Two great Johnny Cash music videos to watch on The Man in Black's 85th birthday

The great Johnny Cash would have turned 85 today had the Grim Reaper not intervened. But never mind: He remains immortal anyway.

To celebrate his birthday, I am looking back at two extraordinary music videos featuring The Man in Black. The first, completed after Cash’s passing, is for “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” It was the brainchild of Justin Timberlake, but directed by Tony Kaye, who was on hand to introduce it when I first saw the video at the 2007 Nashville Film Festival. (I have a fond memory of helping him fold up a recalcitrant baby carriage for his young daughter after the screening.) Look closely, and you’ll see celebs ranging from Woody Harrelson to Dennis Hopper to Chris Rock to Keith Richards paying tribute to the gone-but-not-forgotten superstar.




The second — my all-time favorite music video of any sort — is director Mark Romanek’s emotionally wrenching video for “Hurt,” the Nine Inch Nails song that Cash claimed as his own when he covered it for his 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around. I first saw it late one night years ago while net surfing in my home office, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I wept so hard and noisily when it concluded that I woke my wife, who rose from bed to check whether I was having some sort of health issue. More recently, I saw it for the umpteenth time last week during my second visit to The Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville. (Spoiler alert: It's the last exhibit you see before the exit door.) I was able to keep from crying that time, but just barely. 



As Bono notes in this “Making Of” mini-documentary: "Trent Reznor was born to write that song. But Johnny Cash was born to sing it. And Mark Romanek was born to film it." True dat.

Chicken People is a pretty clucking wonderful documentary

OK, I'll freely admit it: When I first heard about Nicole Lucas Haimes Haimes' Chicken People -- the fascinating feel-good documentary I reviewed for Variety last spring at the Nashville Film Festival -- I expected something along the lines of a Christopher Guest mockumentary. With the emphasis on mock.

But no: As I wrote for Variety: Haimes "approaches her subjects — both human and otherwise — with equal measures of bemused curiosity and respectful empathy, with nary a trace of wink-wink condescension." Chicken People offers "an illuminating and amusingly entertaining look at the thriving subculture of competitive poultry breeders," and "as the film progresses, the sheer determination of the breeders who are Haimes’ primary focus commands respect, not derision."

After traversing the festival circuit, Chicken People opened Friday in limited theatrical release. And I'm happy to see I'm not the only critic who thinks it is something worth crowing about. Katie Walsh of the Los Angeles Times writes: "[T]he film proves to be more than just a glimpse into a world that’s easy to titter at. Haimes delves into the larger issues and psychological motivations that drive the kind of obsession that allows one to breed award-winning poultry." Helen T. Verongos of The New York Times adds: "Will fluffy, poodle-like chickens replace cats on the internet? Maybe not, but these chicken people, with deep connections to their birds, make for a fun and at times astonishing film."

Chicken People is well worth looking out for, even if you have to wait until it's available in digital and home-video platforms. As I noted months ago in an observation that didn't make the final cut of my Variety review, but did make the movie's trailer: Will you enjoy it? Well, you just have to ask yourself: Do you feel plucky?

Coming to CNN, DVD and VOD: Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me

Many celebrities – maybe most celebrities -- would reflexively draw away from the public eye, to avoid public scrutiny and personal embarrassment, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Not Glen Campbell.

In June 2011, two months after his 75th birthday, Campbell revealed to the world that he had the terrible and terrifying disease that gradually, relentlessly, decimates the memory. At the same time, however, the enduringly popular country-pop star announced plans for a series of farewell concerts. Later that fall, Campbell began what was originally scheduled to be a five-week tour – a tour that eventually extended to 151 shows over 15 months.

Kim Campbell, the singer’s wife, accompanied her husband on the tour, and three of his children – Ashley, Shannon and Cal – performed in his backup band. Some performances went surprisingly smoothly. Others didn’t. “It was almost like a game of roulette,” Ashley Campbell told the New York Times in a 2014 interview. “You’d have a great show and then a difficult show, and you’d start to wonder, ‘Oh no, is this getting towards the end?’ ”

The same question occasionally occurred to director James Keach and producer Trevor Albert as they followed Campbell on and off stage during the filming of Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, their critically acclaimed behind-the-scenes documentary that is by turns heartbreaking and spirit-lifting as it charts the decline and defiance of an artist struggling to transcend his affliction while continuing to do what he does best and loves most.

The film -- which had its world premiere at the 2014 Nashville Film Festival, and features admiring commentaries by Paul McCarthy, Brad Paisley, Steve Martin, Blake Shelton, Bill Clinton and other notables -- will be shown at 9 pm ET Sunday, June 28, on CNN. It will be available on digital platforms starting Aug. 18, followed by a DVD and VOD release on Sept. 1.

Keach says Campbell impressed him as “a real-life hero” during the lengthy production of I’ll Be Me, which he views as not only a tribute to “one of the greatest musicians this country has ever known,” but also a group portrait of a family bravely united in a common cause. The film does not stint on showing Campbell traversing wild mood swings while raging against his incurable disease, or struggling to recall song lyrics, and recognize once-familiar friends and surroundings. Time and again, however, I’ll Be Me also emphasizes the ties that bind, the music that delights, and the spirit that endures. “The making of this film has been an exhilarating, joyous and inspiring ride,” says Albert. “I attribute that entirely to the heroic spirit of Glen Campbell and his extraordinary family.”

Following the Nashville Film Festival premiere of Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, I had the privilege of hosting a post-screening Q&A with Keach and Albert. You can read some excerpts from our conversation, edited for length and clarity, here.

I wish I could rock a western shirt as well as James Keach (at the 2014 Nashville Film Festival)

I Believe in Unicorns director Leah Meyerhoff

When I first saw first-time feature filmmaker Leah Meyerhoff’s I Believe in Unicorns at SXSW 2014, one of the things I loved most about it was, just about every time I was afraid the plot would kick in – it didn’t. 

The indie drama, which debuts simultaneously this weekend in New York and on VOD platforms, is a sensitive and engrossing drama about Davina (Natalia Dyer), a naive young beauty who tries to make her dreams come true – only to find how easily dreams turn into nightmares. 

As I wrote in my Variety review, Davina “often seeks refuge from the universal anxieties of adolescence and the specific demands of caring for her handicapped mom (Toni Meyerhoff) by escaping to a fairy-tale world where unicorns frolic, dragons lie in wait, and a lovely princess like herself can gracefully traverse the landscape. Prince Charming is nowhere in sight, so Davina is drawn instead to Sterling (Peter Vack), a slightly older, punkish skateboarder who casually deflowers her in the back room of a music club, then treats her with stinging indifference the next time they meet… 

“The heartbroken girl is elated when Sterling changes his attitude yet again: He behaves tenderly, even lovingly, and invites her along for the ride when he impulsively opts to take an open-ended drive toward ‘anywhere but here.’ The longer they’re together, however, the more Davina realizes that mood swings aren’t Sterling’s only unattractive quality.”

Think you know what happens next? Well, you’re probably wrong. 

Again, as I said in my Variety review: “There are moments here and there — during an instance of shoplifting, for example, or an argument that dangerously escalates — when the filmmaker appears ready to impose a traditional doomed-lovers-on-the-run plot on her freeform scenario. As it turns out, however, this is not that kind of movie.” Indeed, I Believe in Unicorns is something unique and enchanting – and, as befits a movie that includes elements of fantasy and fairy tales, more than a little magical.

At the 2014 Nashville Film Festival, I had the privilege of hosting a Q&A session with Leah Meyerhoff after a screening of her debut feature. I enjoyed the opportunity to speak with her. And I suspect we’ll be hearing more from her.

Back when you were in the pre-production phase, did you have trouble explaining to people what your movie would – and wouldn’t – be about?

Well, obviously, this script does not have a very traditional plot-based structure. So it did take some convincing, particularly to some of our investors and producers, to say this vision will work even though it's execution-dependent. Even though the script doesn't have these traditional plot points that you’ve seen before again and again and again. Visually, it's going to create this world and this feel.

So how did you convey this? 

Actually, in the screenplay process, I wrote both a traditional screenplay and I also did a visual lookbook. I did a lot of photographs [to illustrate] what the feel of the film is going to be. It's going to be very visceral, and very subjective, and in this girl's head. By doing that, I was able to shut down some of those people who said, "Oh, you need to have a gun be introduced there. It’s a lovers-on-the-run story.” Those sorts of things. 

Which is not to put down, say, Badlands or anything like that. But this isn't that kind of movie. 

Yeah. It's a different film. 

Of course, I would imagine that, right after you finished the script and you’re feeling very proud of yourself, it hits you: “OK, now I have to find someone who’s actually capable of playing Davina.” How did you find Natalia Dyer? 

She’s really fantastic, isn’t she? And she’s actually from here, from Nashville. It took me a long time to find her. Our casting process was really extensive. I knew that I wanted to cast a teenager to play a teenager. Traditionally -- or often, in Hollywood -- you see a 25-year-old playing 16, that sort of thing. We did as much of a nationwide search as we could. I went to high school plays, I watched short films. I called up every casting director I knew and said, "Who are the best teenagers out there?" The casting directors from True Grit, the Coen Brothers’ film, actually recommended Natalia. They said, "There's a girl in Nashville that you should be aware of." 

We met via Skype originally. We Skyped together, and then she ended up flying out to LA. We had an audition. And I just fell in love with her. She just brings so much of herself to the character and to the performance, and was so brave, and so vulnerable. She’s so intelligent as an actress that it made my job easy while working on the set with her. The male actor, Peter Vack, who plays Sterling -- I found him more traditionally. My agent connected me to his agent. He came in for an audition. And I knew that he would play well with her. They just had this fantastic chemistry. 

What led you to cast your own mother as Davina’s mom? 

That's kind of an autobiographical thread in the film. While I was writing the script, I just kind of naturally drew upon memories from my own childhood. I had an unusual childhood in that my mom has MS. And she has been in a wheelchair since I was born. I grew up taking care of her, was the caretaker in the family -- and never really had a childhood of my own, so to speak. 

In collaboration with Natalia, we kind of fleshed out what happens when you have a girl, a teenager, who has grown up quickly and never really had a childhood. She's kind of clinging to this lost childhood and these unicorns. These kinds of very girly, young childhood objects. Yet, at the same time, she’s wanting to escape from that and wanting to become an adult. She’s often very selfish and really very much in her own world -- as sometimes happens when you're a teenager.

Just how autobiographical is I Believe in Unicorns? 

I would say maybe 50 percent autobiographical. I think it comes from a personal place. Not just making the film, but wanting to be a filmmaker in the first place. When I was growing up, there weren't that many films that spoke to me, that I related to. That had a female as a lead character. That’s what drove me to be a filmmaker. I think we need more films that have alternative portrayals of young women. I brought as much of my own experiences as I could to this film. [Laughs] And then a bunch of fictional as well. Like, obviously, the dragon and the unicorn. 

How difficult was it to do the stop-motion animation in the fantasy sequences? 

We did it the hard way -- we did it on film. We literally built a miniature forest in my living room. Then, built puppets. The dragon puppet is made out of the jacket that the Sterling character wears. The unicorn is made out of ribbons that Davina's character has in her outfit. We would take these puppets and shoot one frame of film. Then move them. An hour would go by in the real world. Then another frame of film. Ad nauseam. Eventually, we would have enough to put on screen. 

There are some very affecting – well, I guess I would call them privileged moments throughout the film. Like, the day after Davina loses her virginity to Sterling, we see her reaction when he's more or less brushing her off. I've got to tell you, that hurt. I'm a guy in my early 60s, so I have no idea how a 16-year-old girl would feel in that situation. But you made me feel her pain while watching this movie. How do you direct an actress to give us that privileged moment? 

Natalia and me, we just bonded. Physically, she looks quite young. But emotionally and intellectually, she’s very intelligent and mature. We communicated so clearly ahead of time about, "How are we going to navigate some of these delicate scenes?" We created a really safe space. We had a lot of closed sets. We talked through it all of the time. In terms of our working method, both actors, Natalia and Peter, came out to California in advance. We just hung out and got to know each other. We kind of blocked everything out and figured out, "How can we get through the technical aspects of filmmaking?" So that while we're actually rolling film, we can allow there to be these moments that feel really fresh and vulnerable. 

I think it helps that I’m a female director. Honestly, I think this is a female-driven film. That goes all the way to a lot of our crew as well. A lot of the people really connected to the film through their own coming-of-age experiences. So it was a really safe environment for the actors. 

Finally, I’d like to ask about the look of the film. In addition to animated sequences, you experiment with varying film stocks. Did you indicate this in your shooting script, or…?

 Like I mentioned, I had a traditionally formatted script. But I also had this visual lookbook. I have a visual art background as well. I'm a photographer. What ended up on the screen – I would say it was maybe 80 percent scripted. But by doing the film in stages, we were able to have what we called this “fantasy shoot,” where we did allow ourselves to do some visual experimentation. 

When I worked with a couple of cinematographers, we bought expired film on eBay. We're like, "We don't know what this will turn out like." We did some time-lapse photography, where we weren't sure what it was going to look like. Even the animation, like I said, we did it on film. Which no one does anymore. We wouldn't know until we got it back from the lab how it was actually going to look. A lot of it was from the gut. Like, "I know this will work." Luckily, some of those experiments were some of my favorite moments. Maybe that 20 percent of the film was just left to magic.

I Heart Nashville Film Festival

I have had lots of fun over the years at the Nashville Film Festival, hanging with folks like Nicole Kidman, Famke Janssen, Hal Holbrook, Kris Kristofferson and Lyle Lovett. And now I'm spreading the good word about the event in Cowboys & Indians. 

R.I.P.: J.J. Cale (1938-2013)

Can't say I fully appreciated the artistry of J.J. Cale -- the singer-songwriter who gave us "Cocaine" and "After Midnight" -- until I saw Jorg Bundschuh's fawning but fascinating To Tulsa and Back: On Tour With J.J. Cale at the 2006 Nashville Film Festival. As I noted in my Variety review:

Belying his standoffish reputation, Cale is surprisingly forthcoming — if a tad feisty — during discussions with Bundschuh between gigs. He seems mildly surprised that, after years of various excesses, he made it to 65. But he insists he’s not losing his edge. And he doesn’t want anyone to draw faulty conclusions from his relaxed singing style. “I’m not laid back,” he warns, only half-jokingly.

Well-shot performance sequences — including a duet with Clapton during the latter’s Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas — are satisfying showcases for Cale’s trademark fusion of blues, jazz and country. Pic is most amusing as Cale and long-time bandmates acknowledge the demands (including early morning radio interviews) of a concert tour. They pointedly note that the night after they performed for 60,000 at the Crossroads Festival, they appeared at a Houston club for an audience of 125. Even so, judging from the concert footage, they played for keeps at both venues.

You can order a DVD of the documentary here. And while you're waiting for it to arrive, you can savor Cale's 1979 Los Angeles session with Leon Russell (hat-tip to OpenSource.com) here.
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Hanging with Motion Picture Academy members at the Nashville Film Festival

It'll be my privilege to fill in for the originally announced, unfortunately indisposed Mark Johnson this weekend at the Nashville Film Festival during two panels sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Beyond the Oscars (1 pm Saturday), an overview of the Academy's mission to encourage filmmaking throughout the world; and Master Class (2 pm Sunday), an in-depth look at the past and future of the American film industry. At both events, I'll be fielding questions, moderating discussions and fetching coffee for industry notables Sid Ganis, Ellen Harrington and Tom Pollock. And at some point, I'm sure I'll work into the discussion that, hey, I write for Variety, and I teach at University of Houston's Jack J. Valenti School of Communications. Then I'll ask if they take sugar or Sweet’N Low, cream or skim milk.

Live from Nashville Film Festival: Clare Bowen, director Jared Moshé, Dead Man's Burden... and me

If it's April, I must be at the Nashville Film Festival. But don't misunderstand: Festival honcho Brian Owens doesn't invite me here just to much popcorn and watch movies. No, he expects me to sing for my supper. Well, OK, not literally sing -- this may be Music City, but, trust me, no one ever wants to hear me sing. But, by golly, he puts me to work. Last year, I had to serve as master of ceremonies for an event featuring Nicole Kidman and Famke Janssen. In previous years, they've made me lead on-stage Q&A's with the likes of Hal Holbrook, director Marc Webb and the late, great Patricia Neal.

This year? Well, they've corralled me into leading another Q&A thing, this time after the Nashville Festival  premiere of Dead Man's Burden, a well-received western that will screen at 8 pm Saturday, April 20. Clare Bowen (a.k.a. Scarlett O'Connor of TV's Nashville) and director Jared Moshé will be on hand to take questions, and I'll be there to give them a few before encouraging the audience to give them a few more.

Hey, it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

Blast from the past: My 1982 interview with Les Blank about Burden of Dreams

Les Blank and Werner Herzog
(Note: To celebrate the life of Les Blank I am sharing this interview I did with him at the 1982 Toronto Film Festival -- the very first Toronto Fest that I ever attended.)

TORONTO – In the lobby of the Bloor Theater, an unassuming fellow stands behind a small counter. Bearded and robust, looking much like a slimmed-down Santa Claus, he personally displays his wares: T-shirts emblazoned with the titles of films directed by Les Blank.

Inside the theater itself, a Blank film is currently unspooling. On the screen, a man rambles on about his obsessions. He’s been in the Peruvian jungle for far too long, trying to complete his work. He’s now near the end of his rope. His financial backers are pulling out. His crew is discontent, almost mutinous. Even the elements are against him.

And then there’s the jungle. Yes, the jungle.

“I see it as full of obscenity,” he says, the hysteria barely repressed. “Nature here is base and vile. The birds. I don’t think they sing. They just screech in pain…

“I shouldn’t make movies anymore. I should go to a lunatic asylum.”

The Toronto Film Festival audience responds to his monologues with smatterings of giggles, occasional gales of laughter. But some people are shifting nervously in their seats. A few actually get up and leave.

There’s an ineffable uneasiness shared by those who remain to watch the film. Because the man on the screen isn’t a professional actor. And he’s not reciting words from a script. And the film itself is not a work of fiction.

The film is Burden of Dreams, a record of German director Werner Herzog’s efforts to complete his long-delayed epic, Fitzcarraldo. Herzog is the man on the screen, railing against the elemental forces that have interfered with is work.

Most members of the audience are clearly engrossed, and maybe a little disturbed, by the film. And when they file into the lobby after it ends, they receive yet another shock. The man behind the counter selling T-shirts isn’t a mere peddler. He’s Les Blank.

THE NEXT MORNING AT HIS HOTEL, Blank smiles at the arrival of an interviewer wearing a Burden of Dreams T-shirt. He’s glad his visitor liked the film and the T-shirt. He hopes his visitor will recommend both to many others.

Sometimes an independent filmmaker must rely on all sorts of supplementary income. But Blank may not have to hawk T-shirts much longer. Burden of Dreams could well be his breakthrough film, a surprise hit that somehow survives the stigma of being labeled a “documentary.”

“Actually,” Blank says in his soft, unassertive tone, “I don’t like the term documentary.’ Because it implies the film is dull and boring, like something you were forced to watch in school or in the Army. Or if it’s on TV, it’s something that’s been predigested for you. The documentaries on TV gloss over everything, even though they pretend they’re telling the truth about a subject.”

Blank’s film is nothing if not ruthlessly honest. Burden of Dreams, described by one critic as “a chilling chronicle of artistic obsession,” has aroused considerable controversy with its warts-and-all picture of Werner Herzog at work.

Rumor has it that director Volker Schlondorff, one of Herzog’s best friends, tried to buy and destroy the film after seeing footage from it at the 1981 Telluride Film Festival.

“People got real bent out of shape there,” Blank recalls, “because the footage was shown out of context. You saw Herzog raving in the jungle against nature. But you didn’t see what had driven him to that point.”

The complete version of Burden of Dreams places everything in its proper context. The film follows Herzog from pre-production to completion of Fitzcarraldo, a fact-based adventure about the eponymous Irishman’s efforts to build an opera house in the Amazon River port of Iquitos during the early 1900s. To finance his dreams, he sets out to become a rubber baron, laying claim to unexploited land far upriver.

It appears impossible to navigate the treacherous rapids near Fitzcarraldo’s land. But that doesn’t stop our hero. He discovers a navigable river winds within a kilometer of the impassable waterway. So he concocts a plan to have Indian laborers pull his huge steamship over a hill between the two rivers.

Sounds difficult? Maybe so. But it wasn’t difficult enough for Werner Herzog.

Rather than film on a site near the relative comforts of Iquitos, Herzog chose to film 1,500 miles north of the city. That way, Herzog figured, his cast and crew would share the sense of isolation felt by Fitzcarraldo and his party. Herzog didn’t stop there. The real-life equivalent of the Fitzcarraldo character had his steamship dismantled and carried to the other side of the hill, where it was reassembled. But such a plan did not strike Herzog as visually impressive. In order to have the right “visual metaphor” for his hero’s obsession, the director insisted his steamship be dragged intact across the hill.

The engineer in charge of the transportation insisted a 20-degree slope should be the limit. But Herzog would not be moved. “Unless we do 40 degrees,” Herzog said, “we might as well not bother with a hill at all.” The engineer quit in protest. Herzog got his 40-degree angle.

But Herzog didn’t get his original leading man.

“At first,” Blank says, “he was aiming for a large-scale, popular English-language film. The original actor he wanted was Jack Nicholson. And he came very close to getting him. But I think Nicholson’s producer wanted some control that Herzog didn’t want to give.

“His next choice was Warren Oates. But, two weeks before shooting was to start, Oates dropped out. I think Oates’ wife was freaked out by the possibility of dangers in the jungle. Probably with good reason.”

JUST BEFORE PRODUCTION BEGAN, Herzog managed to sign Jason Robards to play Fitzcarraldo. He also convinced Mick Jagger to play a supporting role, Fitzcarraldo’s faithful sidekick. Investors were attracted by the high-voltage star power, and offered to bankroll Herzog’s project.

Footage shown in Burden of Dreams indicates Robards and Jagger worked well together. But audiences will never know for sure. After about 40 percent of Fitzcarraldo was shot, Robards was struck with amoebic dysentery and left the picture. Filming was halting, causing considerable delay. Jagger was forced to leave Peru to fulfill recording and concert commitments.

Mick Jagger and Jason Robards in the Fitzcarraldo that never was.
Herzog was crushed. “I think,” says Blank, “a lot of his financial backing was based on Jagger’s participation. And it was Jagger’s withdrawal, more than anything else, that really hurt him, because that made a lot of the investors pull out their money.”

Klaus Kinski, a veteran of Herzog’s Nosferatu and Aguirre, The Wrath of God, was eventually called in to replace Robards. The Jagger character was dropped from the script, supposedly because Herzog could not conceive of anyone else playing the role. “Or it could have just been expediency,” Blank says, “to get going as soon as possible.”

Fitzcarraldo did get going again, careening across a minefield of misadventures. Indians hired as extras battled with neighboring tribes. A plane crash left one crew member permanently paralyzed. Four natives hired to work on the film died of illnesses they contracted outside the location. Another native drowned after “borrowing” a canoe and capsizing. Disgruntlement and paranoia mounted as the production dragged on. Indians long separated from their wives became cranky.

Was Blank ever afraid? Several times, he says.

“There was one point, early in the game, when some of the Indians working with us were attacked by hostile Indians from the next territory. And a war party was gotten up to avenge the attack. Herzog felt I should go along on that raiding party.

“Now I was not really interested in going. But, on the other hand, I didn’t want to let Herzog think I was a coward, because then he might lose respect for me. So I told him I’d go if he would go, hoping he’d say, ‘No, I don’t have the time.’ But he said, ‘Very well, we’ll meet at dawn.’

“I couldn’t sleep all night long. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Then, in the morning, Herzog came by and said he wasn’t going. First of all, it was a three-day trip by boat, and he couldn’t take the time off from shooting. And secondly, it wouldn’t look good for his international reputation to be seen participating in a raiding party on an Indian camp.

“So I got out of it.”

BLANK WASN'T QUITE SO LUCKY later in the filming, when Herzog wanted to show how Fitzcarraldo’s steamship was buffeted by the rapids.

“When I filmed the ship going down through the rapids, it didn’t look all that dangerous. I got bored, so I decided to try a ride on the ship. They felt the scene didn’t look all that rough, so they intentionally drove the ship into the sides of the banks, into the rocks. The first time they did it, it didn’t look all that bad. It was like a minor traffic accident. The second time, though, the ship hit with such a jolt, I thought my back was going to break.

“This tremendous collision threw me to the deck. Then they backed up, and started revving up to do it again, moving twice as fast. I thought, ‘My God, these people are really crazy.’ I hung on for my life – I didn’t even try to shoot.” The filming was scarcely less eventful after the production moved from the jungle to Iquitos. Indeed, it was in Iquitos that Herzog nearly lost another leading man.

“Toward the end of the shooting in Iquitos, Kinski thought he’d done a part right, and Herzog wanted him to repeat it. And Kinski didn’t. They had a lot of friction at that point. And Herzog said, ‘Very well – we’re not going to leave until you come back and redo the scene.’ Kinski went back to his hotel.

“But the Indians at this point got fed up, because they’d stuck with the production all the way along. They felt all their efforts were being jeopardized by this guy who refused to act. So the word got around that they were going to kill Kinski.

“This got back to Kinski. So he came back and did his part.”

Me and Les Blank at the 2009 Nashville Film Festival

Finally, after long months of hardship and danger, Fitzcarraldo was completed. Earlier this year, it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered to generally favorable reviews. Blank has seen Herzog’s film, says he likes it “a lot,” but concedes “it’s on the long side.” Herzog has seen Blank’s film, “didn’t find any of it boring,” and didn’t ask for any cuts to be made.

Blank and Herzog have remained friends, despite a few tense moments on the Fitzcarraldo set. And Blank remains an admirer of Herzog’s work. But could Blank ever become as obsessed as Herzog was during the making of Fitzcarraldo? No way.

“I’m a different type of person,” Blank explains. “I’m lazy. Also, to me, a film is not more important than life. But it is to Herzog.”

Yes, I still have the T-shirt! (And I was wrong: Blank kept selling them, thank goodness!)

R.I.P.: Michael Clarke Duncan (1957-2012)

I had the pleasure to speak with Michael Clarke Duncan on a few occasions at junkets and film festivals – most recently two years ago at the Nashville Film Festival, where I served as host for an on-stage Q&A after the premiere of Black, White and Blues, an enjoyable indie dramedy later released in theaters and on DVD under the title Redemption Road. (That’s me on the far right, Duncan on the far left – and director Mario Van Peebles in the white hat – up there.) In person, he always struck me as a gregarious and good-humored fellow with a hearty laugh, an effortless charm and an engagingly self-deprecating sense of humor. And on the screen, I’m not sure that I ever saw him sound a false note, or make a wrong move, whether he was a hulking badass (Daredevil) or a saintly martyr (The Green Mile).

In Nashville, he only half-jokingly noted during our well-attended Q&A that, prior to Redemption Road, he had no desire – no desire at all, thank you very much – to ever wear a cowboy hat. Indeed, he agreed to don one in that film only because director Van Peebles convinced him that it was an essential part of his down-home character’s everyday wardrobe. Once he found one that fit, though, Duncan had to admit: He thought it looked pretty damn cool on him. And guess what? He was right. Check him out here:

Greetings from Nashville!

On Saturday, I hung out with Nicole Kidman and Famke Janssen at the Nashville Film Festival. So what did you do this weekend?

Kris Kristofferson: Looking back, looking forward

For over four decades, Kris Kristofferson has loomed large in the pop culture firmament as both a renowned singer-songwriter and an acclaimed film actor. Even now, at the ripe young age of 75, he continues to impress and entertain with his performances on concert stages and in motion pictures. So I considered it a rare privilege and honor to interview him for the September issue of Cowboys & Indians, The Premier Magazine of the West.

On the day after he received the prestigious Career Achievement Award at the Nashville Film Festival last April, Kristofferson sat down with me to reminisce about working with country music greats who became close friends – including Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings – and acting for filmmakers as diverse as Sam Peckinpah, Shane Dax Taylor (director of Kristofferson’s latest film, the moody drama Bloodworth) and Martin Scorsese.

Kristofferson credits Scorsese with giving him -- during the making of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore --  the best advice he's ever received as an actor. “When I read the script for Alice,” he says, “I really didn’t know if I was up to the guy. I felt I didn’t have the acting experience – just the mechanics of it -- that probably was necessary. But when I got the job, Marty said something to me that was one of the most helpful things that a director ever told me. He said, ‘Don’t worry about what it says in the script when it says, “He says sternly,” or something like that. Just go through and cross out all of the directorial comments and just leave the dialogue. And figure how you would say that – how you would react to that.’ And that changed everything for me.”

You can read more of what Kristofferson had to say during our chat here. And you can read a web-only sidebar about some of his Western movies here.

R.I.P.: Patricia Neal (1926-2010)

As a long-time admirer of Patricia Neal’s accomplishments as an actor and courage as a survivor – and, yes, as someone whose early adolescent lust was inflamed by the cynically bemused sensuality she casually conveyed in Hud – I’m more than a little melancholy today as I contemplate the news of her death.

Our paths crossed only twice, most recently at the 2008 Nashville Film Festival, where Neal – who grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee – was given the festival’s inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. It was my privilege and honor to conduct an on-stage Q&A with her after she received the award from no less a notable than Lyle Lovett, her co-star in Robert Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune (1999), and I found myself just as starstruck as her many fans in the sold-out theater as she addressed, with equal measures of wit, grace and frankness, questions about her favorite movies and movie roles, her tumultuous (and adulterous) affair with Gary Cooper, her 30-year marriage to author Roald Dahl and, of course, her arduous and near-miraculous recovery from the three massive strokes she suffered in 1965.

Neal was every bit as candid 25 years earlier when, while in H-Town to address The Women’s Institute, she agreed to a tête-à-tête in the Memorial City area home of her hosts.

At the time, she was still processing the bad news of her then-impending divorce from Dahl, who had taken charge of her physical and emotional rehabilitation following her strokes, helped her relearn how to walk and talk – and then drifted into an affair with one of her friends, Felicity Crosland, whom he eventually married shortly after the divorce.

Although she wore a bright smile for me while we were introduced – which, naturally, immediately made me think about her performance in Hud, though I managed to behave myself during our conversation – her laughter sounded more rueful than merry. She was too polite to refuse an interview, but too honest to disguise her feelings while we spoke.

If memory serves me correctly, it was she, not me, who brought up Gary Cooper, and the affair that began while they were making The Fountainhead (1949). “I loved Gary Cooper, for years and years and years,” Neal said, her lips curving into a wistful smile. “And I still love him. Of course, Becky (Cooper’s wife, Veronica Balfe) was not very happy with me. And I don’t blame her. Nor was her little daughter, Maria, who I guess was about 11 when we started.

“They were very angry with me. And Maria, I remember – when she was very young, she spat on the ground when she saw me. And I was very sorry. But Gary… I just loved Gary very much.”

So much, in fact, that she suffered a nervous collapse when the affair ended. To recover, she moved from Hollywood back to New York, where playwright Lillian Hellman introduced her to British author Roald Dahl. Within a year, they were married.

Alas, they did not live happily ever after.

Throughout the 1950s and early ‘60s, Neal appeared prominently in such popular pictures as Operation Pacific (opposite John Wayne), The Day the Earth Stood Still (where she got to say the immortal words, “Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!”), A Face in the Crowd (in which she manipulated Andy Griffith as a homespun rabble-rouser some folks now view as a precursor of Glenn Beck) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And yet, as she admitted when we spoke in 1983, it often seemed like, for every triumph she had on stage or screen, she had a counterbalancing pain in her private life.

Eight years after she married Dahl, Theo, their son, suffered severe brain damage after his buggy was crushed between a taxi and a bus when he was four months old. He lived, but only after several operations. Another child, a daughter named Olivia, died when she was seven, the victim of measles encephalitis. Her husband, Neal said, nearly went mad with sorrow. She supported him. Then, in February 1965, he had to repay her in kind.

Neal suffered three massive strokes during the filming of John Ford’s Seven Women. She was in her rented home, bathing her daughter Tessa, when, without warning, she was racked with a blinding pain. Somehow, she managed to stagger to the bedroom where her husband was resting.

“Suddenly, somehow, in that instant, I knew for certain, beyond any shadow of doubt, that somewhere inside her skull, Pat was hemorrhaging,” Dahl later wrote in a magazine article. “I felt deathly afraid.”

Neal could not even feel fear. The stroke left her confused, paralyzed, partially blind, unable to read, speak or walk. Fortuitously, even though Neal was three months pregnant when stricken, the baby she was carrying was not harmed. Lucy, another daughter, was born a normal child. By that time, Neal herself was on the road to recovery.

Dahl took it upon himself to more or less bully his wife out of a death-wishing funk and back to normalcy, improvising a form of physical therapy to keep her constantly occupied. Their ordeal and ultimate victory was the sort of real-life drama that, during the 1980s, was well-nigh irresistible to the makers of TV-movies. And so, inevitably, there was a well-received 1981 production titled The Patricia Neal Story, with Glenda Jackson in the title role and Dirk Bogarde as Dahl.

While recuperating, Neal had to pass on an offer to play Mrs. Robinson  in The Graduate -- a part that went to Anne Bancroft, who, ironically, had replaced her in Seven Women.) By 1969, however, she had sufficiently recovered to star in the film version of The Subject Was Roses, Frank D. Gilroy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. But she needed a great deal of preparation, and quite a lot of intense encouragement from Dahl, before she was ready to face the demands of her comeback role as a ‘40s housewife who serves as peacemaker between her insensitive husband (Jack Albertson) and their returning G.I. son (Martin Sheen).

“I really worked on that for months and months and months,” Neal recalled. “That big speech, on the roof – the director kept saying he wasn’t going to do it. But finally, of course, he did. He was kind enough to put it on a teleprompter so I could look at it if I needed to. And that was good.”

Neal picked up an Oscar nomination for her performance in The Subject Was Roses, and continued to work sporadically in films and TV unless last year, when she appeared in the made-for-cable movie Flying By as, no kidding, Billy Ray Cyrus’ mom. (At the Nashville Festival, I told her that kinda-sorta made her Hannah Montana’s grandmother – and she laughed out loud.) She wanted to work more often – “I’ve lost a lot of other things,” she said in 1983, “but not my talent!” – but didn’t waste much time feeling sorry for herself during extended periods between job offers. She wrote a best-selling autobiography, served as a spokesperson and fundraiser for several causes (including the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center in Knoxville), did voiceovers and on-screen sales pitches in TV commercials. In short, she remained as active as she could, until she couldn’t.

Now she is at peace. And thanks to Hud, A Face in the Crowd, The Day The Earth Stood Still and handful of other classics, she will remain immortal.

R.I.P.: Film festival founder Mary Jane Coleman

Hail and farewell to Mary Jane Coleman, the gracious Southern lady who loved East Tennessee, and decided four decades ago that what the area really needed was a film festival devoted to independent cinema. In 1969, she founded the Sinking Creek Film Celebration in Greeneville, TN -- and lived long enough to see the exposition evolve and expand into the Nashville Film Festival, the oldest continuously running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. Ms. Coleman passed away Saturday, reportedly from the lingering effects of a stroke she suffered a decade ago.You can read a respectful appreciation of her life and work by Greeneville Sun editor John M. Jones Jr. here, and take a look at her enduring legacy here.

Nashville Fest preview: Freedom Riders

With both WorldFest/Houston and the Nashville Film Festival set to kick off next month, I'll soon have to start work on my must-see lists. I'm especially eager to catch the Nashville screening of Freedom Riders, the latest documentary from Stanley Nelson, a filmmaker whose past efforts -- including The Murder of Emmett Till, Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind and The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords -- have firmly established him as contemporary cinema's premier illuminator of African-American history. Of course, it helps that he's one hell of a storyteller -- and in Freedom Riders, he has one hell of a story to tell. My Variety colleague Andrew Barker has raved: "Stripping away the platitudes and feel-good generalizations of so many civil-rights documentaries, Stanley Nelson's Freedom Riders is a superb piece of filmic journalism." Sounds like a must-see to me.

After all these years, Hal Holbrook still doesn't know just how damn good he is. But he's learning.

Don’t misunderstand: Hal Holbrook is very happy and deeply grateful to receive the prestigious Excellence in Acting award next week at the Starz Denver Film Festival. But if you push the Emmy- and Tony-winning living legend on the subject, he’ll suggest that maybe, just maybe, the prize is a tad premature, because he considers himself, at 84, still a student of his art.

“Even now,” Holbrook says, “I’m learning more about film work.”

It’s an extraordinarily modest admission for a man who for decades has offered so many diverse performances in so many disparate movies: A loving father worried about revealing his homosexuality to his teen-age son (That Certain Summer, 1972). An enigmatic informant who’s at once cynical and saddened about his role in toppling a Presidency (All the President’s Men, 1976). A small-town sheriff who has seen too much of the evil men do to still believe in a benevolent Deity (Eye of God, 1997). A rabidly racist Navy officer who’s determined to stifle the ambitions of an African-American sailor (Men of Honor, 2000). A lonely widower who offers to serve as surrogate grandfather for a tragically discontented wanderer (Into the Wild, 2007).

And, most recently, an octogenarian farmer who will not give up his land or his pride without a fight in Scott Teems’ exceptionally fine That Evening Sun, which opens Friday in New York and Nov. 20 in Los Angeles -- and will screen Nov. 14 at the Starz Denver Film Festival. The latter is where I’ll be honored to host an on-stage Q&A with Holbrook, and even more honored to present him with the well-deserved Excellence in Acting prize.

And yet, to hear Holbrook tell it, for all his work in movies and television – to say nothing of his extraordinary stage performances, most notably as the sagely witty Samuel Clemens in Mark Twain Tonight! -- he still has a lot to learn.

Fortunately, he says, he’s always managed to find the right teachers when he needed them. From director Sidney Lumet – who guided him through his first film appearance, in The Group (1966) – Holbrook learned early on that less is more. He credits another “wonderful director,” Sean Penn, with giving him the confidence to risk plumbing emotional depths for his Oscar-nominated turn in Into the Wild.

While playing the irascible Abner Meecham in That Evening Sun, Holbrook says, his initial instinct was “to make sure the audience understood the emotional trip he was on.” But writer-director Scott Teems convinced him to avoid any obvious requests for sympathy, and rather play the character as unsentimentally harsh. The result: A powerful performance that even the chronically self-critical Holbrook ranks among his best work.

“Yes,” Holbrook says, “after all these years, I think I’m finally starting to learn something about film acting.”

Holbrook and I recently chatted for an interview that soon will appear in the January issue of Cowboys & Indians magazine. He’s such a grand raconteur that, even after we covered enough material for the C&I piece, I wanted to keep the conversation going. Holbrook, gracious gent that he is, continued to answer my questions, and generously share his experiences.


Q: You’ve talked about learning from directors. What did Sean Penn have to teach you?
A. I don’t know how to describe it. He was just simply wonderful to work with. He gave you the feeling that anything that came out of you was OK. That he would take care of you, or catch you if you fell. Or tell you if you were doing too much. And that’s why working with (Into the Wild co-star) Emile Hirsch was so easy, like simply having a conversation with someone.

Q. You came to film from the stage. What was the hardest part of making that transition?
A. Recognizing that film work is so subtle. You have to remember that. I keep going back to the first film I ever did – The Group, with Sidney Lumet. It was my first movie – I was a stage actor – and after a couple of days, I asked: “Sidney, could I watch the rushes, to see what I’m doing?” And he told me, “I don’t like actors to watch rushes, Hal. Why do you want to do that?” And I said, “Well, that I scene I did with Jessica Walter – it just didn’t feel good.” So he said, “OK, I’ll let you watch once, that’s all. OK?” So, during lunch, I went to watch the rushes on this scene. And afterwards, Sidney asked me: “What did you think?” And I said, “Aw, Christ, I was acting.” And he said, “Yes, you were. But we can cut around that, Hal. What you have to understand about film work is, the camera can read your mind.” Now, it’s easy to say something like that. But to believe it – and to trust it – is a whole other story.

Q. So you’ve finally come to realize that less is more?
A. [Laughs] It’s a wonderful release, because it makes it much easier. I mean, don’t get me wrong: That Evening Sun was not easy. That was a tough job, I worked very hard on it. To begin with, I wanted to be very authentic with my accent. Because, of course, my wife [actress Dixie Carter] comes from Tennessee, and we have a home there, and I know these people very well. And I have a great deal of love and respect for my relatives by marriage down there.

Q. And you think you would have caught grief from your in-laws if you’d gotten the accent wrong?
A. No, actually they would have been very kind and easy on me. But they would have been disappointed. That’s the kind of people they are. They’re not like people up North, where they smash you over the head with the truth. They try to respect your feelings, because you’re a member of the family. If you’re a member of the family, you can do anything. No matter what you do, you are OK. [Laughs] And anybody who says you’re not will get shot dead or knocked down.

Q. Back to That Evening Sun – you say nailing the accent was difficult?

A. Well, I was working with Dixie on every single line. Because we were working for a certain kind of accent in Tennessee. More like what my father-in-law had – in West Tennessee. It was important, because one of the things that Scott Teems wrote about here was a class differential. About people here in Tennessee you would sometimes refer to as white trash -- and people you would refer to as the more educated class, which my character belonged to. People up North think everyone from Tennessee – even from big towns – they’re all, you know, hicks. And dumb. And all the traditional idiocy. And, sure, they think different, because they live in a different place, in a different way. But I have to tell you: My father-in-law’s home in Tennessee has more books in it – worn-out books, book that have been read – than any home I’ve ever been in.


Q. When you introduced That Evening Sun at the Nashville Film Festival last April, you made a special point of saying how you hoped the film might give people outside of the region a chance “to sort of broaden their brains a little bit about the big country we’re living in, with all the different kinds of people living in it.” Why is that something important for you, personally?
A. One of the things that lies at the heart of a lot of the work that we do is – well, I hate to use the word “educate,” but you do try to make people see that there are far more things about us that are familiar, that are similar, than are different. This is always something that’s in the back of my mind when I’m playing a character. It may be a subtle thing about the character. But an actor should make an effort to give people an understanding of the humanity in the character he’s playing. Whatever the hell it is. That’s one of the reasons we’re out there.

Q. Sounds like That Evening Sun was a rewarding experience for you.

A. I really enjoyed doing That Evening Sun. We worked in one of the most beautiful valleys I’ve ever been in, near the foothills of the Smokeys to the east. Farm country. That shack [Abner Meecham] lived in was torn down somewhere else and put back together on this particular farm where we shot. And I swear, you’d look around and wonder why in hell anybody would ever want to leave this valley. You wonder why people came over the hills and settled in this valley – and then left and went West. We worked in tremendous heat – 90- to 100-degree heat – for all four weeks. But it really was a wonderful experience.

Q. Ray McKinnon plays Lonzo, the younger fellow who has moved with his wife and daughter onto Abner’s property while Abner’s in the old folks home. When Abner goes AWOL and returns to his farm, he finds these folks there – and he’s pissed. Especially since he considers Lonzo to be “white trash,” or worse. So that’s the central conflict. But Lonzo is neither written nor played as a complete villain.
A: And that also helped balance the picture more. So that this was a struggle between two very tough, very angry men who came from different parts of the tribe, you might say, in Tennessee. And they were not going to give way to each other. Ray McKinnon did a terrific job, don’t you think? Jesus, he’s a wonderful actor. He didn’t look for the obvious things in that character. He looked for the things that are not obvious. We had a wonderful cast across the board. Like that little girl from Australia, Mia Wasikowska. Before she auditioned for the part, she rented Coal Miner’s Daughter and listened to… to… Oh, what was her name?

Q. Loretta Lynn?

A. No, the actress who played her. Sissy Spacek. Mia listened to Sissy Spacek to prepare herself. She’s got a hell of an ear, I’ll tell you.

Q. You know, I must confess: I am more than 25 years younger than you, but I’m awed by your stamina. I saw you and Dixie Carter on stage four years in a comedy – Ken Ludwig’s Be My Baby -- at the Alley Theatre in Houston. And I couldn’t help marveling: There you were, still at it, for six or seven performances a week…
A. Eight.

Q. Jeez, you make me feel like a slacker. How do you do it?

A. Well, I’m not without pain. Pains and aches are just part of getting old. You have to accept it. But I try to keep myself in good shape. I swim every day that I can. Or I find a swimming pool in a hotel without kids in it. And I exercise every morning. I had a tough thing happen a couple years ago, where I had to get out of a play I was doing in Hartford and go to the Mayo Clinic. I didn’t even know I was sick. But since then, I exercise every morning, religiously, to make sure my back is in good shape. It took me a while to come back from that thing, and it taught me a lot. And so far, knock on wood, I seem to have pretty good genes. But we’re all vulnerable. My dear father-in-law, Mr. Carter, passed away a couple years ago. He used to say, “Hal, don’t get old.” And was he right.

Q. Well, Hal, it’s not like you have many alternatives…

A. [Laughs] There ain’t a hell of lot of them. Except a very big one you don’t want to think about.


Q. You’ve said that doing Mark Twain Tonight! actually helps keep you healthy and thriving. How’s that work?

A. I think an actor if he is lucky enough – like I have been, knock on wood – to have a show that he can always turn to, that requires a lot intellectual activity up in your head, plus remembering two hours of lines every night to play the show without a script – I think an actor is very fortunate. Even if I couldn’t remember Sissy Spacek’s name, because names are the first thing that fly out of the window. That’s why playing a guy with Alzheimer’s [in the forthcoming film Flying Lessons] wasn’t all that difficult. I thought it would be. But it’s only a few steps beyond what is normal for somebody in his 80s, in some respects. But what’s really good for an actor is to keep the brain active. I’ve been running over lines now for two or three weeks while I’m swimming, while I’m trying to go to sleep in bed – so I can go out on stage two nights from now and take it easy and feel OK.

Q. You mean you’re still adding new things to the show after all this time?
A. Oh, God, yes. All he time, all the time. I just found a piece of material I’m going to put back in the show, something that I developed about four or five years ago, when I really thought to myself, “You know, I think this country’s going to tank. I think what’s going on in our country is going to put us in the economic toilet. This is crazy, this is impossible.” And, of course, it happened. So I developed a thing out of Twain’s material, which I call “Money is God.”

It’s like, “In the early days of our republic, we chose to believe in the motto, ‘In God We Trust.’ If this nation ever trusted in God, that time has gone by. For nearly half a century. Our entire trust has been in the almighty dollar. The nation’s motto should be changed to fit the times. It should now read: ‘Money is God. Get Rich. Dishonestly If We Can, Honestly If We Must.’” See, in the early part of the show, I refer to the corruption from coast to coast, and all of Wall Street. And I found this quote which I put into the material: “On Wall Street, where theft is practiced as a profession, by our most influential commercial men, who have helped the common folks to arise from affluence into poverty…"

That’s from more than a hundred years ago. And that’s the kind of thing that can keep my brain going. Because it keeps me angry. The psychiatrists give you all kinds of panaceas to reduce the anger quotient that we sometimes feel. But my solution is to let it out. And then I calm down. It keeps your blood going, too. Thank God it’s safe. If I didn’t have an outlet that’s safe, Lord knows where I’d be.

Q. Do you feel as passionate about acting now as you did when you first started out?

A. That’s an interesting question. I don’t know. Maybe my passion is more educated than it was then, I would say. It’s a more mature passion, that’s for sure. I feel more confident about it. You know, I’ve just written a book which brings me up to about halfway through my life – we’re doing the final edit this fall – and one of the things I think about is, it’s so disappointing to look back and realize that when you were young, you had no idea how good you were. Because nobody told you. They wait until you’re old, when you don’t need it so bad, and then they tell you. I look back at the opportunities I had, and made for myself unconsciously, and I realize what, if I’d believed in myself more, I might have done. It’s disappointing to me.

Q. You mean if you’d known then what you know now…
A. Yeah, I made some mistakes. I remember David Merrick offered me a role in a musical he was going to do with Bob Preston in around 1962. The role was an 80-year-old Mexican bandit. And I told him I didn’t want to do it, because I didn’t want to play another old man, I was trying to escape from the Mark Twain stage I was in. And he said, "Are you nuts? I’m offering you a co-starring lead in a musical I’m producing. And you say you don’t want to do it?” Now, the thing closed in Philadelphia, and I figured it would anyway. But that was a mistake. I should have done it.

Q. Let me get back to something else you said. What do you mean by not knowing how good you were? Were you lacking self-confidence, or what?

A. Well, I just ran across a review – I’m one of these packrat guys, I have more research material than I can handle. That’s why the damn book got so long -- I got so many letters, so many things. But like I say, I ran across a review in my research stuff the other day. It was the Abraham Lincoln I did in 1962, in a revival of the Robert Sherwood play Abe Lincoln in Illinois. And I did some quite extraordinary makeup, with a little help from a friend of mine who made some ears, and a nose. It was kind of amazing. And I worked in Paul Muni’s dressing room, which meant a great deal to me.

Well, like I say, I ran across this review. And it was during the newspaper strike – all the papers were down – but they put something out called The Standard, or something like that, where they printed reviews of some of the shows in New York. And I read this review of me doing Lincoln and – Jesus God, Joe, it was amazing. And they said Raymond Massey should step aside – stuff like that. It was really something. And I read this review now, and I think, “What the hell was the matter with me? When I read this back then, didn’t I see what I had done?” My reaction then, Joe, was disbelief. I mean, I didn’t think I was that good. That’s what I mean. And it really bothered me. Because I think the biggest problem in an actor’s life – well, I think this is true for a lot of actors, maybe it isn’t for some – but I think it’s confidence. You need terrific confidence in who you are.

Q. I take it that you feel a bit more sure of yourself these days.

A. Yes I do. Partly because my dear wife Dixie Carter has told me over and over and over again that I’m the greatest man who ever lived, and the greatest actor who ever lived. So after I while, you think, “Well, I must be pretty good.”


Q. Look, Hal, this may be cold comfort – but you’re not alone. I’ve talked to several actors over the years, and even some of the very successful ones – the honest ones – will admit that, deep down, they feel like frauds. Like they’re pulling something over on everybody. And sooner or later – they’re going to be found out.
A. That’s it, Joe. That awful thought was born in me when I went on stage that night off-Broadway in 1959, in this little tiny theater, a totally unknown actor, from a soap opera. I walked out to be 70-year-old Mark Twain – waiting to be murdered by the critics. And [publicist] Harvey Sabinson brought the reviews to somebody’s apartment we were in that night after the show. And we started reading The New York Times, Walter Kerr in the Tribune – and it was frightening to me. Because I couldn’t believe them. I thought they made a mistake.

[Lead New York Times theater critic Brooks Atkinson] didn’t come – he’d sent Arthur Gelb, and I think he said, “Some kid is doing Twain at 70? You go ahead and see it.” But then the next day, while I’m on the soap opera, we’re getting to shoot the thing, and suddenly the director’s voice came out of the booth way up high, saying, “Hal, you have a telephone call.” And I said, “What?” And he said, “It’s Brooks Atkinson.” And all of my fellow actors froze. I didn’t know what to say. So I said, “Tell him to call back.” And my fellow actors looked at me like I just got Streptococcus or something. And the director, Del Hughes, says: “Take the call, Hal.” So I talked to Mr. Atkinson, and he told me he was coming to see my show that night, and was going to do his Sunday column on me. And I thought, “Oh, my God. He’ll see it. He’ll discover this is a mistake. He’ll find me out.” But he didn’t. It was a home run.

But, you know, I’ve never lost that feeling of disbelief. It’s very hard to lose it.