TV-host

10:00:01:14 – 10:00:10:01

(SWEDISH)

If this was a deserted island..which of your own films would you bring? Having to watch them constantly

Ingmar Bergman

10:00:11:18 – 10:00:13:20

(SWEDISH)

What a horrible thought!

Ingmar Bergman

10:00:15:18 – 10:00:19:12

(SWEDISH)

I would much rather watch films made by other directors.

VOICE OVER

10:00:20:12 – 10:00:26:09

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Ingmar Bergman had 1711 videotapes in the TV-room of his island home on Fårö.

Francis Ford Coppola/ Interviewer

10:00:26:20 – 10:00:31:00

(ENGLISH)

So Mr Coppola, first of all: are you an adventurous person?

Yes, I think so.

VOICE OVER

10:00:31:08– 10:00:36:06

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Everything. From highbrow to lowbrow. Arthouse to grindhouse.

Films on every topic imaginable.

Laura Dern

10:00:36:10– 10:00:38:10

(ENGLISH)

I was going to make an adventure-movie!

VOICE OVER

10:00:38:15 – 10:00:42:11

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

This episode deals with adventure in the films of Bergman’s personal collection.

Zhang Yimou

10:00:42:20– 10:00:44:15

(CHINESE)

He got information from the films, that’s not bad.

VOICE OVER

10:00:45:08 – 10:00:49:10

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

The guest in Bergman’s TV-room is Easy Money director Daniel Espinosa.

Daniel Espinosa

10:00:49:17-10:00:54:10

(SWEDISH/ ENGLISH)

He rented this, and never returned it!

Hey man, I’m Bergman, come and get me!

Daniel Espinosa

10:01:37:05-10:02:01:20

(SWEDISH)

My generation, and young Swedish film lovers generally don’t like Bergman. I always liked him. When he died I tried to take part in everything he left behind. So when we flew in here today, it felt like I had already been here. Which is strange because I have never been to Fårö.

VOICE OVER

10:02:12:12 - 10:02:29:05

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Director Daniel Espinosa is currently best known for action movies like Easy Money and most recently, Safe House with Denzel Washington in the lead role. But he began his career working on arthouse films and Bergman has meant a lot to him.

Daniel Espinosa

10:02:30:03-10:02:46:17

(SWEDISH)

I can’t sit here, I get nervous (and have a little “touch-angst”). To be here is a bit macabre. It feels like housebreaking..a little bit too much.

VOICE OVER

10:02:48:17-10:03:01:05

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

After Ingmar Bergman’s death in 2007, Espinosa read and watched most of what Bergman had made, including Bergman’s popular TV-series Scenes from a Marriage, about a married couple in crisis.

FILMCLIP

10:03:03:00 – 10:03:21:24

(SWEDISH)

How can I tell you it is boring to sleep with you..

Even though everything works, technically speaking.

How can I tell you I feel like slapping you when you sit there, having your breakfast eggs.

Not to mention the girls, with their pretentious behavior.

Why did we spoil them like that?

Daniel Espinosa

10:03:23:12-10:04:14:12

(SWEDISH)

I think people forget the incredible impact he had on Sweden.

With Scenes from a Marriage, the divorce rate increased by about 50% or something. And that in just half a year. Unbelievable!

I don’t know if there are statistics like that revolving any other film, ever. The socioeconomic impact is enormous. Imagine the cost of lawyers, therapy..Amazing! That’s what everybody else: Costa Gavras, Pontecorva, that’s what many political filmmakers try to achieve. And Bergman does it simple, with one ordinary Swedish couple, and changes the whole country. That is pretty cool.

VOICE OVER

10:04:17:17-10:04:37:08

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Making films is itself an adventure. The director gets started and nobody knows how it will finish up. The project could end in complete failure. But if you can get the audience to change its habits, as Bergman did with Scenes from a Marriage, the film-adventure might have an unexpected ending.

VOICE OVER

10:04:49:01 – 10:05:00:06

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Star Wars is one of many classic adventure films in Ingmar Bergman’s collection, a space epic with heroes, rebels, battles and protagonists who grow wiser as the journey progresses.

VOICE OVER

10:05:04:03– 10:05:32:14

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Ingmar Bergman’s Shame contains similar ingredients, forces of occupation, soldiers, bombs and vulnerable civilians, only in a stripped down rural setting. Bergman managed to make toned down adventures. A sailboat instead of a spaceship. In Summer with Monika a couple sets off on an archipelago adventure, where they face the challenges of the wilderness, each other, their first great love and survive it all.

FILMCLIP

10:05:32:18 – 10:05:42:11

(SWEDISH)

Finally we can do it! Go wherever we want!

Yes, do you remember the first thing you said to me at that café?

I want to travel.

We can do that now. And don’t bother about anybody else.

Catherine Hardwicke

10:06:10:00 – 10:06:28:00

(ENGLISH)

This is the bed where Rob and Kristen auditioned for the first time. They did the kissing scene. They had just met, like half an hour before and I said we need to see if you guys have chemistry, so they jumped on the bed and did the kissing from Twilight here.

So there has been a lot of delicious activity here..

VOICE OVER

10:06:32:10 – 10:06:43:00

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Director Catherine Hardwicke is best known for the first Twilight film. But she first broke through with her debut feature Thirteen, a film that is in Bergman’s video-collection.

Catherine Hardwicke

10:06:44:10 – 10:06:56:00

(ENGLISH)

And this is Nikki who I wrote Thirteen with, when she was twelve years old..that’s Nikki when she was still pretty innocent. Then she switched over..

Catherine Hardwicke

10:06:56:10– 10:07:26:10

(ENGLISH)

The reason I made Thirteen came from a very personal situation that happened to a close friend of mine, and her mother. When Nikki turned 13, she suddenly became gorgeous and looked like a supermodel. And she was subjected to lots of pressure at school, all the boys, all the girls, drugs and everything. She would wake up every morning at 4.30 and spend 2,5 hours with a picture from a magazine, doing her hair and make up to match it, just to go to school.

Catherine Hardwicke

10:07:31:10-10:08:09:16

(ENGLISH)

Her parents reached out to me and said: Can you do anything? She hates us but she still likes you, because I wasn’t related to her, so I tried to get her into doing some more productive and creative things instead of self-destructive things but she said: listen, what I really want to do is be an actor. So I took her to acting-classes and workshops and I said: I guess, If you are going to be an actor, we’ve got to write our own material for you, because there is nothing good out there for a 13 year old girl. So we started writing this story which became kind of like cinema-therapy for Nikki and I and her Mom. And then we decided: let’s make the movie!

FILMCLIP

10:08:10:00-10:08:24:11

(ENGLISH)

I hate you. Stop..

I love you and your brother more than anything in the world. And I would die for you but I wont leave you alone right now.

I’m going to move in with Dad.

VOICE OVER

10:08:25:00-10:08:39:03

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Thirteen was a hit and Holly Hunter, who played Nikki’s mother was nominated for an Oscar, but it was three years later, when Catherine Hardwicke read the script about vampires in a small American town, that she really gained blockbuster status.

Catherine Hardwicke

10:08:42:04 – 10:09:28:05

(ENGLISH)

At the moment I read the script from Paramount I found out that there was a book, it wasn’t very much in the public consciousness.

So I looked online and found out that there was a small group of people that felt very passionately about this book. And I thought that the script was not good, so I said we need to throe this script away and make it more like the book. I thought that the writer Stephanie Meyer, absolutely captured this kind of dizzy giddy romantic feeling of just being madly in love. And I thought: I wonder if I can capture that on film. What kind of shots, what kinds of feelings, what kind of visuals would make you feel, Oh my God, I’m just going crazy with my first love.
I felt that was a great challenge.

FILMCLIP

10:07:05:07 – 10:07:24:05

(ENGLISH)

The pale-faced figure of death, cloaked in black is Ingmar Bergman’s undoubtetly most famous character. The film – The Seventh Seal – was widely praised when it first premiered in 1957. It helped make Bergman an international star and paved the way for a huge variety of films dealing with death.

FILM CLIP

10:09:28:10 – 10:09:34:05

(FILMCLIP/ ENGLISH)

This isn’t real. This kind of stuff just doesn’t exist.

It does in my world.

Catherine Hardwicke

10:09:35:19 – 10:09:55:06

(ENGLISH)

When people are teenagers you just feel things more passionately , you feel the possibilities are there. It’s the first time I can drive a car, it’s the first time I can drink, It’s the first time I could kiss a boy, kiss a girl, without my parents watching..So, its high drama and high stakes, its all powerful emotions at that time.

Catherine Hardwicke

10:10:08:04 – 10:10:22:05

(ENGLISH)

A vampire has these urges that they have to control. And as you come into puberty you’ve got all these new urges and hormones and things surging through your body, that you’ve got to keep it under control to, So there’s a lot of great metaphors in there.

Catherine Hardwicke

10:10:28:10 – 10:10:49:10

(ENGLISH)

This is where Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart met for the first time and they sat here and did the chemistry or the biology scene from Twilight and this is also where Heath Ledger sat in this chair and Emile Hearsch and all the boys from Dogtown sat here and we did read-throughs of the script and everything so this is kind of a special place.

FILMCLIP

10:10:59:16-10:11:01:24

(ENGLISH)

I cant help it, I love long hair..

VOICE OVER

10:11:03:00-10:11:18:02

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Another of Hardwicke’s better known films is Lords of Dogtown, a film about the origins of skateboard culture in Venice beach California. The same theme can be found at the heart of this story as in all her films: teen-adventure.

FILMCLIP

10:11:21:03-10:11:24:05

(ENGLISH)

It might be different though, the whole centre, gravitity thing, for girls..

Yeah.

Catherine Hardwicke

10:11:31:00-10:12:25:18

(ENGLISH)

You know, I try to find ways to talk about subjects that I care about, in a way that somebody will give me money to do.

Its always a challenge! But, I would say that Bergman himself is a great example of this: he found a way to make his movies for a very contained price and he was able to have almost complete freedom to explore things so the idea of finding ways so that you can actually do something in a very contained way is a very beautiful example for us, you know. And look what came out of it, things that would never have been made if  he hadn’t had complete freedom to shoot Persona or other movies to explore cinematically and he didn’t have to have like huge explosions or crazy super heroes falling from outer space to tell something that was amazing and inspiring to millions.

Daniel Espinosa

10:12:53:01-10:13:58:15

(ENGLISH/ SWEDISH)

This is the place. Cool. Really cool.

You sure can spend some time in here.

We used to make pirate-copies, I think we had like 600.

How many in here?

About 1700.

Jesus. The beauty with the VHS was that you had something that actually existed. It was something you actually had, and owned. And it was yours. I don’ think it’s like that today.

I mean, look at the variety of films: Die Hard, The Decalogue, that’s a really cool mix. You really feel like watching movies.

Daniel Espinosa

10:14:02:06-10:14:54:10

(SWEDISH)

My parents separated when I was 15 and my father moved to Africa. I went there and my dad didn’t really know what to do with me. But renting a movie cost about 50 cents at the time.

So he made a deal with me: I could rent an infinite amount of films. It was like Christmas! I rented 5 films every day and didn’t see that much of Guinea-Bissau. And when you watch that many films, you start mixing them together and you start creating your own stories. That is where my passion comes from: in the making of the film.

Daniel Espinosa

10:14:54:15-10:15:19:16

(SWEDISH)

Anger Management! This must be the first comedy I’ve seen here.

You can see on the VHS that he barely watched this one.

I wonder if he rewinded his videos. Some people never did, I hated people who didn’t. They borrow a film form you and then they don’t bother to rewind it! What’s the matter with you? How hard can it be?

VOICE OVER

10:15:36:04-10:16:01:20

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Zhang Yimou is China’s master director. He has made some of the greatest adventure films in the world. At the start of his career he made low-key, cruel stories about women who have to use their cunning and often bodies to survive. Bergman had several of Zhang Yimou’s earlier films, in his collection: Red Sorghum, Judou and perhaps his most famous: Raise the Red Lantern.

Zhang Yimou

10:16:09:20-10:16:47:08

(CHINESE)

I’m very curious about why Bergman had those films. Maybe he felt touched by that era, when a lot changed in China. And which ended a politically turbulent time. A time when people in the east started to rise. Even though he was so distant from China he could feel the changes. He got information from the films, that’s not bad.

Zhang Yimou

10:16:51:19-10:17:23:06

(CHINESE)

I am very nostalgic about that time in my life. I made one film every year. 5-6 films in a row that felt very good. Where I wasn’t lost in any of them. I had great self-esteem. Nowadays it is impossible. There is no work like that, you don’t find any..

You can still find six different scripts and film one a year. That you can do, but you don’t find as good scripts anymore.

VOICE OVER

10:17:30:24-10:17:50:21

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Today Zhang Yimou makes huge epic adventures about China’s history, patriotic films like Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Zhang Yimou also directed China’s unforgettable Olympic opening ceremony in 2008 and claims that all adventures, big or small, are fundamentally stories about survival.

Zhang Yimou

10:17:55:23-10:18:26:18

(CHINESE)

Survival is an eternal topic. All classes are faced with that question. Take an ordinary man on the street today or the fighting in the Middle East, or even an emperor, all can have survival issues. And this is one of the main themes in film-making,  I think.

Zhang Yimou

10:18:30:15-10:18:57:16

(CHINESE)

It is interesting to talk about humanity. No matter who you ask, the majority feel that they have problems. Few would say that I’m incredibly happy, insanely happy! Every man has his own difficulties, concerns and struggles.

Zhang Yimou

10:19:03:00-10:19:18:10

(CHINESE)

Bergman’s films does not simplify problems. In his films he turns problems into something spiritual. You get a lot of inspiration

VOICE OVER

10:19:23:15-10:19:33:19

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Zhang Yimou grew up during the cultural revolution in China and was forced to work in a factory for many years. It was late in his life that Yimou started to feel free.

Zhang Yimou

10:19:36:17-10:20:21:00

(CHINESE)

At that time it was about surviving for me. I wanted to change. I was already 28 and wanted to have the opportunity to go to college, regardless of what I studied. I had no requirements concerning interest, hobby or faith and it had nothing to do with ideals or ambition. It was only for the sake of survival. Just as in Bergman’s films, survival was the priority. So there was nothing romantic or fun with the whole thing. Every step I took was pragmatic. Including the fact that I later became a film director.

VOICE OVER

10:20:28:00 -10:20:36:00

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Zhang Yimou’s films are also about love. Big, tumultuous, eternal love. The kind you are prepared to risk everything for.

Zhang Yimou/ Interviewer

10:20:41:18-10:22:14:23

(ENGLISH/ CHINESE)

Are you a romantic person?

Certainly not, but my work can often be very romantic. There are great contrasts between my work and me as a person. The reason is probably because I come from, what we in China call an incorrect family background. My family has a bad political background. So I felt a great oppression when I grew up. We were targets of the revolution. So as a child I felt oppressed, cautious and anxious. Life was very difficult. When you have such an upbringing it stays with you as an adult. I have always kept a low profile and never wanted to make trouble. So I am careful and not the least bit romantic. I am very pragmati. But already in my first work Red Sorghum, all the way to my latest work The Flowers of War, there are amny romantic and poetic expressions. Tinctorially and in the scenery. It gets very powerful, especially in the colours. It is a great contrast to my private life. Like I was two different persons.

Zhang Yimou

10:22:18:10 -10:22:25:05

(CHINESE)

I don’t know how that happened. Maybe what I didn’t dare to in life, I’ve put in my art.

FILMCLIP

10:22:42:05 -10:22:59:05

(ENGLISH)

Holy shit! It’s not a living fucking dead.

What’s up Lula?

I can’t take no more of this radio. I never heard so much shit on all my life. Sailor Ripley you get me some music on that radio and I mean it!

VOICE OVER

10:23:00:10 -10:23:23:17

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

A film that is also in Bergman’s video-collection is David Lynch’s

Wild at Heart. A dark and twisted adventure that takes place during a road trip across America. Laura Dern plays opposite Nicholas Cage and the characters they play – Sailor and Lula – have both become film icons.

Laura Dern

10:23:24:18 -10:24:11:17

(ENGLISH)

I loved hearing that Ingmar Bergman had Wild At Heart. I would hope that he would be interested and connected to David’s work because there is something extreme and fantastic about David’s work, but the actors have to stay rather true and suttle. Because his world is rather extreme. For the most part there is this odd balance between humanity and fantasy and it seemed to me always, that that interested Bergman and was quite delicious about his films.

And David does it in a very different way but it feels like they would be kin.

Laura Dern

10:24:24:11 -10:24:56:02

(ENGLISH)

David had given me the opportunity to play a character in Blue Velvet that was very much the girl next door but now my character in Wild At Heart was so opposite Sandy and there was a lot of sexuality and wildness and curiosity to her. To trust me to play such incredibly different characters within a matter of a couple of years was incredible and I have continued to work with David since then and just each time I work with him there is nothing like the last character I’ve played.

VOICE OVER

10:24:58:07 -10:25:08:08

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Film making and acting have always been part of Laura Dern’s life. She was born into a family of actors and found something very exciting about what her parents did for a living.

Laura Dern

10:25:09:21 -10:25:41:18

(ENGLISH)

When I was 7-8 years old my father was doing a film with Alfred Hitchcock and my mother was doing a film with Martin Scorsese and I remember going to both sets, it was in my summer vacation and those were the directors they were working with simultaneously. So I think it was watching those film makers that made me want to become and actor, which in a way is unusual, because I guess usually actors connect to a performance but for me I think I connected more to the connection between a film maker and an actor.

FILMCLIP

10:25:57:19 -10:25:59:20

(ENGLISH)

It’s…It’s a dinosaur.

VOICE OVER

10:24:58:07 -10:26:09:15

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

After David Lynch’s narrow, dark and decidedly adults only adventure Dern was cast in the role of Ellie in Steven Spielberg’s

epic Jurassic Park.

Laura Dern

10:26:12:00 -10:26:25:16

(ENGLISH)

I was going to make an adventure movie. Something that I had never done before and thought I’d never do again and was slightly odd and different for me and for my career and Steven Spielberg was going to direct it.

Laura Dern

10:26:35:18 -10:26:43:23

(ENGLISH)

It wasn’t just any action movie and it was really the first of its kind in terms of computer graphics and creating this world of dinasaurs

VOICE OVER

10:26:45:00 -10:26:53:02

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

The collaboration between director and actor that Laura Dern witnessed as a l girl, is still the thing she finds most fascinating about working with film.

.

Laura Dern

10:26:57:15 -10:27:26:15

(ENGLISH)

Steven really memorizes what he needs. He sees his films in his head, like no one else I have worked with. So as opposed to being an actor who is asked to show you the director a film and help them find their film, he sees the film and he wants you to show him how he has imagined it somehow. So it is a slightly different way of working but it is so equally inspiring.

Laura Dern

10:27:27:11 -10:27:33:00

(ENGLISH)

Ann is here and she is going to walk you down when you are ready to go. You guys, thanks so much.

Bye bye.

FILMCLIP

10:27:55:11 -10:27:56:24

(SWEDISH)

Stop the bus! Stop the bus!

Daniel Espinosa

10:28:00:14 -10:28:20:23

(SWEDISH)

When I made Easy Money, I wanted to show a world that had not yet been portrayed on film. I wanted to make a film that I could believe. A film about what I had experienced. A world that people in Sweden have no idea exists.

VOICE OVER

10:28:22:24 -10:28:37:04

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Easy Money became Daniel Espinosa’s big breakthrough. The film, which is based on Jens Lapidus’ novel of the same name, is set in Stockholm’s criminal underworld and is full of characters that Espinosa recognizes from his childhood.

FILMCLIP

10:28:37:23 -10:28:42:15

(SWEDISH)

Are you listening to me!?

Shut up! Shut up!

Daniel Espinosa

10:28:46:02 -10:29:11:02

(SWEDISH)

The story reflects my own life: I am from Chile, I have lots of friends who resemble characters from the cast, like Jorge. I knew people who reminded me of Mrado. And I can see myself in JW, the main character.

VOICE OVER

10:29:19:23 -10:29:35:13

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

As a teenager Espinosa attended the elite boarding school of Sigtuna, known for its well to do students, and had to learn how to improvise in order to survive. Replacing the buttons on his shirt for example, just like to protagonist in Easy Money.

Daniel Espinosa

10:29:38:15 -10:30:42:17

(SWEDISH)

When I enrolled my economic background was very different. I bought my clothes with my meager student grant. I remember walking into my friend’s dorm room and opening his close. And I think he had about 30-40 Ralph Lauren polo shirts, in different colors. I knew one of those shirts cost about 1000 kronor. Imagine, the number of shirts cost more than all clothes I had ever had in my life. It made me understand that people are different. I went to thrift-stores with my dad to find items which would make me fit in. I guess that is what kids do.

FILMCLIP

10:30:46:00 -10:30:52:11

(ENGLISH)

You know if anybody was following?

No, I don’t think anybody was following me. I swear on my life Toben, I have absolutely..

VOICE OVER

10:31:07:03 -10:31:20:15

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Following Easy Money Espinosa received a number of film-offers from Hollywood. But it was the script for Safe House that caught his eye and he suggested that Denzel Washington play the lead.

VOICE OVER

10:31:31:20 -10:31:34:15

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Making films is a lot about courage. 

Daniel Espinosa

10:31:36:13 -10:32:27:13

(SWEDISH)

When I landed in New York, I wasn’t nervous at all. I have worked with the biggest Swedish actor Rolf Lassgård, how dangerous can it be..Rolf is the Swedish version of Denzel. I imagined it would be an interesting informal meeting with a great artist. But then I made a huge mistake. One hour before we were supposed to meet I started looking at Denzel Washington clips on youtube. And suddenly he became iconic and I became really nervous. I almost panicked..But it worked out, Washington came in, sat down. He was very relaxed and we just talked. He said he wanted to do the film with me and that’s when I felt I wanted to make the film.

Daniel Espinosa

10:32:28:00 -10:32:38:10

(SWEDISH)

There aren’t any drawers either.

I like him, he always looks so excited when he is shooting, I like that.

Francis Ford Coppola/ Interviewer

10:33:02:22 -10:33:08:11

(ENGLISH)

So Mr Coppola, first of all: are you an adventurous person?

Yes, I think so.

VOICE OVER

10:33:22:10 -10:33:34:03

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Francis Ford Coppola is among the true greats of the film world. Ingmar Bergman’s video collection includes a number of his classic works such as Rumble Fish, The Conversation,and Apocalypse Now.

VOICE OVER

10:33:42:20 -10:33:57:22

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Today, Coppola makes small, self-financed films from his vineyard headquarters in Napa Valley north of San Francisco, where he has an extensive library and film archive. He bought the vineyard with the money he made from his hit film, The Godfather.

Francis Ford Coppola

10:34:01:23 -10:34:32:12

(ENGLISH)

I didn’t want to do the Godfather. When I first read it I thought it was like a potboiler and I had turned it down, in fact. I wanted very much to write my own stuff. It was George Lucas who said I had to do the Godfather, because we were so broke, that we needed something that would pay a real salary, so.. But then later when I started to study it what I felt was the focus of it was, you know like a classical story of a king with three sons.

FILMCLIP

10:34:35:08 -10:34:37:09

(ENGLISH)

I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.

VOICE OVER

10:34:37:09-10:35:03:03

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

In the 70s, Coppola was a central figure in what today is referred to as New Hollywood, and was part of the same circle as George Lucas, among others, who joined together to found their own film studio American Zoetrope. These directors had the courage to leave the studio system in order to make more personal films – films that were unconventional and didn’t shy away from challenging earlier Hollywood stories.

Francis Ford Coppola

10:35:03:10-10:35:59:03

(ENGLISH)

We all moved up to San Fransisco myself and some younger film students, graduates from USC, me and my friend George Lucas, who was like a younger brother to me. A whole group of young, would be film directors and we all decided to move up to San Fransisco and start a movie company and basically Apocalypse Now was a script that George Lucas was working up with John Milius about the Vietnamese war. I wanted George to do Apocalypse Now and he didn’t want to do it because he was doing what became Star Wars and John Milius, who had written it, didn’t want to do it because he was doing another movie. And then I thought I’ll do it myself and we’ll make a great big war-movie and it’ll be a big success and we’ll make a lot of money and then we’ll do little personal art films.

VOICE OVER

10:35:59:23-10:36:31:01

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

But the shooting of Apocalypse Now didn’t turn out the way Coppola had intended, and is among the most troublesome shoots in the history of cinema. The film, which itself is an epic war adventure – turned out to be an even greater adventure to make. Coppola went over schedule, over budget, there were typhoons, people quitting, disasters. At the same time, Coppola’s wife Eleanor was filming the whole breakdown for the documentary Hearts of Darkness. When the film premiered at Cannes, Coppola held a press conference that over time has become legendary.

Francis Ford Coppola

10:36:31:01-10:37:11:07

(ENGLISH)

I thought that would make her stay if she had a project to work on, so very often..you know Apocalypse Now was definitely very tough, and I both was financing it and making it. It had evolved to be a much more surreal kind of film than the script had implied it would be, so I was in a double jeopardy there and I used to go home, to my wife and say: Oh, this is the world’s worst movie and it’s horrible and I don’t know what’s going to happen and..Hoping she would say: Oh no dear, it’s going to be fine, it is going to be wonderful, I believe in you. Instead she would say: Oh wait a second, let me get the camera, would you say that again?

FILMCLIP

10:37:11:19 -10:37:52:15

(ENGLISH)

My film is not a movie, my film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It’s what it was really like, it was crazy and the way we made it was very much like the Americans were in Vietnam. We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment and little by little we went insane.

Francis Ford Coppola

10:37:55:22-10:38:28:00

(ENGLISH)

The film was not getting good response. It’s not remembered this way, because now, 30 years later, people think it’s a classic but when it came out it had a very rough reception and I remember sitting on this very porch, looking out at those vineyards, thinking you know: God, I found this beautiful place and now I’m going to loose it because the bank had, in return for letting me finance Apocalypse Now, the bank was holding all the property I had so it looked very sure that I was going to loose this place.

FILMCLIP

10:38:31:05 -10:38:34:10

(ENGLISH)

We’ll have this place cleaned up and ready, don’t you worry.

VOICE OVER

10:38:35:24-10:38:51:09

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

Today, when Francis Ford Coppola looks back on his early career, he tries to learn from his mistakes. He still sticks to the personal vision that inspired him to start making movies in the first place, and, among other things, allows himself be inspired by Ingmar Bergman.  

Francis Ford Coppola

10:38:52:06 -10:39:25:08

(ENGLISH)

I always knew my weakness was to overdo, to do too much. I always wanted to write something and then get to make it, which was the blessing Bergman had. He had his little island and he would write these original screenplays, so if he wanted something weird to happen in his script he could just do it. I go through that all the time, when I get to a point where I: I’d really like to..and then I say, oh what the hell! I’m just going to do it. It doesn’t matter.

VOICE OVER

10:39:26:20 -10:39:48:15

(VOICE OVER/ ENGLISH)

His last three films - Youth Without Youth, Tetro, and Twixt - Francis Ford Coppola calls his student films; they’re made on tiny budgets and are a far cry from his 70s epics.

Francis Ford Coppola

10:39:40:10 -10:40:28:02  

(ENGLISH)

One of the most pathetic things is to see artists who were successful when they were young, trying to duplicate what they were doing when they were young. And I thought maybe it would be very healthy for me to become a student again and I felt the best way to be a student film-maker was to make films with no money. So I thought if I went to really dirt-cheap, then it would almost be like a chance at an older age to be very much like a 17 year old and that making 2 or 3 of those films would be, in a way, a new start and then if I made a bigger film it would be nothing like the bigger films I made earlier.

Daniel Espinosa

10:40:48:20 -10:41:29:20

(SWEDISH)

Some of these rooms feel so empty. I wonder if they always felt this way, even when he was alive. Maybe he liked it that way. Maybe he enjoyed the solitude. Found some strength in it. It is a lonely profession. I wonder if he made himself more alone than necessary, on purpose. Or if he just accepted his fate.

That set up wouldn’t work for me. I am more of a people person.

I like to hang out with other directors. Talk with them about film and learn all I can.

Daniel Espinosa

10:41:35:00 -10:42:12:19

(SWEDISH)

My generation is the Tarantino generation. We didn’t feel entitled to make films the way they were made earlier. But we took the right to make films and did it our way. My attitude has always been: give me the money to make this film, and if not – I’ll make it anyway. You can’t stop me, and when it is done you’ll see that it’s as good as anything else out there. So just get on the train already..They don’t know who we are, because we haven’t even started.

Agnieszka Holland:

10:37:46:05 -10:38:13:19

(ENGLISH)

It is very difficult to build up this iconography of Holocaust with out repeating the images which became so over-used that they became some kind of kliché. And not going into people’s sensivity, so I think you have to be more real, in some ways. We’ve had enough of English speaking Holocaust movies. They are just fake.

Lars von Trier

10:42:21:02 -10:42:25:16

(DANISH)

I don’t know how many letters I’ve written to Bergman, but he never responded.

Holly Hunter:

10:42:27:00 -10:42:32:15

(ENGLISH)

You know monks take vows of silence, there is something holy about it as well.

Ang Lee

10:42:33:05-10:42:39:19

(ENGLISH)

In the 60s they don’t even have the language to understand what they are going through. Silence is the real deal.