of that film and both Marty, and that's where Marty and
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Thelma I think first worked together. The almost Schoodmaker was an editor on Woodstock.
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And you know who knew back in you know, seventy two or whenever
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that I can't remember the exact year of Woodstock, you know who knew that
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that would create this, you know, legendary partnership. No, I mean,
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has there ever been a partnership like that in the history of film that
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I can think of? An editor that's she's edited everything he's done. She
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has edited everything from Raging Baal on so nineteen eighty. Yeah, that's a
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forty two year a lot of a lot of masterpieces in there. Oh my
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god, to say the least. Now, tell me about the work you're
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doing in the Film Foundation. What is the Film Foundation? Well, the
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Film Foundation was created in nineteen ninety and it really grew out of advocacy that
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Marty had already been involved in in the after Raging Ball in the nineteen eighty
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eighty one era, Marty was he started a campaign to get to encourage Kodak
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to create a low fade color film stock. And in fact, one of
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the reasons that Marty made Raging Ball black and white was because he didn't want
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it to fade in ten years. And he was, you know, aware
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of every filmmaker wants their film to last, right That's that's the goal you're
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putting. You're putting a work out into the world, and you don't want
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it to go away. You don't want it to look like, you know,
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diminished, you know, in terms of color and and and degradation after
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you know, five or ten or fifteen years. You hope that it will
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survive the test of time, as they say. And so he decided to
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use black and white for Raging Bull for you know, I mean artistic reasons,
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but also for that practical reason. And so after the film was released,
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he used the press tour in Europe and all over the world to talk
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about this issue of color color film stock fading, and thankfully Codected U create
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a low fade lpp stock. I believe it's called that would that would last
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if it was properly cared for, Would it would last for fifty two one
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hundred years with a stable color, you know the color. The color wouldn't
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change over time. So he was always thinking about film and the history of
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film and how much it meant to him and how much it meant to his
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fellow filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and Francis Coppola, Stanley Kubrick at
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the time. So Marty got these galvanized these filmmakers and came together and said,
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look, will be so much more impactful if we form this organization and
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if we use our collective power or collective clout to go to the studios to
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talk about working in partnership with these archives, these film archives that are in
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the nonprofit world who have been collecting negatives, cast off material over the decades,
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and let's try to build a bridge so these two important parts of the
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film world can work together to preserve films for the future. And I don't
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think that there was a real clear cut, concrete plan of how this would
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get done, but it was definitely agreed. You know with this group and
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with many other people in the field, that it's something needed to be done,
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something needed to be done, because you know, Marty talks about this
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story a lot, where in the nineteen seventies when he was living in Los
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Angeles, he went to a screening at LACMA and it was it was a
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Fox retrospective and on the particular night that Marty remembers, there was a double
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feature of Niagara and the Seven Year Itch, Okay, and the seven Year
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Itch came. The projectionist put up the put up the film print and it
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came on screen and the entire he describes, the entire audience erupted with booze
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because the film the print had faded to pink, so everything, everything looked
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magenta. There was no there was no reflection of what the film was supposed
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to look like. So you couldn't see like the actors face, you couldn't
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see with the colors of the set and what the color design was supposed to
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look like. And you know, you think about it, that was maybe
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twenty years at most after the film came out, no more than twenty years,
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so you know, the realization hit Marty and many other film scholars and
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filmmakers and people who just care about cinema. If this is happening to a
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huge hit with Marilyn Monroe right, what's happening to silent films, what's happening
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to industrial films or you know documentaries that were made. We can't just lose
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all this, you know, at that point, you know, eight eighty
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years of film and of our culture. So the idea was, let's create
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an organization that can advocate for film preservation and restoration and also for this is
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as important as that as for getting these films back out to the public.
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Because if people, if young people don't know about films from the past,
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if they don't see them, then what's the motivation to preserve them. So,
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you know, between the preservation program that we created the Film Foundation,
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and the education program, we have a curriculum that teaches young people the language
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of film, the unique language of how stories are told visually, and then
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and then access. You know, we make sure that the films that we
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the films that we help fund the restoration of and make sure are preserved,
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get out to the world through festivals, archives, screenings on you know,
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Turner classic movies and other outlets, and also our great partnerships with places like
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Criterion Channel and the Criterion Collection and Movie and many other organizations and companies around
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the around the world that really present film in what is a very kind of
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like wonderful, celebratory and respectful way, making sure that people see the films
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without commercial interruption and the way that the directors intended them to be seen.
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I mean, you're doing God's work. I mean, this is this is
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a very very important mission, and I'm so glad that Marty. I think
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it's needed to be someone like Marty to be able to spearhead this. You
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need, you need someone with his kind of gravitas to to let everybody knows,
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Hey, wait a minute, Yeah, we need to keep an eye
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on this. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
20:03
now back to the show. What I always found fascinating about film preservation is
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that it is a constant moving target. It never it never sits. It's
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unlike the Pyramids that will be around for three thousand years. I mean,
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stone is stone, but film, even today, we still have to preserve
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it and continue to move it as technology changes. So even film stock today
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in five hundred years. We don't know if film stock is going to be
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the way these things are projected, if if that's projection still around, is
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it going to be on a hard drive. And if it is going to
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be on a hard drive, how long will that hard drive live last before
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it crashes? How many So it's a constant, it's a never ending So
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just because you you restore a film today, you're thinking, okay, in
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thirty years, or in twenty years or in five we have to check to
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see where it is, and we have to keep moving the ball. It's
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almost like a game of hot potato. You constantly have to keep moving it
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along history or along the future. Is a correct alex, you're hired.
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I mean, you know, if you have it, you have it.
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You hit the nail on the head, because you know, we were lucky
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that we had this technology for what one hundred and twenty years or so of
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film history, where yes, the film stock changed over that time, but
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it was still using light and emulsion to capture life, to capture whatever you
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want to create and put in front of the camera. And we were also
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very lucky that even as ephemeral and fragile as film is and has been,
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We still have films from the silent era that you can go up the best
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then you can run through a projector you can also hold it up and you
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can see, oh, yeah, there's people dancing, and then oh there's
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a tint the blue. You know, old films can still be viewed.
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The issue with digital and you know, we all know digitals is wonderful innovation.
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You know, it's allowed a lot of filmmakers who haven't been represented in
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the past to make films and get their stories out there. And that's vital.
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That's that's that's an infusion of energy into the into the whole art form.
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But the big butt on that is digital is untested in terms of the
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longevity of digital and the changes in digital technology. I don't have to tell
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you are just I mean, the cycle is spinning so fast. Do you
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remember D one tape? Of course, I'm I'm older than I look mark
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where. Yeah, I remember one tape, I remember D two tape.
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I remember three corner ranch or one inch or two inch? I edited I
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edited one inch between. Yeah, real's real back in the day. Yeah
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yeah, So you think about the span the lifespan of digital is what thirty
23:04
years maybe so far how many formats have there been in that really short period
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of time. So we will be the archivists of the future, and the
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present are just going to be unraveling that. You've got to make sure that
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you've got the hardware that will play back those formats. You've got to be
23:29
able to, you know, migrate that digital data now every I mean,
23:34
they recommend every six months. I mean, but you know, filmmakers,
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yeah, and filmmakers are you know you you well, you know, you
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know, well, when you make a film, you're just onto your next
23:45
project. You know. Most filmmakers don't have the time to kind of like,
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well, let me manage all my data from my last five projects.
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I'll take a couple of months here to do that. You know. It's
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it's it's its own challenge, and I don't think that maybe the industry,
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maybe the studios, you know, have a handle on that, and they're
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managing their assets, you know, because they have the budgets for it,
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and there's also and it's also money. Now they realize that it's ever ending.
24:12
You know, how many how many versions of Star Wars have I purchased?
24:17
How many versions of Godfather? Every time there's a new version, a
24:19
new rest, you buy a new platform. So from VHS, the laser
24:23
disc, the DVD, the Blu ray and digital, it's constant. So
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that's where the money is. I think the studio is finally caught up.
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We're like, oh wait, there's money to be made here. That was
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key. That was key having this what they call monetized, right, having
24:41
having the classic film libraries and collections of the studios, had having another outlet
24:49
in another way to like you said, package and release on home home video,
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home video, laser disc, DVD, you know, streaming now those
25:03
that we were so lucky that those formats demanded the best possible resolution and audiences
25:11
demanded the best possible resolution. So you did have to go back to the
25:15
original camera negative. You did have to go back into the vaults and take
25:19
a look at your assets and see if you had the original camera negative,
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if you didn't have the original camera negative, what were the best elements that
25:27
you could find so that those DVDs or that you know, whether it's a
25:33
SDHD, four K, whatever the format is you're working from, you know
25:37
the best possible source for that for that transfer. And I think we were
25:42
very lucky that there was that robust home entertainment market in the in the nineteen
25:52
nineties and the two thousands, and now with streaming, it's a it's a
25:55
different it's a different stories I think, you know, unfortunately because the business,
26:00
because it is a business and an art for you know, there's a
26:04
different economic model now and it might be harder to you know, justify although
26:12
I don't like to use that word, but a vast expenditure of money on
26:15
a single title that may not make that back, right, I mean we
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of course, yeah, that's what we do all day, you know.
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We we advocate for that and we try to find ways to you know,
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to make that as appealing as possible for studios and other rights holders because you
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know, we think we think of of something like film, and this is
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true, and with books and and and paintings and you know, other art
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forms, music and theater. You know, people can't really own it,
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right, You're a bit of a custodian. We can't. We can't own
26:57
anything. We're only on the earth for a certain of time. So even
27:00
land, you eventually have to give it to somebody else. It's like,
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which is your fort a moment of time? So if you have. Let's
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say, let's say, what's your favorite film, Alex, Oh God,
27:08
for one, I love Shawshank, Redemption. I love Saw Pemption. Okay,
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so let's say you obtain the rights to Redemption, right you, you
27:19
know you have the rights to it, but you know, I would argue
27:23
that you are also holding it for the rest of us too. Oh right,
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I'm not gonna put if I had bought It's like imagine if I got
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the rights to Shawshank, I would like, I'm putting it in my vault
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only I can see it. All copies have taken off the shelves. No
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one could ever see it again. No, you're a custodian of art for
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the work, for the good of the populist, the good of the world.
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That's what you should That's how film should be, and arguably has how
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studios should be as well. But with them, it's a business, now,
27:52
is it. You know, as you know, the corporations have taken
27:55
over the main studio as it before it was run by film bakers, and
27:59
now it's more more corporate. Yeah, I mean, it's always been a
28:02
business, and I think that's part of the challenge I think with the film,
28:08
with film as an art form and a commercial I won't say product,
28:15
but as a commercial endeavor. Right, films were made for the weekend and
28:22
the months that they could be in the theaters and then really until television,
28:26
there was no there was no maybe there would be a re release maybe ten
28:30
years later of the hit one of the hit ones. Yeah, but what
28:34
about the every B picture? And you know, until television came along,
28:38
it was considered you know, disposable is a strong word, but it was
28:42
considered that's an old movie. What are we what are we putting out you
28:47
know, next weekend? What are we putting out next year? And that?
28:51
And that is just by nature the way that the that the movie business
28:55
you know, works and it makes sense because you know, you know,
28:59
you're profits are only in the future and only on your current films. Everything
29:04
is pretty diminished once it's made its initial run. So yeah, yeah,
29:11
these are the challenges I think in terms of trying to you know, balance
29:17
you know, the high minded notion that film is an art form and needs
29:22
to be protected and preserved and the reality of you can't spend a million dollars
29:29
restoring one film. You know, that's not no one's gonna you know,
29:33
no one's gonna it's not really you know, necessary most of the time,
29:37
and it's not something that a studio is going to put that kind of money
29:40
in. So we do what we can, and we make sure that we
29:42
try to get both the kind of the high minded advocacy and awareness out there
29:49
and then also work practically to try to make sure that these as many films
29:55
that can be restored in any given year can get restored. We'll be right
30:00
back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
30:08
And I've heard lately that there is you know, you work with film and
30:14
films from nineties, back from nineteen nineties and back from what I understand from
30:18
your from my research, but there's an issue now with movies created in the
30:22
eighties that now the best quality versions of them are VHS tapes, like that's
30:30
all the negatives are gone because they were so disposable in those kind of b
30:33
movies and you know, these kind of things. But it is still cinema.
30:37
So I know there's a lot of organizations trying to even save VHS tapes
30:41
because that's or LaserDisc might be the best version of it out there. So
30:47
it is a problem. It is a problem're losing our We're losing movies every
30:51
day. And you know, it's interesting because you know, the eighties were
30:55
this, I mean, especially with what you do, right, the eighties
30:57
were this kind of the goal old and era of independent filmmaking. Eighties and
31:03
nineties. I mean that's when you know Jane Campion and Spike Lee and John
31:10
Sales and Mirror Nair, you know, all these mid gym Jarmush, all
31:15
these amazing independent filmmakers that you think of as these you know, kind of
31:18
legends, right. They were making movies for small companies, and there were
31:23
a lot of very successful small companies like Synecom. And that's when Mirramax started
31:30
and uh new Line. You know, there was this new world. I
31:37
mean, we could probably if I dig back in my memory banks, I
31:41
could think of even more. I mean even even you know, Sony Pictures,
31:44
Sony Pictures, Classics, No Ryan Ryan, Ryan, Cannon and Cannon
31:51
right and Troma oh okay, forget okay, forget Lloyd. So you know,
31:57
and and when those companies then and no longer, you know, we're
32:01
no longer in business, you know, those collections, it's it's it's unclear
32:06
you know where they bought who bought them. And I've talked to, you
32:10
know, so many filmmakers who say, I don't know where my elements are
32:15
for that hit, for that, for that independent film hit that I that
32:20
I made in you know, in the mid eighties, you know, and
32:22
they have maybe a sixteen milimar print of it, you know, if they're
32:27
lucky, they have a thirty five millimeter print of the film. But those
32:30
are It's like detective work. You have to follow. You have to trace
32:35
everything back. You know, was it at a lab that closed? Did
32:38
then those materials go to an archive? Hopefully they were saved and they're in
32:43
an archive it was that was that collection then sold outright to like maybe a
32:49
television company. You have to trace all those things back. And I do
32:52
think that archivists, you know, do have a certain kind of detective gene
33:00
that they that they tap into where they track these films down. I'll tell
33:04
you a story and interesting this is just one example of many when we work
33:09
very closely with all the different archives in the US and around the world,
33:15
and we have a great partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive and at
33:20
the time, there was an archivists working at UCLA, Ross Lippman, and
33:24
he was, as they often do, he was he was made aware that,
33:30
you know, got a call from a lab. We're closing. We're
33:35
getting rid of all the stuff here. You got today to come by and
33:38
find whatever you want to pick it up. So he and his team go
33:43
over to the lab and they're looking through the material and there's all these elements,
33:49
all these film elements, and some of them have proper labeling, many
33:52
of them don't. And he finds on the label the name of a New
33:58
York based producer, and he just thought, you know, that guy produced
34:04
the one film that Barbara Lowden made, Wanda, she that she started,
34:08
directed, wrote and directed, and it's kind you know, it's it's considered
34:14
this kind of independent film, you know, milestone and independent cinema and and
34:19
and you know feminist, you know, films made by by women. So
34:25
you know, he takes it. He puts all these elements in his trunk.
34:30
It turns out this was the original negative for the film Wanda. And
34:37
were it not for the archivist, the knowledge that this archivist had the kind
34:43
of random serendipity of you know, the lab thankfully calls the archive materials are
34:51
gathered, the thrown into his trunk and you know, contact the Film Foundation.
34:54
That was one of the films that they asked us to support the restoration
34:58
of that given year. And you know, now that film has inspired so
35:02
many people who hadn't they would never be able to see that film in the
35:07
way that it exists now, restored and saved for filmmakers and audiences to to,
35:16
you know, get inspiration and joy from these films. Yeah, it's
35:23
it's remarkable. I know there was a movie that Marty found, at least
35:29
the legend goes, there was a wonderful film called I Am Cuba years ago.
35:35
I'm Cuban of Cuban descent. So I was very interested in watching that
35:39
film. And then it was released through Criterion. I think it released once
35:44
and then really rereleased through a Criterion And it was him and Francis who presented
35:47
the film and they said, I remember, I remember when it came out.
35:52
It was like, if this movie would have come out when it was
35:57
made, it would have changed cinema, like it it would have skewed cinema
36:00
in a certain direction, Like there are those landmark films that when once that
36:05
comes, are like, well everything's changed, and it was, and it
36:09
was I think it was found in in a closet somewhere, I don't know,
36:14
in an archive somewhere, in a salt mine somewhere. Uh. And
36:17
when they saw it, it was just a game changer. And any filmmaker
36:22
listening, if you haven't seen Im Cuba, please go out and see im
36:25
Cuba. I mean P. T. Anderson, you know, he he
36:29
borrowed a very famous shot from that and he says, I was inspired by
36:34
this shot in im Cuba and the stuff that they did in a film like
36:37
that, Like you're looking back like they're running around with a hundred pound camera
36:43
and it looks like it's a steady camp but it isn't. How do they
36:45
do that? How did they hang the camera over these two? Like this
36:50
is this is cinema at its best. But it was lost, it was
36:53
gone. Yeah, yeah yeah. And you know, I'm glad you brought
36:59
that up because you know people, you know, filmmakers, and there's not
37:02
many of them, right, filmmakers like Marty and Francis Ford Coppola. Putting
37:07
attention, putting a spotlight on these films has been a really crucial part of
37:14
this whole movement, right, the film preservation and appreciation movement. You have
37:21
filmmakers who are beloved and masters putting a spotlight on a film like I Am
37:27
Cuba, or a film like you know, even even a big popular film
37:31
like I think when when Marty and Steven Spielberg, I think, did the
37:37
first Lawrence of Arabia restoration way back in the photochemical era, and I remember
37:43
going to the Zigfeld and watching it on that big screen. I had never
37:47
seen Lawrence of Arabia and and and I just you know, I remember one
37:52
of the main reasons I went to see it was I knew that, like
37:55
Martin SCORSESEI a filmmaker that I love who I just if he likes this film,
38:01
I want to go see it. And it's obviously a masterpiece. So
38:06
directors filmmakers who you know are generous in that way, and I think they
38:12
instinctively are, because you know, when something hits you in a profound way,
38:16
you want to share that. And I think if the Film Foundation has
38:21
been successful over these years, I think that's that's it's really all because of
38:29
Marty and the other directors on the board who have generously shared their enthusiasm for
38:36
these films and their and their dedication to making sure I mean, they have
38:40
a righteous anger about like, you know, let's not lose these films.
38:45
You know, we don't we don't know who is going to be hit by
38:49
these films and inspired in the future. And it's a it's a it's a
38:54
deep well that I think we have to make sure, you know, stays
39:00
available for filmmakers who you know are working today and who are going to be
39:04
working in the future exactly. I mean, how many painters and artists have
39:07
been inspired by van go or Basquiat or Pollock or any of these Like just
39:13
imagine if van go would have never been found I think got he mean nine
39:16
hundred of those things. He just kept making them in no one bottom,
39:21
but he just kept making them because he had to, because he was an
39:22
artist. But imagine if that was all lost in a fire ones and no
39:25
one would have known about Van Gogh. What a loss to humanity that would
39:30
be. Any thing, That's how you look at it, Yeah, And
39:32
I think it's It's also kind of interesting because film inspires filmmakers, but it
39:43
also inspires painters and musicians and dancers and scientists and you know, I mean
39:51
people. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now
40:00
back to the show. And yeah, because I think if you if you
40:05
look at art and cinema, art and you know, fine art, if
40:08
you look at it as a transcendent experience, I mean, it's really one
40:14
of the things that makes life worth living, you know, I mean we
40:17
we we transcend our daily lives when we read a book or when we look
40:22
at a painting, or when we watch a great film, and when we
40:28
you know, experience a dance that we're seeing, you know, performed.
40:31
These are things that take us out of the daily you know grind of you
40:38
know, working, and you know, I mean, I think that we
40:42
have to remember that there are so many important issues in the world, but
40:46
this is this is a vital thing that we want to really keep alive and
40:51
keep available to people because it's what kind of propels us into the future in
40:57
a in a kind of renewed way. Well, there's no there's no question
41:00
because the a's a conversation about the arts. You know, that's the first
41:04
thing they cut at school when the budget's going. Look, but art is
41:07
what makes your mind. Think what creates and what creates imagination, and that
41:12
is what creates innovation in our in our in humanity. Without the great scientific
41:20
or the sci fi books of H. G. Wells, a lot of
41:22
that has come true. Yeah, we don't have a time machine yet,
41:24
but there's a lot of concepts that were laid out there that we're inspired inspired
41:30
scientists and they wanted to go And then I mean, and then many of
41:32
the filmmakers we've spoken about today. If it's inspired so many scientists, so
41:37
many artists, so many people in the world, art is something that needs
41:39
to be preserved and needs to be protected. And even if there isn't a
41:44
monetary reward right away, there's a much greater reward, which is the culture
41:51
of it. And I always tell people, you know, when I when
41:53
I try to inspire filmmakers to go out and make their films, I go,
41:57
you have no idea who you are going to touch what your film.
42:00
Your film might be seen by ten people, but one of those ten people
42:05
might go off and make the great cinematic masterpiece, or might go off and
42:09
become that doctor because of the story that you're telling, or go off and
42:14
save lives or change. You've no idea the power that art has in changing
42:17
people's lives. And that's why I think the work that you do in Marty's
42:21
doing is so so so important in the world. Well, I have to
42:24
say that we are a small team, so I want to take a moment
42:30
to give your shot up to the other three or four people who work get
42:36
the Foundation with me. Jennifer On is our managing director. She's been at
42:40
the Foundation for over twenty years and she's, you know, kind of a
42:45
genius in many ways in terms of creating programs, creating partnerships with people who
42:52
will, you know, help fund these restorations. And she's truly a partner
42:55
for Marty and I and she's just in an extraordinary talent. And Chris Christin
43:01
Morola, who's our program manager, who is just, you know, again
43:07
just so dedicated and devoted to film and cinema and it's just it's no one
43:13
who can keep more things in the air at the same time, she's terrific.
43:19
And my colleague here in New York, Rebecca Wingle, who's actually moving
43:24
on to grad school. We're sad to see her go, but she's been
43:28
with the Foundation for six years. So we're kind of a very small and
43:32
kind of dedicated group that you know, we're lean and mean, and we
43:37
make a lot happen. So I just want to give a shout out to
43:40
my colleagues at the Foundation. Absolutely no question about it. Now I have
43:45
a question a few questions I want to ask you that are kind of the
43:47
nitty greedy of action film restorations. We've talked about the ideas and the concepts
43:52
and the love about it, but how long does it take to restore a
43:55
film? Well, it varies depending on the addition of the materials, the
44:00
length of the film, the type of of workflow that you decide. The
44:08
first the first thing you want to ask is like, is this is this
44:12
the original negative? Is this the best element to work from? If it's
44:17
if the original negative is damaged, if it doesn't exist, if it's missing
44:22
reels. That time to track down and to kind of bring together all the
44:29
best surviving elements for a film can be very time consuming, but it's really
44:34
crucial because you don't want to spend resources and time preserving something that you think
44:40
is the best element. And then, oh, you know this archive in
44:46
you know, in Germany they have this whole film and it's it's a better
44:52
element than what you're working from. So this consortium of archives in under this
44:59
group called FEE, the International Federation of Film Archivists, they're really crucial in
45:05
this process. The archives will do these calls around to the world to make
45:08
sure that they're working from the best the best materials. That's it's a long
45:14
way of saying it can take a long time. However, if you have
45:19
an original camera negative that's in you know, really good or decent condition,
45:25
and you know that you're going to do either a photochemical preservation or a digital
45:31
restoration, you know it can be It can be as short as you know,
45:39
two to four months, you know, if you can really focus on
45:43
that and if the if the if you don't have to track down materials,
45:46
if you don't have to do a lot of physical repair and manual work on
45:52
the film itself. We've worked on projects that take ten years. Wow.
45:59
And at ten year time frame is from the time that someone first starts talking
46:06
to you about hey. And in this instance, I'll tell you what the
46:09
project was. One of Marty's oldest dearest friends, Jay Cox. Every time
46:15
I would see Jay, and he's a renowned writer. He would say to
46:21
me, we got to save the memory of justice. It's this Marcel Opal's
46:28
four and a half documentary on Nuremberg, Vietnam and the French Algerian War.
46:35
It's a masterpiece. We have to save that. No one can see it.
46:38
So from that instigation, right, you have to then find out.
46:45
In the instance of this project, it was the subject of various lawsuits.
46:51
It was you know, bought and sold. There was only a sixteen millimeter
46:57
print at the New York Public Lib and so we had to do tracking down
47:02
finding you know, the original sixteen millimeter was it was made on sixteen millimeter
47:07
sixteen milimeter negative. In this instance we had to which is one of the
47:14
only times the Film Foundations ever had to do this. We had to go
47:16
back because it's a documentary and it had like three hundred and eighty cues of
47:23
you know, clips, music. We had to go back and re license
47:29
all that material and scan the sixteen milimeter negative, do all the work involved
47:36
in restoring a film of that length. Then we found the original German,
47:43
French and French language tracks. And at the time the film was made,
47:50
it was, you know, in the nineteen seventies mid seventies, it was
47:53
common a common stylistic decision in documentaries where you would kind of put the original
48:05
language track down or take it out entirely and have a very staid British you
48:10
know voiceover. Yes, I remember. Yeah. So we contacted Marty contacted
48:17
Marcel Opals, the filmmaker of the director of the film, and said,
48:23
you know, we found these language tracks, what would you like to do.
48:27
We don't want to change anything about the film unless it's a directorial,
48:30
you know, choice, he said, I always wanted to use the original
48:35
language tracks. They made me put that voiceover on. So what happens when
48:40
you put the original language tracks and you know, you're these are interviews with
48:45
former Nazis, right, so you want to hear the tone of their voice.
48:51
You want to hear the tone of voice that Marcel Opals is using to
48:55
interrogate these guys, and so it's a whole different experience. So we we
49:01
really look at that. That was that was a massive undertaking that the Film
49:07
Foundation took on with the Academy Film Archive, and it brought back a work
49:13
of art film, a really important monumental documentary to the world where you know,
49:22
I don't think anyone could have seen it, and we were able to
49:25
work with Thank thank you Sheila and Evans at HBO because she loved the film,
49:30
she knew of the film, and she was able the HBO licensed it
49:37
and we were able to pay for all those licenses so that audiences could see
49:42
the film because it's an important milestone, it's an educational tool, it's it's
49:46
a real document for for for the twentieth century. So that's just one very
49:51
long winded example of how long it can take to fully restore and make a
49:57
film available to audiences. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
50:06
and now back to the show. And what is the average cost?
50:10
I know that depends obviously on the length, but generally the average cost of
50:15
a color film, a black and white film. Yeah, generally a black
50:19
and white film is somewhere on the fifty to eighty thousand dollars range if it's
50:25
a feature. If it's a feature length film, it can be more.
50:29
Obviously a color film is more than that. It's usually somewhere more like,
50:34
you know, eighty two, one hundred and twenty thousand dollars for a full
50:37
feature to do a full restoration where you're really doing frame by framework. And
50:45
again there are that's kind of a ballpark. There are outliers that are less
50:50
than that and more than that, but that's the general ballpark. Now,
50:54
tell me about your monthly on demand screenings that you guys have just started up.
51:00
Well, this is a very exciting opportunity for the Foundation to reach the
51:05
audience directly. When we when we were in the pandemic and everything was shut
51:10
down and we had our annual board meeting the directors, we were talking about
51:15
all these great festivals that we work with that had migrated online and pivoted to
51:21
presenting films virtually, and also companies like Criterion Channel and Movie and and and
51:29
great organizations and also great theaters like the Film Forum and Anthology, Film Archives
51:35
and MoMA. They all had kind of presented their offerings online. And our
51:38
board said, hey, you know, we should do that, you know,
51:40
once in a while. We don't need to, you know, obviously
51:44
we're not. There's all these great organizations doing it, but we should show
51:47
people what we do and the kind of work that we that we support.
51:52
And so we went to a wonderful supporter who who used to be at IBM.
52:00
Jeff Schick and is now at Oracle, and we described the challenge to
52:07
him and he worked with us as pro bono to kind of build a site
52:13
that would allow us to present once a month for twenty four hours, a
52:17
fully restored film, and we build around each presentation interviews with archivists, filmmakers,
52:24
actors, scholars, historians, talking contextualizing the experience for an audience and
52:34
giving information about the restoration, about the film, why the film is important
52:39
to you know, any given filmmaker, how it inspired them. So we're
52:44
creating really kind of like a bit of of a festival experience online for people
52:52
you know all over the world. Most of the time, I mean,
52:53
it depends on film by film we have. We have more or less territories
52:58
available, but it's free and you can look at it if you look at
53:02
it in a live way, like we start each screening at seven o'clock in
53:07
your local time zone, and if you're in the US or the UK or
53:12
Canada, you can join us for a live chat if that's the way you
53:15
like to watch films. If you're seeing a film for the second or third
53:20
or fourth time, or for the first time, and you just like to
53:22
talk to people while you're watching a film, which is kind of anathema to
53:25
some people, but you know, we have that option. And then we
53:30
also have an on demand option for the majority of the people who just want
53:35
to be able to watch the film either on a large laptop or on their
53:37
hopefully on there the television that they have at home, where they can cast
53:43
onto a big screen and enjoy the film. And and you know, the
53:46
films, you know, look beautiful, you see the restoration, and if
53:52
if you have never seen the film before, you can learn all about the
53:57
film and join in in this community that we think is still really vital every
54:05
month and see a wide range of films everything from you know, for the
54:09
for the initial launch, we showed a nineteen forty five British film called I
54:14
Nowhere I'm Going that's this one of the great romantic films of all time.
54:19
We showed Lastrata, which is you know, Felini's masterpiece that we you know,
54:24
restored in partnership with the Tinneteca to Bologna and Criterion. And then after
54:30
that we have a wonderful double feature because we love our double features. It's
54:35
a film noir double feature of The Chase, Arthur Ripley's The Chase and Edgar
54:42
Almer's Detour. Yes, so we're thrilled about about that because you know,
54:46
we really we want to show as many films as possible. So it's it's
54:51
fun to be able to show some double features here and there too. And
54:54
now you're going to be doing this. It's a monthly it's a monthly screening,
54:58
right, it's every second Monday of each month. It was one of
55:02
them make it. Yeah, we we just wanted to make it. You
55:07
know, we don't have the band with with our small team to be doing
55:10
this, you know, you know every day. We also have so many
55:15
great partners who do do this all the time. But we did want to
55:17
have, you know, an opportunity to kind of directly connect with an audience
55:21
and show them the kind of work that we support. We're going to be
55:24
showing films from our World Cinema project, you know, films that have been
55:29
you know, made in regions where you know, a lot of times these
55:32
films aren't really only known in the region that they were made in, like
55:36
Gamadi and like Samba Zanga, which is a French Angolian Angolian film that was
55:43
directed by Sarah Malderer and it's it's a wonderful film. Uh, you know,
55:49
a political film that's uh again being being discovered and rediscovered because of the
55:57
restoration. And you know, we're just really thrilled to get a real diverse
56:02
offering of films out to audiences because you know, film is pretty, it's
56:09
it's rich, and it's broad and it's genres and era and we want to
56:15
celebrate all of that. Yeah, and it's and you're gonna be doing this
56:19
every every month, moving forward, every month, Yeah, moving forward.
56:22
That's that's a that's an amazing service. I will do everything I can to
56:27
get the word out to to my audience because I think it's it's it's really
56:30
really important for filmmakers to to watch old cinema. And I mean, we
56:34
all know the usual suspects we all have to watch, but discovering those the
56:38
im cubas of the world and those kind of films that are not mainstream classics,
56:45
that's where a lot of really interesting uh filmmakers and voices are heard that
56:51
should be seen by different generations. Without question. I had one one question,
56:54
where do when you when you're done restoring it now, I'm assuming you
56:59
put it on sell Lord Archival Selly Lord and put in an assault mind somewhere
57:02
and then also digital Yeah, when when when the film we still do photochemical
57:08
preservations with some of the archives, in which case you want to make sure
57:13
that the original materials and elements are held in cold storage, temperature and humanity
57:17
control as well as the new film elements. But it allows, you know,
57:22
film prints to be circulated at theaters that are still showing thirty five millimeter
57:25
film. And then when we have digital workflow and when we restore films digitally,
57:32
we always have we have a film negative that's output from the digital files
57:39
and then thirty five millimeter film prints made from that negative. So we always
57:45
have thirty five millimeter film print and a DCP available to theaters so that audiences
57:52
can see they have the theaters have the option of showing either. And I
57:58
think, you know, it's important for us to always now have some kind
58:02
of digital element, so because that's really the way that the majority of people
58:07
are going to see the films. So we try to kind of as long
58:13
as films available, we'll be we'll be making some prints and negatives of the
58:16
films that we that we help restore. But there's some there's some four K
58:21
and maybe eight K quick Times out there somewhere. Absolutely well. Quick Times
58:27
are probably held by the rights holders, but yeah, we we but as
58:30
archival for our co, yeah, absolutely well. Lto tape is usually what
58:34
we're preserving at Wow. Yeah, because I mean again it's you're you're fighting
58:39
against time. Time is the enemy here. It's it just it just keeps
58:44
pounding away. And these elements, I mean, eventually, hopefully they'll be
58:49
a hard drive that will last indefinitely. And I think that will happen one
58:52
day. But who knows, you know, well a diamond or something.
58:57
What we hear is it's going to be DNA DNA So what is that exactly?
59:02
DNA storage? So what is DNA storage? I have no idea.
59:07
What d you know, Bigger brains than mine are going to have to explain
59:14
that. But you should try to get someone on the show who can talk
59:16
to you about DNA storage because that's apparently the future, not just for film
59:21
preservation and film storage obviously, but for data storage. I mean, we
59:24
are creating the amount of you know, computing power needed to store all that's
59:34
being created on the Internet, and you know, crypto, everything is just
59:38
so massive. I think the goal and the future is to have a DNA
59:45
strand hold all this information. Apparently it's exponential, the amount of material that
59:51
can be held once you Once you can you know, kind of like block
59:54
kind of like a blockchain mixed with a DNA kind of world. We'll be
1:00:00
right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
1:00:10
Yeah, again, brain's bigger than you and I. We'll have to
1:00:14
explain this to as smart as we are. It's just a little beyond us,
1:00:20
right when, because you're on the cutting edge of everything. I mean
1:00:22
you're talking about it's kind of like us trying to explain to somebody in the
1:00:27
nineteen hundreds this thing right here is really really important. Yeah, exactly.
1:00:32
We use it all day every day, but we cannot tell you how it
1:00:37
works, right exactly exactly. I can tell you. I can tell you
1:00:42
how a toaster works. I can't tell you how this thing works exactly.
1:00:46
Now, Margaret, I'm going to ask you a few questions. I ask
1:00:49
all of my guests, what is the lesson that took you the longest to
1:00:53
learn? Whether in the film industry or in life. Hmm. Interesting.
1:01:07
I feel like I'm still learning things. I'm not trying to dodge the question,
1:01:12
but I'll tell you what I'm glad I haven't learned yet is the word
1:01:15
no, yes, thank you. I really I can be kind of a
1:01:22
pain in this way, but I don't feel like anything is impossible, and
1:01:29
I try to do, you know. And maybe it's because I've worked for
1:01:32
Martin Scorsese for over thirty years, but I never I never say no.
1:01:37
I really try to make that I'm tenacious, and I think you need to
1:01:40
be tenacious in in, you know, roles like I have with the Film
1:01:46
Foundation. You can't give up on things. You know, how many people
1:01:51
are going to, like, you know, hang around for a ten year
1:01:54
restoration of a nineteen seventy six documentary, you know. So I'm trying to
1:02:00
think of the lesson. So I don't know if you can unwind that into
1:02:05
like the lesson no, it makes it. I mean, the lesson I
1:02:09
think that you're learning is to not take no for an answer, which is
1:02:13
a very very big lesson for people to go out if you can understand that
1:02:16
no is the default. No is what everyone's going to say to you most
1:02:22
of the time, especially in the film industry. You know, I'm sure
1:02:25
Marty. I'm sure Martyn can attest to that because he's been said no to
1:02:30
so I know, I know. And even even now it's funny because people
1:02:34
will say, well, he's Martin's say you can you can do anything.
1:02:37
It's like, yeah, people say no to him all the time. So
1:02:42
it's like, you know, you you really have to find ways to work
1:02:45
around you know, you have to. You have to commit to your dream
1:02:52
whatever it is. If you're you know, if you want to be an
1:02:53
actor, if you want to be a writer, if you want to be
1:02:55
a filmmaker, you know, you gotta believe in yourself because no one's going
1:03:00
to believe in you unless they see it coming from you first. Absolutely,
1:03:07
that's how it's conveyed. No, I think we might have answered the question,
1:03:10
but I'm gonna ask it anyway. What advice do you have for a
1:03:13
filmmaker trying to break into the business today. I think this seems like an
1:03:19
obvious bit of advice, But know your story, have a story to tell
1:03:25
and know what that story is, and you know, as much as you
1:03:31
can draw deep from your own personal experiences, knowledge, you know, bring
1:03:42
the emotion to it. And I think that's what people respond to. You
1:03:50
know, people respond to the truth of something. And even if it's not
1:03:53
like, yeah, I'm not talking about documentary truth, I'm talking about something's
1:03:59
authentic, you know, try to try to make it. Try to tell
1:04:02
a story and make a film about something that matters to you and that you
1:04:06
know. Hm, that's a great piece of advice. And my last question
1:04:12
and arguably the most difficult question you can be asked, three of your favorite
1:04:15
films of all time? Oh wow, that is really difficult because it changes,
1:04:23
as you know today. I always say, as of right now,
1:04:26
what comes it was tomorrow change, yesterday was different. Right now? What
1:04:30
are the three favorite films? I would say Vertigo, and this is in
1:04:38
no particular order. I would say Vertigo, it's so good. I would
1:04:45
say mean Streets, I mean, maybe my I mean it's a hard it's
1:04:49
a hard call because I have so many Uh Scorsese favorites. You know,
1:04:57
I'm really loving two thousand and one. Yeah, I mean it's it's I
1:05:00
mean, my my favorite Kubrick. I'm a huge, huge, huge Kubrick
1:05:04
fan. I've gone down the rabbit hole, probably a little too much with
1:05:09
with Stanley, but I love Eyes Watch Shut. I just adore it is
1:05:15
not the one that everyone talks about, but for me, I just I
1:05:18
still remember walking out of the theater in ninety nine and my friends are asking
1:05:24
me, what did you think I go? I don't know. I don't
1:05:26
understand it, but I will in ten years. And that's generally all of
1:05:30
Stanley's movies, they all are understood about a decade later, really truly like
1:05:35
appreciated. And then I saw it ten years later after I was married,
1:05:40
and it hit me at a whole other level because you're just like, oh,
1:05:44
oh God, I understand what he was trying to say. And it's
1:05:45
just it's such a hypnotic film, and and Mean Streets there's a there's a
1:05:56
rawness and velocity, but like this this energy energy that a young Scorsese is
1:06:06
making there, you know, and I've seen I've seen who's that knocking?
1:06:11
Or what is a girl? A good girl? What is it you're doing
1:06:15
in a place like this? Yeah, I saw that one. I've seen
1:06:16
almost all of Marty save short films and everything, but Mean Streets has this
1:06:20
this raw kinetic. That's a kinetic energy that you can start seeing the seeds
1:06:27
of what's coming. And that's what that is as a brilliant piece of work
1:06:31
as an independent filmmaker. It's really and and it's it's the definition of what
1:06:35
we just talked about of like having a story you know important to you goes
1:06:41
deep. That's like a personal you you know these people, you know this
1:06:45
story. I will add one film that I that I mentioned before is you
1:06:50
know I did watch some like It Hot again recently, so good and there
1:06:57
are you know how many films hold up and make you laugh so hard every
1:07:03
time you see them and over you know, film was nineteen sixty I think
1:07:11
maybe you know however many years you know, seventy years later, it's it's
1:07:16
just it's it's a real masterpiece. And you know, I've had a real
1:07:23
Billy Wilder reappreciation. Really. I mean, I'll tell you from from my
1:07:27
generation of filmmakers, which was coming up in the eighties and the nineties.
1:07:31
Laser discs were the thing, and the Criterion Collection introduced me to films.
1:07:35
If it just came out on the Criterion Collection, I would be like,
1:07:38
I have to watch this. So the graduates. I saw. I saw
1:07:43
movies, classic movies when there wasn't a lot of information about movies unless you
1:07:46
were in film school, and like the Lady in the mid eighties lad eighties,
1:07:49
there just wasn't there's no internet unless you went on studied in books.
1:07:53
You really couldn't know what was something you should watch. And the Criterion Collection
1:07:58
was one of those those collections that you're like the graduate, Okay, some
1:08:01
like it hot. I saw some like it hot to laserdis for the first
1:08:04
time. So that was in these in that collection, especially the early stuff,
1:08:09
and then of course Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, I think Bean Streets
1:08:12
came out afterwards, and then Lawrence of Arabian and the list goes on or
1:08:15
not. But yeah, there's those films up. But I remember, even
1:08:19
when I was a knucklehead in the video store days, which I was a
1:08:21
teenager, I called myself the knucklehead because I had no taste in cinema.
1:08:26
I was learning my taste in cinema again. I was watching like, you
1:08:29
know, John klavon Dam films and going he is the best actor ever.
1:08:32
But because I was, you know, sixteen, so of course, you
1:08:36
know, but even then films like the graduate films like some like It Hot
1:08:43
pierced through that because it hits you at a whole other level. It's not
1:08:47
a superficial level. And that's when I fell in love with Billy Wilder,
1:08:50
Preston Sturges. It's just these these filmmakers, those films like Preston stir Sullivan's
1:08:57
Travel still holds so well, yeah, even more, even more. And
1:09:01
you know, the thing is is it's important to note I think that comedy
1:09:08
is hard and that it can last. Yeah, and we can think of
1:09:13
like oh lighter, you know, the critics and awards, you know,
1:09:17
groups, I think underestimate how hard it is to make people laugh hard.
1:09:25
And and you watch a master like Billy Wilder and something like that's a absolute
1:09:29
masterpiece. It's it's a comedy. It's a comedic masterpiece. The timing,
1:09:33
the arts, the writing, just that everything, the entity. It's just
1:09:39
such a well made comedy. And then yeah, because comedy is like,
1:09:44
oh, it's everyone's laughing, so you shouldn't take it seriously. And that's
1:09:46
a lot of like awards and you know, Oscars and these kind of things
1:09:49
don't don't usually award these kind of films. But it's so hard. We'll
1:09:56
be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
1:10:02
show. So hard I've I've worked on comedies. It's the timing. You're
1:10:10
talking about a frame here or frame there, the joke lands or it doesn't
1:10:15
land on that frame. It's such such a nuanced art form. You know,
1:10:19
one of my favorite comedies of all time is Airplane and because of the
1:10:26
ludacy, but that is another deceiving comedy. It is so well time,
1:10:32
the timing of the jokes, how they did it, and you do know
1:10:38
the story of their review their Oh god, what is when when you go
1:10:42
in a test audience, the test audience review, you know, that's so
1:10:46
when they did it was one of the worst tested films ever. Paramount thought
1:10:50
it was going to be a bomb because nobody wanted to admit that they were
1:10:56
laughing. Nobody wanted to admit that they enjoyed it because it was so silly
1:11:00
and there was really had never been a film like that. That's that's true,
1:11:03
crazy slapstick. And but then when the audience it when it hit the
1:11:08
theaters, it just exploded. But it was considered one of the worst tested
1:11:11
films that because nobody wanted to admit that they were having a good time.
1:11:14
So it's even then. Yeah, thank goodness they didn't like it. I
1:11:19
mean that launched a whole that was groundbreaking. It launched a whole nature genre
1:11:27
that didn't exist before, right, right, And so these are these are
1:11:30
pieces of cinema that you know. In the world that we live in today,
1:11:35
Margaret, we have so much content and so much information coming at us
1:11:41
and with you know, I remember a time I always tell I took filmmakers
1:11:45
this young filmmakers. I'm like, I remember a time where I could watch
1:11:48
everything that came out that week because I was working at a video store and
1:11:51
every movie that came out on that given week, five movie, six movies,
1:11:56
maybe I watched them all. Yeah, maybe a day. You could
1:12:00
take a day and watch everything there a weekend and you're done, and I
1:12:03
would watch everything and I would be you know, That's how I got my
1:12:06
cinema knowledge. But today's world, there is so much coming at you.
1:12:13
The content in the in the amount of films, the amount of television,
1:12:17
and let's not even talk about YouTube and content created there, but just in
1:12:20
cinema and in television, storytelling. There's so much coming at us. You
1:12:26
and I could spend ten lifetimes and not watch at all. It's it's insane.
1:12:30
So it's that's why it's so important to highlight these wonderful pieces of art
1:12:35
that you are working with the Foundation to to bring light to because like content
1:12:44
and cinema has become disposable in many ways, where before you know, there
1:12:48
was only three channels. Yeah, I know, I know, well,
1:12:53
no, Alex. It's so we're so grateful for you to, you know,
1:12:58
be talking about this year audience, to be highlighting it because I think
1:13:02
for filmmakers, this is it probably is just this really important. I mean,
1:13:09
nothing is more important to filmmakers than having that well to draw from where
1:13:14
you can go back and be inspired by a film that was made. That's
1:13:17
part of that legacy. It's part of the continuum of the creative evolution of
1:13:23
storytelling on film, right exactly. And I can't I can't imagine a world
1:13:28
without the filmography of Mark Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick, or Steven Spielberg or Hitchcock
1:13:33
or Corsawa. You pull these just those those names alone, or Coppela,
1:13:38
you pull them out of cinema. Can you imagine the next generation of filmmakers
1:13:43
without being able to see main streets or jaws or to those Yeah, I
1:13:46
mean, nothing exists in a vacuum, and you know you can't have you
1:13:51
know, you know you can't have you know, fill in the blank,
1:13:58
contemporary filmmaker without their antecedents, you know, without without the things that came
1:14:02
before them. Because everything it's it builds on it. It's music is the
1:14:05
same way any art form. It echoes the past and then create something new.
1:14:13
Right now, we're not we're not mimicking the past. We're using you
1:14:16
know, we're kind of building on that and you know, using your own
1:14:20
voice and your own story, but always having that awareness of what's come before.
1:14:28
Margaret, it has been an absolute pleasure and honor talking to you.
1:14:30
Thank you so much for coming on the show, and thank you Marty and
1:14:33
your entire team at the Film Foundation for what you do because it is such
1:14:36
important work and I'm so glad that that I can, in my small way
1:14:41
help you along the way. So thank you again and please continue the good
1:14:44
work you are doing God's work. Without question. Thank you, Alex.
1:14:47
It's been such a pleasure and Hopefully we'll be back and talk about other restorations
1:14:51
in the future. I want to thank Margaret so so much for coming on
1:14:57
the show and sharing her knowledge and men's cinematic experience with the tribe today.
1:15:02
Thank you so so much, Margaret. If you want to get links to
1:15:04
anything we spoke about in this episode, including how to get access to the
1:15:10
restoration screening room, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
1:15:15
Ford Slash three thirty one. Thank you so much for listening to guys.
1:15:18
As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you
1:15:21
soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcasts at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.