Barry Levinson
We excuse movies like 'Independence Day' that really lack logic and say, 'It doesn't make any sense, but it's a ride.' I thought a movie was a movie and a ride was a ride.Collection: Independence
The public doesn't know what to believe anymore. We don't know what stories are supposedly true, this idea of 'fake news.' We watch it on what I guess you would call a split-focus. It's half entertainment and half mystery.
You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen.
We are a divided nation in the worst sense of the word, and we don't hear the other side.
I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.
When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.
Well it was sent to me, well because almost everything that is written in Baltimore is sent to me. And David Simon, who was a writer for the Baltimore Sun, spent one year following the homicide squad in Baltimore and he chronicled that period of time.
Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I've not found that to be the situation.
It's those moments, those odd moments that you look for and sometimes by creating this kind of loose atmosphere you find those little moments that somehow mean a lot to an audience when they really register right.
It's finding those nonsensical pieces of conversation that we all do all the time. We do all the time. When we're talking on the telephone, there are arguments with people who agree when they both think that they disagree.
The interesting thing about movies, it's not always - y'know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.
I'm thinking, this is Robert Redford. You know, he's won an Academy Award, he's talking to me about directing a movie he's in. So you just think that it's Hollywood stuff or whatever.
I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things - worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.
I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.
I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.
Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.
Apparently nobody really read it, it was a cheap movie, it fit their schedule in terms of things so fine, let the guy make that high school comedy. I used to work with Mel Brooks so they figured oh it's going to be one of those really silly movies and that's how it got made.
All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that's what ultimately works the best for me.
A lot of time mistakes are very interesting - you look for the behaviour that's not the one you expect.
The business has changed, and some people can keep talking about theatrical in these wondrous terms - it will survive, but it becomes narrower what you can make. So the films I'm most interested in, studios - or even the independents - aren't making them. I'm mostly interested in people.
I'm interested in the relationships of people. I'm interested in the darker moments within us. All those aspects of human behavior, I'm fascinated by. But in the times we're in, those are hard movies to make. So if I can do it at HBO, fine.
You can never squash something and assume it's not going to come back in some fashion. It's going to bubble up until it explodes. Society evolves to find a better way.
How do I make the son, daughter, wife of Paterno interesting? Then you just have to start seeing people.
It was about a football program that brought in massive amounts of money. They're going to try to cover something up, because it's about money at the end of the day. That's clear. There's no ambiguity to that. Paterno is much more complicated and contradictory, and that's why he's interesting to me.
It gets harder and harder to make movies about human beings. These movies are like an endangered species. Everything is 'simplify, simplify' now. How many movies have sub-plots anymore?
Writing by committee becomes much less about a vision. It is really about a piece of merchandise.
Paterno had that almost legendary reputation, and then all of a sudden, the scandal broke. Why would I be interested? You can't quite figure it out at face value.
At the end of the day, you can't do a copy of somebody.
You have to do a version of somebody that's the essence of Paterno. I think that's what Al is so great at. You have to create a man, a life, and the emotions that go with it. He's truly brilliant.
You can't tell the story of the thousands of people whose lives were destroyed by Bernie Madoff because there are thousands of stories. What you can do is to start inside, and that's the picture that you do, which becomes like a Greek tragedy in that regard - that whole collapse.
Now, a lot of people didn't know him at all - it went through feeder funds, so they wouldn't even have known anything about Bernie Madoff. But everybody finds a justification for their behavior, and obviously, Bernie had a half dozen justifications in his own mind.
You just start going through that process of trying to put together a cast that works. I don't know that I can explain it in a way that you can go, 'Oh.' It's a little bit like saying, 'How would he be with him? How does that feel?'
Some stories seem to lend themselves to telling right away. 'All The President's Men' was done, what, four or five years after the event? It certainly seemed to work there, as opposed to something that happened 40 years ago.
There is always a hesitancy with actors, and inhibitions can get into the work, so you have to figure out how to make it feel so loose that you can do anything, and if it is not right, that is okay because we'll do it again.
The more pressure that an actor puts on himself, the harder it is to deliver behavior that's interesting, and so I just try to find a way without talking too much.
My advice is that it's easier to write than direct. If you have an interest in writing, write. You might as well start with yourself or some event you know well, and you need a point of view.
You used to need a big camera to direct, but now, anyone with an iPhone can tell a story visually. You can film something. You can start off with a five-minute story, then a 10-minute story.
Writing with a partner is, in some ways, an easy but odd process. Two people come into a room and look to each other for motivation. One might not be in the right mood at any given moment. And somehow, you begin; somehow, out of your exchange of thoughts, something engages both of you, and the process of collaboration begins.
You need to be open and explore while heading where you want to go. You can never be too in love with your own ideas. If you can remember every idea that is yours in a script, as opposed to someone else's, then something is wrong.
'Wag' is not some kind of documentary; it's just looking at the tools that are available. Now you've got more tools - you've got social media - and just post stories through all types of back channels that can get some traction.
If you create a visual that actually captures the imagination, that's not real. It will look real, and that will spread at such lightning speed that by the time it's found out, it has already done its damage. It's a very, very scary time that we're living in. I say it's an age of absurdity.
No one really has the power, and everybody's trying to get through the day, and everybody's nervous and desperate.Collection: Trying
There's no downside to having too much experience.Collection: Too Much
You don't always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion.Collection: Want
It's always hard to explain why an audience ultimately responds to a movie.Collection: Audience
I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can't truly define why something succeeds.Collection: Thinking
As soon as digital editing came about, I immediately made the switch to digital.Collection: Editing
I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it's getting.Collection: Thinking
When I was growing up in Baltimore, the Colts were not just a team that played in the city. It was part of the city. Football players didn't make close to the money they make today and most took jobs in the off-season. Some were mechanics, others worked at furniture stores, and you could find them drinking at a neighborhood watering hole.Collection: Football