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Pratley: We talk a great deal and we hear a great deal about the director being the creator of a film. bit if you have taken a story form a novel, and it's been adapted by someone else, what can you bring to it? What will you do as the creator and how much of yourself will be in it?
Lean: This is a difficult question. Well first of all, I take such a long time doing...making films because I spend a lot of time on the script. I work with the writer. I sometimes, not in this case, but ins ome of the movies I have made, I have written quite a lot of it myself. But in the early stages I suppose the director is, as it were, a shaper of the film. And then, of course, as the shooting gets nearer he...he takes more and more responsibility. I mean, he's responsible for casting, if he's powerful enough ot have that control. That makes quite a lot of difference. I mean, whether one plays well known stars or takes a risk with unknowns, as indeed we're doing with this, in several cases. And then one comes to shoot it. I've often wondered...I'd love to see a script shot by three directors. The identical script shot by three directors. I thin you'd find the finished results very different. Because it's a matter of taste, I suppose. Most of the time I'm encouraging certain things and suppressing certain things in the people around me. In the photography, the sound, perhaps. Yes, quite a bit and certainly in the actors. One tends to put one's own point of view over through the actors. And so, a kind of personal taste or touch, if you like, will probably come out. I'm not quite sure. Above all, the director chooses what the audience sees, and when. he decides whether you shall see it in close up or long shot, on their backs, on their faces; whether it's dark; whether it's light; whether it's fast or slow. So that, in itself, has quite an effect, of course. When I was a boy, I never thought of becoming a director, I think, because I thought it was over some vast distant horizon. And then, when you become a director, you wish you were a better director, and so forth and so on. But this question of freedom, it's a question of one's record, I suppose. If a large company is going to put a vast amount of money into a film project, I suppose they naturally entrust that money to people who have proved things in the past. And I suppose I've had a fairly good record that way, I don't know. And, I mean, on this film, it's costing a fortune and um...I must say, the first time I've worked with MGM. And I've not had quarrels with them at all. They've let me do just as I like. Fantastic freedom. And for instance, we've got two very juicy parts for two woman. And we've got Julie Christie who's not all that well known, and Geraldine Chaplin, who's only done one film. And that's quite a gamble. I mean, they really are big parts. And then we've got Omar Sharif playing the leading role, and the first time he was on the western screen at any rate was in Lawrence.
Pratley: Are we going to have any of these problems after the film is finished, Mr. Lean, which seems to have beset Lawrence in some places, I think, and Cleopatra, and several other of the long films. I gather this is going to run how long? Three, three and a half hours?
Lean: Well, I think it's going to run about three and a quarter. Three hours, ten minutes, I hope.
Pratley: Because it's so discouraging that a film opens, it runs four hours, or three and a half or whatever it is, and then we hear these stories starting that somebody at the studio has decided to tae out ten minutes and someone else is going to take out ten minutes and then by the time the films gets around...indeed, they may even change the print if it is being shown on a reserved seat basis and then again later on it's a cut-down version.
Lean: Well, I tell you. I'll tell you what happens. I have a certain amount of sympathy because it's a question...it all boils down to the last bus. If the film is four hours long, they have to go in at seven o'clock. which is a bit early to be out by eleven and perhaps the last bus goes at five minutes to eleven. And so they beg one to cut it down. And then, of course, the critics, I think, have had a great influence here because they get pretty bored, I suppose. They see too many films, and they always complain about the length of films. Any film over two hours your liable to get a kick fo it. And I think that's the danger of every artist. I mean it must have been so throughout the ages. And we're a very, very young art. I'm flattered that you say it's an art. I think it's coming up that way a little...pieces of certain films are, I suppose, art, but I think we've got quite a way to go. We're a very young toddler at the moment.
Pratley: I realize you have to go but I would like to ask you one last thing. You mentioned the critics, and I wonder what you think of critical opinions and influences? I think the critics have much to answer for, especially in cinema. Especially in these days where the obscure is so fashionable. And critics who elevate the work of unknown young film-makers who have been totally unclear as to what they're doing. And they elevate this far about the work of someone, such as yourself, who goes to a great deal of trouble to make himself explicit.
Lean: Well, I don't really...I don't think it's true perhaps for the rest of the world, but I know the English critics are highly suspicious of anything that costs a lot of money. While, if your a dentist or a doctor or a school teacher and you save up your pocket money, buy a lot of junk film, put it together, and make a film over three years on weekends and it's an appalling film, I think they tend to give it good notices. Wile if you sped a lot of money and you've got big star actors, I think they tend to sharpen up their razor blades and dive in. But I agree with you. I agree with what you say about some of these young directors and the obscure. I, personally, often worry about being old-fashioned. But I like a good story. I like a beginning, middle and an end. And i find a lot of these new films are rather like diaries. "I got up in the morning with a headache and m mother, whom I was rather bored with, was making tea and we sat down and had a dreary conversation about what she said to her aunt yesterday and I then went ot he office where there were another lot of dreary people and so forth and so on."...And there's no end ot it. There's no dramatic construction. And I must say I lie a good dramatic construction. And I like to be excited when I go to the movies. I like to be touched. And I like a good yarn, I suppose.
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