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Julian Schnabel Paints The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
(Page 3)
MM: How else have you changed or evolved as a director since your first film?
JS: I think on my first film people tried to keep me from hurting myself… and I don’t think that helped. (laughs)
MM: Trying to keep you from producing something that wouldn’t work?
JS: Yes. For example, I wanted to change lenses for one particular shot because we didn’t have room to push forward or pull back, so I wanted it so that in one shot you see the head of a guy at a certain scale but with the next one you just see it much closer. My DP tried to give me a lens that was similar to the one I had just used. You know, people don’t necessarily know what you want because they haven’t done that before. They’re using their experience to help you, but maybe that’s not really what you need.
MM: Sometimes well-intentioned help can get in the way.
JS: Yes. Sometimes I talk to young painters and when I see things that look too general I’ll say, ‘You know, it looks like anyone could have done this.’ I look to see what’s personal to them. The idea isn’t just to make it personal, but to at least not be so accepting [of conventions]. When you are starting out, people will tell you, “There’s this kind of shot and there’s that kind of shot.” As you start writing for film, you start to understand what will play and what won’t. You start to understand what is being said to you when you look at a script.
MM: You find it yourself.
JS: Yes, but I dread directing… It’s like something I know I’m going to have to do, but it’s very arduous in contrast to painting.
MM: What would you say to students if you were teaching film?
JS: It’s the same, whether you are making film or art: People should make movies about what they know about. Most people don’t know what they’re making the movie about, so there’s a blandishment that’s implicit in the job. They know how to make a movie, but they don’t necessarily have a deep relationship with the subject matter of that particular movie. They might not have the same relationship as perhaps the writer had with the subject. I think you have to always be rewriting the script while you’re shooting.
MM: That’s a challenging answer. Is there not a sort of tension between the industrial part of the process of moviemaking and the creative one? If you’re continually rewriting and reworking—which from an artistic point of view is beautiful—you also might get to the end of the day without your coverage.
JS: All I’m saying is: Say you’re shooting in Mexico, and it’s raining, and the river rises up 15 inches: Your location’s not there anymore…
MM: (laughing) Right.
JS: So, somebody who might be writing can say, “Everything I wrote no longer means anything because I don’t have the stuff that I needed there.” As a plastic artist I can say, ‘I don’t have to do that there; I can change this for that.’ I’m not actually saying you necessarily write anything, but you do have to throw the script away a lot of the time, and you throw the script away for something better—or don’t throw it away. (laughs)
On the one hand, it’s very nice that you have a community of people who are working [to make the film], but when it comes down to it, you have to trust yourself. If you try to please everyone else, you’ll have a movie that will be what they want, not what you want. It’s like with your kids: If you’re happy, then your children will be happy; if you’re miserable while you’re doing what everyone else wants you to do, no one will be happy.
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This story was published in the Fall 2007 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
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