Anurag Kashyap to make 3D horror movie!

Just back after the screening of his debut production Udaan, directed by Vikram Motwane, in the Un Certain Regard category at the Cannes film festival in France, Anurag Kashyap already has a plan in place for his next three productions after Udaan’s release on July 16. One of the three movies, to be directed by Rahi Anil Bharve, will be a 3D horror film, produced by Kashyap for UTV, in collaboration with a “Hollywood special effects 3D giant studio”. “I’ve fortunately always got a great response and support from the international market at every festival I’ve been. I’ve been in talks with many studios for a while now and one of the projects, which is underway, is a 3D horror film that will be an international co-production with a Hollywood special effects 3D giant studio and UTV reveals Kashyap.

Exploring romance

Bharve, who will be making his big screen debut with this film, has earlier directed a short film called Manjha, which Danny Boyle had featured on his Blu-ray DVD for Slumdog Millionaire. Kashyap is producing two of his other movies for UTV too, and both will be big-budget love stories. One of them will be Motwane’s next after Udaan. Says Kashyap, “The script of the movie has already been locked, and we’ve approached big stars for the film. It will start shooting at the end of this year and release next year.”

The other love story is a quirky romance as Kashyap puts it, and will mark the Bollywood directorial debut of two-time National Award-winning Marathi filmmaker, Sachin Kundalkar, of Gandha fame. “This is the first time I’m making such love stories in my life,” Kashyap grins. “We’ve already zeroed in on actors we know can do the roles, and have started hounding them. This movie should go on the floors by the end of this year too.” All three movies, which are scripted by their respective directors, are part of Kashyap’s nine-film deal with UTV, which he signed last year, after the critical and box-office success of his movie, Dev D. UTV has also made Udaan, and has put its weight behind Kashyap’s next release as a director, Girl In The Yellow Boots.

“I’ve always wanted to make the kind of films that I don’t think other producers would have the courage and vision to make. UTV has consistently backed me on such films,” Kashyap says.

NFDC partners

National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), that has been missing from action in Hindi cinema, is also partnering with Kashyap to make Girl In The Yellow Boots. Kashyap comments, “NFDC has revamped itself and is re-emerging now. Apart from UTV, NFDC is being talked about in the foreign market in quite a big way.”

“Between Sanjay Singh (co-producer of Udaan), UTV, NFDC and another friend of mine from Chandigarh, who has complete faith in me, I’m set for making the kind of films I want to, for the next five years,” Kashyap grins. After Udaan’s release in India, Kashyap will start shooting for a Bihar-based gangster movie that is scheduled for release in 2011. After that, the director of Black Friday and Gulaal, will start work on his big-budget Bombay trilogy with Studio 18 and Danny Boyle, which will be followed by the superhero movie, Doga.

‘We’ll premiere Udaan’s international cut soon ’

Anurag Kashyap in conversation...

How was the response of Udaan at Cannes?

(Smiles) The screening went very well. People were crying, they surrounded Vikram and kept clapping when he stepped out. It was overwhelming. Rajat (Barmecha) was like a star, he was signing autographs and posing for pictures! The film didn’t win, but it received great reviews from the press. Variety, Hollywood Reporter and most of the local press said great things.

Only a part of the French press didn’t like it, but I guess that’s because they weren’t comfortable with crying in the theatre. They found the film ‘too Indian’, but that’s what I’m proud of in the film!

Did you fancy your chances at winning?

(Chuckles) Cannes was a bolt from the blue. It was an honour just to be there. Usually, Indian films are only showcased there, but this was screened in a competitive category, so it made people sit up and take notice. My proudest moment was seeing Vikram Motwane’s name among all the international directors at Cannes. I’m extremely proud and jealous of Vikram at the same time!

Did any international distributors show interest in the film?

Yeah, UTV has been talking to a lot of people. Various markets and distributors have shown interest, and the film has already been invited to Beirut and Melbourne film festivals too. The only problem is that European films are iusually under two hours, so we’re making an international cut that will premiere at a film festival in September.

Will you rope in an international director for that cut, a la Kites?

I’m the kind of producer I would like on my own film. I hadn’t even seen a single footage of the film until it was ready. I have full faith in Vikram.

What made you produce Udaan in the first place?

I’ve been associated with Vikram for several years now. He’s the guy who taught me sound design during Paanch. He’s been a cinematographer, a director of sound, he’s assisted Sanjay Leela Bhansali on two films, and in spite of being so talented, he wasn’t getting a producer to direct his film just because he wanted to make it in a certain way.

What attracted you to the script of the movie?

I read his script in 2003, when he asked me to write its dialogues. When I read it, I told him that only I could produce it. (Chuckles) That’s what happened. It got turned down by everyone, simply because there wasn’t a star in the movie. I love the script — it’s a simple story about a boy who wants to grow into the man he wants to be, and not what his father wants to be.

There was news that the people from the Indian contingent was approached to walk the red carpet for the film, but they didn’t agree.

That didn’t happen. It wasn’t about the red carpet…. But we were expecting people from the Indian contingent to turn up at the film’s screening at least. But the enthusiasm shown by them was a letdown. (Sighs) I don’t know, in spite of doing so much for the industry, I am still treated like an outsider. It was quite apparent at Cannes. Things like these make me more determined, although I fail to understand what’s wrong with these ‘stars’ and ‘big directors’. As it is, they don’t see a lot of films — it wouldn’t have hurt them to support another Indian movie.

‘I’m not going to cast Kalki in every movie’

On Kalki

I’m very happy for Kalki, for the movies she’s bagged, touchwood! I’m only working with her on The Girl In Yellow Boots, which should release by the end of this year. I’m aiming to take the movie to film festivals, and explore the world market. Nobody wanted to support me on this movie, so UTV stepped in. (National Film Development Corporation) NFDC has also come on board as co-producers to help me complete the film. It’s on hold right now, as I’m waiting for the money to complete it.

I’d love to direct Kalki again in a movie of mine, but she can’t be a part of Bombay Velvet, or my Bihar movie, since she doesn’t fit in any role. Just because I’m seeing her doesn’t mean I’ll cast her in every movie. It’s a thin line I’m walking on.

‘There will be a Hollywood actor in it’

On his bombay trilogy

The script of Bombay Velvet, my first film for Studio 18, in the Bombay trilogy, has finally been locked. I’m going to narrate it to a star at the end of June, and direct it immediately after releasing my Bihar-based movie. I’ll shoot the other two movies only after the release of Bombay Velvet. Danny Boyle is on board for this movie. We’ve spoken about doing a few other things too. But he’s been shooting his movie for five months, so I haven’t been able to meet him. Aamir’s (Khan) not been finalised for the movie, or any of my other movies yet. But there will be a Hollywood actor in it.

‘I want a kitschy title like Badle Ki Aag for my revenge drama’

On his bihar-based movie

I’m jealous of Vishal Bhardwaj for the way he has been able to use the rusticity and lingo of rural India in his movies like Ishqiya. I’ve always wanted to make a rustic movie representing where I come from.

I’m making a revenge drama that spans 60 years and three generations. It revolves around coal mines, underworld and mafia in Bihar. It has a cast of over 200 people, some of whom are based on real characters. It’s going to be an action-packed film. I want a kitschy title like Badle Ki Aag for the film; maybe I’ll keep a poll and let people decide. I’m getting back with Manoj Bajpayee after Satya and Shool. There’s also a new girl called Huma Qureshi, who I directed in the Samsung ad with Aamir Khan. It also stars Nawazuddin, Rajpal Yadav and actors from Love, Sex Aur Dhokha.

For the matriach of the family in my movie, I want Shahana Goswami. But she’s yet to get back to me because a majority of her role, which is in the second half is still being written. I also want a new face from Bengal for a role. Once Udaan releases, I’ll start shooting for the film, and it should be out early next year.

Anurag Kashyap’s movies lined up after Udaan..

1 Untitled bihar-based gangster movie: Starring Manoj Bajpayee, it is a revenge drama spanning 60 years, revolving around coal mines and the Bihar underworld.
To release in 2011.
2 Bombay Velvet: Script of first movie in the Bombay trilogy has been locked. Danny Boyle is on board, will start shooting in 2011.
3 Doga: Script almost locked. Kunal Kapoor is training intensively.
4 Untitled 3D horror film: Directed by Rahi Anil Bharve, it will be co-produced by a Hollywood studio.
5 Vikram Motwane’s next: A big-budget romance. To release in 2011.
6 Sachin Kundalkar’s debut: National award-winning Marathi director’s (of Gandha fame) debut Hindi film will be a romance.
To release in 2011.

LINK

Anurag Kashyap to make 3D horror movie!

Just back after the screening of his debut production Udaan, directed by Vikram Motwane, in the Un Certain Regard category at the Cannes film festival in France, Anurag Kashyap already has a plan in place for his next three productions after Udaan’s release on July 16. One of the three movies, to be directed by Rahi Anil Bharve, will be a 3D horror film, produced by Kashyap for UTV, in collaboration with a “Hollywood special effects 3D giant studio”. “I’ve fortunately always got a great response and support from the international market at every festival I’ve been. I’ve been in talks with many studios for a while now and one of the projects, which is underway, is a 3D horror film that will be an international co-production with a Hollywood special effects 3D giant studio and UTV reveals Kashyap.

Exploring romance

Bharve, who will be making his big screen debut with this film, has earlier directed a short film called Manjha, which Danny Boyle had featured on his Blu-ray DVD for Slumdog Millionaire. Kashyap is producing two of his other movies for UTV too, and both will be big-budget love stories. One of them will be Motwane’s next after Udaan. Says Kashyap, “The script of the movie has already been locked, and we’ve approached big stars for the film. It will start shooting at the end of this year and release next year.”

The other love story is a quirky romance as Kashyap puts it, and will mark the Bollywood directorial debut of two-time National Award-winning Marathi filmmaker, Sachin Kundalkar, of Gandha fame. “This is the first time I’m making such love stories in my life,” Kashyap grins. “We’ve already zeroed in on actors we know can do the roles, and have started hounding them. This movie should go on the floors by the end of this year too.” All three movies, which are scripted by their respective directors, are part of Kashyap’s nine-film deal with UTV, which he signed last year, after the critical and box-office success of his movie, Dev D. UTV has also made Udaan, and has put its weight behind Kashyap’s next release as a director, Girl In The Yellow Boots.

“I’ve always wanted to make the kind of films that I don’t think other producers would have the courage and vision to make. UTV has consistently backed me on such films,” Kashyap says.

NFDC partners

National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), that has been missing from action in Hindi cinema, is also partnering with Kashyap to make Girl In The Yellow Boots. Kashyap comments, “NFDC has revamped itself and is re-emerging now. Apart from UTV, NFDC is being talked about in the foreign market in quite a big way.”

“Between Sanjay Singh (co-producer of Udaan), UTV, NFDC and another friend of mine from Chandigarh, who has complete faith in me, I’m set for making the kind of films I want to, for the next five years,” Kashyap grins. After Udaan’s release in India, Kashyap will start shooting for a Bihar-based gangster movie that is scheduled for release in 2011. After that, the director of Black Friday and Gulaal, will start work on his big-budget Bombay trilogy with Studio 18 and Danny Boyle, which will be followed by the superhero movie, Doga.

‘We’ll premiere Udaan’s international cut soon ’

Anurag Kashyap in conversation...

How was the response of Udaan at Cannes?

(Smiles) The screening went very well. People were crying, they surrounded Vikram and kept clapping when he stepped out. It was overwhelming. Rajat (Barmecha) was like a star, he was signing autographs and posing for pictures! The film didn’t win, but it received great reviews from the press. Variety, Hollywood Reporter and most of the local press said great things.

Only a part of the French press didn’t like it, but I guess that’s because they weren’t comfortable with crying in the theatre. They found the film ‘too Indian’, but that’s what I’m proud of in the film!

Did you fancy your chances at winning?

(Chuckles) Cannes was a bolt from the blue. It was an honour just to be there. Usually, Indian films are only showcased there, but this was screened in a competitive category, so it made people sit up and take notice. My proudest moment was seeing Vikram Motwane’s name among all the international directors at Cannes. I’m extremely proud and jealous of Vikram at the same time!

Did any international distributors show interest in the film?

Yeah, UTV has been talking to a lot of people. Various markets and distributors have shown interest, and the film has already been invited to Beirut and Melbourne film festivals too. The only problem is that European films are iusually under two hours, so we’re making an international cut that will premiere at a film festival in September.

Will you rope in an international director for that cut, a la Kites?

I’m the kind of producer I would like on my own film. I hadn’t even seen a single footage of the film until it was ready. I have full faith in Vikram.

What made you produce Udaan in the first place?

I’ve been associated with Vikram for several years now. He’s the guy who taught me sound design during Paanch. He’s been a cinematographer, a director of sound, he’s assisted Sanjay Leela Bhansali on two films, and in spite of being so talented, he wasn’t getting a producer to direct his film just because he wanted to make it in a certain way.

What attracted you to the script of the movie?

I read his script in 2003, when he asked me to write its dialogues. When I read it, I told him that only I could produce it. (Chuckles) That’s what happened. It got turned down by everyone, simply because there wasn’t a star in the movie. I love the script — it’s a simple story about a boy who wants to grow into the man he wants to be, and not what his father wants to be.

There was news that the people from the Indian contingent was approached to walk the red carpet for the film, but they didn’t agree.

That didn’t happen. It wasn’t about the red carpet…. But we were expecting people from the Indian contingent to turn up at the film’s screening at least. But the enthusiasm shown by them was a letdown. (Sighs) I don’t know, in spite of doing so much for the industry, I am still treated like an outsider. It was quite apparent at Cannes. Things like these make me more determined, although I fail to understand what’s wrong with these ‘stars’ and ‘big directors’. As it is, they don’t see a lot of films — it wouldn’t have hurt them to support another Indian movie.

‘I’m not going to cast Kalki in every movie’

On Kalki

I’m very happy for Kalki, for the movies she’s bagged, touchwood! I’m only working with her on The Girl In Yellow Boots, which should release by the end of this year. I’m aiming to take the movie to film festivals, and explore the world market. Nobody wanted to support me on this movie, so UTV stepped in. (National Film Development Corporation) NFDC has also come on board as co-producers to help me complete the film. It’s on hold right now, as I’m waiting for the money to complete it.

I’d love to direct Kalki again in a movie of mine, but she can’t be a part of Bombay Velvet, or my Bihar movie, since she doesn’t fit in any role. Just because I’m seeing her doesn’t mean I’ll cast her in every movie. It’s a thin line I’m walking on.

‘There will be a Hollywood actor in it’

On his bombay trilogy

The script of Bombay Velvet, my first film for Studio 18, in the Bombay trilogy, has finally been locked. I’m going to narrate it to a star at the end of June, and direct it immediately after releasing my Bihar-based movie. I’ll shoot the other two movies only after the release of Bombay Velvet. Danny Boyle is on board for this movie. We’ve spoken about doing a few other things too. But he’s been shooting his movie for five months, so I haven’t been able to meet him. Aamir’s (Khan) not been finalised for the movie, or any of my other movies yet. But there will be a Hollywood actor in it.

‘I want a kitschy title like Badle Ki Aag for my revenge drama’

On his bihar-based movie

I’m jealous of Vishal Bhardwaj for the way he has been able to use the rusticity and lingo of rural India in his movies like Ishqiya. I’ve always wanted to make a rustic movie representing where I come from.

I’m making a revenge drama that spans 60 years and three generations. It revolves around coal mines, underworld and mafia in Bihar. It has a cast of over 200 people, some of whom are based on real characters. It’s going to be an action-packed film. I want a kitschy title like Badle Ki Aag for the film; maybe I’ll keep a poll and let people decide. I’m getting back with Manoj Bajpayee after Satya and Shool. There’s also a new girl called Huma Qureshi, who I directed in the Samsung ad with Aamir Khan. It also stars Nawazuddin, Rajpal Yadav and actors from Love, Sex Aur Dhokha.

For the matriach of the family in my movie, I want Shahana Goswami. But she’s yet to get back to me because a majority of her role, which is in the second half is still being written. I also want a new face from Bengal for a role. Once Udaan releases, I’ll start shooting for the film, and it should be out early next year.

Anurag Kashyap’s movies lined up after Udaan..

1 Untitled bihar-based gangster movie: Starring Manoj Bajpayee, it is a revenge drama spanning 60 years, revolving around coal mines and the Bihar underworld.
To release in 2011.
2 Bombay Velvet: Script of first movie in the Bombay trilogy has been locked. Danny Boyle is on board, will start shooting in 2011.
3 Doga: Script almost locked. Kunal Kapoor is training intensively.
4 Untitled 3D horror film: Directed by Rahi Anil Bharve, it will be co-produced by a Hollywood studio.
5 Vikram Motwane’s next: A big-budget romance. To release in 2011.
6 Sachin Kundalkar’s debut: National award-winning Marathi director’s (of Gandha fame) debut Hindi film will be a romance.
To release in 2011.

LINK

Love Sex Aur Dhokha - Original?

Watch this -



So many good reviews for trying something unique!

Love Sex Aur Dhokha - Original?

Watch this -



So many good reviews for trying something unique!

Can critics kill a film? Taran talks to Tejpal, Iyer and Masand

Taran Adarsh talk to three critics! The bottom line - make a good film, that is the critics response.

Can critics kill a film? Taran talks to Tejpal, Iyer and Masand

Taran Adarsh talk to three critics! The bottom line - make a good film, that is the critics response.

Kites The Remix - review

Prior to watching Kites: The Remix, I'd never seen a proper Bollywood movie, and in the interest of full disclosure I should acknowledge I've never studied their films or the industry at large in any significant way. But it is nevertheless hard not to judge the taste of audiences who apparently made the film a massive success in its native India. Because even whittled down and refined by Brett Ratner, who edited out the music sequences and beefed up the drama with a new, western score, the tropes used to bring to life this tale of lovers on the run are too worn out – or just poorly executed – to make this more than a straight-to-video tale that somehow mysteriously managed to find its way to the silver screen.

The film stars Hrithik Roshan as J, a Vegas dance instructor and hustler who creates a cottage industry for himself marrying illegal immigrants so they can get their green cards. Managing somehow to seduce the daughter of an affluent casino owner, J prepares for his first "real" marriage, which will allow him to discard his checkered past forever. But when his fiancee's brother Tony (Nicholas Brown) announces his own marriage to J's eleventh wife, Natasha (Barbara Mori), J worries that their shared history will ruin both of their plans. While reaching out to Natasha to figure out what to do, J begins to realize he has real feelings for her; but when Tony catches them together, J and Natasha take off together on a cross-country adventure that forces them to fight not only for their love, but for their very lives.


For a 90-minute movie about forbidden romance, Kites has an absurdly complicated story structure, featuring an elliptical narrative, dual flashbacks, and even flashbacks inside of other flashbacks. But there is literally nothing sophisticated about it at all, including J and Natasha, whose chemistry is an embodiment of the Annie Hall conversation between Alvy Singer and a couple that is happy precisely because both parties are "very shallow and empty and has no ideas and nothing to say." While the film itself clearly has no understanding of the legalities of marriage, allowing J to wed multiple women without divorcing any of the previous ones, he and Natasha are exceedingly stupid: in a scene in which they attempt to divorce one another so they can marry their respective fiancées, the two of them agree verbally that they are divorced, and I am pretty sure they both believe that is a legally-binding contract.

Ironically, the musical numbers are probably the sort of thing that could redeem such a cliché-laden story as this, but Ratner removed that Bollywood trademark in favor of an overall shorter and more streamlined film. That said, I can't imagine sitting through a version that would run one second longer than this one. Even the action scenes, which dexterously replicate the energy (not to mention cinematography) of Western car chases and shootouts, go on longer than they should, suggesting that the original filmmakers didn't have the forethought to focus on anything at all, but still paid attention to everything way too much. If it tells you anything, Kites looks as if it were sponsored by a combination of Ed Hardy and '80s-era Tony Scott.

As the imperiled lovers, Roshan and Mori provide a lot of empty attractiveness, but always seem to be going through the motions of a romance that was defined more by movie formulas than actual interest in one another. But even their sex appeal has been largely neutered: apart from one scene where they show off their respective physiques, there's only one actual kiss in the film, and a scene of consummation is edited so obliquely that it plays as all build-up with no payoff. That both of the actors do more acting with their mouths than any other part of their bodies only further highlights the bottomless shallows of the cast's pool of talent.

Read More HERE

Kites The Remix - review

Prior to watching Kites: The Remix, I'd never seen a proper Bollywood movie, and in the interest of full disclosure I should acknowledge I've never studied their films or the industry at large in any significant way. But it is nevertheless hard not to judge the taste of audiences who apparently made the film a massive success in its native India. Because even whittled down and refined by Brett Ratner, who edited out the music sequences and beefed up the drama with a new, western score, the tropes used to bring to life this tale of lovers on the run are too worn out – or just poorly executed – to make this more than a straight-to-video tale that somehow mysteriously managed to find its way to the silver screen.

The film stars Hrithik Roshan as J, a Vegas dance instructor and hustler who creates a cottage industry for himself marrying illegal immigrants so they can get their green cards. Managing somehow to seduce the daughter of an affluent casino owner, J prepares for his first "real" marriage, which will allow him to discard his checkered past forever. But when his fiancee's brother Tony (Nicholas Brown) announces his own marriage to J's eleventh wife, Natasha (Barbara Mori), J worries that their shared history will ruin both of their plans. While reaching out to Natasha to figure out what to do, J begins to realize he has real feelings for her; but when Tony catches them together, J and Natasha take off together on a cross-country adventure that forces them to fight not only for their love, but for their very lives.


For a 90-minute movie about forbidden romance, Kites has an absurdly complicated story structure, featuring an elliptical narrative, dual flashbacks, and even flashbacks inside of other flashbacks. But there is literally nothing sophisticated about it at all, including J and Natasha, whose chemistry is an embodiment of the Annie Hall conversation between Alvy Singer and a couple that is happy precisely because both parties are "very shallow and empty and has no ideas and nothing to say." While the film itself clearly has no understanding of the legalities of marriage, allowing J to wed multiple women without divorcing any of the previous ones, he and Natasha are exceedingly stupid: in a scene in which they attempt to divorce one another so they can marry their respective fiancées, the two of them agree verbally that they are divorced, and I am pretty sure they both believe that is a legally-binding contract.

Ironically, the musical numbers are probably the sort of thing that could redeem such a cliché-laden story as this, but Ratner removed that Bollywood trademark in favor of an overall shorter and more streamlined film. That said, I can't imagine sitting through a version that would run one second longer than this one. Even the action scenes, which dexterously replicate the energy (not to mention cinematography) of Western car chases and shootouts, go on longer than they should, suggesting that the original filmmakers didn't have the forethought to focus on anything at all, but still paid attention to everything way too much. If it tells you anything, Kites looks as if it were sponsored by a combination of Ed Hardy and '80s-era Tony Scott.

As the imperiled lovers, Roshan and Mori provide a lot of empty attractiveness, but always seem to be going through the motions of a romance that was defined more by movie formulas than actual interest in one another. But even their sex appeal has been largely neutered: apart from one scene where they show off their respective physiques, there's only one actual kiss in the film, and a scene of consummation is edited so obliquely that it plays as all build-up with no payoff. That both of the actors do more acting with their mouths than any other part of their bodies only further highlights the bottomless shallows of the cast's pool of talent.

Read More HERE

Dennis Hopper dies at 74; actor directed counterculture classic 'Easy Rider'

Hopper made his acting debut in 'Rebel Without a Cause' in 1955. He later descended into years of drug and alcohol abuse, but made a comeback in 1986 with his Oscar-nominated role in 'Hoosiers.'

Dennis Hopper, the maverick director and costar of the landmark 1969 counterculture film classic "Easy Rider" whose drug- and alcohol-fueled reputation as a Hollywood bad boy preceded his return to sobriety and a career resurgence in the films "Hoosiers" and "Blue Velvet," died Saturday. He was 74.

A longtime resident of Venice who also was known as a photographer, artist and collector of modern art, Hopper died at his home of complications from prostate cancer, said Alex Hitz, a friend of the family.

A frail-looking Hopper, whose battle with prostate cancer was revealed in October, was able to attend a ceremony for the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in late March.

In a more than five-decade acting career that was influenced early on by working with James Dean and studying at the Actors Studio, he made his film debut as one of the high school gang members who menace Dean in the 1955 classic "Rebel Without a Cause."

Hopper went on to appear in more than 115 films, including "Giant," "Cool Hand Luke," "Hang 'Em High," "True Grit," "Apocalypse Now," "The American Friend," "Rumble Fish," "Speed," "True Romance" and "Rivers Edge."

But it's his role as the long-haired, pot-smoking biker Billy opposite Peter Fonda's Wyatt (Captain America) in the hit movie "Easy Rider" that gave Hopper his most enduring claim to fame.

The low-budget tale of two bikers on an ultimately tragic cross-country odyssey after scoring a big cocaine sale, "Easy Rider" became a generational touchstone.

The movie, which boasted a star-making performance from a little-known Jack Nicholson as a boozy small-town lawyer who goes along for the ride and gets his first taste of marijuana, set old-guard Hollywood back on its heels.

"The impact of 'Easy Rider,' both on the filmmakers and the industry as a whole, was no less than seismic," Peter Biskind wrote in his 1998 book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood."

"Hopper was catapulted into the pantheon of countercultural celebrities that included John Lennon, Abbie Hoffman and Timothy Leary," Biskind wrote. "He was surrounded by groupies and acolytes. He may have started down the slippery slope to megalomania and grandiloquence on his own, but he had plenty of help."

"Easy Rider" won an award at the Cannes Film Festival for the best movie by a new director, and it earned co-writers Hopper, Fonda and Terry Southern an Oscar nomination.

"Hopper and Fonda were renegades, Hollywood-bashers, the Vietcong of Beverly Hills," Biskind wrote. "To them, it was vindication, beating Hollywood at its own game, proof that you could get high, express yourself and make money all at the same time."

Commenting on the success of "Easy Rider," Hopper said: "Nobody had ever seen themselves portrayed in a movie. At every love-in across the country people were smoking grass and dropping LSD, while audiences were still watching Doris Day and Rock Hudson."

Another signature role was in "Apocalypse Now," director Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 nightmare vision of the Vietnam War. Hopper played a counterculture photojournalist, who is encountered in the compound of Marlon Brando's insane, renegade Col. Kurtz and is prone to his own crazed rantings.

"Dennis Hopper was part of that sort of misfit, rebel-persona generation where you just didn't hit your mark and say your lines and try to create a movie icon type of presence," said Peter Rainer, film critic for the Christian Science Monitor. "He was much more rough-hewn, rough-edged and intuitive as an actor, and this created a lot of problems early on."

Indeed, Hopper survived being shut out of major studio films for a number of years after a legendary run-in in the late '50s with old-guard director Henry Hathaway on the set of "From Hell to Texas."

The highly volatile actor also survived his own well-documented descent into drugs and alcohol that reached a low point in the early '80s while making a film in Mexico.

"I ended up walking off into the jungle, naked, in the middle of the night, somewhere down near Cuernavaca," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2005. "I was convinced they were listening to my mind and my friends were being gassed."

During the last five years of his "abusing," he said, "I was doing half a gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, 28 beers and 3 grams of cocaine a day — and that wasn't getting high, that was just to keep going, man.

"I was a nightmare. I finally just shorted out."

A post-rehab Hopper received a supporting actor Oscar nomination playing, ironically, the alcoholic father of a high school basketball player who sobers up briefly to become an assistant to Gene Hackman's coach in the inspirational 1986 film "Hoosiers."

But, as Hopper told The Times, "I'm not usually in one of those movies that leaves you feeling good when you leave the theater."

That same year he appeared in "Blue Velvet," writer-director David Lynch's disturbing film in which Hopper played the mystery-substance-inhaling psychopathic killer Frank Booth, a character Time magazine critic Richard Corliss described as possibly "the vilest sadistic creep in movie history."

"When people ask what I was inhaling in the mask, I say it was [Method acting teacher] Lee Strasberg," Hopper later told the London Evening Standard.

As an actor, Hopper carved out his own particular niche as what one journalist called a "serial portrayer of weirdos," including the maniacal bomber in "Speed" and the eye-patch-wearing villain with the shaved head in "Waterworld."

Hopper, Rainer observed, "really gets inside the craziness" of such characters.

"He's able to do that because — and this is where the Method part probably comes in — he somehow taps into the craziness in himself," Rainer said.

After "Easy Rider," Hopper was dubbed "Hollywood's hottest director" by Life magazine. He went to Peru to direct "The Last Movie," in which he played a movie stuntman who remains in a remote mountain village after a Hollywood film company shoots a violent western whose production has a powerful effect on the villagers.

Released by Universal in 1971 after Hopper spent more than a year editing it at his home in Taos, N.M., "The Last Movie" won the Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival but was panned by most movie critics and quickly pulled from theaters.

"As a piece of film-making," summed up Charles Champlin, then The Times' movie critic, "it is inchoate, amateurish, self-indulgent, tedious, superficial, unfocused and a precious waste not only of money but, more importantly, of a significant and conspicuous opportunity."

It would be years before Hopper got another chance to direct, most notably the 1988 film "Colors."

But, as Biskind noted of the period after the high-profile failure of "The Last Movie," Hopper "did do some acting, and directors learned to work around the drugs."

Far more prolific as an actor since his mid-'80s career resurgence, Hopper continued to work steadily in films and television.

In 1991, he received an Emmy nomination as lead actor for his portrayal of a murderous Southern racist in the Showtime movie "Paris Trout."

He also showed up in commercials, including ones for Nike and for Ameriprise Financial in which the old Easy Rider told aging baby boomers that it was "time to redefine" retirement.

Hopper more recently played record producer Ben Cendars in the TV series "Crash."

He was born May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kan., and spent most of his childhood living on his grandparents' farm. His father served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and his mother managed an outdoor swimming pool in Dodge City.

After the war, the family moved first to Kansas City, Mo., and then to San Diego County.

A 1954 graduate of Helix High School in La Mesa, he had acted in school productions and had won a scholarship to the National Shakespeare Festival at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

His debut TV role as an epileptic in the TV medical drama "Medic" aired in early 1955 and led to the 18-year-old Hopper being signed to a contract with Warner Bros., where he was cast in the role of Goon in "Rebel Without a Cause."

Hopper thought he was the best young actor in the world, he later said, until he saw Dean in action.

"The man was doing things I couldn't conceive of," Hopper said in an interview on "Inside the Actors Studio."

"He wasn't doing things that were on the written page. I mean, I could give a great line reading; I could do great gestures. I could preconceive everything, but he wasn't preconceiving anything. He was improvising. He was doing things that weren't on the page. He was using his imagination. He was expressing things with his body and through himself that were just way beyond my understanding."

The last time he saw Dean, who was killed in a car crash in 1955 at age 24, was at the end of working with him on "Giant," the Texas-set epic in which Hopper played Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor's sensitive son as an adult.

"The most personal tragedy in my life was Dean," Hopper said in a 1987 Vanity Fair interview. "I was 19 years old and had such admiration for him."

Even after Dean's death, the young actor's advice stuck with Hopper.

"I was a very good technician," Hopper recalled in a 1990 interview with the Chicago Tribune, "but Dean was, like, so loose, creating all these wonderful things. So I grabbed him during the 'Chickie-run' scene, and threw him into a car, and I said, 'I thought I was the best, and now I see you, and I know you're better, and I don't even know what you're doing.' He said, 'Well, you have to do things, not show them. You have to take a drink from the glass, not act like you're drinking. Don't have any preconceived ideas. Approach something differently every time.'"

Hopper laughed. "That was the beginning of a lot of problems for me with directors."

On the set of the 1958 western "From Hell to Texas," Hopper refused to read his lines and gesture exactly the way the director, Hathaway, demanded in a scene. And, Hopper later recalled, Hathaway had him do take after take from 7 in the morning until about 10 at night before Hopper finally "cracked" and did it the director's way.

But the damage to Hopper's movie career was done: Warner Bros. dropped him and, he later said, that was the end of his career in Hollywood.

He moved to New York City, where he studied acting with Strasberg. He also became a professional photographer, shooting portraits for Vogue and other magazines. And he married Brooke Hayward, the daughter of actress Margaret Sullavan and producer Leland Hayward.

Hopper's Hollywood career was reinvigorated when his old nemesis, Hathaway, gave him a second chance by casting him in a small role in the 1965 John Wayne western "The Sons of Katie Elder" and later in the 1969 Wayne classic "True Grit."

Hopper also appeared in the low-budget, late-'60s drug movie "The Trip" and the biker film "The Glory Stompers," but he spent most of the decade making guest appearances on TV shows.

Throughout that period, Hopper told Playboy magazine in 1990, "I was looked on as a maniac and an idiot and a fool and a drunkard. And suddenly, I made 'Easy Rider,' man, and the whole world opens up to me."

Hopper was married five times — to Hayward, with whom he had a daughter, Marin; Michelle Phillips; Daria Halprin, with whom he had a daughter, Ruthanna; Katherine LaNasa, with whom he had a son, Henry; and Victoria Duffy, with whom he had another daughter, Galen.

In January, Hopper filed for divorce from Duffy, whom he married in 1996.

Hopper's wife and children survive him, as does his brother, David, and one grandchild, Hitz said.

dennis.mclellan@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-hopper-20100530,0,7853847,full.story

Dennis Hopper dies at 74; actor directed counterculture classic 'Easy Rider'

Hopper made his acting debut in 'Rebel Without a Cause' in 1955. He later descended into years of drug and alcohol abuse, but made a comeback in 1986 with his Oscar-nominated role in 'Hoosiers.'

Dennis Hopper, the maverick director and costar of the landmark 1969 counterculture film classic "Easy Rider" whose drug- and alcohol-fueled reputation as a Hollywood bad boy preceded his return to sobriety and a career resurgence in the films "Hoosiers" and "Blue Velvet," died Saturday. He was 74.

A longtime resident of Venice who also was known as a photographer, artist and collector of modern art, Hopper died at his home of complications from prostate cancer, said Alex Hitz, a friend of the family.

A frail-looking Hopper, whose battle with prostate cancer was revealed in October, was able to attend a ceremony for the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in late March.

In a more than five-decade acting career that was influenced early on by working with James Dean and studying at the Actors Studio, he made his film debut as one of the high school gang members who menace Dean in the 1955 classic "Rebel Without a Cause."

Hopper went on to appear in more than 115 films, including "Giant," "Cool Hand Luke," "Hang 'Em High," "True Grit," "Apocalypse Now," "The American Friend," "Rumble Fish," "Speed," "True Romance" and "Rivers Edge."

But it's his role as the long-haired, pot-smoking biker Billy opposite Peter Fonda's Wyatt (Captain America) in the hit movie "Easy Rider" that gave Hopper his most enduring claim to fame.

The low-budget tale of two bikers on an ultimately tragic cross-country odyssey after scoring a big cocaine sale, "Easy Rider" became a generational touchstone.

The movie, which boasted a star-making performance from a little-known Jack Nicholson as a boozy small-town lawyer who goes along for the ride and gets his first taste of marijuana, set old-guard Hollywood back on its heels.

"The impact of 'Easy Rider,' both on the filmmakers and the industry as a whole, was no less than seismic," Peter Biskind wrote in his 1998 book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood."

"Hopper was catapulted into the pantheon of countercultural celebrities that included John Lennon, Abbie Hoffman and Timothy Leary," Biskind wrote. "He was surrounded by groupies and acolytes. He may have started down the slippery slope to megalomania and grandiloquence on his own, but he had plenty of help."

"Easy Rider" won an award at the Cannes Film Festival for the best movie by a new director, and it earned co-writers Hopper, Fonda and Terry Southern an Oscar nomination.

"Hopper and Fonda were renegades, Hollywood-bashers, the Vietcong of Beverly Hills," Biskind wrote. "To them, it was vindication, beating Hollywood at its own game, proof that you could get high, express yourself and make money all at the same time."

Commenting on the success of "Easy Rider," Hopper said: "Nobody had ever seen themselves portrayed in a movie. At every love-in across the country people were smoking grass and dropping LSD, while audiences were still watching Doris Day and Rock Hudson."

Another signature role was in "Apocalypse Now," director Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 nightmare vision of the Vietnam War. Hopper played a counterculture photojournalist, who is encountered in the compound of Marlon Brando's insane, renegade Col. Kurtz and is prone to his own crazed rantings.

"Dennis Hopper was part of that sort of misfit, rebel-persona generation where you just didn't hit your mark and say your lines and try to create a movie icon type of presence," said Peter Rainer, film critic for the Christian Science Monitor. "He was much more rough-hewn, rough-edged and intuitive as an actor, and this created a lot of problems early on."

Indeed, Hopper survived being shut out of major studio films for a number of years after a legendary run-in in the late '50s with old-guard director Henry Hathaway on the set of "From Hell to Texas."

The highly volatile actor also survived his own well-documented descent into drugs and alcohol that reached a low point in the early '80s while making a film in Mexico.

"I ended up walking off into the jungle, naked, in the middle of the night, somewhere down near Cuernavaca," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2005. "I was convinced they were listening to my mind and my friends were being gassed."

During the last five years of his "abusing," he said, "I was doing half a gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, 28 beers and 3 grams of cocaine a day — and that wasn't getting high, that was just to keep going, man.

"I was a nightmare. I finally just shorted out."

A post-rehab Hopper received a supporting actor Oscar nomination playing, ironically, the alcoholic father of a high school basketball player who sobers up briefly to become an assistant to Gene Hackman's coach in the inspirational 1986 film "Hoosiers."

But, as Hopper told The Times, "I'm not usually in one of those movies that leaves you feeling good when you leave the theater."

That same year he appeared in "Blue Velvet," writer-director David Lynch's disturbing film in which Hopper played the mystery-substance-inhaling psychopathic killer Frank Booth, a character Time magazine critic Richard Corliss described as possibly "the vilest sadistic creep in movie history."

"When people ask what I was inhaling in the mask, I say it was [Method acting teacher] Lee Strasberg," Hopper later told the London Evening Standard.

As an actor, Hopper carved out his own particular niche as what one journalist called a "serial portrayer of weirdos," including the maniacal bomber in "Speed" and the eye-patch-wearing villain with the shaved head in "Waterworld."

Hopper, Rainer observed, "really gets inside the craziness" of such characters.

"He's able to do that because — and this is where the Method part probably comes in — he somehow taps into the craziness in himself," Rainer said.

After "Easy Rider," Hopper was dubbed "Hollywood's hottest director" by Life magazine. He went to Peru to direct "The Last Movie," in which he played a movie stuntman who remains in a remote mountain village after a Hollywood film company shoots a violent western whose production has a powerful effect on the villagers.

Released by Universal in 1971 after Hopper spent more than a year editing it at his home in Taos, N.M., "The Last Movie" won the Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival but was panned by most movie critics and quickly pulled from theaters.

"As a piece of film-making," summed up Charles Champlin, then The Times' movie critic, "it is inchoate, amateurish, self-indulgent, tedious, superficial, unfocused and a precious waste not only of money but, more importantly, of a significant and conspicuous opportunity."

It would be years before Hopper got another chance to direct, most notably the 1988 film "Colors."

But, as Biskind noted of the period after the high-profile failure of "The Last Movie," Hopper "did do some acting, and directors learned to work around the drugs."

Far more prolific as an actor since his mid-'80s career resurgence, Hopper continued to work steadily in films and television.

In 1991, he received an Emmy nomination as lead actor for his portrayal of a murderous Southern racist in the Showtime movie "Paris Trout."

He also showed up in commercials, including ones for Nike and for Ameriprise Financial in which the old Easy Rider told aging baby boomers that it was "time to redefine" retirement.

Hopper more recently played record producer Ben Cendars in the TV series "Crash."

He was born May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kan., and spent most of his childhood living on his grandparents' farm. His father served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and his mother managed an outdoor swimming pool in Dodge City.

After the war, the family moved first to Kansas City, Mo., and then to San Diego County.

A 1954 graduate of Helix High School in La Mesa, he had acted in school productions and had won a scholarship to the National Shakespeare Festival at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

His debut TV role as an epileptic in the TV medical drama "Medic" aired in early 1955 and led to the 18-year-old Hopper being signed to a contract with Warner Bros., where he was cast in the role of Goon in "Rebel Without a Cause."

Hopper thought he was the best young actor in the world, he later said, until he saw Dean in action.

"The man was doing things I couldn't conceive of," Hopper said in an interview on "Inside the Actors Studio."

"He wasn't doing things that were on the written page. I mean, I could give a great line reading; I could do great gestures. I could preconceive everything, but he wasn't preconceiving anything. He was improvising. He was doing things that weren't on the page. He was using his imagination. He was expressing things with his body and through himself that were just way beyond my understanding."

The last time he saw Dean, who was killed in a car crash in 1955 at age 24, was at the end of working with him on "Giant," the Texas-set epic in which Hopper played Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor's sensitive son as an adult.

"The most personal tragedy in my life was Dean," Hopper said in a 1987 Vanity Fair interview. "I was 19 years old and had such admiration for him."

Even after Dean's death, the young actor's advice stuck with Hopper.

"I was a very good technician," Hopper recalled in a 1990 interview with the Chicago Tribune, "but Dean was, like, so loose, creating all these wonderful things. So I grabbed him during the 'Chickie-run' scene, and threw him into a car, and I said, 'I thought I was the best, and now I see you, and I know you're better, and I don't even know what you're doing.' He said, 'Well, you have to do things, not show them. You have to take a drink from the glass, not act like you're drinking. Don't have any preconceived ideas. Approach something differently every time.'"

Hopper laughed. "That was the beginning of a lot of problems for me with directors."

On the set of the 1958 western "From Hell to Texas," Hopper refused to read his lines and gesture exactly the way the director, Hathaway, demanded in a scene. And, Hopper later recalled, Hathaway had him do take after take from 7 in the morning until about 10 at night before Hopper finally "cracked" and did it the director's way.

But the damage to Hopper's movie career was done: Warner Bros. dropped him and, he later said, that was the end of his career in Hollywood.

He moved to New York City, where he studied acting with Strasberg. He also became a professional photographer, shooting portraits for Vogue and other magazines. And he married Brooke Hayward, the daughter of actress Margaret Sullavan and producer Leland Hayward.

Hopper's Hollywood career was reinvigorated when his old nemesis, Hathaway, gave him a second chance by casting him in a small role in the 1965 John Wayne western "The Sons of Katie Elder" and later in the 1969 Wayne classic "True Grit."

Hopper also appeared in the low-budget, late-'60s drug movie "The Trip" and the biker film "The Glory Stompers," but he spent most of the decade making guest appearances on TV shows.

Throughout that period, Hopper told Playboy magazine in 1990, "I was looked on as a maniac and an idiot and a fool and a drunkard. And suddenly, I made 'Easy Rider,' man, and the whole world opens up to me."

Hopper was married five times — to Hayward, with whom he had a daughter, Marin; Michelle Phillips; Daria Halprin, with whom he had a daughter, Ruthanna; Katherine LaNasa, with whom he had a son, Henry; and Victoria Duffy, with whom he had another daughter, Galen.

In January, Hopper filed for divorce from Duffy, whom he married in 1996.

Hopper's wife and children survive him, as does his brother, David, and one grandchild, Hitz said.

dennis.mclellan@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-hopper-20100530,0,7853847,full.story

" Copyright? An author has only duties" - Jean-Luc Godard

Rolle is not really the center of the world. Just a small town a bit bleak on the lake, 40 kilometers from Geneva. But it is also a paradise for millionaires seeking tax exemption. For friendly taxi driver who took us to the Geneva train station, few people of this geography has imposed no secret: "You see the house on the side below the hill, that of Michael Schumacher. And there lived Peter Ustinov. Phil Collins, is there ... "

And Jean-Luc Godard, then? "Once, a Japanese got into my car, took the driver, and asked me if I knew where lived Mr. Godard. I said yes, I took him, he said, "Wait for me a minute," has three photos, climbed into the taxi and asked me to return to the station. It is known to Japan, Mr. Godard! "If perhaps the most legendary head Vaud" to Japan, "Mr. Godard does not live in Rolle for the same reason that the neighborhood people.

Domiciled in France, pays taxes there. He lives in Switzerland because he was born, because he can not do without "certain landscapes, we will say in an interview, as always with him, very scenic. During four hours in his office a little rough, very functional, just next to his classroom with his half-dozen flat screens and shelves filled with countless VHS or DVD from which it draws its quotations, we talked about history, politics, Greece, intellectual property, film course, but also more intimate things, like health or relationship to death.

J.-M. L

MAINTENANCE> Why the title, Film Socialism?

Jean-Luc Godard - I still have titles in advance, which give me an indication of films that I could turn.

A title before any idea of the film is a bit like the one in music. I have quite a list. Like any title of nobility or securities bank. Instead of bank securities. I started with Socialism, but Avance As the film, it seemed less and less satisfactory. The film could well have been called Communism or Capitalism. But there was a funny coincidence: in reading a little booklet of presentation that I had sent, hence the name Vega Film production preceded the title, Jean-Paul Curnier (philosopher - ed) has read "Socialism Film "and thought it was the title. He wrote me a letter of twelve pages telling me how he liked it. I thought he must be right and I decided to keep film Socialism. Déniaisait That one little word.

Where does this idea of cruising the Mediterranean? From Homer?

At first I thought of another story that happen in Serbia, but it did not. Then I had the idea of family in a garage, the Martin family. But that did not feature on, because otherwise people would become of the characters and what is happening would become narrative. The story of a mother and her children, a film as can be done in France, with dialogues, states of mind.

Precisely, the members of this family are almost like characters in a fiction ordinary. It was not arrived at your cinema for a very long time ...

Yes, maybe ... Not quite anyway. The scenes are interrupted before they become characters. Rather, they are statues. Statues that talk. If one speaks of statues, one says "it just once. And if they say "sometime", then it goes on a trip, we sailed on the Mediterranean. Hence the cruise. I read a book by Leon Daudet, the polemical turn of the century, called The Voyage of Shakespeare. It followed the boat trip on the Mediterranean young Shakespeare, who had not yet written. All that comes slowly.

How do you arrange for all?

There are no rules. It is poetry, or painting, or mathematics. The geometry of the former especially. The urge to compose images, put a circle around a square, draw a tangent. It is elementary geometry. If it's elementary, there are elements. Then I watch the sea ... So, this is not really describable, it is associations. And when we say combination, we can say socialism. If we say socialism, we can talk about politics.

For example the web laws, the issue of downloading penalized, property images ...

I am against Hadopi course. There is no intellectual property. I am against the inheritance, for example. That the children of an artist can enjoy the rights of the work of their parents, why not reach their majority ... But then I do not think it's obvious that children receive commission on Ravel's Bolero ...

You are claiming any rights to artists who take pictures of your movies?

Of course not. Besides, people do it, put it on the internet and in general is not very good ... But I do not feel they'd take something. I do not have internet. Anne-Marie (Mieville, his partner and director - ed) is used. But in my film, there are images that come from Internet, as these pictures of two cats together.

For you, there is no difference in status between these anonymous images of cats that circulate on the Internet and the plan of John Ford's Cheyenne that you also use in Film Socialism?

By statute, I do not see why I would make a difference. If I had to plead legally against charges of looting of images in my films, I would hire two lawyers with two different systems. One would defend the right of quotation, which hardly exist in film. In literature, one can cite widely. As Miller (Life and debauchery, travel in the work of Henry Miller - ed) by Norman Mailer, there are 80% of Henry Miller and Norman Mailer 20%. In science, no scientist pay a fee to use a formula established by a colleague. That's the quote and the film does not allow it. I read the book by Marie Darrieussecq, Police report, and I find it very well because it is a history of this issue. The copyright is not really possible. An author has no right. I have no rights. I have only duties. And then in my film, there is another type of loans, not quotations but simply extracts. As a shot when you take a blood sample for analysis. That would be the argument of my second lawyer. He would defend such use that I plan trapeze from the Beaches of Agnes. This plan is not a quote, I did not mention the film by Agnes Varda: I enjoy his work. This is an excerpt that I take, that I incorporate it elsewhere to take another direction, namely symbolize peace between Israel and Palestine. This plan, I did not pay. But when Agnes asked me money, I think we could pay the right price. That is to say in relation to the film economy, the number of spectators that key ...

To express the peace in the Middle East by a metaphor, why would you hijack a picture of Agnes Varda, rather than a turn?

I found the metaphor very well in the film of Agnes.

But she is not ...

No, of course. It was I who build moving image. I do not do harm to the image. I thought she was perfect for what I meant. If Palestinians and Israelis rose and made a circus trapeze act together, things would be different in the Middle East. This image shows a perfect match for me, exactly what I wanted to express. Then I take the picture, since it exists. The socialism of the film is to undermine the idea of ownership, beginning with the works ... It should not have any property works. Beaumarchais would only receive a portion of the proceeds of the Marriage of Figaro. He could say "Figaro, it's me who wrote it. But I do not think he would have said "Figaro, it's mine. This sense of ownership of works came later. Today, a type of lighting installation on the Eiffel Tower, it was paid for it, but if you shoot the Eiffel Tower you must still pay him something.

Your film will be posted on FilmoTV same time we can find out by room ...

The idea is not mine. When we made the film trailers, that is to say the whole movie in fast forward but I suggested we put them on Y ouTube because it is a good way to move things. The online is the idea of the distributor. They have donated money for the film, so I do what they ask me. If it were up to me, I would not have released in theaters this way. It took four years to film. In terms of production, it is very atypical. It has turned four, with Battaggia, Arragno, Grivas, equally. Each left his side and brought images. Grivas left alone in Egypt and reduced hours of film ... It was a lot of time. I think the film should have been given the same over time for distribution.

What does that mean concretely?

I would have liked to hire a boy and a girl, a couple who had wanted to show things, which is somewhat related to the cinema, the kind of young people you can meet in small theaters. It gives them a DVD copy of film and then asked to train as a paratrooper. Then you point at random locations on a map of France and they parachute in these places. They must show the movie where they land. In a cafe, a hotel ... they are doing. They charge sitting 3 or 4 euros, not more. They can film this adventure and then sell it. Thanks to them, you investigate what it means to distribute that film. After only you can make decisions, whether or not you can project it in normal rooms. But not before making an investigation of one or two years on it. Because before, you're like me, you do not know what it's like this film, you do not know who may be interested. You have just deserted the media space.

In the 1980s, you saw more in the press, on television ...

Yes, it bothers me now. I am not trying to subvert a process of television. At the time, I thought a little. I do not think it would change anything but it would interest people to do otherwise. It interests them three minutes. There are still things that interest me on television programs about the animals, the chains of history. I like Dr. House, too. He is hurt, everyone gathered around him, the characters speak in a vocabulary hyper, I like. But I could not watch ten more.

Why have invited Alain Badiou or Patti Smith in your last film to film them so little?

Patti Smith was there so I filmed. I do not see why I had to shoot longer than, for example, a waitress.

Why had he asked to be there?

For there to be a good American. Someone who embodies something other than imperialism.

And Alain Badiou?

I wanted to quote a text on the geometry of Husserl and I wanted someone develops something of his own from that. It was concerned.

Why does the film deal with an empty room?

Because his speech did not interest tourists from the cruise. It was announced that there would be a conference on Husserl and nobody came. When we took Badiou in this empty room, it has rained a lot. He said: "Finally, I can talk to anyone." (Laughs) I could have fit more closely, not to film the empty room, but he had to show that it was a voice in the wilderness, we is in the desert. It reminds me of the quote from Jean Genet: "We must get the pictures because they are in the wilderness." In my films, there is never any intent. This is not me who invented this empty room. I do not mean anything, I try to show, or felt, or allowed to say anything after. When we hear: "The bastards today are sincere, they believe in Europe", what else can it mean? We can not believe in Europe without being a jerk? Is a phrase that occurred to me while reading passages from Nausea. In those days, the bastard was not sincere. A torturer knew he was not honest. Now the bastard is sincere. As for Europe, it has a long history, there is no need to do as it is done. I find it hard to understand for example that can be parliamentary, as Danny (Daniel Cohn-Bendit - ed.) Strange, no?

Ecology should not be a political party?

You know ... The left parties are always taken. Even their names sometimes. De Gaulle was against the parties. After the Liberation, he still brought the parties to the Council of the Resistance to carry weight with the Americans. There was even the National Front. Except it was not the same thing today. It was an undertaking of the Communist Party at that time. I do not really know why other then kept that name. Bias ...

The penultimate film is the quote: "If the law is unjust, justice comes before the law" ...

It is in relation to copyright. All DVD begins with a carton of the FBI, which criminalizes the copy. I went for Pascal. But you can hear something else in that sentence. Presumably, the arrest of Roman Polanski, for example.

What do you think the fact that Polanski's arrest occurred in your country, Switzerland?

I am Franco-Swiss. I go to Switzerland, but I'm living in France, I pay my taxes in France. In Switzerland, I like some landscapes that I could hardly do without. And then I have roots here. But politically, many things shock me. Compared with Polanski, Switzerland did not have to submit to the United States. It should discuss, not to accept. I wish all the filmmakers go to Cannes rally for Polanski, say the Swiss justice is not fair. As they have done to support director Jafar Panahi incarcerated. As we have said "the Iranian regime is an evil regime," he would say "the Swiss system is not good."

The ban minarets?

That sucks ... As regards Switzerland, I agree with Gaddafi: Western Switzerland belongs to France, Switzerland, Germany German, Italian Switzerland to Italy, and now, more than Switzerland!

The crisis in Greek resonates strongly with your film ...

We should thank Greece. It was the West which has a debt to Greece. Philosophy, democracy, the tragedy ... We always forget the link between tragedy and democracy. Without Sophocles not Pericles. Without Pericles not Sophocles. The technological world in which we live must at Greece. Who invented the logic? Aristotle. If this and if so, then this. Logic. This is what the dominant powers use all day, making sure there is certainly no contradiction, it remains in the same logic. Hannah Arendt had said that the logic leads to totalitarianism. So everybody has money to Greece today. She could ask trillion copyright to the contemporary world and it would be logical to give him. Immediately.

It also accuses Greeks of being liars ...

It reminds me of an old syllogism that I learned in school. Epaminondas is a liar, yet all Greeks are liars, so Epaminondas is Greek. It has not so advanced.

The election of Barack Obama has changed your perception of U.S. foreign policy?

It's funny, Edwy Plenel asked me the same question. Obama's election has made me neither hot nor cold. I hoped for him that he does not come too soon assassinated. It embodies the United States, it is not quite the same as when it was George Bush. But sometimes things are clearer when they go worse. When Chirac found himself in the second round election against Le Pen, I think the left should abstain and not vote for Chirac. It is better to let the worst happen.

Why? It's dangerous ...

Because at one point, it makes you think. As the tsunami ...

It should reflect what the tsunami?

A so-called nature and which we belong. There are times when it must take revenge. Meteorologists do not speak a language of science, they do not talk about philosophy. They do not listen to how a tree philosopher.

You still interested in sport?

Yes, but it bothers me that football no longer offers only a game defensively. Aside from Barcelona. But Barcelona can not hold two straight games to level.

It dépend.Contre Arsenal, they have succeeded.

Yes, but not against Milan. Why do not they come? When you can not do, we make less games.

Last winter, you made a very short film in homage to Eric Rohmer ...

The Films of Diamond have asked me. I wanted to use the titles of his articles, mention things that I seen or done with him when we were young Cahiers in the 1950s. I can hardly say anything to him. We can not talk to people from what we shared with them. This is not the method of Antoine de Baecque, of course ...

You've read the biography of Antoine Baecque you devoted?

I traveled.

The fact that you are indifferent or bore you?

It bothered me for Anne-Marie (Miéville - ed.) Because there are things wrong. It also bothers me that people in my family have provided him with documents. It does not. But I have done nothing to prevent his escape.

Eric Rohmer, you see it yet?

A little bit because in Paris they lived in the same building. So we talked from time to time.

You've seen his latest film?

Yes, on DVD. Triple Agent is a very strange film. The spy I am passionate but would not have imagined that such a subject could be of interest.

The idea to perform a work, that life gives you time to finish, it's a question that you work?

No. The work I do not believe. There are works, it produces new, but the work as a whole, the great work, I'm not interested. Path I prefer to speak of. In my course, there are ups and downs ... I have a lot of attempts from the line. You know, the hardest thing to tell a friend what he does is not very good. Me, I miss it. Rohmer had the courage to tell me the time that my criticism of the Journal of Strangers on a Train was bad. Rivette could say that too. And we were very struck by what Rivette thought. Francois Truffaut, himself, did not forgiven for thinking that his films were zero. He suffered in addition to not being able to find my films as null than what I thought of his own.

You really think that the films of Truffaut are zero?

Not spoiled ... No more null than anything ... No more than Chabrol ... But this was not the film that we had dreamed.

Posterity, track, would you care?

No, not at all.

And that you worked at one time?

Never.

It's hard to believe you. We can not do without Pierrot le fou desire to create a masterpiece, to be the world champion, to remain forever in the history ...

Maybe you're right. I had to make that claim when I started. I came back pretty quickly.

You think your demise?

Yes, obviously. With health problems ... should I talk much more than before. Life changes. Anyway, long time, I broke with the social life. I would like to return to tennis, I had to stop for knee problems. When you get old, the child returns. Good. And no, it does not particularly distresses me to disappear.

You seem very detached ...

But instead, the contrary! I am very attached (laughs). In this context, Anne-Marie told me the other day that if ever she survived, she would write on my tombstone: "On the contrary" ...

LINK

" Copyright? An author has only duties" - Jean-Luc Godard

Rolle is not really the center of the world. Just a small town a bit bleak on the lake, 40 kilometers from Geneva. But it is also a paradise for millionaires seeking tax exemption. For friendly taxi driver who took us to the Geneva train station, few people of this geography has imposed no secret: "You see the house on the side below the hill, that of Michael Schumacher. And there lived Peter Ustinov. Phil Collins, is there ... "

And Jean-Luc Godard, then? "Once, a Japanese got into my car, took the driver, and asked me if I knew where lived Mr. Godard. I said yes, I took him, he said, "Wait for me a minute," has three photos, climbed into the taxi and asked me to return to the station. It is known to Japan, Mr. Godard! "If perhaps the most legendary head Vaud" to Japan, "Mr. Godard does not live in Rolle for the same reason that the neighborhood people.

Domiciled in France, pays taxes there. He lives in Switzerland because he was born, because he can not do without "certain landscapes, we will say in an interview, as always with him, very scenic. During four hours in his office a little rough, very functional, just next to his classroom with his half-dozen flat screens and shelves filled with countless VHS or DVD from which it draws its quotations, we talked about history, politics, Greece, intellectual property, film course, but also more intimate things, like health or relationship to death.

J.-M. L

MAINTENANCE> Why the title, Film Socialism?

Jean-Luc Godard - I still have titles in advance, which give me an indication of films that I could turn.

A title before any idea of the film is a bit like the one in music. I have quite a list. Like any title of nobility or securities bank. Instead of bank securities. I started with Socialism, but Avance As the film, it seemed less and less satisfactory. The film could well have been called Communism or Capitalism. But there was a funny coincidence: in reading a little booklet of presentation that I had sent, hence the name Vega Film production preceded the title, Jean-Paul Curnier (philosopher - ed) has read "Socialism Film "and thought it was the title. He wrote me a letter of twelve pages telling me how he liked it. I thought he must be right and I decided to keep film Socialism. Déniaisait That one little word.

Where does this idea of cruising the Mediterranean? From Homer?

At first I thought of another story that happen in Serbia, but it did not. Then I had the idea of family in a garage, the Martin family. But that did not feature on, because otherwise people would become of the characters and what is happening would become narrative. The story of a mother and her children, a film as can be done in France, with dialogues, states of mind.

Precisely, the members of this family are almost like characters in a fiction ordinary. It was not arrived at your cinema for a very long time ...

Yes, maybe ... Not quite anyway. The scenes are interrupted before they become characters. Rather, they are statues. Statues that talk. If one speaks of statues, one says "it just once. And if they say "sometime", then it goes on a trip, we sailed on the Mediterranean. Hence the cruise. I read a book by Leon Daudet, the polemical turn of the century, called The Voyage of Shakespeare. It followed the boat trip on the Mediterranean young Shakespeare, who had not yet written. All that comes slowly.

How do you arrange for all?

There are no rules. It is poetry, or painting, or mathematics. The geometry of the former especially. The urge to compose images, put a circle around a square, draw a tangent. It is elementary geometry. If it's elementary, there are elements. Then I watch the sea ... So, this is not really describable, it is associations. And when we say combination, we can say socialism. If we say socialism, we can talk about politics.

For example the web laws, the issue of downloading penalized, property images ...

I am against Hadopi course. There is no intellectual property. I am against the inheritance, for example. That the children of an artist can enjoy the rights of the work of their parents, why not reach their majority ... But then I do not think it's obvious that children receive commission on Ravel's Bolero ...

You are claiming any rights to artists who take pictures of your movies?

Of course not. Besides, people do it, put it on the internet and in general is not very good ... But I do not feel they'd take something. I do not have internet. Anne-Marie (Mieville, his partner and director - ed) is used. But in my film, there are images that come from Internet, as these pictures of two cats together.

For you, there is no difference in status between these anonymous images of cats that circulate on the Internet and the plan of John Ford's Cheyenne that you also use in Film Socialism?

By statute, I do not see why I would make a difference. If I had to plead legally against charges of looting of images in my films, I would hire two lawyers with two different systems. One would defend the right of quotation, which hardly exist in film. In literature, one can cite widely. As Miller (Life and debauchery, travel in the work of Henry Miller - ed) by Norman Mailer, there are 80% of Henry Miller and Norman Mailer 20%. In science, no scientist pay a fee to use a formula established by a colleague. That's the quote and the film does not allow it. I read the book by Marie Darrieussecq, Police report, and I find it very well because it is a history of this issue. The copyright is not really possible. An author has no right. I have no rights. I have only duties. And then in my film, there is another type of loans, not quotations but simply extracts. As a shot when you take a blood sample for analysis. That would be the argument of my second lawyer. He would defend such use that I plan trapeze from the Beaches of Agnes. This plan is not a quote, I did not mention the film by Agnes Varda: I enjoy his work. This is an excerpt that I take, that I incorporate it elsewhere to take another direction, namely symbolize peace between Israel and Palestine. This plan, I did not pay. But when Agnes asked me money, I think we could pay the right price. That is to say in relation to the film economy, the number of spectators that key ...

To express the peace in the Middle East by a metaphor, why would you hijack a picture of Agnes Varda, rather than a turn?

I found the metaphor very well in the film of Agnes.

But she is not ...

No, of course. It was I who build moving image. I do not do harm to the image. I thought she was perfect for what I meant. If Palestinians and Israelis rose and made a circus trapeze act together, things would be different in the Middle East. This image shows a perfect match for me, exactly what I wanted to express. Then I take the picture, since it exists. The socialism of the film is to undermine the idea of ownership, beginning with the works ... It should not have any property works. Beaumarchais would only receive a portion of the proceeds of the Marriage of Figaro. He could say "Figaro, it's me who wrote it. But I do not think he would have said "Figaro, it's mine. This sense of ownership of works came later. Today, a type of lighting installation on the Eiffel Tower, it was paid for it, but if you shoot the Eiffel Tower you must still pay him something.

Your film will be posted on FilmoTV same time we can find out by room ...

The idea is not mine. When we made the film trailers, that is to say the whole movie in fast forward but I suggested we put them on Y ouTube because it is a good way to move things. The online is the idea of the distributor. They have donated money for the film, so I do what they ask me. If it were up to me, I would not have released in theaters this way. It took four years to film. In terms of production, it is very atypical. It has turned four, with Battaggia, Arragno, Grivas, equally. Each left his side and brought images. Grivas left alone in Egypt and reduced hours of film ... It was a lot of time. I think the film should have been given the same over time for distribution.

What does that mean concretely?

I would have liked to hire a boy and a girl, a couple who had wanted to show things, which is somewhat related to the cinema, the kind of young people you can meet in small theaters. It gives them a DVD copy of film and then asked to train as a paratrooper. Then you point at random locations on a map of France and they parachute in these places. They must show the movie where they land. In a cafe, a hotel ... they are doing. They charge sitting 3 or 4 euros, not more. They can film this adventure and then sell it. Thanks to them, you investigate what it means to distribute that film. After only you can make decisions, whether or not you can project it in normal rooms. But not before making an investigation of one or two years on it. Because before, you're like me, you do not know what it's like this film, you do not know who may be interested. You have just deserted the media space.

In the 1980s, you saw more in the press, on television ...

Yes, it bothers me now. I am not trying to subvert a process of television. At the time, I thought a little. I do not think it would change anything but it would interest people to do otherwise. It interests them three minutes. There are still things that interest me on television programs about the animals, the chains of history. I like Dr. House, too. He is hurt, everyone gathered around him, the characters speak in a vocabulary hyper, I like. But I could not watch ten more.

Why have invited Alain Badiou or Patti Smith in your last film to film them so little?

Patti Smith was there so I filmed. I do not see why I had to shoot longer than, for example, a waitress.

Why had he asked to be there?

For there to be a good American. Someone who embodies something other than imperialism.

And Alain Badiou?

I wanted to quote a text on the geometry of Husserl and I wanted someone develops something of his own from that. It was concerned.

Why does the film deal with an empty room?

Because his speech did not interest tourists from the cruise. It was announced that there would be a conference on Husserl and nobody came. When we took Badiou in this empty room, it has rained a lot. He said: "Finally, I can talk to anyone." (Laughs) I could have fit more closely, not to film the empty room, but he had to show that it was a voice in the wilderness, we is in the desert. It reminds me of the quote from Jean Genet: "We must get the pictures because they are in the wilderness." In my films, there is never any intent. This is not me who invented this empty room. I do not mean anything, I try to show, or felt, or allowed to say anything after. When we hear: "The bastards today are sincere, they believe in Europe", what else can it mean? We can not believe in Europe without being a jerk? Is a phrase that occurred to me while reading passages from Nausea. In those days, the bastard was not sincere. A torturer knew he was not honest. Now the bastard is sincere. As for Europe, it has a long history, there is no need to do as it is done. I find it hard to understand for example that can be parliamentary, as Danny (Daniel Cohn-Bendit - ed.) Strange, no?

Ecology should not be a political party?

You know ... The left parties are always taken. Even their names sometimes. De Gaulle was against the parties. After the Liberation, he still brought the parties to the Council of the Resistance to carry weight with the Americans. There was even the National Front. Except it was not the same thing today. It was an undertaking of the Communist Party at that time. I do not really know why other then kept that name. Bias ...

The penultimate film is the quote: "If the law is unjust, justice comes before the law" ...

It is in relation to copyright. All DVD begins with a carton of the FBI, which criminalizes the copy. I went for Pascal. But you can hear something else in that sentence. Presumably, the arrest of Roman Polanski, for example.

What do you think the fact that Polanski's arrest occurred in your country, Switzerland?

I am Franco-Swiss. I go to Switzerland, but I'm living in France, I pay my taxes in France. In Switzerland, I like some landscapes that I could hardly do without. And then I have roots here. But politically, many things shock me. Compared with Polanski, Switzerland did not have to submit to the United States. It should discuss, not to accept. I wish all the filmmakers go to Cannes rally for Polanski, say the Swiss justice is not fair. As they have done to support director Jafar Panahi incarcerated. As we have said "the Iranian regime is an evil regime," he would say "the Swiss system is not good."

The ban minarets?

That sucks ... As regards Switzerland, I agree with Gaddafi: Western Switzerland belongs to France, Switzerland, Germany German, Italian Switzerland to Italy, and now, more than Switzerland!

The crisis in Greek resonates strongly with your film ...

We should thank Greece. It was the West which has a debt to Greece. Philosophy, democracy, the tragedy ... We always forget the link between tragedy and democracy. Without Sophocles not Pericles. Without Pericles not Sophocles. The technological world in which we live must at Greece. Who invented the logic? Aristotle. If this and if so, then this. Logic. This is what the dominant powers use all day, making sure there is certainly no contradiction, it remains in the same logic. Hannah Arendt had said that the logic leads to totalitarianism. So everybody has money to Greece today. She could ask trillion copyright to the contemporary world and it would be logical to give him. Immediately.

It also accuses Greeks of being liars ...

It reminds me of an old syllogism that I learned in school. Epaminondas is a liar, yet all Greeks are liars, so Epaminondas is Greek. It has not so advanced.

The election of Barack Obama has changed your perception of U.S. foreign policy?

It's funny, Edwy Plenel asked me the same question. Obama's election has made me neither hot nor cold. I hoped for him that he does not come too soon assassinated. It embodies the United States, it is not quite the same as when it was George Bush. But sometimes things are clearer when they go worse. When Chirac found himself in the second round election against Le Pen, I think the left should abstain and not vote for Chirac. It is better to let the worst happen.

Why? It's dangerous ...

Because at one point, it makes you think. As the tsunami ...

It should reflect what the tsunami?

A so-called nature and which we belong. There are times when it must take revenge. Meteorologists do not speak a language of science, they do not talk about philosophy. They do not listen to how a tree philosopher.

You still interested in sport?

Yes, but it bothers me that football no longer offers only a game defensively. Aside from Barcelona. But Barcelona can not hold two straight games to level.

It dépend.Contre Arsenal, they have succeeded.

Yes, but not against Milan. Why do not they come? When you can not do, we make less games.

Last winter, you made a very short film in homage to Eric Rohmer ...

The Films of Diamond have asked me. I wanted to use the titles of his articles, mention things that I seen or done with him when we were young Cahiers in the 1950s. I can hardly say anything to him. We can not talk to people from what we shared with them. This is not the method of Antoine de Baecque, of course ...

You've read the biography of Antoine Baecque you devoted?

I traveled.

The fact that you are indifferent or bore you?

It bothered me for Anne-Marie (Miéville - ed.) Because there are things wrong. It also bothers me that people in my family have provided him with documents. It does not. But I have done nothing to prevent his escape.

Eric Rohmer, you see it yet?

A little bit because in Paris they lived in the same building. So we talked from time to time.

You've seen his latest film?

Yes, on DVD. Triple Agent is a very strange film. The spy I am passionate but would not have imagined that such a subject could be of interest.

The idea to perform a work, that life gives you time to finish, it's a question that you work?

No. The work I do not believe. There are works, it produces new, but the work as a whole, the great work, I'm not interested. Path I prefer to speak of. In my course, there are ups and downs ... I have a lot of attempts from the line. You know, the hardest thing to tell a friend what he does is not very good. Me, I miss it. Rohmer had the courage to tell me the time that my criticism of the Journal of Strangers on a Train was bad. Rivette could say that too. And we were very struck by what Rivette thought. Francois Truffaut, himself, did not forgiven for thinking that his films were zero. He suffered in addition to not being able to find my films as null than what I thought of his own.

You really think that the films of Truffaut are zero?

Not spoiled ... No more null than anything ... No more than Chabrol ... But this was not the film that we had dreamed.

Posterity, track, would you care?

No, not at all.

And that you worked at one time?

Never.

It's hard to believe you. We can not do without Pierrot le fou desire to create a masterpiece, to be the world champion, to remain forever in the history ...

Maybe you're right. I had to make that claim when I started. I came back pretty quickly.

You think your demise?

Yes, obviously. With health problems ... should I talk much more than before. Life changes. Anyway, long time, I broke with the social life. I would like to return to tennis, I had to stop for knee problems. When you get old, the child returns. Good. And no, it does not particularly distresses me to disappear.

You seem very detached ...

But instead, the contrary! I am very attached (laughs). In this context, Anne-Marie told me the other day that if ever she survived, she would write on my tombstone: "On the contrary" ...

LINK