James Cameron on "Charlie Rose" (1991)

James Cameron: as "Titanic" Set Sail

How did your journey to the bottom of the Atlantic to film the Titanic's wreckage change your conception of the story you were making?

quote-leftIt was sort of like going to Mecca first, and getting religion. We went there with very specific objectives, and I took two things away from the experience. One, get it right. Do it "exactly right". We've got the "real ship" on film--everything else has to live up to that level of reality from this point on. That imbued everybody in the art department with the same kind of crusade of correctness. And that applied also to what boats were launched at what time, what officer was where. The whole physical staging of it was also influenced. But there was another level of reaction coming away from the real wreck, which was that it wasn't just a story, it wasn't just a drama. It was an event that happened to real people who really died. Working around the wreck for so much time, you get such a strong sense of the profound sadness and injustice of it, and the message of it. You think, "There probably aren't going to be many filmmakers who go to Titanic. There may never be another one--maybe a documentarian." So it sort of becomes a great mantle of responsibility to convey the emotional message of it--to do that part of it right, too.

The Director's Chair
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Bernardo Bertolucci | Director *

Bernardo Bertolucci: Face to Face

Bernardo Bertolucci, you have made many remarkable films. Your last film, "The Last Emperor" had a great public triumph in Hollywood. Were you happy about all those Oscars?

quote-left You know for a European director the Oscar is a kind of very remote ceremony. It is something that it doesn't belong to us. Of course, the moment you get nine of it, the things change; so I felt suddenly sucked into a world, a universe, which is not my universe, which is a kind of legendary Hollywood universe. What it was interesting and reassuring is that the Hollywood community in general is very, very, let's say, chauvinistic. I don't think there is a record of a foreign movie- because The Last Emperor is an independent, European movie- that has this kind of success. So it was curious why; and people executive of the major companies came to congratulate me, and they told me in general more or less the same thing. The Last Emperor gave them the feeling of cinema as... They said this movie will make us think of the reason why we decided to be in movie business.

The Director's Chair
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Luc Besson | Director

Luc Besson on "The Fifth Element"

The "Fifth Element" is fantastic. Where did you get the idea for this?

I started to write it at sixteen years old. I was living outside of Paris, sixty kilometers from Paris. No TV. No V.C.R. Very much in the country, and not so many friends. It was pretty boring for an adolescent. So I started to invent this world where I can be a wild cab driver [Willis's character, Korben Dallas]. It was just a way to escape at first.

The Director's Chair
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William Lucking | Working Actor

William Lucking - The Illusion Continues

William Lucking graduated from U.C.L.A. and the Pasadena Playhouse with degrees in both literature and theater. He continued his professional training as a journeyman actor under under Gordon Davidson at the Mark Taper Forum, during which time he worked on both main stage and Monday Night Theater Productions, While at the Taper he also studied with well known acting coach Jeff Corey....

Profiles of the Working Actor
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Joe Berlinger | Documentary Filmmaker *

Joe Berlinger: Paradise Lost

What was the biggest difference between making "Brother's Keeper" and "Paradise Lost"?

quote-leftIn many ways "Brother's Keeper" and "Paradise Lost" are the mirror images of each other. In "Brother's Keeper," the community represents core American values in rallying around one of their downtrodden members and refusing to accept the stereotype that the police were trying to push. The police were saying: "These smelly old brothers are subhuman; this is a "sex gone bad" murder; look at the way they live; Delbert's guilty." The community refused to believe them and rallied behind Delbert and tried to help him.

The Director's Chair
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John Carpenter | Director

John Carpenter talks about "Escape from LA"

How does it feel crawling back into the world of Snake Plissken?

quote-leftThe weekend before we started principal photography, I was sitting around my house, brooding. My wife and my son said, "What's wrong with you?" I said, "I'm worried that I don't know the style." The original "Escape from New York" was written in 1974 and wasn't made until 1981. That was a young man's idea, it was a vision of somebody who saw things differently. Now, I'm an old veteran. Am I going to be able to get back in the saddle again?

The Director's Chair
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Pat Harrington | "One Day at a Time"

Pat Harrington (1929-2016)

Pat Harrington Jr (1929-2016),  was a character actor who entertained us with his wonderful craft for close to a half century.

From the urbane and discerning Guido Panzini of THE JACK PAAR SHOW in the mid fifties, to the avuncular Dwayne F. Schneider of ONE DAY AT A TIME in the seventies and eighties, to the irrepressible Cap'n Andy of Show Boat in the nineties, he demonstrated an extraordinary range.

Profiles of the Working Actor
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