"Place of birth:" "Middletown, USA:" "Father: hairstylist:" "Education: quickly interrupted:" "Acted in New York's Yiddish theater:" "Traveled in Europe:" "In 1939, began his film career at RKO:" "What was Hollywood like back then, in '39?" "At the time, Hollywood was considered a small town with a huge talent pool:" "technicians, directors, actors, all devoted to the stars." "It was the golden age of the star, the star system." "Writers wrote for a specific star." "Everything was employed to make this individual shine, the one who topped box offices worldwide." "That's the star system." "Did you work with stars?" "Back then, I worked with Joan Crawford." "The great?" "Yes, back then, she was the great Joan Crawford." "To explain the attitude of the time - l was young, and I seemed even younger." "While shooting the first scene, at a certain point I said," """Cut."" "An icy silence fell over the set." "She turned as if to say, ""Who dared to say, "Cut'?"" "lmmediately the assistant director shouted, ""Why all this noise?"" "She said to me, ""Never say "cut' to Joan Crawford." "Never."" "I said, ""But it wasn't any good."" "She said, ""What?" l said, ""lt wasn't any good."" "Two minutes later, I find myself in the office of Louis B. Mayer, the studio head." "He said, ""lt's over."" "I thought I'd been fired on my very first scene, but no, she'd invited me to dinner." "Joan Crawford." "At her house." "That was quite something." "Tell me." "The house." "Like a museum." "Three charming adopted children, who wore white gloves and greeted you with a little curtsey." "She asked, ""Why did you say "Cut'?"" "I said, ""Because the scene wasn't any good."" "She asked, ""Do you think I'm a bad actress?"" """No." "On the contrary." "You're good."" """So what was wrong?"" "I said, ""When you're in character, and it's part of you, I love it." "But when you act the grand lady, it feels fake."" "She said, ""Really?" "I do that?"" "I said yes." """Fine," she said, ""Let's give it another try tomorrow."" " She rehired you?" " Yes." "But under the condition I never say ""cut."" "I said, ""And if it's not good?"" "She said," """Just do this." "Make this gesture, and I'll know we have to redo it."" "She was so brilliant." "She knew everything about film:" "the technical aspects, how lighting was set up." "She'd use a pocket mirror to direct the lighting." "She was extraordinary." "And believe me, when I did this, even if her back was to me, she understood." " How did she see it?" " l don't know." "She had a sixth sense." "Everything was there to protect the stars." "I did a scene with her on location, where a tree or bush cast a slight shadow on her forehead." "Once again, I was called into Mayer's office." "He said, ""Listen, young man." "The whole world pays to see Joan Crawford." "I want to see her!" "No shadows."" "Everything was designed to present them at their best, as great artists, to sell that image." " Like a product?" " A product." "Did you work with any other stars back then?" "I started with Conrad Veidt." "At the time, he was the big European star." "He was a big actor, with a personality to match." "It was my first film." "I was introduced to him as his director." "He was very tall, and he looked at me like this and said, ""No." Then he left!" "Finally, we said, ""Let's shoot one day."" "You can imagine. I didn't know what I was doing to start with, but with the pressure to prove myself in one day, I didn't know what to do." "I called the lunch break at 1 0:30 in order to think." "The cameraman, to do the lighting, asked, ""What's the first shot?"" "I was paralyzed." "He said, ""Why not do a dolly shot?" "He'll come through the door and we'll dolly really quickly toward him and end in a close-up."" "I said, ""Yes, let's do that."" "Veidt came back from lunch and looked around." "He saw the dolly tracks and asked, ""What's this?"" "I said, ""We start here and move into a close-up."" "He said, ""l like it!" From then on, no problems." "What you say gives the impression that in Hollywood, directors don't exist." "Who chooses the script?" "Listen." "There were one, two, maybe three." "The greats." "The great era of Lubitsch, for example." "But if I told you how many films were made where the director has never met the screenwriter " "We're told, ""Here." "Take this and shoot it."" "It was an assembly line." "The producer went between the director and the studio." "The miracle was that excellent films were made in Hollywood back then, but always in spite of the system." "For example, right after the success of Gone with the Wind, the great producer was David Selznick." "He and the director, Victor Fleming... immediately announced a new film they'd make as a team." "One day, everyone was running up and congratulating me." """What for?" l ask." """David Selznick wants you to direct his next film."" """Me?"" "They bring me in." "David Selznick says, ""Congratulations." "I'm giving it to you."" "Every star in the world was in this film." "What a challenge." "I said, ""How exciting, but I don't know if I'm ready, or if I can do it."" """Don't worry."" """What's it about?"" """We'll get to that later." "We'll start on such-and-such a date." "The costumes, the colors -"" """Yes, but what's it about?"" """You've got time." "We'll send you the script one of these days."" "In short, I asked three or four times," """What's the film about?"" "He said, ""Listen, young man, do you know why you're here?" "I had an argument with Victor Fleming." "He won't direct the film." "I'll show him that it's not the director who makes the film, but the producer." "That's why you're here."" "He chose a young man without experience?" "I turned pale and left." "That was one of the attitudes towards directors at the time." "Was there any way to fight back?" "Yes." "The way to fight back was by having two or three blockbusters to your credit." "That gave you a certain weight." "At the time, there was John Ford," "Frank Capra, Fleming, Lubitsch." "Then it was more difficult." "DeMille, with his big productions." "But not even those directors had the right to a final cut on their own films." "They weren't allowed to edit their films?" "Perhaps they were permitted to do it on occasion, but legally, they had no right." "The right was only earned after a bitter, difficult battle waged over the last ten years." "Even today, in Hollywood, there are very few directors who have final cut on their films." "Even today." "But it's no longer the same Hollywood." "Today?" "Hollywood today is a place of excitement and creation." "People have much more freedom." "The system of producers is gone." "Today, it's independent." "Almost all the big studios are gone." "You can have the final cut, if you fight for it." "There's no star system." "Also, it has the least censorship in the world." "It's completely different." "As a young director, did you ever oppose the big " "Why do you laugh?" "To answer, I'll tell you more about the attitude towards directors." "The big boss was L. B. Mayer." "Louis B. Mayer." "I was under contract at MGM." "In the end, I couldn't do it." "I couldn't work in that system." "I asked him to cancel my contract and release me." "He said no." "His reason for saying no was interesting." "I'd done a comedy where all the characters were rich, respectable, upper-class." "He said, ""People who can make films with the upper class are rare." "You stay."" "I said, ""But I can't do it."" "He said, ""lf l release you, you'll sign with another studio."" "I said, ""l'll promise in writing to return to New York -"" "I'd done theater there - ""and I'll stay there."" "He said, ""l won't release you."" "So I left." "I held my own one-man strike for 1 3 months." "You didn't work for 1 3 months?" "For 1 3 months, I went to a small beach and read." "Every week I received a paycheck." "I collected 1 3 months' worth." "In the end, he'd planned it well." "I needed to work so badly that I went to him and said," """Give me a film. I want to work."" "He said, ""Bravo, Dassin." "Come with me."" "He brings me into his office." "It's like a lecture hall." "All the studio heads are there." "All the presidents, vice presidents and big producers are there." "He strides back and forth while speaking." "He says, ""Dassin, I'm going to tell you a story."" " ln front of all those people?" " Yes." "As if they were the jury." "He said, ""You know my horse Pater?"" "He had a lot of horses." "I said, ""Of course." "He's your champion."" """Listen. I bought that horse as a foal for $50,000." "Everyone around me, all the trainers, they all said, "lt's not good blood." "It's not quality." "Don't buy it.'" "But I told them, "l believe in him.'" "And I bought him." "When the horse was two years old, he ran six races and won all six." "I said, "You see?" "He's a great horse.'" "Next year, he'll run in the Kentucky Derby, a very important race." "The next year, he ran in a few preliminary races." "Pater flies out of the gate, but on the final stretch, he quits." "Do you understand, Dassin?" "He quits." "But I said, "Bah!" "I still believe.'" "Second race, the same thing." "Third race, the same." "As he enters the final stretch -"" " The finish line?" """He stops." "I was very disappointed," he said, still walking back and forth." """l said, "Fine." "Leave him on the ranch."'" "He'll stay at the ranch for 1 3 months." """Let the horse think it over." "And I thought, "Was I wrong about him?" "'" "One day, my head trainer runs up and says," ""Mr. Mayer, I know why Pater stops.'" ""Why?"'" "He looks at me, and at his jury." """And my trainer said, "He's a marvelous horse, but he has enormous testicles." "They make it painful for him to run a lot.'" "So," he says, ""Dassin, I cut off his testicles and now he runs."" " How awful." " Awful." "So I treated him to a stream of my best New York obscenities, and that's how he released me." "That's why you left the studio system to shoot The Naked City:" "It was impossible." "You moved away from it." "Where did you shoot The Naked City?" "Not one shot was done on a soundstage." " That was a first for Hollywood, right?" " lt was the first time." "It was at the time of Rome, Open City:" "Neorealism was blowing in from Europe." "It was a run-of-the-mill detective story." "No one was interested." "But I said, ""Will you let me shoot it on the streets of New York?"" "And they said, ""Go ahead," because it was very low-budget." "It was the first time." "Obviously, other films had been shot partially on location." "Hathaway had shot a film in New York before that, but only the exteriors." " You shot everything there?" " Everything." "You thought you'd escaped Hollywood, but Hollywood beat you in the end, because the film that's shown today isn't yours." "No one saw the film that I shot." "It was the beginning of the disease that took over America back then:" "McCarthyism." "The writer, Albert Maltz, and I were both under suspicion." "When I finished the film, I immediately returned to New York, where l was doing some theater." "I edited the film." " You got to edit it?" "I edited it." "I shook the producer's hand and said, ""This is the final cut, right?"" "And he said, ""Yes, I promise."" "I finished the play I was doing." "We had a huge gala in New York." "The upper crust of New York was there:" "government officials, the mayor, etc." "That's when I saw how the film had been hacked apart, mutilated, massacred." "He'd done a different edit?" "They left in certain sections, but anything that could be misinterpreted as being ""red," like the word ""hunger" " "You can't talk about New York or any big city without talking about hunger, poverty." "Everything had been torn out of the film." "All that remained was a detective story?" "More or less." "They changed the dialogue." "They put different words in the actors' mouths." " There was nothing you could do." " Nothing." "The film was distributed." "There was nothing we could do, because legally, the studio had the final cut." "You made two more films - Thieves'Highway and Night and the City- before you were forced into exile." "What were the circumstances?" "The disease had become full-blown." "McCarthyism." "People were driven out of universities, out of all the arts." "This was in the '50s?" "From 1 947 until 1 950." "It continued after." "But after '49, I couldn't get work." "I was out of work for five years." "From 1 949 until 1 954." "When did you go into exile?" "When did you leave America?" "Listen, I never really went into exile." "Curiously, I was asked to come to Italy to shoot The Little World of Don Camillo:" "But I had artistic differences with the producer, and I returned to America." "I looked for work and couldn't find any." "Finally, I was asked to direct a film in France starring Fernandel." "I came back to make the film, but two days before shooting started," "Hollywood starting putting on the pressure." "The French producers were afraid the film could never be released in the US." "So I didn't do the film." "Until Rifif.:" "I had no work." "Excuse me, but it seems you don't want to talk about that time." "And yet another American director, who played a different role, Elia Kazan, speaks of it readily." "He even said, two or three weeks ago, when asked, ""Do you realize certain people were sent to prison as examples, and most were unable to work for many years because you denounced them?"" "he answered, ""l know." "It torments me to this day." "I still feel terribly guilty." "And yet, I believe I was right to act as I did."" "It's staggering, and we'd like you to talk about it." "Did you know Kazan?" "Very well." "We grew up together." "We all watched his talent grow and flourish." "He was a friend, or so we thought." "Very simply, I say it's not true." "Who were the ""certain people" that he denounced?" "They were all his friends, friends in the same theater with him, the theater group." "The people he spent his life with." "If he says, ""l think I was right to act as I did,"" "he should say it to me." "Because I know that 24 hours before he went before the committee," "he called all his friends - we were all there in a group - to say," """They think they'll make me talk!" "Never. I won't do it."" "We said, ""Of course you won't."" "And the next day, we read this." "If he thought he'd done the right thing, because he also said these people were - l believe the word was ""noxious."" """Noxious for America."" "When did he discover that?" "Twenty-four hours after he said, ""l'll never inform on you"?" "It's not true." "To be cut off from your work - and he was a man who was lost without his work." "If he simply said to me," """Listen, my need to work, to function, to be Kazan, was more important than all the other reasons,"" "I'd say, ""Fine." "At least you're telling the truth."" "But he doesn't say that." "All those who know, and who know him, know that it's not true that his friends were ""noxious."" "I don't want to talk about it." "It bothers me."