Today I have the happy pleasure of welcoming a
very special guest, actor Michael Margotta, to CINEMATIC REVELATIONS for an
interview. Michael has acted in various motion pictures and television series
over the years, in films such as DRIVE, HE SAID (1971) [My review of the film
can be found
here] WILD IN THE STREETS (1968), THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT (1970),
and I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN (1977), to name a few examples. Michael
will today be discussing his role in DRIVE, HE SAID, acting, The Actors Studio, Film Festivals,
and, as an acting coach.
Welcome to CINEMATIC REVELATIONS Michael!
Athan: When did you first realize that you wanted
to be an actor?
Michael: I was 18 years old. Wasn’t sure about
what I wanted to do with my life. I had already had a physical for the Draft so
it was just a matter of time before my number would come up and I would be in
Vietnam. I was sitting in a library reading magazines and in the back of one I
saw an advertisement for a theater academy in California that was also an
accredited college. Thought maybe that might be a way to stay out of a war that
I knew was wrong early on. Started doing research on other places but there
really wasn’t a lot of choices in 1965. I had never done anything related to
acting before so I didn’t have much to base a choice on. I had a hunch that
film was the medium that would interest me so I focused in that direction.
*
Athan: Where did you study acting?
Michael: I made the decision to go to the
Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts. One reason was that it offered a
department for studying acting related to film and television.
Another was that it was situated near Hollywood.
I grew up in New York and for an 18 year old in 1965, California seemed like
the most exciting place to be.
*
Athan: Your performance in DRIVE, HE SAID was a
powerful, compelling viewing experience. How did you become involved in this
project?
Michael: My involvement in Drive was on the
surface like any other project. Agents setting up meetings and auditioning to
get the role. I had been under contract to Columbia Pictures before this and
had a reputation of fighting for what I believed in and Jack [Nicholson] knew
all those stories. I had fought for creative freedom in a Studio system and
that was rare and risky in those days. The Producers of Drive had all been
working in Columbia so they knew the stories about me as well.
*
Athan: Much of the film was shot at the
University of Oregon, which gave the movie a freshness and realism that a
studio could not offer in this instance. What were both the logistical
advantages, and challenges, of filming on a real location?
Michael: The location issues were many. First,
there were only two Universities in the U.S. that would allow filming by this
time. It was 1970 and there had been problems in the past with film studios
shooting on campuses. With the anti-war movement and antiestablishment
atmosphere that circulated around Universities the consensus then was that a
film shoot might create problems depending on content. So the only two choices
left were University of Oregon or Colorado. There was so much going on around
the University of Oregon at that time in terms of political polarization that
could be interesting plus being situated in a very beautiful area of the
country and fairly close proximity to California that it became the choice with
a contract that stipulated no sex, no drugs, nothing detrimental to the name of
the University.
The city of Eugene, where the University is
situated, is surrounded by mountains and there were many communes established
where groups were living in whatever ways they chose. And also communities
where you would have right wing good ol’boys.
I don’t know if you remember the scene in
Easy Rider when Jacks character is murdered but that location is known as the
Paris Line and it was famous in Louisiana because many young people disappeared
going through there. And the other famous place where young people disappeared
is Grants Pass, Oregon, near the border with California.
So there were these extreme energies in the location.
One week before the shooting began I went with
Jack to a location in the mountains in Oregon where a train was to arrive with
a shipment of nerve gas to be stored in some kind of underground structure.
Oregon is a Federally funded State so this Federally mandated shipment meant
business and there was a protest taking place and we went to get a sense of the
kind of atmosphere we would be eventually dealing with.
To give you a broader perspective, the week we
arrived in Eugene there were two events that had just taken place. One was that
a building was burned down that was run by the R.O.T.C. Reserve Officer
Training Corps was a training program of the United States armed forces present
on college campuses to recruit and educate commissioned officers. This brought
in the F.B.I. The other event was someone driving around in a green pickup
truck at night shooting anyone with long hair. This was all just for starters.
The challenges had just begun.
All these events were part of the background of
the filming but there was an internal event taking place that would affect
shooting for days. This was the first film Jack directed and the Director’s
Guild of America demanded he join the union because it was a union project.
He was refusing to pay for membership on the
grounds that he may never direct again so the Directors Guild threatened to
shut down the project by having other unions pull the crews off the production.
The Producers brought in an alternative non-union crew in case the plug was pulled.
So there were two crews, one sitting around watching while the other one
worked. This stalled the shooting for awhile but eventually an agreement was
reached and the non-union crew returned to L.A.
But this had an effect that was not obvious at
first. The crew was becoming polarized like the environment. Which would blow
up in the end when some rules were broken.
A major turning point was reached when a
nationwide event started taking place on or near college campuses. It was the
first time Earth Week, an event that represented ecological and environmental
issues would be set up across the country. And the University gave permission
for a street on campus to be used for the displays.
There was a radical movement that built a wall
each night at each end of the street. They used cinder blocks and quick dry
cement. In the morning the authorities would knock it down. But at the end of
the week the radical movement took over the administration building next to the
street and would not leave.
Just before all this chaos I met with Jack and
Jeremy Larner (the writer of the novel that the film was based on) to discuss
the ending of the film. The ending of the film is very different from what was
originally in the script and the script ending very different from the novel
ending (which I preferred). In the script, Gabriel(the character I played)does
break into the Biology Lab but is captured and given a shot with a needle and
put into a cage and taken away. In the novel there is a parade in the town and
Gabriel who has been pursued by the authorities suddenly appears on the top of
a huge float, fires up a cigar and in a relaxed mood in front of the world,
sets the float on fire and self immolates.
What we discussed was a variation on the script
which would most likely create a big problem because it involved not only doing
the scene nude in the Lab but include streaking nude across the campus... a
direct violation of the contract between the Producers, Studio and University.
And instead of the needle and straitjacket and cage... I would let the animals
go free and when the authorities finally catch up with me, walk out and get in
the ambulance on my own free will. But we had to convince the Producer on
location.
His answer to this idea about nudity in the Lab
was that it was okay but not in the Lab originally designated, which was
situated on University property. He offered to rent an abandoned school
building in another area. The streak nude across the University campus idea was
out. So it was left like this.
But as I mentioned before, there was a major
turning point that would cause events to spiral out of control. The
Administration building was now completely occupied by students.
I should mention here that I had made a decision
that I would stay in character through the entire filming even when I was not
working. I wore the same costume even when I was not working. I had a lot of
free time when all the basketball sequences were being shot and I used it to
stay in character and live in that place. I even convinced Bill [William] Tepper at one
point to sleep in the boiler room space that the characters shared. I was
continually doing my ‘research’ about what was going on in the area when I wasn’t
shooting.
I happened to be on the campus and spotted the
camera equipment truck in a parking area and I strolled over to sit and talk
with some of the camera crew. Within a few minutes the Producer (Steve Blauner)
came running up shouting, “Break out a camera... c’mon with me Gabriel...
something is happening.”
So with one camera operator, I followed Steve up
a hill and arrived on one side of the Administration building where a few
people were gathered. A Military transport vehicle was parked in front of this
side door and there two rows of Police in full riot gear... shields, riot
helmets, rifles, batons, etc; creating a path from the door of the building to
the back of the transport and at the same time students were being
dragged/carried from the building and put into the truck.
Things were happening fast. The students’ hands
and legs were tied with plastic bands that were adopted from the Military in
Vietnam. It was as if Steve, the cameraman and myself were all on the same wave
length. With no time to waste I positioned myself right in front of one of the
men in riot gear and started a monologue. I forgot completely about Steve and
the camera operator. I could see the nervousness in the eyes of the man behind
the plastic face mask that I was monologuing with. More students dragged out
behind him but now something else was happening.
Crowds started gathering quickly behind me and on
both sides of me and at the same time the transport was overloaded with tied up
students so they started lining them up on the ground at the back of the
vehicle in a rush to get them out and get out themselves because now there were
a couple of hundred people shouting at them and more arriving. They
underestimated this operation.
And then all hell broke loose in seconds. It remains
in my memory as a series of snapshots. On my left I was aware of an older man
with a briefcase, a kind of professor type. Suddenly, over our heads, a huge
piece of cement, like the base of some kind of street sign that had been ripped
out of the ground came crashing down on the head of the man in the mask that I
was talking with. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. Immediately the professor
guy next to me reached down to try and help him. Instantly, someone behind me
put a hand on my left shoulder and I could see it was holding a handkerchief. I
reached for it and at the same time an officer who was standing behind the one
I had been talking with, who was now lying on the ground semi-conscious, raised
a pepper fogger and blasted me with gas.
This all happened in seconds.
Everything went black. My eyes were sealed, my
skin was sealed! I instinctively knew I shouldn’t try to breathe and I had to
protect my head. I was backing up, bent over, trying to protect my head with my
arms and holding the last breath I had taken before getting hit with gas. It
was Dante’s Inferno. Blackness. Bumping into people. Screaming and yelling all
around me. And one minute became an eternity.
I stopped and still, with my eyes sealed, I
started sipping little bits of air until I could breathe again and wiped my
eyes with the handkerchief that mysteriously appeared on my shoulder.
The Producer was gone. The cameraman was gone.
The transport was gone.
But there were hundreds of students chasing after
a column of men in riot gear as they tried to retreat. Sometimes the last man
in the column would be hit by some kind of projectile and the next man would
have to carry him along.
And this was a strange moment for me. I’m not in
a movie now. This is another dimension of ‘acting’ of ‘being’.
I started going with the flow. I was curious.
Following this column now off the campus trying to make its way through a
street in Eugene followed by an angry mob, every once in awhile having to stop
alongside a building to put their backs against a wall for protection before
attempting another block. The automobile traffic jammed up because of the crowd
and mayhem.
And then I heard the sound of a helicopter in the
distance. Someone ran by me screaming, “the national guard is coming!”
And I knew this did not bode well and it was time
to call it quits.
Oddly enough all this movement seemed to be
flowing in the direction of the center of Eugene where the Hotel was situated
that the Production was based in. I went to the Hotel and sat at a window and
watched as the riot worked its way to an underground parking garage and in
swooped the Calvary (National Guard) and it was a bad day for everyone. I sat
in that chair and cried. It was not only a release of a hell of a lot of
adrenaline but something intensely soulful.
As an actor, prejudice is death. I was caught up
in the rage. The rage of a nation at war with itself. This was 1970. The
previous decade is difficult to explain. Like being in a dark room and someone
turned on the light for the first time. And now they want to turn it off again
and all this struggle is to keep that light on and keep exploring what was
impossible to see before.
Needless to say, this event became the turning
point for the production. The press was all over this event. It was the first
time gas was used in the 40 year history of the University at that point in
time. And this was covered up in the press. The subject of gas was a big issue
as I mentioned in the beginning when the State had to accept the storage of
nerve gas in one of its mountains.
The problem was... we had footage of gas being
used and they knew it. And that footage was already on its way to California.
It wasn’t long before the Governor of Oregon had a team of his aides at the
Hotel trying to get that footage. Jack and the Producer had their hands full.
It was clear that the material could create legal problems. And for that
reason, when you see the film, after the first basketball game where my
character with his misfit team of radicals stopped the game by turning off the
lights, you see me outside the stadium supposedly getting arrested and I put my
hand over the camera lens. Those few seconds are just before I was gassed. And
I didn’t remember until I saw the film the first time that I did that in
reality. It was as if I was saying...no, this is real..go away.
It was the beginning of the end. The Producer was
now fired up and changed his mind about the ending idea for the film. He said
if I wanted to streak nude to the Lab on University property it was fine. But...
it would have to be a secret. It would not appear on any schedule. Only a few
people on the Production would know. The idea was, I would get a phone call
early in the morning on a weekend and be ready to go.
I got the phone call at 5am on a Sunday morning.
There was a station wagon waiting outside the Hotel. There were six of us.
Nicholson, Steve Blauner the Producer, Harry Gittes the Set Designer, Fred Roos
the casting director, Bill Butler the director of Photography, and myself.
We drove over to the campus. Parked next to the
entrance of the Lab building. Bill, Steve and Harry got out and started setting
up a tripod and getting the camera ready. Jack was behind the wheel. Fred in
the back seat and I was in the passenger seat. The idea was that when the
camera was ready, Jack would drive to an area around 500 meters away and we
would wait for a signal and Fred and I would get out and he would be an extra
watching me streak nude to the building and enter while Jack drove back to the
camera area.
As we sat there I was scanning the grounds of the
University and I saw a pickup truck pull up to a building not far from where I
was going to get out of the car and start running. A man got out of the truck,
stood there watching us and then entered a building. I had a strange feeling in
that moment. Bill signaled he was ready with the camera. We drove to our
starting point and as soon as we stopped we saw a Eugene Police car pull up to
the camera.
Jack got out and went to see what was happening
while Fred and I waited…
The Police car drove away and Jack came back and
said they were just curious why someone was shooting at 6am on a Sunday
morning.
I stripped off my clothes and wrapped myself in a
blanket. They waved and I got out and started running. Fred got out and was
walking in the background and Jack was driving back towards the camera.
I ran towards camera which was placed on a tripod
next to some stairs that led up to a glass door entrance of the Laboratory and
the set up was that I would enter the building and shot finished. I was hoping
we would get it in one take.
I ran up the stairs, past the camera, reached for
the door and it was locked! Immediately a man appeared on the other side of the
locked glass door and in one hand he had a walkie-talkie and in the other he
was holding up a badge and shouted at me, “don’t move, you are under arrest!”
Without hesitation I ran back down the stairs and
jumped in the car which had just returned and immediately started getting
dressed. Jack was helping everyone collect the gear and throw it in the station
wagon and by the time everyone was back in the car, there were men coming out
of different buildings and surrounding the car before we could move. One guy
actually had his hip up against the headlight on the driver’s side and Steve
Blauner was behind the wheel now. We had the windows up and doors locked. The
guy leaning on the headlight had his hand inside his jacket the whole time as
if he was holding onto a weapon. It was a standoff. Blauner was racing the
engine to try and threaten the guy off but he wouldn’t budge. There was a
construction site nearby and the other guys were picking up boards and whatever
they could find and jamming it under the car.
Blauner gunned the engine and tried to move an
inch and the guy in front whipped his hand out of his jacket and pointed a kind
of pen at the windshield which was a relief at that moment but it made Steve
crazy. He jumped out of the car and started screaming at the guy that if he
didn’t move he was going to drive over him. Got back in, revved up full speed
and let it go and the guy up front jumped/fell backward and was just missed as
we bounced full speed over boards and bricks and raced back to the Hotel but
not to stay.
It was obvious we were set up. But by who?
Everything was moving fast. Blauner got his
girlfriend and the footage we had just shot and got in his Porsche and headed
for the California border. There was definitely going to be some fallout from
this especially after what happened with the footage of the gassing and the
Governor becoming involved. So the message was we were going to have breakfast
at a Pancake House restaurant. A long breakfast. Because a team of lawyers were
on the way from L.A.
It was a pretty quiet breakfast. When the lawyers
arrived they just sat there watching us eat. Like everyone was trying to be
serious but the subtext was more like, a bunch of kids sent to the Principles
Office.
The plan was that we would go back to the Hotel
but I should avoid my room. Wait in the Dining Room for a car to pick me up and
drive me to the Oregon coastline and stay there one night and we would
improvise shooting something there. Jack and the Lawyers would be busy with
Police Authorities for awhile.
I had already cleaned out my room before we went
out for breakfast so when we returned to the Hotel I went right to the Dining
Room. The Police were arriving at the Hotel at the same time. Jack had a room
full of Lawyers and Police.
When I entered the Dining Room, I saw the
Assistant Director and a couple of crew members sitting at a table at one end
of the room. I saw Jacks girlfriend, Mimi, sitting at another table with a guy
who was a Nicholson fan that appeared whenever and wherever Jack worked. More
than just a fan, he was obsessed with Jack and would pop up on location all the
time. I sat down with them and immediately Mimi explained to me that she would
be a go-between what was happening upstairs with Jack and what I should do.
And in walked two Police Officers. They came to
our table and one of them asked if we knew the actor Michael Margotta.
Instinctively I knew I should answer fast and first so the other two would know
what do. I shook my head and said no. Mimi and the guy knew to say no as well.
The two officers looked around the room, spotted the Assistant Director and
crew at another table and made their way over. Mimi left quickly to go to Jacks
room.
I watched as the Police asked the same question
at the other table. I saw the Assistant Director point in the direction of me
and Jacks fan guy. And I knew in that moment that the Assistant Director was
the person that tipped off the authorities about the shot we did earlier. There
are very strict union rules in the U.S. about shooting. The Assistant Director
is like a Sergeant in the Military. He has to be informed of everything. And in
a Studio system he has to control everything. He was not informed about what we
were doing but somehow he figured it out. And in order to save himself from any
blame in the fiasco, he alerted the Police.
The two officers walked out. Mimi returned and
told me there was a van waiting for me outside and she was going to travel with
me and later Jack would join us.
The three of us walked out together and as soon
as we entered the Hotel Lobby the two Police Officers appeared from a side door
and stopped Jacks fan guy. One of the officers took off his hat and pulled out
of it a little card and started reading the poor guy his rights.
They were called Miranda Rights and had only
recently become a law that the Police had to abide by. ‘You have the right to
remain silent..etc; etc.’ This officer didn’t have it memorized yet so he was
reading it.
I did not pause but kept going. It was obvious
what happened. When the finger was pointed at our table they thought the other
guy was Michael Margotta.
Mimi kept pace with me. As we entered the parking
area where the van was waiting a Police car pulled up alongside of me with one
officer in it and I stopped. Through his rolled down window he asked me if I
was Michael Margotta and I said no. He asked me what my name was and a name
popped out of my mouth of one of my high school friends. “Andy Dunne’” was my
answer. I saw him pick up a little notebook and start searching for the name.
We continued on, jumped in the van and were driven to the coast.
So these were a few of the challenges in shooting
in a real location.
*
Athan: What did you most enjoy about the
experience of filming DRIVE, HE SAID?
Michael: One of things I enjoyed in the project
is the research that I was doing day to day. It is my favorite part of acting.
I dropped into a part of the world that was all new to me. I was spending time
with people from the area and going into worlds that were interesting. Communes
where groups were living alternative life styles. I was from New York and had
only been in LA for 5 years and these two zones were best characterized by an
iconic cover on THE NEW YORKER magazine which represented a map of the United
States in which we see LA on the west coast and NYC on the east coast and
nothing but a desert in between. There were some far out individuals living in
Oregon. Ken Kesey who wrote, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest had graduated from
the University of Oregon more than a decade before this but had a kind of
commune life style that he supported as an example. So, I enjoyed being in
these different worlds. And I developed a kind of group of locals that helped
me explore the more radical undercurrents. And I enjoyed my fellow actors. Bill
Tepper and I became life-long friends until he died recently. And Henry Jaglom
and I worked together again many years after on a film in NYC called, CAN SHE
BAKE A CHERRY PIE. And we are still in touch with each other. I greatly enjoyed
the freedom I had working on the film. And the discoveries I made because of
that freedom. Working with Nicholson and Bill Butler (Director of Photography)
opened up possibilities to explore technically in ways I had not been able to
do on productions before this one.
*
Athan: What research did you undertake after you
decided to take on the role of the irreverent, troubled Gabriel in DRIVE, HE
SAID?
Michael: The research was pretty much about what
I experienced living in the environment we worked in. Some of that I mentioned
before. The political and social issues that were primarily the conflicts the
character faced, were all too familiar. I had done a film (STRAWBERRY
STATEMENT) before this that dealt with similar themes based on a real event at
Columbia University. But a much more Hollywood version of events in my opinion.
I drew from different sources for the character. A teenage friend who had
dropped out of high school, a real rebel who opened up my mind by handing me a
copy of ‘Coney Island of the Mind’ by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. An African
American street guy I studied for a couple years named Andy, who would never
reveal his last name to me. The last line of the film is, “Your Mother
called...your Mother called” as I was taken away. And for me this was the first
time that there was some sense of this guy was just a kid who was angry and
willing to go against Goliath even if it meant ending up in the asylum. There
was an incredible sequence that we shot that never made it into the film. It
took place in the Draft Board location. It was to take place after the scene
where I attack the psychiatrist and I get dragged out by some guards. I went
back at night and broke into the building and destroyed the whole interior. We
spent a long time on that. Some of it symbolic, like destroying a Coca Cola
machine and dozens of bottles of Coca Cola in slow motion and the rest just
pure, poetic rage in real time taking the whole building apart. The character
was doing so many drugs that he was ultimately alone in another dimension. The
freeing of the animals in the end, his ultimate expression. I saw many people
lost in drugs so it wasn’t difficult to draw from those impressions.
*
Athan: Bruce Dern did a wonderful job as the
coach in DRIVE, HE SAID, a character who was totally no-nonsense, the complete
antithesis to Gabriel. What was it like to work with the talented Mr Dern?
Michael: Working with Bruce Dern was minimal. We
only had one scene together. But we would sometimes watch each other work. He
was very supportive and it was always a pleasure to see him standing off to the
side and giving me the ok sign after I did a scene. He had a phenomenal
stamina. Sometimes we would cross paths early in the morning as I was leaving
to shoot and he was just coming back from a 50 mile run. On the weekends he
would run 100 miles with his girlfriend driving alongside handing him Coca
Cola. I was happy for Bruce that he had this opportunity because the film
helped his career tremendously. I had heard a story that when he was much younger
he was up for the leading role in Elia Kazan’s, Splendor In The Grass and the
only other actor being considered was Warren Beatty who did get the role in the
end. When he spoke to Lee Strasberg about his disappointment, Lee told him,
Bruce you are going to have to wait another 20 years. Pretty devastating to
hear for a guy driving a taxi to survive. The last time I saw him was years
after the film. I was doing something in the Actors Studio in NYC and he
stopped in because he was doing something on Broadway and it was great to see
him. He was surprised to see me working on a play by Chekhov.
*
Athan: How was the experience of being directed
in DRIVE, HE SAID by the renowned Jack Nicholson?
Michael: Working with Jack directing was very
liberating. At the same time he is a strong personality. As a result of the
freedom it was possible to push the limits in some scenes in ways that I had
not experienced in my previous work. Improvising scenes as an example. Or
following an impulse that would not have been acceptable in a more traditional
shooting situation. Some of those moments surprised me because in any other
situation a director would have said, “Cut.” There is a scene that takes place
before the Draft Board sequence when I’m sitting with a couple of the guys and
Henry Jaglom is asking me why I am so morose and I was upset to the point where
I got up and walked out of the scene but kept talking and then walked back in
and sat down again still talking. I was surprised to see it in the final cut.
Because Jack was so laid back (sometimes literally lying on the floor) when we
were shooting, the atmosphere was relaxed for the most part.
Most films made in that era generally shot around one hundred and fifty
thousand feet of film, max. I think we came back with three hundred and fifty
thousand. A lot of that was basketball footage for sure but also things like
the destruction of the Draft Board that never made it into the final cut.
There are as many different kinds of directors as there are actors and I have
had the good fortune of working with directors who had been actors and they
tend to have a trust in who they choose to work with so it becomes more of a
collaboration. There is a vocabulary we can tap into and a lot of that is
non-verbal. Jack liked it when I would do the hambone thing of slapping my leg
rhythmically (which I stole from my teenage rebel friend) and I was using
sparingly in key scenes and I would see him off camera doing it to encourage me
to do it again and again and at a certain point I realized that he was pushing
me to do it more knowing that only a percentage of it would end up in the final
product and it would become a character trait.
One day he said something to me that I will always be grateful for. Learn film
editing. It will save you eight years. And I did right after we finished
shooting.
*
Athan: Have you kept in contact with any cast
members and crew from DRIVE, HE SAID?
Michael: I did stay in touch with Jack, Bruce,
Henry, Bill Tepper, Karen Black, Bob Rafelson. I did another film with Karen,
‘Can She Bake A Cherry Pie,’ directed by Henry Jaglom. And Bill was developing
a script that he wanted me to do with him in Prague right up until he passed
away last year. Henry wrote to me yesterday. Pierre Cottrell was also a dear
friend. His Company did the subtitles for foreign distribution and he was also
an important producer. So, Bill, Karen and Pierre have passed away. I have been
living in Italy for almost twenty years and working non-stop and have a
tendency to disappear into my work.
*
Athan: Are you still recognized today for your
role in DRIVE, HE SAID?
Michael: ‘Drive’ was certainly a unique film but
from the beginning it was a film that came too late into the world. The University,
anti-war themes had been done. After ‘Easy Rider’ there was a period when
anyone that had a script that dealt with youth issues found Hollywood very
receptive. Most Producers were looking for the formula of B.B.S. Productions. I
did some of the earlier films that dealt with similar issues. ‘Strawberry
Statement,’ ‘Wild In The Streets.’ The wave was finished by the time Drive was
released. But in most respects it was in my opinion the best of the genre. In
the 70’s there were young people that would stop me, mostly University types
that would want to say something about how the film effected them. And here in
Italy more people of that generation saw ‘Strawberry’ than ‘Drive.’ About ten
years ago Sony released a collection of all the B.B.S films and that was the
last time I heard anything.
*
Athan: What for you was the scene(s) in DRIVE, HE
SAID you are most proud?
Michael: Over the years I have become a firm
believer in less is more. That the gold is in the details. Take the s and the m
off the word small and you get all. So I have a tendency to look at scenes
under the microscope and when I look at my own work I focus more on moments.
I’m not proud of any of the scenes as much as I am moments. When I saw the film
the first time I was not excited about it. Of the genre it was the most
original. It was pushing the limits in many areas. The Catholic Review Board
which existed for years, walked out when they saw it and never came back.
Initially it received an X-Rating and it took some legal work to get an
R=Rating. Jack went after the hypocrisy in the Rating system. The philosophy
being that it was okay to shoot or stab a woman in the breast but not show male
frontal nudity.
I think there were too many cooks in the kitchen during the editing of the
film. And there was an enormous amount of film to edit, more than twice an
average film. So there are moments here and there in my own performance that I
can see something. Most of them are silent moments.
*
Athan: In 2009 you directed your first feature
film, MISS JULIE. What is it that attracted you to directing this film?
Michael: The writings of August Strindberg always
fascinated me. His perspective on theater was visionary, far ahead of the
times. In the preface for Miss Julie he was pleading with Producers, Theater
Managers, to make changes in productions that would add more realism. He is
considered one of the three Grandfathers of Modern Realism, along with Anton
Chekhov and Henrik Ibsen. When Tennessee Williams received an award for
‘Streetcar Named Desire,’ he thanked Strindberg because in many ways, Miss
Julie was the inspiration for Blanche DuBois. What I found challenging in Miss
Julie is how Strindberg packed so much into the small space. It’s a one act
play that takes place in one night in one room and has so many levels running
through it in a unique language. I had been working on several projects as
Artistic Director of The Actors Center Roma, a non-profit organization made up
of two hundred actors, writers and directors. And it was several years later
that I realized that three of the productions I was working on were in one way
or another connected with suicide. I made a short version film of Chekhov’s
‘The Sea Gull.’ And shot an original story, ‘Everything Counts, Nothing
Matters,’ about a film director that commits suicide while the entire cast is
waiting for him in a hotel on an island. I was very curious about the subject
of suicide and in all these projects I was working to remove all the moral
issues connected with it and exploring how powerful that switch is that
overrides our associations connected with pain and pleasure. Miss Julie was
also an exercise with the actors in approaching material without assumptions.
The initial intention was to explore the themes and see if we could find the
play. The Actors Center was designed with this kind of approach in mind. I’m a
member of the Actors Studio in the U.S. and it is similar in that it is made up
of professional actors who come together to cause each other to grow in the
art. So it wasn’t the kind of traditional approach. Meaning, we decide on a
script and go into production. Instead, we decide on a script and work on it
and see if we can find the soul of it, test it, get feedback on it and then
take it to production. Miss Julie grew up in this way. I had worked this way as
an actor in the past on many projects and it was a pleasure to share this with
the actors in Miss Julie.
*
Athan: What did you most enjoy about directing
MISS JULIE?
Michael: It was very satisfying to see the actors
make the commitment to work on developing their characters and explore the text
without any concern for performing for such a long period. I watched them grow
in so many ways. They knew this was an opportunity they might never have again
so they were devoted to it. In the Actors Center in Rome we had sessions twice
a week for eight years in which the actors could bring in work and present it
for feedback. And Directors sessions once a week for the same purpose. The
actors in Miss Julie used these sessions for almost a year in order to test
their development, sometimes with my input about what to focus on. Rai
television came in and shot one of the sessions for a special they were doing
on the Actors Center and this increased the interest in the project. The whole
project developed in the Center. It was literally shot in the basement of the
Center. It was challenging to design it to run like a play with three cameras
inside the action at all times but I enjoyed that process very much. And the
camera operators enjoyed it as much as I did.
*
Athan: When did you first become involved in The
Actor’s Studio?
Michael: I became involved in the Actor’s Studio
in the late seventies in L.A. first and then right after in N.Y. I was asked to
work on a play in development with Jocelyn Brando, Marlon’s sister and it was
around the same time that I became friends with Jack Garfein, the Director who
along with Paul Newman put together the Actors Studio West. Jack was creating
two new theaters in NYC and very excited about the move because after years in
LA he felt it was an intellectual desert and he convinced me that it could be
good for me to go back to my roots which began in the theater. My career
started in the theater in LA in a production of Eugene O’Neil’s,
‘Ah,Wilderness.’
It was an enormous success and from there I went
under contract to Columbia Pictures and working in films and television. Jack
convinced me to come back to theater and especially theater in NYC. Ellen
Burstyn invited me into the East Coast Actors Studio as a Professional
Observer. After a few years of trying to live on two coasts I became a member
of the Studio.
*
Athan: You coach students on acting in seminars
across the world. In which countries do you hold seminars? What gives you the
most satisfaction about teaching the art of acting to students?
Michael: Until 2000 I taught in NYC. Then I
started a routine which lasted a few years. Spain, Portugal, Switzerland,
Italy, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Costa Rica and U.S.A. Then something happened
that changed everything. I was doing a seminar on the Spanish island,
Formentera when 9/11 happened and I could not go home. There were people
working with me from five countries, one of them Italy. The Italians were
asking me to come back to Rome which I did and life changed. There were so many
people coming in that it was overwhelming and we started the Actors Center
Roma. I continued to try and keep the commitments with other countries but it
became very difficult. If I was in Portugal adapting Virginia Woolf’s ‘The
Waves,’ and directing it for theater for six months, I would have to leave the
Center in Rome and going back and forth meant leaving the actors alone and
losing momentum. I closed the Center after eight years. I do seminars and
coaching all over Italy now. I work with individuals and productions and
started a company in Milan called MIAT, Milan Institute for Arts and Technology.
There was a moment when I was asking myself, why do so many young people want
to become actors. There are so many courses, classes, schools, seminars for
acting all over the world. I was teaching in the jungle of Costa Rica, on a
Blue Boat off of Turkey, in East Berlin on Pushkin Strasse, in the incredible
Duomo of AMALFI, on islands like Sardinia, Sicily, Mallorca, Formentera,
Maddelana, in the Algarve section of Portugal, in Tel Aviv, in an ancient
cemetery in Turin and every region of Italy. Why do so many young people want
to join an endangered species?
I thought about all the obvious reasons, superficial reasons, but I came to the
conclusion that there is something much deeper going on. Something ancient.
That an actor is someone who can change, transform. Which means they have some
kind of control over their existence. And when have we needed control over our
existence more than now?
With the Actors Center in Rome I had a laboratory that I could experiment in,
explore in, with two hundred and nineteen members made of actors, directors,
writers. With different countries and environments I worked with diverse
energies culturally, socially, artistically and that made it possible to adapt
the work I was doing and experience the influences that were effecting
different countries as we became more global. Some of the actors that came to
work with me twenty years ago are now considered the best actors in Italy.
In all that time I was teaching acting, directing, writing, life issues, script
analysis and developed exercises to address the issues that actors deal with so
they can get into their power as actors and know how to get results.
And to take responsibility for the purpose and meaning of acting.
And when I see, and everyone else sees an actor
discover the ability to be swept beyond themselves, I feel a great
satisfaction. It’s really fulfilling when I see someone take on the discipline.
I have watched lives change.
*
Athan: What is the most thrilling aspect of being
involved in film festivals, and selecting the movies which are to be screened?
Michael: If it’s the Cannes Festival it’s very
different from Ischia Festival or some newly formed festival. I was in Cannes
with Nicholson for Drive, He Said and there you have a tough audience. For the
past few years I have been doing seminars in the Ischia Film Festival with not
only a special friend but a wonderful director and writer named Paul Haggis. We
started doing seminars together three years ago on the subject of acting and
also on writing short films.
In Festivals where I am involved in the selection process it is not thrilling
at all. It is a lot of work and patience. Conferences and deliberations. For
three years I was the Artistic Director of a small film festival in Sardinia.
It was hard work to get it to another level and to introduce new ways of
seeing. Last year I helped launch a new festival outside of Rome and it was
consuming. Not only selecting but judging the work.
Sometimes I am asked to select works in festivals and sometimes just be a
judge. I enjoy meeting interesting people who are trying to say something
important. And when I interview people for an audience it can be educational
and fun. Actors like Antonio Banderas or Directors like Billie August. These
people have wonderful stories to tell about their lives and work.
Three years ago I received an Artistic
Achievement Award at the Ischia Festival. And it was nice to be on the other
end of a festival. Ten years ago the Mayor of Rome threw a big event for the
Actors Center at the Roma Film Festival. It was a great pleasure to see the
Center acknowledged for its artistic efforts. It can also be scary to be a
judge of an anti-mafia film festival in Calabria. I have fond memories from all
of them.
*
Thank you so much today for your time Michael,
and for the fascinating insight you have provided into the art of acting,
film, film festivals, directing, and DRIVE, HE SAID. It has been wonderful to
have you on CINEMATIC REVELATIONS. You are welcome to return whenever you wish.
Athan's note: I wish to express my great appreciation to Michael for agreeing to answer my questions for the interview, as he is currently in a difficult position in lockdown in Italy with his family during the coronavirus pandemic. Thank you again to Michael for an incisive, and thoroughly compelling discussion from which we have learned so much. Also, with a sincere hope that the crisis will end soon, and that life can eventually return to a sense of calm and normality, but with added understanding for humanity at large.
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