Audio transcription

John Quackenbush  0:00  

November 30, 2015, the Harvard Film Archive screened Girlfriends. This is the recording of the introduction and the discussion that followed. Participating are HFA Programmer David Pendleton, filmmaker Claudia Weill, and filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari.

David Pendleton  0:19  

[AUDIO MISSING] ...Francis Ford Coppola at all. He said, “I think one of the most interesting American films that I've seen in a long time is Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends. That film I thought was one of the very rare American films I'd compare with the serious, intelligent, sensitive writing and filmmaking that you find in the best directors in Europe. It seemed to make no compromise to the inner truth of the story, you know, the theme and everything else. This film, she shot it for about a year, two or three days a week, I thought she made the film extremely well.” And it is that film and that filmmaker that we're here to present this evening, Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends. Weill is no stranger to this building, being an alumna from 1969. And what we're going to see is her first fiction feature film. She also directed the documentary The Other Half of the Sky, in conjunction with Shirley MacLaine, a documentary about China in 1978. She made Girlfriends as a very independent feature, and went on to make It's My Turn for Columbia in 1980, and then spent subsequent decades being very active as a director of live theater and of television, including some films for some of the early seasons of Sesame Street. Later on episodes of My So-Called Life and more recently, Lena Dunham's Girls for HBO, a series quite obviously influenced by this film, both in the subject matter and the title. Besides being on the faculty at USC and CalArts, she's more recently been teaching television directing at Columbia University, currently on the executive committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences where she was the third woman admitted as a director. (We should have a quiz. I knew who one of the first two was, but it took me a second to think of the other one. The first two being Dorothy Arsner and Ida Lupino. And admitted at the same time was Elaine May.) And [she’s] preparing a film on the art and craft of directing. Those are my words of introduction.

Usually the way we do this is Athina and I have some sort of like informal patter beforehand. Do you want to add anything before we bring our guest up?

Athina Tsangari  2:28  

Yeah, and we usually disagree and have a…  But now we're kind of embarrassed because we're here. [LAUGHS] Yeah, so why don't you join us? [LAUGHS]

David Pendleton

So, please welcome Claudia Weill!

[APPLAUSE]

Claudia Weill  2:57  

Somebody gave me these flowers! Mitch, thank you so much. That's so sweet. So it's really special for me to be screening this film down here. Because the very first germs, the very first ideas to make this film happened in this building, like many, many years ago, and also it's under the ground here, in what we used to call the VAC that I fell in love with movies. So thank you for having me, and we'll talk afterwards.

[APPLAUSE]

John Quackenbush  3:46  

And now David Pendleton.

David Pendleton  3:48  

Well, we're just gonna have a conversation. I'll probably start. Maybe I can ask one or two questions to begin, and we'll open it up to the audience. And Athina can interject as she wishes.

I noticed that the film has a screenwriter. Because you as the producer and the director, I was thinking of you– I always thought of you as sort of the auteur of this film. And I wonder if you could say a little bit about... Well, maybe we can start by you talking about the genesis of the project, who the writer is, and how you came to work with her, etc.

Claudia Weill  4:29  

The writer is a really talented screenwriter by the name of Vicki Polan who was a girlfriend of mine at the time. And I brought her this idea. I knew a lot of what was gonna happen.

David Pendleton

So it was your idea, then.

Claudia Weill

My idea. But she wrote it entirely. Sadly, I'm not a writer. But she's really, really talented and you know, the dialogue is hers. Actually, some of it—particularly when Chris Guest was on—was improvised. But not all of it. I mean, the text is really hers.

David Pendleton  5:20  

So the idea of doing a kind of a Bildungsroman or sort of a coming-of-age story for a woman and in relation to her friends who were also women, that was your idea.

Claudia Weill  5:33  

You know, I have kind of grown up always seeing movies about the other girl, the blonde girl, a pretty girl, the girl that gets married, you know, and although there is kind of a tradition—the sort of Rhoda tradition, for those of us who are older, you know, the–

David Pendleton  5:51  

Rhoda as in Mary Tyler Moore.

Claudia Weill  5:53  

As in Mary Tyler Moore. Not the cute, smart, funny one, but the other one is kind of usually a little overweight, a little darker. I mean, there certainly is that tradition of that character, but that character is never the protagonist. And that character’s me so you know… And basically what was happening was that my sisters and all my girlfriends were getting married. And I have to make sense of that somehow. And understand there was a choice in it, even if it didn't exactly feel like a choice. So the film came out of that.

David Pendleton  6:41  

And how much fiction filmmaking had you made before this?

Claudia Weill

None, none, none, none, none. This is my–

David Pendleton

I mean, like short films or anything like that?

Claudia Weill  6:51  

Yeah, I had made some shorts. I was a documentary filmmaker. I was a camera woman. I had made a bunch of documentaries here at the Carpenter Center. My partner, Eli Noyes, who also went through Harvard and made a wonderful animated film called Clay or the Origin of the Species, I'm sure you all know it. Yeah? So we were partners and made a bunch of movies together, and we made a bunch of movies for Sesame Street. So they were fiction, in the sense that we wrote a little story about the number one or the number two or above, below, you know, concepts, right? And we would write a story, whether it was the Mad Painter series, which some of you may have seen—that’s still on Sesame Street—so they were fiction; that was kind of my film school. But basically, when I understood that I was trying to make a fiction film, and hired Vicki to write it, I started studying acting, which I did for a couple of years. And then I… [INAUDIBLE COMMENT BY ATHINA] Yeah, I studied myself. I studied acting in order to figure out...

David Pendleton

How to direct actors?

Claudia Weill  8:09  

How to direct actors, right?

Athina Tsangari  8:12  

What kind of method?

Claudia Weill  8:15  

Uta Hagen in New York, and then I also…

David Pendleton

So the method! [LAUGHS]

Claudia Weill

Yeah, the method. And it was very, very useful. And thenI went after jobs to direct theater. And they were hard to get because I've never directed theater. But I was lucky.

David Pendleton  8:39  

And I know that you also acted in a film by Mark Rappaport.

Claudia Weill  8:43  

I did, yeah. We all acted in each other's films, you know, and we all kind of lent our skills to each other or money or productions. Yeah, it was a community.

David Pendleton   8:52  

So when you say… you're talking about a community of independent filmmakers in New York at the time?

Claudia Weill   8:57  

Exactly. Exactly. It was just the beginning of the independent film movement. I mean, Cassavetes had made a bunch of films. But the whole notion of independent filmmakers in New York was just just starting. It was a very exciting time.

Athina Tsangari  9:11  

So what were your references at that point? You know, when you made Girlfriends because there was not much precedent. And no precedent by women filmmakers.

Claudia Weill

What were my references? You mean...?

David Pendleton  9:24  

Like influences or people that you thought you might usefully copy or whose footsteps you thought of yourself as following in?

Claudia Weill  9:33  

I didn't really think that way. I mean, it was kind of my painful little story, you know, that I just had to get off my back. You know what I mean? I wasn't thinking so much about film and filmmakers. And, I mean, it's hard to explain, but I didn't have film crushes, you know. I think I did afterwards. I started looking at more films after I made a film. I was really in the world of documentary. And I was used to having to figure out... Because we were shooting film in these documentaries, right, so you can't just roll because every second of film is like a penny. So, you know… every frame. I forget what it is, but you spend a lot of money if you’re shooting, so you have to be able to really kind of get sensitized to what's going on in between people, and be looking for the camera with one eye and sort of looking around with the other and just sort of figuring out what's happening. Is something about to happen? So that you know when to turn the camera on. And so because of that—unlike video today, where you just roll and roll and roll, and you sort of decide later. This doesn't cost anything, right? And you can shoot over it. It was sort of my training in, in kind of observing behavior. And I think that was my strongest influence, you know, was really coming out of documentary.

Athina Tsangari

Did you rehearse before you shot or…?

Claudia Weill

Yeah, although, you know, I didn't really know how to.

Athina Tsangari

How did you cast?

Claudia Weill

You know, I would bring people into read, and if I liked them, I would bring them back a second time. And I was really looking at, sort of, power dynamics. Like, there were many, many people who read well for Anne's husband—for the part that Bob Balaban did—but he needed to have a real, kind of, strong grip on her so that you felt he wanted her life, and she wanted her life, and it was a battle, right? And so in that case, it was about feeling that power from him. You know, I don't know how you.. I mean, I cast by reading people and then doing callbacks and it’s the same way we always cast but, casting is an amazing process because you learn so much about the character. Somebody comes in, they do something wonderful, and you think, Oh, my god, my person is really an introvert or, oh, my god, she's really a flirt. You know, you learn so much from what each actor gives you so that the process took a very long time, because I was just like, soaking up the possibilities. Do you know what I mean? It took a long time till I sort of let it sink down and realize what I wanted, or who… Does that makes sense?

David Pendleton  13:03  

I mean, in the quote from [Coppola]—you can tell us if this is accurate—he says that, you know, you filmed like, a day or two a week over, like the course of several weeks and took your time.

Claudia Weill  13:13  

No, no, no, we didn't do that. The first seven minutes of the film was originally thirty minutes of film. And that was the first section that we filmed in like ‘75, I think.

David Pendleton

Oh, really?

Claudia Weill

Yeah. And it was the first installment. And it was the story of Susan and what happens when, and going up to the point that ended with Anne getting married and Susan being alone. And that was all that we had written. And that was all and it was thirty minutes. And I began to see that it was interesting, but then Vicki and I sort of laid out the rest. And she wrote it, and I applied for more grants, and we shot it like a couple years later. And you know, by then Melanie had done a bunch more films, and she was famous and she was unavailable. And you know, everybody had their own... People had gained weight, lost weight. You know, it was like... But we were able to get everybody back together and we continued filming. And then what was a thirty-minute short film became seven minutes because I discovered in the process of editing that you didn't need all this exposition. You didn't need to know how they met in college and who majored in what and who their boyfriends were before. You didn't need any of it. You know, you just needed what you needed to tell the story, right? So thirty minutes became seven minutes. And I mean, it just reshaped.

Something that was really interesting to remember looking at it tonight, or the parts I saw anyway... The scene at the end, the last scene was not the original ending. I mean, not the scripted ending, but the scripted ending—which I can't even remember—didn't work. It was like the four characters, the two guys, and the two women and outside, and... I can't even remember what it was. But it was really clear that it just didn't work at all. And so I had to figure out how to end the movie. And I just kept looking at the footage, and coming out of documentary, I used to do something that I still do, which is I would tell the camera man—in this case, Fred Murphy—to roll, and I would keep him rolling even after I would say “cut.” So in this way, while people were preparing, or in private moments, you get a lot of interesting footage. So the whole ending, those series of looks between Susan and Anne, and when she says, “Oh, it's Martin!” was you know… they had been getting drunk on tequila, and she was making fun of the scene they were doing. [DAVID AND ATHINA LAUGH] Right? And Melanie kind of looking around and looking down was just kind of Melanie waiting for her to do the next take! But by then I had figured out that what I wanted at the end was that Anne was going to leave Susan again, but this time Susan was okay. So then I was able to sort of excavate this footage to construct that. Do you see what I mean?

David Pendleton  17:05  

It’s really interesting to see your documentary background in a way coming out in the middle of this feature film...

Claudia Weill  17:13  

Yes, yes! And I think when you shoot feature films, it's all a documentary, finally. I mean, every frame is what you have. You're not gonna tell the story from the script if it's not working. You're gonna tell the story that's in the footage.

David Pendleton

Right, right.

Claudia Weill

Right? And so allowing that to come forward.

David Pendleton  17:34  

It was interesting for me watching the film, because I was also wondering about possible influences. But I was also thinking about different contexts or different communities that the film could conceivably be thought of as coming out of. One of which is, yes, this New York independent filmmaking community. There's also the idea of coming out of the, sort of, community of Jewish humor, I mean, thinking of like Woody Allen, or lots of stand up comedians, not so many film people, but there's a definite community there that there’s echoes of in the film. And then there's also the question of feminism or the women's movement, and I'm wondering, to what extent did you think then or now of this project as being part of any of those contexts? We talked a little bit about the New York filmmaking community.

Claudia Weill  18:17  

Yeah. I mean, I think it's part of all of those things, but it was less self conscious. You know, that's a way to identify it afterwards. When you're making it, I'm telling a story. It's just the story you want to tell. And I mean, I think the fact that I have never seen a film about this character who happened to be me in this case, that I wanted to do it... You know, certainly the fact that in the early 70s feminism had sort of reemerged in its second wave, I suppose you’d call it. It gave me sort of the freedom to think about that. So I don't know how to take it out of the context of the culture and the history. Do you know what I mean?

David Pendleton

No, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think it's at the intersection of all these things. I was just curious what your thoughts about that were.

Claudia Weill  19:20  

I mean, I think something that was real important to me... because this film was such an albatross for me. It took almost five years to make. It started with a $10,000 grant, which was the first thirty minutes from the AFI. And then, when I raised more money, it was a $20,000 grant from the New York City Council for the Arts and a $50,000 grant from the NEA. And, you know, labs and everything was liens or loans or discounts and it was just... These were the days when they first had answering machines, and I got an answering machine immediately because I owed so many people so much money, that I couldn't afford to answer the phone, right? This was a time—I don't know if this still happens—but when you graduated from college, particularly an Ivy League, they would give you credit cards. American Express would send you a credit card. Does that still happen? [LAUGHS] So a lot of this film was made thanks to American Express. I mean, eventually I had to pay them back, but…

Athina Tsangari  20:39  

I mean, this became a very big, honored tradition in independent filmmaking, credit cards

Claudia Weill

Credit cards. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, we took the subway, the location, you know, we had 401k's and it was shot in 16. Not even Super 16. You know, I mean, it was like with no equipment, right?

Athina Tsangari  21:03  

And how would you transition to Hollywood film afterwards?

Claudia Weill  21:08  

Rough!

Athina Tsangari  21:11  

Why?

Claudia Weill

Well, because I think Hollywood is based on that kind of... I was just making a movie with my friends, you know, and then all of a sudden, you go out there and you have to be more political. You can't just say what you think, you have to say what you think they want to hear in such a way that they'll give you the money or, you know what I mean? And then you have to find a way to finesse it, so it's still yours, you know what I mean? Whereas, nobody cared on this one, so...

Athina Tsangari  21:50  

Did this actually get wide theatrical distribution? 

Claudia Weill

Yeah, it did.

David Pendleton

It was represented by a distributor of Warner Brothers ultimately.

Claudia Weill

Yeah, I sold it to Warner's.

David Pendleton 21:58 

How did that happen?

Claudia Weill  21:59  

How'd that happen? Well, when I finished the film—and I was only able to finish the film, because Duart was kind enough to do a blow up of it at cost, which I still couldn't pay, but at least they were willing to do it and give me a print, right?

David Pendleton  22:17  

So the film lab agreed to to blow the film up from 16 to 35 millimeter so that it could be distributed in commercial theaters.

Claudia Weill  22:24  

I knew that if I didn't finish it– I mean, there were no feature films in 16. Super 16 didn’t exist. If I didn't finish it in 35, nobody would take it seriously as a movie. And I was invited to this film festival, Rotterdam, which was an avant-garde film festival.

David Pendleton  22:45  

And still an important–

Athina Tsangari 

It was started, I mean–

David Pendleton

It must have been in the early days of Rotterdam.

Athina Tsangari  22:49  

Very early, yeah. That was with Hubert Bals...

Claudia Weill

Yes, yes.

Athina Tsangari

Yeah, when he was still the director.

Claudia Weill  22:59  

Yeah. So I was invited to this film festival. And I thought, This is great. And that's how I convinced Irwin Young to do the print for me. So as the film is literally coming out of the– You know, I'm getting on a plane with the print myself, carrying all the reels, and going to Rotterdam and then straight into a screening. And people are laughing. It's great. I figured they don't understand English. And then slowly, it's like it’s playing like a comedy, and I'm completely confused because you have to understand it took me five years and I felt like this, sort of, horrible personal painful story that I just had to get off my chest. I mean, I knew originally it was a comedy. Do you know what I mean? Five years earlier I knew and it's why like, the score is the way it is. It allows you to have some distance from her so you can laugh not at her but you don't take it quite that seriously, right? But I had lost all of sense of humor about it, I have to say, so then the next day in the Rotterdam papers, it says “What is a commercial movie like this doing at an avant garde festival?” like very outraged. I’m thinking like Whoa! [LAUGHTER] I mean, the thought of being commercial is like pretty far from my mind. So then I got on a plane and went to Paris and screened it for the Cannes Film Festival, and then they accepted it. So then I came back to the States and living in New York all my life, I figured Don Rugoff was the only distributor who picked up independent films so I screened it for him and he didn't like it. Don Rugoff?

David Pendleton  24:51  

I don't know who that.. I think I've heard the name but to be honest, I don't know...

Claudia Weill  24:53  

He was like one of the only independent distributors.

Athina Tsangari

For fiction films.

Claudia Weill

For fiction films. And he didn't like it. And so I'm like... thought I was like really screwed, and then it occurred to me, Oh, maybe I should go to California, where I'd never been. So I get on a plane. At this point, I don't have a lawyer. I mean, right? All the deals I'd made myself directly with agents or with unions or with individuals. And so I get on a plane and I check into this hotel and I literally—this is before the internet—so I'm looking up in the phone book: Paramount, Warner Brothers, MGM, the studios that I could remember, and I call the basic number, you know, 822-2000 you know, the number, right? And say, like, “Who's in charge here?” [LAUGHTER] Or something like that, and they’d say “Production or distribution?” and then finally I caught on, Oh, right distribution. That's what we're talking about: distribution. And I’d say “distribution.” And then finally, I get to some underling who would screen it. And then it would, you know, pretty quickly go up the chain of command. And I only had one print, so I had to kind of shuttle it from studio to studio as I myself [would] pick it up, bring it, drive it, you know, and within a week I had offers from three studios to buy the film—from MGM, Warner's... Maybe two studios?

David Pendleton  26:35  

Nevertheless.

Claudia Weill  26:37  

Yeah! So it was like, you know, it was...

Athina Tsangari  26:44  

Do you think this could happen today?

Claudia Weill  26:47  

I think there's a whole nother– I think the studios have their ear to the ground about independent filmmakers, and it's so much easier to make a film. And there are other places to show it, you know, whether it's YouTube or on the Internet or… I mean, there is so much more interesting distribution. But yes, I do think it could happen. But it wouldn't happen the same way, right?

Athina Tsangari

Yeah, no I mean, a filmmaker actually calling and...

Claudia Weill  27:14  

Oh, I don’t think the studios are that important anymore. I mean, I think there's enough independent distributors and other venues to show a film. There was no place to show this if it didn't get distributed, you know, and if Don Rugoff didn't buy it, there was Dan, what's-his-name at the New Yorker.

David Pendleton

Dan Talbot, right?

Claudia Weill

Dan Talbot, right. But he was only interested in European films.

David Pendleton 27:37  

At the time, yeah.

Claudia Weill  27:38  

Yeah, so…

David Pendleton

Yeah, no, it was early in the days of the working out of distribution channels for American independent filmmakers.

Claudia Weill  27:49  

Exactly, exactly, so I mean, I was really lucky it was bought because if it hadn’t...

Athina Tsangari  27:55  

And why was it so difficult to see your film?

Claudia Weill

To see it?

Athina Tsangari

For a long time, I couldn't find the, you know, there was no way… There were bootleg...

Claudia Weill

You know, it wasn’t a big commercial success. It was a critical success. People really liked it. But it wasn't a big commercial success. I mean, Warner's was releasing it opposite Superman. Right? So they made a lot more money with Superman than they did with Girlfriends.

David Pendleton  28:19  

Right. And this is the downside of having a distribution deal with a major studio like that, which is that a film that they didn't produce themselves, and that didn't make a lot of money is not so important to them. So Warner Brothers has 35mm prints of lots of their films, but they don't have a 35mm that they would distribute to us for this.

Claudia Well  28:36  

So they didn’t put money into the advertising or into the distribution, and it would play, you know, only in cities where it could open in ten theaters or twenty theaters. You know what I mean? Not like a little art house here, a little art house there. So after it had done the rounds, it was...

Athina Tsangari  28:54  

Do you still have your print?

Claudia Weill

My print?

Athina Tsangari

You know, your first print?

David Pendleton

Like a workprint or an original print?

Claudia Weill  28:59  

No, I had to give it to Warner's as part of the deal. Don’t have it.

David Pendleton

It's locked away in a vault somewhere.

Are there questions in the audience? Nina has a question. Wait, we're gonna bring a– Amanda is coming with a mic for you. Folks, if you can wait for a microphone, this way we can all hear you, and we keep a recording of these.

Audience 1  29:16  

I was one of the lucky ones who saw your film when it first came out.

Claudia Weill

Oh, wow.

Audience 1

And it stayed with me. So this is my second time.

Claudia Weill

Really?

Audience 1

We're dating ourselves!

Claudia Weill

Right!

David Pendleton  29:27  

There's a lot of people here who saw it originally. I’ll mention also that Herb our projectionist projected the film at the Orson Welles theater when it first came out.

Claudia Weill  29:37  

Really? Wow, that's great.

Audience 1

And so this time, I was alternately laughing and tearing up. And something that I think is really profound is that that kind of a female friendship that you have when you're that age that you never have again, and I wanted to know if you had a girlfriend like Susan.

Claudia Weill 30:05  

You know, I've had a few. A couple of them are sisters and a couple of them are girlfriends that I'm still in touch with, but not as close to.

Audience 1

That to me, yes, it was a coming-of-age, it was development, but it was also really about this friendship.

Claudia Weill

Yeah, it definitely is about the friendship.

Audience 1

It captured it so well and in such a nuanced way. And I'm still moved by your movie.

Claudia Weill

Thank you.

Audience 1

Thank you so much.

Claudia Weill

Thank you. You know, I think the way we look to each other, certainly as women—I think men probably do this too, I just wouldn't know really—to shape or define ourselves in reaction or in competition or emulation or... of each other, you know, that women are certainly very conscious of how they do that, I think. And there's a great novel called Advancing Paul Newman, written by Eleanor Bergstein, and she wrote the screenplay for the second feature I made.

David Pendleton  31:32  

Okay, okay. Right. These names came up recently because of the research I was doing.

Claudia Weill 31:36  

And the last sentence of the first chapter is “This is the story of two girls, each of whom suspected the other of a more passionate connection to life.” [LAUGHTER]

Athina Tsangari

[LAUGHING] That's great.

Claudia Weill

Isn’t that great? So I love that play that happens between mothers and daughters and sisters. And, you know, it just happens. And as I say, I think it probably happens with men too, but it's less a subject... I don't know if it’s something that–

David Pendleton  32:07  

Oh, there's lots of buddy pictures, actually, I think. I actually think it's the– I think that actually it happens for men a lot. A certain time of their lives.

Claudia Weill

Right.

David Pendleton

It's well documented in cinema in a way that this kind of female friendship isn't.

Claudia Weill

You’re absolutely right.

David Pendleton

Although I will mention Athina’s film Attenberg which also could be looked at in this context as well… as a really–

Claudia Weill  32:28  

What made you make that film?

David Pendleton  32:31  

[LAUGHING] We already had that q&a! Do you want to talk about it, Athina, a little bit?

Athina Tsangari 32:35  

No, actually, what I want to say is that it's kind of moving to me that when I did my first feature—it’s called The Slow Business of Going—it was Irwin Young who saved it.

Claudia Weill 

Really?

Athina Tsangari

Yeah.

Claudia Weill

Oh, my goodness. That’s a great man. He’s the guy from DuArt we were talking about.

Unknown Speaker  32:52  

He was the head of DuArt? See, these are the unsung people...

Athina Tsangari  32:56 

I shot it on 16 also, because I couldn't afford it. You know, many years [ago] as a film student, and he really took a film that was, you know, like, I had no money to do it. And I went with a print on the plane to Rotterdam.

Claudia Weill  33:13  

Really?! That’s fantastic.

[ALL ARE LAUGHING]

David Pendleton  33:15  

There you go.

Athina Tsangari  33:17  

It’s really sad that labs, you know, those were, you know, homes, basically temples?

Claudia Weill

Yeah, they were, they really were.

Athina Tsangari

And they got shut down.

Claudia Weill  33:27  

Yeah, they're all shut down. And the smell and the–

David Pendleton  33:30  

And a lot of times the labs were sort of de facto archives, because filmmakers who couldn't afford to store their own work, or who hadn't paid the lab and so couldn't get elements back, the lab’s would often hold on to these things.

Claudia Weill

Exactly.

Athina Tsangari 33:43  

And also like funding agencies.

Claudia Weill  33:46  

Yeah, exactly. They would hold on to it until you… yeah, it was great. They are real heroes, these people, they–

David Pendleton

Especially the few that still exist, right.

Claudia Weill

They enabled many of us to make films that we wouldn't otherwise have been able to finish.

David Pendleton  34:04  

Are there other questions in the audience about the film? Questions for Claudia? Yes, Kate has a question.

Audience 2  34:13  

Thank you. I've been trying to see this movie for a long time and have not been able to till now. And it was so wonderful. I really loved it. But I was interested when you were talking about casting—I'm sorry, I don't know her name, the lead actress...

Claudia Weill

Melanie Mayron, mmm hmmm…

Audience 2 

You were talking about Melanie and this idea of sort of finding a mirror image for yourself, this character to play yourself. It strikes me as such an unusual instance in cinematic history to hear a female director talking about casting a mirror image of herself on screen, and I think it must lend something to this sort of air of just genuine affection for her that pervades the film. I mean, it just feels like a level of, kind of, I don't know, it's just so enjoyable to sort of watch her be in this space in a way that I think is quite different from what you might have if it was a male director with a female star or vice versa. I'm just interested to hear a little bit more about your relationship with that character and sort of the choices around her.

Claudia Weill  35:03  

Well, you know, Melanie brought so much to the character. It's not like that character existed before Melanie and inhabited her. And our collaboration—like the collaboration with Vicki, like the collaboration with Fred Murphy who shot it, like the collaboration with Patrizia von Brandenstein who's the art director—all those collaborations create the world, the feel, the characters… You know, it's not like, all of that was like up here. And that's kind of the beauty of film is that you just as a director, you can't do anything. So I mean, some directors shoot their own material, like Soderbergh sometimes, or whatnot, but—and I was sort of tempted, but I knew I would just like hide behind the camera. Anyway, I didn't know how to light so—but it's all collaborative. I mean, it's all a product of the people that you make the film with. And the wardrobe, you know...

David Pendleton

Well, working with Melanie Mayron specifically, essentially, you mentioned that you had to wait in between the two periods because she had other work. But I always thought that this was really one of the very first things, one of the first major things she did.

Claudia Weill

It was, yeah.

David Pendleton

And I mean, I remember when the film first came out, and the reviews talked about, you know, this discovery, Melanie Mayron–

Claudia Weill  36:48  

Right, but she’d already done Car Wash...

David Pendleton  36:50  

Oh, okay, right.

Claudia Weill   36:51  

She’d already done Harry and Tonto for Paul Mazursky.

David Pendleton

Oh! Okay. It's been so long, I didn’t realize– That's a great movie. That would be a good one for the third part.

Claudia Weill  37:01  

That would be great. That'd be great.

Athina Tsangari  37:05  

Yeah, I could program…. Another movie I haven't seen.

David Pendleton  37:08  

Yeah, this one I’ve seen!

[LAUGHTER AND CROSS-TALK]

Athina Tsangari  37:11  

According to your recommendation, you can come and present it.

David Pendleton  37:16  

That’s right. [LAUGHING] And then later, years later, you ended up working with her again, on some episodes of thirtysomething.

Claudia Weill  37:24  

Right. Right. Right. Right. In which she plays a Jewish photographer.

David Pendleton 37:31  

Right. Although she lost a lot of–

Claudia Weill

She lost a lot of weight and got a nose job.

David Pendleton

I remember when that TV show came on: that's Melanie? I didn't recognize her at first.

Claudia Weill  37:40  

I was gonna do a sequel, and it was hard to do because she had gotten a nose job. And I didn't know how to incorporate that into the story of this character.

David Pendleton  37:51  

Right.

Claudia Weill   37:52  

Right?

Athina Tsangari

But she was a total delight to watch.

Claudia Weill  37:57  

Total delight to watch! Isn’t she?

Athina Tsangari  37:58  

Because she’s just so immediate... Was she very instinctual in the way she–

Claudia Weill   38:06  

Very instinctual. I mean, the pleasure that you're getting out of the character...

Athina Tsangari  38:12  

But you know, it was your character… When you auditioned her… immediately?

Claudia Weill  38:15  

Yeah. I did, I did. Yeah, immediately. She was just very clearly... You know, she brought so much humor to it and so much width. I mean, I think the dialogue is super good, so it's not to diminish that, you know,

Athina Tsangari  38:37  

Did you improvise at all, like did you change lines?

Claudia Weill   38:40  

Yeah, we did initially with Chris Guest who's like, you know, you can't stop him. He's just a genius.

Athina Tsangari  38:52  

Had he been in other stuff before?

Claudia Weill  38:54  

Chris? Yeah, yeah...

David Pendleton  38:55  

I know he'd done some recordings with National Lampoon, and he was sort of in the comedy world. I don't know if he'd done very much really, in terms of like, scripted fiction at that point.

Athina Tsangari  39:07  

You had seen him in another movie?

Claudia Weill   39:11  

No, he came in to read. I didn't know him. And he came into read as did Bob Balaban. And, so I was not too familiar with their movies.

David Pendleton  39:21  

They're all three much better known now I think than when you cast them, including Melanie, so that's a kudo.

Claudia Weill  39:29  

And Eli Wallach, I knew him through a friend of a friend of my uncle. And so I got invited to this party and I asked him at this party if he would be willing to play a rabbi who falls in love with a photographer. And he said, “Sure, why not? I haven't had a romantic lead in years.” [LAUGHTER] It was amazing. I couldn't believe he said yes. And he said, “Just call my agent Biff Liff.” [LAUGHTER] I’m thinking Biff Liff? This has got, you know… Then he said “William Morris.” So I call up and Biff Liff says “Who are you?!” And I'm– You know, anyway, I didn't know what to say. So I said, “What are you paying?” and I’d negotiated with SAG that we couldn't pay full SAG rates because we didn't have enough money on these grants. So I negotiated with SAG that we'd pay 50% now, and if I was able to sell the film, that I would then pay them 100% afterwards. So that for the deferral, they would get more money, right? And so, he said “Okay, so what about billing?” And I really had no idea what he's talking about. So I said, “I think maybe you should bill me.” [LAUGHTER] So I mean, I learned a lot in the process of making this film. But you know, it was literally kind of... an education.

David Pendleton  41:07  

Are there other questions from the audience?

I want to ask you also, then, about Lena Dunham, because it occurred to me– It didn't occur to me until as I was sort of doing some research and writing up my remarks. But of course, I mean, I knew that you directed an episode of the series, but just thinking about the name of the series and the way it echoes the name of this film and the subject matter about these friendships amongst young women in New York, she must have spoken to you about about what the film–

Athina Tsangari  41:39  

I mean, it must be kind of like the blueprint of Girls?

David Pendleton  41:42  

That's what I'm saying.

Claudia Weill  41:45  

But you have to understand, when she did Tiny Furniture, she hadn't seen this. And when she got the deal with HBO to write Girls, she hadn't seen it. And I was screening it in New York, downtown somewhere. I forget where. And, she came up to me after the screening— she was there—and she said, “You know, I feel very strange, because I feel like I've been borrowing from you without ever having seen this.” You know, it was the first time she saw the film. And she was like five episodes into writing the HBO series; they hadn’t shot them yet or anything. And we became, you know, good friends. And yeah, she's amazing.

David Pendleton  42:33  

That's great. Are there any other...? I think it's just about time to wrap it up… unless anybody's got any last-minute questions or comments? Yes, here they come. A couple. There's [?Walt?] down here. And then Will down here.

Audience 3  42:53  

When I saw this movie before, I felt like taking women's friendships seriously,was a product of women's liberation. And that really pervades the film, just that project of thinking about women's friendships in a much more profound way. Their disappointments, your hopes, the intimacy somehow, so I wondered if that was right, if that was true for you?

[PAUSE]

The role of the women’s movement...

Claudia Weill

I think so probably I just, I'm not– My brain... I don't know. I can't think quite like that? In other words, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure you're right. I was living through the woman's movement, or the second wave of it anyway. And I would get stuck on the New Jersey Turnpike—because my car broke down that I borrowed—I had no idea what was wrong with the car as I'm sitting there, and it's like, 1972, and I've just read an article about socialization. Right? I mean, Oh, my god! This is because I'm a girl. If I had been brought up a boy, I'd know how to fix a car. It never occurred to me. That was something that I would be taught– Do you know what I mean? So that I mean, definitely, whole sense of opening up, you know, the ceiling of your brain to the possibilities of what made you the way you were and what could change? It was there, it was the soil that this grew out of. But... I can't remember your question.

David Pendleton  44:59  

Oh, she was asking, you know, how conscious were you of taking female friendships seriously being a product of living through the second wave of feminism?

Claudia Weill  45:07  

Oh, I was a product of the times. And so this was a product of my experience at the time. So, yeah, I think we're saying the same thing in two different languages, right?

David Pendleton  45:17  

Yeah. And then Will has a question…. Once Amanda comes down the aisle. (I have one last really minor question.)

Audience 4  45:34  

I just wondered if we could have some official comment on when the series will be… If it will be returning in the spring or…?

David Pendleton  45:41  

Nothing's been decided yet. It won't be happening in the winter, because that schedule’s already set, but perhaps in the spring. We'll see.

My question was about the woman who plays the dancer that she picks up because I missed the name in the credits, and I–

Claudia Weill

Amy Wright

David Pendleton

And I've seen her in other things as well. 

Claudia Weill

She’s wonderful, isn't she?

David Pendleton

What else has...?

Athina Tsangari

Wise Blood

David Pendleton

Ah, Wise Blood, okay! When she shows up, she's like this waifish character almost like the character in Atlantic City. Did you ever see that? The Louis Malle film written by John Guare? Anyway, she’s wonderful.

Claudia Weill

She’s great, wasn't she?

David Pendleton

That was my minor question. Alright. Well, not the most poetic–

Audience comment

Breaking Away!

Claudia Weill 46:29  

She was in that, wasn’t she?

David Pendleton  46:30  

Ohhhh, okay Breaking Away and Wise Blood. Okay, wow, she was in some great movies. Okay. All the which could be in part three. Alright, well, to finish let me just thank all of you for staying and for your questions. And especially thank you for coming and sharing the film with us.

Claudia Weill 46:48  

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

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