Rocket Surgeon
Guest
2002 Interview with Gary Kurtz
http://www.asitecalledfred.com/2010/08/12/gary-kurtz-interview/
An excellent and in-depth interview with Gary Kurtz. If you don't know who that is...
Interesting in light of his Celebration appearance.
Here's a bit
http://www.asitecalledfred.com/2010/08/12/gary-kurtz-interview/
An excellent and in-depth interview with Gary Kurtz. If you don't know who that is...
Interesting in light of his Celebration appearance.
Here's a bit
PLUME: From your personal experience, how would you compare the George you worked with on American Graffiti to the George you worked with towards the end of The Empire Strikes Back?
KURTZ: It was quite different, actually. He was very different. I think the most unfortunate thing that happened was the fact that Indiana Jones came along, and Raiders of the Lost Ark had come out in between. George and I had many, many discussions about that, but it boiled down to the fact that he became convinced that all the audience was interested in was the roller-coaster ride, and so the story and the script didn?t matter anymore.
Now Raiders is not a bad film, but the script actually was much better than the finished film. There were a lot more nuances in the character, and there was less action. It would?ve been a better picture if that script had been made. But, as it is, it?s an interesting and entertaining film ? it?s just that this idea that somehow the energy doesn?t have to be put into getting really good story elements together. One of the arguments that I had with George about Empire was the fact that he felt in the end, he said, we could have made just as much money if the film hadn?t been quite so good, and you hadn?t spent so much time. And I said, ?But it was worth it!?
PLUME: And so it?s the argument between doing the best you can, and good enough?
KURTZ: Yes, and I know that there?s an extreme that you can go to. I also knew Stanley Kubrick quite well, and I know that he?s probably the epitome of the perfection-oriented. In fact, I think he actually was clinically obsessive-compulsive, probably, in the end. He would go to unbelievable lengths to have it be exactly the way he wanted it, and he didn?t have any money problems ? Warner Brothers was writing the checks and they didn?t care what he did. But it still didn?t matter, beyond a certain point. In my personal opinion, after Clockwork Orange, his efforts went downhill, basically. Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut all are less than interesting films, as far as I?m concerned.
PLUME: Well, I think they show that era of overdevelopment. They were very sterile films.
KURTZ: Yes, well, part of that was his own personal paranoia about being out in the world. Which he didn?t have, even up to ? well, he was shooting The Shining when we were preparing Empire, and I had lots of run-ins with him at the studio, and had lunch and dinner with him many times. During that time period, he was still working at the studio, he was still traveling in from his house, and he would still go to the cinema occasionally, or go out to dinner at restaurants.
After The Shining was in editing, I went out to his home in St. Albans several times for dinner, and to screenings that he had there for small groups of friends. He stopped going out, and he stopped going into the world at all. The world had to come to him. I think that that was the biggest problem ? he holed up there, and he didn?t have any contact with the rest of the world. Except on the telephone, where he would talk to people endlessly. He?d call them up in the middle of the night. That was fine, he enjoyed doing that, but I think that his contact with the world ? in terms of how he interpreted the world on film ? suffered.